Rad Na (Lard Na) -Thai-Style Wide Rice Noodle with Pork in Gravy Sauce

Have you ever heard about this dish before?  Thai-style stir-fried wide rice noodles with pork and chinese broccoli in gravy sauce is so called "Rad Na" (or "Lard Na").  It is one of popular one-plate dishes in Thailand.   It is sophisticatedly scrumptious yet easy to cook.  Let's get started.

This time I tweak the recipe to get a hint of chinese food by adding shitake mushroom :), which is my favorite mushroom.  

Ingredients:

PS: The amount of each following ingredients are just approximate measured since when I make this dish I have never really measured them.  So you can adjust the amount of them to your liking.

Part A: For marinating pork:

• 1 lb. Pork, sliced in bite-size
• 2 tbsp. Soy sauce
• 2 tbsp. Oyster sauce
• 1 tbsp. Seasoning sauce
• 2 tbsp. Potato Starch
• 1 tsp. Baking Powder
• 1 tbsp. Sugar

Part B: For Stir-fried noodles:

• 1 lb. Wide rice noodles
• 2 tbsp. Black soy sauce (To give aroma and black color to noodles.  If you can't find one, it's ok to leave it out)
• Oil

Part C: For Gravy Sauce:

• 1lb. or more Chinese Broccoli, separate stems and leaves
• Marinated Pork (from Part A)
• Dried Shitake Mushroom, soaked in warm water until soft and slice in pieces (optional)
• 8-10 cups Boiling Water
• 4 tbsp. Soy sauce
• 4 tbsp. Oyster sauce
• 2 tbsp. Seasoning sauce
• 2 tbsp. Sesame oil
• 2 tbsp. Soy bean paste (optional)
• 2 tbsp. Sugar
• 1 tbsp. Garlic Powder
• Ground Pepper
• 1/3 cup Potato Starch, dissolved in 1/2 cup water 

Directions:

- Marinate pork with all ingredients in part A at least half an hour or preferably, overnight.  

      

- Heat oil in the nonstick pan.  Add noodles and black soy sauce.  Stir noodles until they are all coated with sauce, aromatic and a little bit crispy in some part.  Set it aside.

                                          

- Put marinated pork from step 1 and shitake mushrooms in boiling water.  Stir to combine. 

- Once pork is almost 75 percent done, stir in chinese broccoli stems and all condiments from part c except the last ingredient (potato starch mixture).  Lastly, stir in chinese broccoli leaves. 

  

- Seasoning the gravy with soy sauce, oyster sauce, seasoning sauce, sesame oil, soybean paste, sugar, garlic powder and ground pepper to your taste.  

- When everything is cooked completely, rapidly stir in potato starch mixture (1/3 cup Potato Starch, dissolved in 1/2 cup water) to thicken the gravy. Yeah, finished!!!

- For serving, arrange the noodles on to the plate and then put some gravy on the top.  Vola!!! Enjoy.....the most yummy dish ever. :P

You can enjoy as it is or some people in Thailand including myself ^__^ like to eat it a bit more spicy and tangy by adding some red pepper flake, vinegar with pickled pepper and more ground pepper on the top to taste.

Bagel Bread Pudding with Apple and Raisin Recipe...Without Oil or Butter

Last weekend's morning, I explored my refrigerator and found out that my cinnamon raisin bagels were about to be expired soon.  Wasting things is not my option :).  So I need to use it to make something.....then this menu had popped up to my head.  Yes, that's right.....Bread Pudding.  Normally I don't like bread pudding that was made of general white bread alone as the texture of bread pudding outcome is too soft for my liking.  I like to use mixed kind of bread in my bread pudding. And fortunately, on that day I also had one stale hotdog bun left.  Good things of this recipe are no oil or butter needed and less sweet, but it turned out really delicious.  What a healthy brunch!  Here's what I made:

My Bagel Bread Pudding with Apple and Raisin, topped with Whipped Cream.......Ah...Yummm.

Recipe Ingredients:

• 2 cinnamon raisin bagels, cubed
• 1 hotdog bun, cubed
• 2 cups milk
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 tsp cinnamon (to your liking)
• a pinch of nutmeg & clove (optional)
• a pinch of salt
• 1 apple, chopped
• 1/4 cup raisins

Direction:

1. Turn on the oven and heat to 350F
2. Arrange bagels & hotdog bun cubes (any bread you like is just fine) in a baking dish. Then sprinkle chopped apples and raisins all over bread.
3. Mix milk, eggs, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, salt in a mixing bowl until they are all combined.  Then pour the mixture over prepared bread.  
4. Let it stand for about 10 mins, so the bread have time to soak the milk-egg mixture.

    5. Bake it for about 35-45 mins depending on a size of your baking dish. And Vola!  Let's eat, shall we?

Chinese Honey Walnut Shrimp ... Easy & Yummy

This "Chinese Honey Walnut Shrimp" menu caught in my head all the time right after seeing one of my subscribed pages sharing the recipe on their site.  However, shrimps in that recipe are cooked by steaming which is not what I am craving for and looking for.  I prefer deep fried shrimps which remind me of my favorite dish I had in the Chinese Restaurant.  Therefore, I started searching on YouTube and found one recipe that is easy and look very yummy like I want it to be.  Especially, I have all required ingredients on hand at home!...Hooray!!!  So let 's get started:

Ingredients: 

(PS: This is my version since I did twist a recipe a bit to make it easier for me to cook...hahaha)

• 1/2 Walnuts
• 1 tbsp. Butter
• 3 tbsp. Brown Sugar or more to taste
• 1 tbsp. Honey
• 2 tbsp. Water
• a pinch of salt
• sesame seeds

• 3-4 tbsp. Mayonnaise 
• 1 tsp. Sweet Condensed Milk
• 1/2 Lemon

• 1 lb. Shrimp
• 1 egg
• a pinch of Salt & Pepper
• 1/2 cup of Cornstarch
• Oil 

• Lettuce

Step1: Making Honey Walnuts

• Put butter in a pan at medium heat until butter is melted.
• Add walnuts and sauté about 2 minutes.
• Add brown sugar, a pinch of salt, honey and water to the pan.  At this point, all brown sugar should be dissolved in water, otherwise, add a little bit more water.  Keep stirring walnuts until all liquid is almost dried up.
• Stir in sesame seed and keep stirring until liquid is almost dried up and walnuts look crispy.
• Set walnuts aside. (Sorry for a blurry picture as I wanna eat now :) )

Step 2: Making Mayonnaise Dressing  

• Mix mayonnaise, sweet condensed milk and lemon juice altogether until they are combined.

Step 3: Deep Fried Shrimps 

• Beat an egg with a pinch of pepper & salt in a bowl.
• Put shrimps (shelled & deveined) in a bowl of beaten egg and stir until all shrimps are covered by egg mixture.
• Put all shrimps in a plate of cornstarch and stir until all shrimps are coated by cornstarch. 
• Deep-fried shrimps in oil at medium high heat until they turn golden.

Step 4: Assemble the yummy dish

• Put all Deep-fried Shrimps from step 3 in Mayonnaise Dressing from step 2, and stir until all shrimps are coated by dressing.
• For serving, place lettuce and then shrimps in a serving plate.  Finally, top with honey walnuts. Enjoy!!!