Thai Beef on Glass Noodles

No one ever said grad school was easy. I've been a little busy recently and so have been making some simple favourites: the spinach that I make about once a week now, one last butter nut squash soup before it really becomes spring, and those beef short ribs for one night when my brother came over for dinner. Another new favourite is red pepper fried with garlic. But the name says it all so it really doesn't merit a post.

So, I've been cooking, but there haven't been any experiments - at least any that turned out - to write about.

Tonight Paul and I mixed things up by cooking something from "Food & Drink" magazine. This is a glossy publication produced by the government owned liquor store in Ontario. The photos in this magazine are lovely, but often the recipes are out of reach of the grad school budget and require a lot of ingredients. Well, this one required a lot of ingredients too. But after a recent foray into making pad thai, I already had quite a few of them. Plus I had been wanting to try cooking glass noodles at home.

In case you haven't cooked with fish sauce before, it smells seriously dreadful. But it tastes better than it smells. And reassuringly, it's an ingredient in some Worcester Sauces.

I modified the original recipe from Spring 2007 "Food & Drink" magazine - I will post a link when it is up on the LCBO website. I used less chili paste, because I can't take the heat, and upped the vegetable content.


Thai Style Beef
1/2 thai red curry paste
2 small steaks (225 g), I used tenderloin as it was on sale
2 tbsp vegitable oil, separated

Preheat oven to 450F.

1. Sprinkle salt and pepper on steaks
2. Mix red curry paste with about 1 tbsp oil and spread on steaks.
3. Heat 1 tbsp oil in an oven safe frying pan on med-high heat. Sear steaks one min on each side. Then place in preheated oven for 5-8 mins. (8 mins will be medium well).


Glass Noodles

4 oz glass noodles

Sauce
1/4 chicken stock
1/2 red curry paste
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp lime juice


1 clove garlic finely chopped
1 tbsp grated ginger
1 stalk lemon grass, coarsely chopped and bruised (I would recommend not actually eating the lemon grass)
3 grated carrots, about 1 cup
1/4 of a green pepper, in fine slices
1/2 onion, finely sliced
snow peas, about 1 cup
bean sprouts, about 1 cup

1. Soak noodles in boiling water for 10 mins. Mix ingredients for the sauce together.
2. Meanwhile, heat oil in a large pan (or wok), and add garlic, ginger and lemon grass. Cook for about 30 secs.
3. Add carrot, green pepper and onion to the pan and cook until the vegetables have softened, about 3-4 mins.
4. Add noodles, snow peas, and bean sprouts. Cook another 2 mins.
5. Add sauce and cook until sauce boils and is absorbed by the noodles.
6. Serve with slices of Thai Beef on top.