Feeling crabby tonight... :P

What I mean is, we're having crab for dinner tonight :P. Specifically, I will be making Thai crab fried rice as per requested by the hubster. We first tried this dish at Thai Ginger (one of two Thai restaurants in Pullman, WA. I know, we had so many places to choose from!) and the hubster really enjoyed it. There's no doubt that the restaurant version is geared towards the American taste palate, thus being a wee bit sweeter than a traditional Thai version. However, this is just my assumption since I have never been to Thailand and have never tasted 'real' crab fried rice. I have searched the internet for what some claim to be 'traditional' Thai crab fried rice recipe and have tried various versions. Aside from finding similar recipes, I've also learned that Thai street vendors cook fried rice with butter or margarine!! Believe it or not, I actually tested it and surprisingly, it's not that bad. Whether butter is actually used in Thai fried rice, is still questionable. Perhaps one day, when I travel to Bangkok, I'll be able to verify it somehow.

Anyhow, the recipes that I've found mainly called for fish sauce, white pepper, garlic, green onions and of course, crab meat. They also referred to a sauce called Nam Pla Prik, which apparently is served with the fried rice. If I remember correctly, I don't recall our crab fried rice being served with this sauce every time we ordered it, so I wonder what it would've tastes like... In my version of the recipe, I will be adding soy sauce and ginger, and I'm going to fry the rice with butter because I like it! Oh and a wee bit of curry powder to give it a kick. Yes, I'm weird like that. 

My version of Thai Crab Fried Rice

2.5 cups of rice - for the best results you should use 'leftover' rice because it's not as wet
Crab meat - canned or frozen or fresh - I use 2 cans of crab meat
4-5 cloves of garlic - minced
small piece of ginger - minced
green onions - diced
2 eggs - beaten then scrambled
Fish sauce
Light Soy Sauce
white pepper
curry powder
Shaoxing wine
Oil for frying
2 Lime wedges
2-3 Tomatoes (depending on how big your tomatoes are) - sliced
Chopped cilantro for garnish

In a small bowl, add about 1 tbs of fish sauce, 1 tbs of soy sauce, 1/8 tsp of curry powder, 1 dash of white pepper and about a 1 tsp of Shaoxing wine. These are all estimates because I eyeball my ingredients. You can always add a bit more. I tend to make my food on the bland side - trying to be healthier. Heat oil in a wok or deep skillet and fry green onions, ginger, garlic until fragrant. Add rice and fry for 2 minutes or until it's hot. Add scrambled eggs and crab meat. Fry until everything is mixed and hot - I usually scoop a bit out to see if it's hot. If it is then it's ready. Spread sliced tomatoes on a plate - you really don't have to if you want to :P. It just makes the dish more aesthetically pleasing. I like to place blanched cabbage pieces in the center with tomatoes spread around the edge of the place and then place the fried rice is placed right in the center, on top of the cabbage. Garnish with cilantro. Squeeze lime juice from lime wedges onto the rice before serving.

Enjoy!!

My shell plate waiting for the crab fried rice :)

Final product!

I added chopped peanuts since the hubster chopped too many for another dish we were making

A woman and her KitchenAid stand mixer

I had always wanted a KitchenAid stand mixer, but they were just way out of my budget! So when we were putting gifts on our wedding registry, I decided to put the KitchenAid onto the list even though I didn't really expect to get it (because it's so expensive!). I was hopeful and surprisingly enough, my dream came true! Not only did I get the stand mixer, but I also received a bunch of attachments that go along with it. Equipped with my new KitchenAid stand mixer and attachements I feel like I can do anything! That is, anything related to cooking :P.

So far, my in-laws (who are now back in China - :D) and I have been playing a lot with the pasta attachements and the food grinder. We love it, actually I should say they love it since they're the ones who have been using it to do all the noodle and dumpling preparation. It makes things much easier. Now that they have left, I've decided to test my newly acquired skills in noodle making as well as play with the KitchenAid.

In my previous posts on noodle making, my attempts to make noodles from scratch weren't all too successful. Each time I made the noodles, they came out hard even after I cooked them for quite sometime. When my in-laws made the noodles, they seemed to come out perfectly. Not too hard and not too soft.

According to my mother-in-law, the key to making good noodles is in the dough. It should not be too soft but rather, somewhat hard. That being said, what do I mean when I say 'too soft, or somewhat hard'? That's a good question and it takes a wee bit of trial and error to figure it out. For me, 'too soft' means that the dough is as soft as your earlobe. When I made noodles last night, I made two batches of dough using the KitchenAid.

I really like the KitchenAid as it makes the dough for me, but I think it uses more water than I want in order for the dough to form. I used 1 cup of flour and then I added about a total of 3/4 cup of water since the dough wasn't forming. So for my first round of noodles, the dough was as soft as my earlobes after kneading. I used the pasta attachments to roll out the noodles and those worked really nicely. After cooking the noodles, they were actually OK - a wee bit hard but not too bad. Using the pasta rollers were really helpful as I could make the noodles really thin. If I did everything by hand, I think I would end up with the same results as my previous attempts.

The second dough I made was 'harder'. I used about 1.5 cups of flour and added about 3/4 cup of water, possibly a little less than that. I had to 'help' the KitchenAid a bit to form the dough since I didn't want to add more water. The noodles came out good - not as hard as the first batch. I still need some practice but at least I can make better noodles now! Next time I will try using the egg noodle dough recipe from KitchenAid and see if it tastes better! I definitely have to say, I love having the KitchenAid - not only does it make things easier, it's also fun to use!!

Below are pics of the KitchenAid, fresh noodles and the final dish :). Enjoy!

Hand-rolled Oat Flour Noodles - Not your typical noodle making method

           For the past 5.5 months, my in-laws have been living with us and we certainly have had our days. Half the time they are trying to tell us how things should be around the house, the other half of the time, we're telling them what they shouldn't be doing! Although there have been some tense days with them staying with us, I have to admit, they have definitely been helpful around the house, especially in the kitchen. One of the perks of living with the in-laws (and being unemployed ...) is that I get to learn a bunch of cooking techniques! AND I get to eat some things that I've never eaten before (which is more exciting than the actual cooking :P). The other night was one of those nights where I got really excited to see and taste something different - hand-rolled oat flour noodles! I've only ever heard of hand-pulled wheat flour noodles, and I've seen how those were made and have tasted them before. But hand-rolled noodles?!?, this was a completely new to me.
            These noodles are called 莜面 (oat flour) and originate from the Shanxi province in China. In general, this province is known for it's noodle dishes. I've been to Datong, China, a city within the Shanxi province and where my husband and his family are originally from. I can say that I definitely remember eating delicious noodles of all sorts, but I don't recall eating this particular type of noodle. I guess that is what happens when there too much to do and see with not enough time! Anyhow, I'm glad I got to see first hand how these noodles are made. Pretty neat to watch!

            The dough recipe itself is pretty simple - oat flour and boiled water (yes, according to mom-in-law, you must use boiled hot water in order to make the dough). Unfortunately, I can't really tell you the proportion of flour to water (they generally eyeball the amounts!)...yet. I'll have to try making it myself first and then I'll post the proportions later. After making the dough, she pinched off two pieces of dough and then started the rolling process with the palm of her hand. She rolled two noodle strands simultaneously with one hand - amazing! I was just mesmerized with watching how she did the whole process so gracefully and quickly. After she made all the noodles, she steamed them instead of boiling them. We had ground lamb with broth and some other veggies to go with the noodles - yum.

               For now I'll just share some photos of her making it (once I get the video posting figured out I'll put a video of her making it up too)! Maybe it's me, but it's so fun to watch the noodles being made! AND they're yummy!

Mom-in-law rolling out the noodles from the dough - she was making two noodle strands with one hand!

Rolled out noodles ready for steaming!