Many moons ago we ordered Thai for delivery. The dish we both loved was the Drunken noodles, a dish we both had had at many Thai restaurants, including T.H.A.I. Shirlington, in "Historic" Shirlington, VA. Lovely fat noodles with a zippy brown sauce with ground chicken or chicken breast and basil. Yum. So after having a few variations, I started to attempt to recreate the recipe.
The first time I made this dish, it was perfect! BUT....I didn't write the recipe down. This version is 2.0. Great, but still needing a tiny bit of fine tuning. I thought I would post it here and see if anyone wanted to try it.
Drunken Thai Noodles
2 TB Peanut Oil
½ Small Yellow Onion, diced
3 Cloves of Garlic, minced
1 tsp Crushed Red Pepper Flakes
1 lb Ground Turkey (or ground chicken or pork)
1 Green Bell Pepper, diced
2 TB Soy Sauce
3 TB Hoisin Sauce
1 tsp Ground Ginger (I think I used dried, powdered, ground...but fresh would be great)
2 tsp Red Wine Vinegar or Rice Vinegar
½ tsp Sugar
1 C Broth-Chicken or veggie
1 tsp Cornstarch
3 TB Fresh Basil
Ho Fan (Vermicelli) or Lo Mein Noodles (Note 1)
·In a large pot, bring water to a boil, when boiling, begin next step.
·Over High Heat in a non stick skillet, heat the peanut oil, until shimmering
·Add onion, garlic and red pepper flakes
·Saute for 1 min, stirring constantly, to avoid having the garlic burn
·Add crumbled ground turkey, cook until nearly browned.
·Add ½ cup of hot water and the bell peppers. (Note 2)
·Continue cooking until nearly all the water has cooked off, about 4-5 minutes. The turkey will be completely cooked at this point.
·Add noodles to the water and stir. The noodles take 5 minutes.
·Meanwhile, mix the soy sauce, hoisin sauce, ginger, vinegar and sugar. Stir into the turkey mixture, simmer briefly, approximately 1 minute.
·Mix the cornstarch into a small bit of the broth, to remove any lumps. Pour this mixture into the full cup of broth. Slowly add to the skillet, stirring constantly. (Note 3)
·Cook for another minute or two. The sauce will thicken. Turn off the heat and add the basil. ·Drain the noodles and rinse briefly with hot water. Add to the turkey and sauce. Stir to combine. Serve immediately
Note 1: These noodles can be found in the Asian food section of your grocery store. The Ho Fan noodles are preferred, but the Lo Mein noodles work well. These noodles are about the size of Fettuccine, in width.
Note 2: The water is to help cook the turkey, there is little oil in this recipe and little fat in the turkey. The water also helps to steam the bell peppers. If you are using ground pork, you may be able to omit the water in this step. To decide, is the mixture “dry” in appearance or is there a lot of oil? If there is a lot of oil, the you can either: drain the oil and add the water, or skip the water and just move forward.
Note 3: The cornstarch is to make the liquid more of a sauce, with a thicker consistency. Can be omitted if you prefer.
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3 comments:
Again, thanks for the one click recipes. Very handy.
I had fun making this - had Josh's laptop sitting on the butcher block in the kitchen, open to the recipe, and I'm choppin' and dicin' and all happy.
Some changes -
1)I used fettuccini noodles because our Safeway has a limited "international food" section. I would make it with fettuccini again, but someday when I'm in a whole foods or oriental market, I'm going to look for Ho Fan. I think that is thinner (thickness-wise, not width-wise) than fettuccini. It might have been nice to have something lighter and less pasty/pasta-like.
2) At the end of the dish I randomly added more Hoisin. I think I had more like 1.25 pounds of meat, so I needed something that would stretch it after making it thick with the corn starch and water. So I think it was sweeter than what the recipe called for, but we loved that.
3) I used pork instead of turkey - still very lean, and very yummy.
4) Like an idgit, I forgot to add the basil at the end. It was sitting there, all chopped up and pretty, and I totally overlooked it. So I threw it in with the leftovers, and maybe it'll taste all nice and basil-y tonight when we eat it again. I know the basil will add a nice pop of freshness, especially against the sweetness of the hoisin.
All in all we loved this and would absolutely make it again. It took me a while to make, but I think I can do it faster next time. I like that it's a meal that doesn't really need any side dishes. Thumbs up!
Happy you enjoyed it!
I love my mom writing into your blog! We made it last night for our weekly Lost get together. Yum-O. The one thing I would do differently is one-and-a-half or double the recipe. It was enough for four people to have one healthy serving... but my dad and I eat a little more than that... now I know!
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