Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Kitchen Nightmares

Funny that it should happen on Halloween.  Last night, our perfect cooking streak came to a disastrous end. My night at the helm and I totally bomb it. I should have known there was something wrong in the air when neither David nor I could decide on even the genre of food we wanted for dinner.  We were perhaps not hungry at all but compelled to eat out of a nightly habit. Regardless, I thought it would be delightful to cook my favorite restaurant dish, Pad Thai. In the back of my mind, I thought, if this works and I become a master Pad Thai chef then we will never have to eat out for my Asian noodles again.

It started out so promising.  I sauteed the bite sized chicken in a skillet with some peanut oil, salt, and pepper.  Placing it aside, I cooked up three scrambled eggs and added it to my chicken.  Next, came the sautéing of the of the shrimp with garlic. Finally, I sauteed the scallions and bean sprouts.  This mixture all together in a bowl looked like the makings of a delicious Pad Thai.  I cooked and drained the noodles and then fried them in a skillet with fish sauce, tamarind paste, and sugar as the recipe called for.  The house smelled delicious and I had not made any unintended mess as is my usual custom in the kitchen.

Finally, plating my noodles it was time to taste it with David.  I was giddy with delight imagining how delicious and accurate it would taste.  I spun some noodles onto my fork, stabbed a chicken piece and took my first bite. It was disgusting!  That's right, it was practically inedible. The dish smelled fine but it tasted sour, spongy, and just plain unappetizing. What a major disappointment!  We ended up tossing out about half of the dish in the trash which was so tragic.  But, I just could not force myself or David to eat that dish.  Instead, we headed over to Whole Foods and bought a carton of Rocky Road ice cream.  It was Halloween after all so why not permit ourselves the treat!  At least our nightmare had a sweet end...

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