Pad Khee Mao

I feel like I’ve been spending all my time at the grocery store lately, mostly with the ramp-up to Thanksgiving. Anyway, two nights ago my husband and I decided that we were FINALLY going to make pad khee mao like we’ve been talking about for forever. We both love the dish. I accidentally got him into Thai food when living with our old roommate downtown. She and I used to make cheap food dates and for a period of time, that often involved E-San. I had ordered pad khee mao on a whim one day, tired of always getting fried rice and pad thai, and looooooved it. One night we got take out and brought it back to the apartment. While getting myself a drink, Aaron got curious, bit a noodle and then proceeded to eat all of the noodles, leaving me with tofu and peppers. He was hooked.

My parents were in town from Cave Junction a few weekends ago and took me with them to Anzen, their favorite Asian grocery in Portland. While they poked around at the rice, I found the rice noodles I had been looking for. My husband and I had decided to just make pad thai for our first experiment in Thai home cooking, but when I saw these big, fat rice noodles, I knew pad khee mao could be finally realized.

So that night we searched for a recipe. Our one and only Thai cookbook doesn’t have a recipe for pad khee mao, so we went to the internet. Epicurious.com helped us, although with some difficulty. Pad khee mao is also called drunken noodles and is described as the perfect hangover food (it is). For our billionth trip to the grocery store this week, we bought the things we needed, omitting the stuff my husband doesn’t like, and decided to make it the last night. The original recipe is here. We did about a half size and still ended up with a ton.

Drunken Noodles from Bon Appétit via epicurious.com:

Yield: at least 4 servings, depending on how hungry you are. This makes so much, even at half size!

16-ounce package 1/4-inch-wide flat rice noodles
1/8 c. olive oil
6 garlic cloves, chopped
1 chopped Serrano chili (we couldn’t find Thai chilies and he’s not so into the spicy)
¾ pounds ground turkey
1/8 c. fish sauce (nam pla or nuoc nam)
1/8 c. black soy sauce
1/8 c. oyster sauce (replacement through another recipe my husband read the other night)
½ Tb. sugar
1 green bell pepper (about 6 oz. total), cut into strips
¼ c. fresh basil leaves

Cook noodles in large pot of boiling salted water until tender but still firm to bite, stirring frequently. Drain.





Meanwhile, heat oil in wok or heavy large pot over medium-high heat. Add garlic and chili; sauté 30 seconds. Add turkey and next 4 ingredients and sauté until turkey is cooked through, about 4 minutes. Add noodles, tomatoes, and green pepper; toss to coat. Transfer to large platter, sprinkle with basil leaves, and serve.



This was so very, very good. The only changes I would make in the future would be to add a little more garlic, use actual Thai chilies for a bit more spice and a bit more of the sauces. Other than that, this was ridiculously good and so easy to make. I will be making this again! For now, I’ll just have to satisfy myself with the leftovers.