Replicating An Old Favorite & Behind the Scenes in the Kitchen ~ #itsnotallglamorous

When I dropped out of college at the ripe age of 20 and moved back home, I needed a job. I had previously worked in retail in my teens, Target mainly. But I knew some people who worked at this restaurant and the tips were supposed to be pretty good, so I applied. Within a week I was training as a server for a restaurant called Big Bowl. It's a Chinese and Thai restaurant, the one I worked at was in a large shopping mall in Minnetonka, called Ridgedale. You can catch a glimpse of this mall in the movie Juno, if you'd like. I recall eating a ton of Asian food for the next few years, seeing as I was around it all the time, it just made sense.

I was just walking to my car the other day and caught a wiff of something in the air, not sure what, but it reminded me of one of their signature dishes I would eat on the reg, Panang Curry Chicken. It's essentially a peanut-butter based coconut curry sauce with rice, veggies, and your choice of protein. I attempted this twice within one week, the first with chicken that I was a little disappointed with, and then one with shrimp to see if I could perfect it better.

I YT'd some recipes and found one that was most like the one I remembered. Luckily, there is an authentic Asian grocery store down the street from my house, so I went there and got most of the necessities. Unfortunately, the only ingredient I could not find for the life of me, was kaffir lime, which really is an important ingredient. It just elevates all the flavors, taking a 7/10 dish to a 10/10 dish...so while I was really happy with how these two attempts turned out, they could have been better...but I'm not one to complain.

These are the main ingredients I used:

• Julienne red and green peppers
• Lemon grass
• Galangal (Asian ginger)
• Diced white onion (not pictured)
• Diced red and green peppers for garnish

• Coconut milk
• Red curry paste
• Asian peanut butter sauce

Please advise, if you're going to attempt to re-create this dish, or try your own version, this is a very important step. Don't shake your coconut milk! It will say to do so on the can, but don't. For the curry base, you want the top part of the coconut milk. It is thick, as it has separated from the liquid underneath. It is more like a coconut cream. Use all the cream for the base, and then add the rest of the milk towards the end.

The curry base should look something like this:

I'm also using a wok as you can see, if you have one, you definitely want to use it for dishes like this.

Once all the ingredients are all in, it will look something like this:

This was the second attempt, this one with shrimp. I finished the dish in my large saute pan.

Once the flavors have all developed (remember, taste as you go!), fill a bowl up half way with white rice and pour over the curry and top with chopped cilantro. YUM!

I was fairly impressed with how close I came to re-living the days of slamming this meal down in between a double shift. If I were able to find kaffir lime, I'm sure I would have been sent back to the past and had some serious nostalgia. But I was happy none the less.

Now. What I think has, not necessarily been missing from all these food posts, but I feel like is being hidden from view, is the chaos and mess that comes along with making some crazy #fff dishes.

We always see such beautiful plates here on #fff. Whether home made or at a restaurant, we usually see the show quality side of everything. Well I am here to break that mold today. Here is the mess I made while making this dish, on top of everything else in my kitchen that is already a complete disaster.

It's not all glitz and glamour in the kitchen, even though it may seem that way on the internet. Making delicious food can be a messy endeavour, but that's part of cooking.

I hope you enjoyed a little sneak peek into my cooking space, my mess, and my attempt at an old favorite. Thank you for taking a little time out of your day to spend with me, I look forward to seeing what the rest of you cooked up this week!

Happy Friday y'all! Cook on!