Good Eats

Alton's ready for a trip – suitcases packed, shots received, Thailand guidebook ready, language tapes in the player – when the phone rings. It seems the "first choice" has become available, so Alton's not going anywhere. He does the next best thing: he eats. Specifically, pad thai, a meal promoted by Thailand's prime minister back in World War II, to help his countrymen cope with a rice shortage. If your seat on the big ol' jet airliner has been taken, worry not – with Alton's help, you can visit the land of pad thai, which lies square in the middle of… Good Eats.

Thailand (once called Siam) is the only Asian country that has never fallen under foreign control. But it has been influenced by foreign culture – China in the north, India in the west, and even England, way way west. Pad thai reflects all these influences as well as thai cuisine itself – a careful balance of five flavors. With a giant tongue and a propane torch, Alton explains: the four basic flavors are salty, sweet, bitter, and sour. Added to that is burning, which isn't so much a flavor as a sensation. These flavors come chiefly from ingredients such as… Alton's at a loss. Whipping out a light and a magnifier, he studies the dish before him, deconstructing it into its parts. Its ingredients fall into three categories: familiar, somewhat familiar, and "what the?"

Most of the "parts list" is readily available – garlic, peanut oil, rice wine vinegar, scallions, roasted salted peanuts and small, hot chili peppers. Alton selects small dried Japanese chilis – about eight. Limes and mung bean sprouts are also available most places. (You can tell mung bean sprouts from alfalfa sprouts because the mung bean sprout is thicker.) Mung beans go bad in a hurry – a few days at the most – so cook fast. Alton heads to the dairy department next, for a package of extra firm tofu (silky tofu will disintegrate in the wok).

Although rice noodles are often available in the mega mart, Alton believes better quality can be had at the Asian market, so that's his next stop. The rice noodles he wants are dried. Sometimes called rice sticks, these come in various shapes and sizes (like wheat pasta). Alton selects noodles that are similar to angel hair pasta. Nam pla is fish sauce (or more precisely, fish water). It's crucial to the cuisine of Asia. It's made by stacking fish (often anchovies) and salt and allowing that to ferment for as long as a year. Good fish sauce should be reddish brown and translucent – never murky. Ingredients should be limited to fish, salt, water, and maybe a little sugar. MSG and preservatives shouldn't be present – bacteria don't want any of that action!

Alton pokes his head into the freezer case next. He's looking for dried shrimp, a concentrated briny flavoring that's exactly what its name implies: tiny shrimp, dried in the sun.

The strange pod of the tamarind tree is Alton's next target. The flavor is somewhat like lime raisin – but there's no need to go to the effort of harvesting the paste from the pod; others have done this for you. Just pick it up from the cold case and reconstitute it at home. Palm sugar comes from the sticky sap of the sugar palm tree. It's made the same way maple syrup is made; Alton grabs a package from the cold case. The last ingredient is salted cabbage, sometimes called tung chai after a city famous for it – this will lend flavor and texture.

Actually cooking all this correctly requires a lot of heat, delivered quickly. For that, there's no better dish than a wok, so Alton visits a restaurant supply store that caters to the Asian restaurant trade. There he explains what kind of wok to get: 14 or 16 inch diameter, with a handle. It should be deep and rounded, and made from high carbon steel.

Stir fry happens fast, so it's vital to prepare the ingredients ahead of time and organize them properly. Alton starts the night before with his tofu. He shows how to squeeze some moisture out of the tofu. The next morning, he soaks the tofu in a mixture of soy sauce and Chinese five spice powder; this replaces the extracted water with flavor.

Next, Alton reconstitutes the tamarind paste with some boiling water. He retrieves the marinated tofu and slices it thin. Once the tamarind has soaked up water Alton builds the sauce: palm sugar, fish sauce, and rice wine vinegar make the base. He strains in the tamarind mixture – the strings and seeds are no good, so he uses a strainer fine enough to keep them out.

Hot tap water poured over the rice sticks reconstitutes them. While that's happening Alton prepares each remaining ingredient into its own small bowl: scallions, garlic, two eggs, salted cabbage, dried shrimp, bean sprouts, peanuts, and ground dried chili peppers.

For the right wok heat, Alton uses hardwood charcoal in a grill, and a wok ring. The cooktop just isn't the right surface; Alton would only stir-fry indoors in the direst straits. (Alton's legal team appears to remind folks to follow local fire codes about grilling.)

When the wok is rocket hot, a squirt of oil goes in, then the tofu. After it browns on the edges Alton takes it out, adds a little oil, most of the scallions, all the garlic and the eggs. He lets that cook just until it starts to solidify, then scrambles it. The noodles and sauce go in next, then most of the sprouts and peanuts and all of the cabbage and shrimp. That gets tossed and allowed to sit; the introduction of all those ingredients has dropped the temperature, so it must sit until the steam from the sauce reheats everything. At that point Alton puts the tofu back in and garnishes with the rest of the sprouts, scallions, nuts, and chilis. Lastly, he adds the limes (sliced into wedges) around the edges. Diners can squeeze the limes into the dish for added flavor.

Alton didn't get his Thai trip, but his culinary curiosity has still opened the door to a larger world of good eats.