Pad Thai and Pirates: Adventures with Tamarindo

Ok amores, it's been a while but I'm back and bringing with me a can't miss recipe for pad thai. Now I know what you are thinking, "Pad Thai? What is wrong with this loca? She's in the D.R. and posting recipes from Thailand?! Jeesh!" But bear with me, because this little receta was the product of my search for a use for tamarindo. Now some of you may remember my first experience with tamarindo hace mucho tiempo (a looong time ago). Well long story short, after that incident I've been pretty hesitant when it comes to all things tamarindo. But it seems like I can't escape from this odd brown pod. I keep seeing it everywhere....in juice form, in concentrate form, in its natural unprocessed form- its a pretty popular item at the grocery stores and colmados here. Its the natural unprocessed form that's been intriguing me the most though. Sold in a pre-packaged brown goopy looking block, every time I passed by it in the produce isle I stared at it with a mixture of ill-disguised disgust and wonder. What on earth would one do with a package of goop like that? 
Finally my curiosity got the better of me (it almost always does), and I bought the block to take home for experimentation. 
Let the mad scientist-ing begin!

The first step was figuring out how to get this messy block of goop and seeds and roots and branches into an edible form. A little internet searching brought me to this site with an excellent explanation of what to do. Basically, just add the block of tamarindo to a pot of water and let it soak for 10 minutes. Use a ratio of 1 part tamarindo to 1 part water. I had one pound of tamarindo, so that meant 16 oz. of water. 
One your tamarindo is good and soaked, that's when the party gets started.
Take one hand (I recommend two for extra gloopy fun) and start squishing the seeds and roots to dislodge the sticky tamarindo substance stuck to the outside. 
Once you've squished off as much tamarindo as possible, its time to start getting rid of the big chunks of gunk that you don't want to eat. Just take a handful of your tamarind mixture and squeeze; the juice will come out and you'll be left with a pod/twig/root mixture to discard. Repeat this several times. Eventually you'll be left with a slightly less chunky mess. Now you want to strain what remains to get rid of the rest of the little chunks. 
Easy peasy.
The strained mixture that remains is your edible tamarind pulp. It will keep in a glass jar in the fridge for up to two weeks or in the freezer for several months. 

Ok, ok, ok, so you have your tamarind pulp, now the big question: "¿Diablo, what do I do with this?"
I have two options to propose to you. 1. You can go the very popular juice route and just follow the instructions found here. 
Or 2., you can make the best Pad Thai in the world. No joke. Best Pad Thai IN THE WORLD. 
Obviously I´m a big proponent of option 2. 

Now I have to give all credit to The Savory Sweet Life, since I copied her recipe and tweaked it a little too suit my needs and love of extra veggies. 

Ingredients

• ⅓ cup oyster sauce (the original recipe calls for fish sauce, but I couldn´t find it)
• ½ cup dark brown sugar
• ½ cup fresh squeezed tamarind pulp (Here´s where you get to put that tamarindo to good use!)
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 4 ounces dried rice stick noodles
• 6 tablespoons vegetable oil, divided
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 cup red onion, thinly sliced
• 1 cup red bell pepper, thinly sliced
• 1 ½ cups thinly sliced chicken, beef, pork, shrimp, or tofu (pre-cooked and shredded rotisserie chicken works great)
• 1 egg
• 1 cup carrots, peeled into ribbons
• 1 cup green beans, steamed. 
• cup green onion cut diagonal in ½ inch segments
• 1 cup mung bean sprouts
• cup cilantro
• 1 cup toasted peanuts chopped
• Lime wedge

Instructions

1. To make pad thai sauce, heat a small pan on medium low and add oyster sauce, palm sugar, tamarind pulp, and garlic. Cook sauce until sugar has completely dissolve. At this point, you will want to taste the sauce and tweek the sweetness or hotness (be careful, the sauce will be hot). To make it more spicy add red chili flakes. Remove from heat and allow to cool 10 minutes before storing it in a jar or plastic container.
2. Boil noodles for 4-5 minutes and drain immediately rinsing with cold water for a few seconds. Noodles should be slightly firmer than Al dente. But don’t worry, they will continue to soften and cook later when stir frying. Using kitchen shears, cut the noodle clump in half. This will make it easier to fry and eat.
3. Heat 3 tablespoons of oil in a wok or frying pan on high and cook raw chicken, pork, beef, tofu or shrimp for 3-4 minutes. (If you are using pre-shredded rotisserie chicken, which I recommend for eases, simply skip this step) Remove meat/tofu/seafood into a small bowl. Next, heat the remaining oil and then add garlic and red onions and red peppers to the hot pan and stir fry for 1 minute stirring the garlic mixture so it will not burn. Add noodles and stir for 1 minute. Add 3-4 tablespoons Pad Thai sauce continually stirring noodle mixture until well coated with sauce. Add cooked meat/tofu/seafood back and fry for 2-3 minutes. Move the noodle and meat mixture to one side of the pan and crack an egg on the other side. Scramble the egg with a wooden spoon and cook for 30 seconds. Add carrots, green beans, green onions, and sprouts and cook for one more minute frying everything together. Test the firmness of the noodle. If the noodle is too firm, fry for an additional minute. If your noodles need more flavor, add another tablespoon of sauce and fry another half minute. Remove from heat and serve. Garnish with remaining raw carrots, spouts, cilantro, toasted peanuts, and wedges of lime. Enjoy!

Of course, this recipe can be a little time consuming to put together, but the silver lining is that EVERYTHING can be prepared in advance and stored in the fridge. So if you´re planning on serving it for a dinner party (to secretly woo your guests into falling in love with you and singing of your brilliance until the end of days...which I highly recommend) then its a snap to whip together.

Pad Thai Sauce ingredients (I added a little lime for extra flava)

The rest of the ingredients.

You can steam your green beans and boil your noodles in advance.

My favorite part...peeling the carrots. Its a dead boring job. Unless you pretend like your a scullery maid, off on a grand adventure, peeling veggies for a rough-and-tumble pirate crew sailing their way across the seven seas. Suddenly cannons boom (you've accidentally knocked a pot off the counter), and the crew scrambles to man the deck (the cats come running in to see what the commotion is about). The pirate ship is under fire! You can hear the thud of feet and the clank of swords above you. The enemy must have boarded the ship. You tuck a boning knife into your apron strings and leap into the stairwell to do your part, but a grizzly old man with a scar scratched along one cheekbone is standing in your way. He smiles a crooked, rotting smile and you can see one golden tooth gleaming to match the evil sparkle in his eye. Just as you twist to get away he grabs your arm and......and see! I told you peeling carrots was the best! I bet you want to know how this pirate adventure ends. But I'm not going to tell you. Go peel your own carrots! :)

Once you've sufficiently oohed and awed your guests, and turned down a couple of marriage proposals (probably from both men and women), you can spend the rest of your night sipping wine or cold beer and catching up with your friends in the warm Santiago night air. 
And later, if you have the awesomest of friends, like I do, they will want to play , "Quién soy yo?" (Who am I?)

Amber is deep in concentration

Oh hey there´s me! 
I don´t know it yet, but I am Kim Kardashian. Can you see the resemblance?

Of course you´ll need to end your night with a little dessert. Nothing goes better with Pad Thai than Oreos. Trust me on this one. 

Look what happens when you get curious about a little bit of tamarind--- pad thai, pirate adventures, and fun times with good friends. Stay curious mis amores, stay curious.