Thai Cabbage salad

Tonight we are actually doing something from a cookbook OMG shocking but I realized just putting them on my countertop was not getting me food so I opened one up to have a talk with it and realized there were words in it. 

10 minutes prep time and 5 minutes cook time. It is from a cookbook called “Better than takeout Thai cookbook” I’m in trouble. 

I have not opened a beer because that is well proven to be dangerous and I’d likely spill it all over my countertop again.

The first thing it says is: in a small bowl combine all the dressing ingredients until the sugar is dissolved, then set aside.  Is anyone else wondering how the sugar is going to dissolve? 

Three tablespoons of freshly squeezed lime juice: unfortunately when I was in the store yesterday I bought lemons, not limes. I only have one lime. Mind you I’m not sure what three tablespoons look like but I know for sure I’m not there as I look at the juice from my lime. I guess I’m going to put a lemon in there as well because what else am I going to do? Here goes nothing it’s going to be a lemon-lime Thai dish and next time I will just buy limes.

2 tablespoons of fish sauce.  Fish sauce is tasty but what is fish sauce really? I do have the sauce of fish.  It was on my list at the grocery store(sans limes obviously). What I really want to know is, what is it? A sauce made of fish or sauce that gets fish soused. Either way, we have our sauce and I’m going to put it in. I should have one of those with spoonie things that measure the stuff.  Hold on I got to go find one.
After looking in all the drawers and cabinets, some of them twice. I have located nothing that resembles a measuring spoon, Therefore I’m going to use a Chinese spoon cuz I believe it’s about a tablespoon if not well it will be. 

Fish sauce is going in the bowl it smells really good and doesn’t taste too bad either.  I like this stuff. 
Now I need one teaspoon of granulated sugar. I am going to have to go find that in the pantry (see I learned the word for that closet with shelves) and figure out what I’m going to use for a teaspoon. 

Got the bucket of sugar I got last night at the store. There seems to be no way to open up the plastic – do not use if the seal is broken – Trust me, it is not open.  I just jabbed a hole in it with the spoon and ripped it off, and that is why I’ve decided to not be prejudicial and use an American spoon as my teaspoon. A spoonful of Sugar… 

Next, I need one fresh Thai pepper, stemmed, sliced, and finely chopped and one teaspoon of ground roasted chili pepper. Ah, the good stuff, the stuff I have been craving.  

Yikes! Hold on I have not looked at the recipe for the ground roasted chili powder on page 2000 and whatever.  Well, that ain’t going to happen now. We’re just going to use some crushed chilies like you would use on a pizza cuz I figure it’s close.
Seriously? Only one fresh Thai Chili? Have they met me? I eat not only Thai hot? I eat Laotian hot! That is just not going to work. 4 peppers it is. 

When I was moving around stuff and looking around for the measuring spoons in the drawer I found the tit! No it’s not a real tit but it looks like a tit and you’re supposed to put your unused half a lemon in your tit and somehow, I guess it keeps your half a lemon fresh. We’ll see later I guess but anyways the half of the lemon is now in the tit. 

Just in case you were wondering how I haven’t starved the last week – I found precooked TV dinners. Thank you Trader Joe’s. AND thank you for your concern… both of you who asked.

I have now stirred all the combined ingredients with the sugar until dissolved, now we know, I am about to set it aside. 

I have just now realized that this is a salad and I didn’t need to cook the rice that I cooked. I guess we’ll eat that tomorrow. 

OMG! OMG! It smells like it’s supposed to. It smells like Thai food! I’m so happy!!!! poohbear dance of happiness. 

What means gently poach?

Gently poach the chicken… Alexa How do you poach food? 

Am I supposed to put it in the water and put on nice gentle music? Massage it? Do aroma therapy until the chicken is cooked? When is chicken poached? Can’t you just grab a chicken? I mean you don’t really have to sneak up on them or set a trap, they are not the smartest of creatures.  If you take one out of your neighbor’s coop is that poaching? Oh wait, that was the old hood. No one seems to have chickens in the suburbs. 

It says that I need 1/2 pound of skinless, boneless chicken breast (a good thing because titties should not have bones) fillets.  Looking at the bag of chicken that I have taken from the freezer at the old place. Note that my previous ‘roommate’ had a chicken problem and is now in a 12-step program for his chicken addiction.  I have no fillets at all. All I have is thighs. They’re not boneless or skinless so I guess I’m going to have to take care of that. As for someone who really likes chicken skin this was really hard to do. 

Turn and look at the piece of Corning Ware that is sitting on your counter and wonder why it’s there and who put it there. Wonder how many times you’re supposed to wash your hands when you cook chicken. Wonder why your dog won’t lick up the chicken juice from the floor and get a paper towel. Cry and feed him chicken skin.  At least it is not baked or deep fried.

I may not have measuring spoons but I have measuring cups so I’m pretty close to one and a half cups of water. I take a deep breath and the container from the shelf and get prepared to add the dreaded salt. Make sure it’s the shaker side, not the other one. See lessons can be learned. 
Actually turning on the heater part of the burner under the pot is a really good idea, so that lesson I still haven’t learned. 

Pro-tip: you might want to read all the directions first. I guess I wasn’t supposed to cut up the chicken into chunks before gently poaching it. I was supposed to leave it whole. I guess I was supposed to shred it into the dressing and cabbage of which I’m not sure where the napa cabbage comes in, guess I will find out. 

Shit! There’s a whole other page and recipe for the crispy fried shallots.

I am so doing the shallots!  Who cares if it is late, I spent a lot of time in the grocery store trying to find these things. Why didn’t I just go to the Chinese store where these things are in bags of dozens, by the dozens? 

At this point wonder mildly if you should take the skins off of them. Choose to remove the Skins because they’re like garlic right? Also, remind yourself that the cutting board slides and knives are sharp. Repeat your mantra: ‘do not cut your fingers, do not cut your fingers.’ 

Again turn on the correct burners. Those little covers that go on top of the burners when you’re not using them do not appreciate the heat. Decide that your shallots are sliced thin enough because if you try any harder they will become fingers.

Give the dog another glorious piece of chicken skin you’re not going to be able to eat.  

Now to this gentle poaching issue. I guess I poach the chicken gently and then removed it from the heat and set it aside. I hope that means it stays in the pan. Not being able to get the cutting board to the stove, I am bringing the pot to the board and putting the chicken in it — not very gently.  I’m sorry chicken, I am so sorry, I’m trying to be really kind and gentle to you, please go into the pot without burning my hands and please don’t go into the dog.

Get the hot pot back on the burner and stirred gently “oh good little chicken you are so kind and I am a really kind loving person who is hungry and wants to eat you, slowly and enjoy your nutrition.  Why don’t you listen to some lovely music “Alexa play relaxing music for your chicken.”  Well, I guess Chickenfoot is going to have to do. I hope chickens think Sammy Hagar is poach-able. If he brings tequila that would make the chicken more gentle I suppose, it would certainly help me be calmer at this moment. 

Don’t forget the paper towels cuz your going to need them to put the shallots on. Put the paper towels on the plate they should be ready soon… I think. 

I’m not sure what poached chicken looks like. It doesn’t seem to be pink so I think I’m going to take it off the heat like it suggests and assume it’s going to cook the rest of the way on the back burner. 

There are eight ingredients that are supposed to be in a small bowl already. When the hell was I supposed to do that? 

Shallots are turning black. Christ that’s hot – there might be a really good reason to use your back burners to cook with because when you move your hot pots from one burner to the back burner then you have to put your arm across the hot burner. Daaaaammmmn!

Here comes my favorite cooking word, I just haven’t a clue what it means.  Three cups of julienne napa cabbage.  It slices; it dices; it julienne fries.  I have no idea who Julian is outside of John Lennon’s son. I’m just going to cut up napa cabbage and put it in the bowl along with one cup of grated carrots -shit – I got sliced carrot. I guess they’ll just slice the slices. Thinly sliced fresh mint and cilantro leaves and …. oh get a load of this idea: 

1/4 cup of peanuts, coarsely chopped. You can chop peanuts? Who the hell can do that? Oh my fingers are bleeding just thinking about that. I’m just going to leave them whole from the bucket. 

Take the crispy shallots, unless they are mine and are now partially black and parts that are just kind of limpy. I’ve known guys like that, just saying. 

I have successfully figured out how to deal with the chicken bones sitting on the cutting board as my dog stares them down and will grab them if  I turn my back one more time. I used the ziplock bag that they were frozen in, zipped them up in it, and put them in the trash. Critical thought 101. 

I just realized that I can take pictures of this. That should help because I need one more thing to do.

At this point, the recipe is already been re-envisioned.  It’s chunky chicken instead of shredded chicken. We have not Julian nor whatever is a julienne is any of the veggies. We have no chopped peanuts. We have our slightly burnt, slightly limp shallots and soon we will toss our salad and sauce on it. SMH. Meh, everything goes to the shitter sooner or later. 

It’s all in a bowl. I did not sprinkle the not crispy fried shallots on top, I just mix them in with everything else. 

Forget fancy plating of this crap because I don’t want to waste another plate, it might suck, and I can eat out of the mixing bowl…again. 

Here’s a picture of it and now what we’ve all been waiting for…… 

I am going to open a beer and drink a lot of the beer first because this is going to need it. Sit and stare at your bowl and take several long sips of beer. Then get up and go back to get the fork that you left on the counter because you were more interested in drinking the beer. 

Sit down once again and try your dinner.  I might have been just a little too gentle to the chicken. 

Some of the chicken is not quite done but the dressing is great. That call I made for the extra Thai chili peppers was worth it, nice and hot. It does taste like a cabbage salad and somewhat raw chicken.

Can it kill you being a little too gentle with some chicken? If I die I will let you know tomorrow. 

It was mostly pretty good and you know I’m not lying about that. Because really, I have the four minutes and TV dinners to eat if this was horrid.  I will claim this as my first success