Stir-Fried Glass Noodles, Malaysian Hawker Style

[elleng]

http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/01/the-temporary-vegetarian-stir-fried-glass-noodles-malaysian-hawker-style/?hp

[Warpy]

1. I hate recipes like that

because you're always left over with special ingredients (tamarind sauce and that special brand of Indonesian sweet soy sauce) that you'll never use but which will haunt your refrigerator for years.

Now if they told us about the places that serve such a concoction in the US, that might have been a bit more useful.

[htuttle]

2. Tamarind sauce makes a decent lemonade-like beverage

Just keep mixing tablespoons of it with water until it's sour enough, then add sugar. That's what I did with most of the leftover stuff I had, since I bought it to try out one or two recipes. I think lime juice would have substituted quite well for it, anyway.

[Warpy]

3. I think it was the specific brand of sweet soy sauce that threw me

How picky can you get? At least mention an alternative (I use sugar in a lot of Chinese recipes and I'm sure it works as well as any sweet soy sauce) for those of us who live in Podunk. For the record, I do a veg and cellophane noodle thing myself, probably close in flavor to what she duplicated.

The older I get, the less patience I have for chefitis, which is one reason most of the shows on Food TV turn me off.

One great thing about Julia Child was that she used mostly accessible ingredients and concentrated more on technique than on running around to every specialty grocery in the Greater Boston area to find some cockamamie thing some chef insisted on using.

The point about the tamarind syrup being used for a summer drink is well taken, I'm sure it would be very good that way. However, I just unloaded all the crap out of my fridge so that I could unplug it to defrost it and I have enough jars and bottles of stuff I bought for a specific recipe and just never used again. I will not be buying anything like that in the near future.

[htuttle]

4. I've got about four Asian grocers within 10 miles, and I still substitute all the time

For the recipe in the OP, I'd substitute lime juice for tamarind if I didn't have any on hand, green garlic and scallions for Chinese chives, and soy sauce and sugar (or maybe a bit of mirin) for the Indonesian soy sauce. Thai bird chili pepper? I'd use a serrano. I can get the rest of it down the block at my local food coop.

I do buy some relatively exotic stuff, by Wisconsin standards, but I use it all the time, like kombu kelp, mirin, daikon, etc...

[hobbit709]

5. Serrano doesn't even come close to Thai bird pepper.

Not on heat level at all.
I like my Thai food hot enough to make me sweat.

[htuttle]

7. Serrano's make me sweat enough

Anything hotter, and the skin starts to slide right off my face.

:rofl:

[beac]

8. A pupusa restaurant where we used to live served a REALLY delicious

tamarind margarita -- calling it a "tamarita." SO good.

[hippywife]

9. This will sound a little weird

but our little small town grocer was clearing out some stock that wasn't moving and there were tons of Tamarindo Kool-aid packets. I thought I would try it and soon was addicted. It was actually pretty darn good. I loved the stuff! :rofl:
:hi:

[yellerpup]

6. I'll try this one!

I love the tamarind flavor. I buy it in blocks at my Asian market. Only thing I lack today is sweet soy sauce. Have to grab a bottle next time. Thanks, elleng!