Farm to Dish: Thai Tonight after a Trip to the Farmer's Market

Welcome back to Farm to Dish's profile of Angel Farms, where we teach you how to make the most of the ingredients available at the Old L.A. Certified Farmer's Market.  Today we're going to cook some Thai dishes with the fresh brassicas and other veggies we bought at Angel and Shear Rock farms last week.

Before we get to the recipes, I'd like to give a shout out to Wondee, who taught me how to cook Thai food. One of the best things about living in Los Angeles, is its diversity. As a child, growing up in Northeast LA, I had friends from many different ethnicities, many of whom are still my best friends today. As a teenager, I hung out at my friend Richard's house all the time. I used to love watching his mother Wondee cook up home-style Thai food. For years, all I was allowed to do was watch, but she eventually started allowing my questions and giving me pointers. Thank you, Wondee for expanding my cooking knowledge and enriching our lives with your food.

Here are a few things that Wondee taught me:

Cook with as high a flame as possible. This is essential to stir frying, anything less and the food will stick. Wondee uses a wok over a HUGE propane flame in her patio, but I cook over a conventional western stove, so a wok on its ring does not heat up enough. She gave me the tip of using a stainless steel flat bottomed skillet and heating it up on high heat. Let it heat up for minutes, until a drop of water vaporizes as soon as it touches the pan's surface. At that point you should be good to stir fry.

Mise en place. The french cooking term for putting in place, meaning all of your ingredients are chopped, washed, clean, ready to add. This is especially important in stir frying, with everything cooking so quickly, you must have ALL of the ingredients ready to go and at hand's length. The difference in seconds will mean perfectly cooked food or burned, off-tasting stuff. An important note here is to make sure any rinsed veggie is dry before adding. Scorching oil and wet veggies make for a bad combo.

Cook in stages: It's OK and in fact preferable to cook things at different times. Eggs for instance can be cooked first and set aside to be added at the end and recombined in the pan. The same goes for meats, mushrooms and veggies that may take longer to cook. 

Season to taste: Like my grandma, Wondee does not bother to measure amounts of seasonings. When I would ask them each in turn, "How much?" they would reply, "I don't know, that much!" In other words, it takes years to get your seasoning and taste down, good cooks just know, without measuring. It's something that is subjective too, and personal. Oyster, fish and soy sauces are seasoning sauces and should all be used to taste. Experiment and see what you like. 

The dishes:

Thai Vegetable Soup: This soup is great as an early spring soup on a rainy day or even a warm one. The main components that make it Thai are the homemade veggie broth, fried garlic, fish sauce, black pepper and sugar. These ingredients really meld well to make a delicious broth. I realize that fish sauce in a veggie broth doesn't make much sense but it is a very distinct flavor with it's fishy, almost pungent saltiness. Fish sauce is one of the most important ingredients in Thai cuisine and in a lot of ways makes that Thai flavor that we love. Vegetarians may want to substitute it with light soy sauce, though the flavor is not quite the same. 

About 45 minutes before you start the soup, saute one parts white or yellow onions, and 1 part each carrots and celery. When the onions are translucent, add a few quarts of water and bring to a boil. Simmer, for about 45 minutes and season with salt and pepper. This is a classic mirepoix veggie broth, the amount doesn't matter as long as you adhere to the 2/1/1 ratio listed above. 

While your broth is simmering chop the veggies. Start with 3 garlic cloves, chopped, about a quarter head of cabbage, one small peeled purple globe turnip, two radishes, a few carrots, two celery stalks, a leek (light green and white parts only), half an onion and a head of broccoli cut into small pieces. Start a pot on medium high heat and add some canola oil (another brassica). Add the chopped garlic and saute for about five seconds, just until the garlic starts to turn golden. Do not cook the garlic too long as burnt garlic has a bitter flavor. We're going for a rich, roasted garlic taste. Add the other veggies (except for the broccoli), saute them until the onions are translucent. Add the veggie broth and simmer for about 15-20 minutes, just until the veggies are cooked through. Season with fish sauce, sugar and some frsehly ground black pepper. Add the broccoli at the very end, so it turns bright green and remains crisp, almost like a garnish. Do not overcook, as broccoli's flavor and scent can quickly overpower the soup. If desired, add some finely chopped cilantro and scallions as garnish and serve pipping hot.  

Beef-less Beef Salad: This is one of my favorite salads. The two factors that make the dish are the freshness of the ingredients and the Thai salad dressing. If those things are in place, you don't even miss the beef.... well OK, you don't miss it that much. 

Start with a bed of lettuce, the salad is probably 80% lettuce. Sabrina's baby red and green lettuces work wonderfully as they are super fresh, crisp and mellow. Add some chopped cilantro, scallions, some thinly sliced Thai chiles, red onions or shallots. There was no Thai basil at the market as it is a bit early for basil season but add some if you can find it. Toss to combine.

For the dressing we're looking for a balance of tart, salt and sweet. Start with a base of freshly squeezed lime juice, Thai kaffir lime is best, but even lemon juice is passable. I've resorted to juice from our lemons as there is not a single lime on our tree right now.The acid of the lemon juice will replace the usual acidity of vinegar in other dressings. Add some fish sauce, to taste. Once again, fish sauce has a very distinctive taste, but vegetarians can substitute a light soy sauce or salt. Add some honey. I use wonderful, local and raw Sticky Acres honey from Max Wong, a backyard beekeeper in Mount Washington. I'm lucky enough to have a barter going with her--eggs for honey or jams--but if you can't get Max's, other honey will do, as will sugar. Finally add a bit of canola oil as your fat (and brassica!!!) and emulsify and taste before adding to the dressing to the salad. 

If you find that you just can't have beef salad without the beef, grab a steak and marinate for a number of hours with some fish or soy sauce, shaoxing cooking wine, sugar and minced garlic and thai chiles. Grill or sear the steak to your preference, though medium or medium well goes well with the freshness of the salad. I have a tough time combining rare steak with salad, but that's just me. Slice the beef thinly against the grain and top the salad with it.  

Stir Fried Kale with Oyster Sauce: Kale and it's genetic twin, Collard Greens are the nutritional kings of the brassicas. This is a great, nutritious and easy dish that I tried to replicate after eating it at a restaurant in Thai Town. It was served with pork belly, but I think that it stands pretty well on it's own. Again, strict vegetarians can substitute oyster sauce with shitake mushroom sauce that is sold at Asian grocery stores like LAX-C.

Start out with some quality kale, Sabrina's micro kale is perfect as you don't even have to chop it. If you are using larger kale, cut out the center stems since they are inedible. Get about 4 cups of Kale. It sounds like a lot, but it is amazing how much it cooks down. Rinse it and allow it to completely dry before proceeding. In the mean time, get all your ingredients in order. Slice the clove garlic in half lengthwise and chop the chile. Get your sugar, oyster sauce and fish sauce ready. Set a large stainless steel skillet over the highest heat possible. Let it heat up until a drop of water vaporizes as soon as it touches the pan's surface. Coat the pan with canola oil and add the sliced garlic, stir fry for a few seconds. Add the dried off kale and stir fry for 10 seconds or so. Season with the fish sauce, oyster sauce and sugar. After a few seconds, add the chopped chile and two tablespoons of veggie broth or water. Stir fry for 30 seconds more and remove from heat and serve. 

Pad See Ew: I think that you can tell a lot about a Thai restaurant by whether they use Chinese or western broccoli in their pad see ew. Generally the ones that use Chinese broccoli are much better, however, to stay true to the market, I used western broccoli. 

One of the reasons that I prefer Chinese broccoli is that western broccoli must be blanched before stir frying as the tender buds of broccoli tend to burn before they cook. This adds not only an extra step, but an extra pot. Oh well, such is the price of loyalty.

Cut into bite size pieces and blanch the broccoli for about a minute. Drain, set aside and allow to dry. Chop the garlic and prepare about a half of a pack of fresh rice noodles by peeling them into single strips. They will be sticky and oily, so get ready for a new sensation. Prepare your seasoning sauces, fish, soy, sweet soy, oyster, plus the vinegar and sugar as well. Beat two or three eggs and add a bit of fish sauce.

Get the pan ready as described above. Add canola oil to coat the pan, then add the eggs and scramble for about 20 seconds, until mostly cooked. Set aside. If you'd like to add meat, here is the place to cook it, if not continue on to the next step. Heat the pan again and add some more oil. Add the garlic, stir fry for a few seconds but do not allow it to burn. Add the noodles and stir fry for 30 seconds. Start adding the seasoning sauces, sweet soy, oyster, soy, fish plus the sugar and vinegar all to taste. Stir fry some more, coating all the noodles with the sauces. Add the blanched broccoli and the egg and stir fry for another minute or so. Serve immediately. 

You're now ready to go with an early spring Thai feast, highlighting the brassicas of the season. There are only a couple of things missing: a bowl of steamed rice and some piq nam pla or Thai chile with fish sauce as a condiment. I hope that these recipes will inspire a few trips to the Old L.A. Certified Farmer's Market today. If you stop by, say hello to Adrian and Sabrina!