What’s Cooking: Pad cha

I am a big believer in karma. It always works, but it takes longer to set in for some. Of course, when it comes to karma visiting me, the payback is always prompt, and well-deserved. But I like to think that people who do me an ill turn eventually get their own visits from Lady Karma, too.

Now, it’s been a while since I talked about deeply personal stuff in very cryptic terms. But at the very beginnings of this blog, well nigh on 1000 years ago, it was always meant to be a sort of “dear diary” type entity, something I have tried to explain to people who contacted me about guest posts. These are my stupid dumb thoughts, I would say, so maybe you should find a better outlet. After all, it was in this blog where I wrote about friendship breakups, professional woes, and self-image problems. But I, too, eventually strayed from the personal aspect of this thing, thinking it would be far more professional and mature of me to stick to exploring Thai food.

Today, I’m like naaaaaahhhhhh. After the past few weeks I’ve had, I’m back to burn booking this shit.

And then this debate, the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Have you seen a skankier bitch? And yet somehow also a luckier one? The skank-to-luck ratio on this guy is incredible. He gets rapped for 34 counts, rambles on incessantly about windmills and sharks, lies like a 5-year-old caught kicking the dog, and yet, because our world is a flaming capitalist hellscape in which views equal money for media outlets, we’re all focused on how old Joe Biden looks. “But his stutter,” we’ll say, as our daughters become handmaidens and longtime immigrants to the US get put into camps and deported. “How did we end up with these two choices?” we cry, as if they are somehow on the same playing field instead of one on earth and the other in the flaming abyss of hell. “Wah wah wah,” writes the New York Times, and if I could cancel my subscription, I would (I’ve never subscribed because they have never asked me to write for them and I’m super mature like that). Hmmmm, what to order, the chicken or the broken glass-encrusted turd? (Thanks David Sedaris). Well, how is the chicken cooked? I worry it might be too dry.

When I get in these moods, only something as heated as I’m feeling will do. Enter “pad cha”, a dish that I’ve always wanted to mean a “numbing stir-fry” so hot that it renders your mouth incapable of feeling, like how I feel when I watch a political debate in 2024.

Alas, “pad cha” is one of those onomatopoeic dishes — like Japanese shabu-shabu, which mimics the sound of the meat in the water, or Vietnamese banh xeo, which is the sound the batter makes in the pan. “Cha” is the sound of the sizzle in the blazingly hot wok, which is what you’ll need (a hot pan will also do) when you’re making this dish. Also, and you might catch Thai cooks saying this a lot, but it’s especially true here: you need the heat. It’s not good if it’s not spicy. You don’t have to kill yourself, but a good tingle goes a long way. Make this atop a good mound of jasmine rice, and slurp, chomp, and munch your way to onomatopoeic oblivion (as well as hopes and prayers for a visit from Lady Karma for those who deserve her).

Scallops pad cha

Serves 4-6 (as part of a Thai meal)   

Prep time: 10 minutes                          Cooking time: 10 minutes

• 10 scallops (or jumbo shrimp, or fish, you get the picture)
• 1 Tablespoon unscented oil
• 3-10 chilies chopped roughly, depending on spice tolerance and type of chili used (this dish does need to be well-spiced, so we recommend 3 spur chilies at the very least)
• 4 cloves garlic, peeled
• 1 teaspoon peppercorns (white or black fine)
• 3 coriander roots, chopped roughly
• 1-2 Tablespoons fish sauce
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 Tablespoon oyster sauce
• ½ cup-1 cup water
• 5-10 “fingers” of wild ginger (grachai), julienned (or ½ cup wild ginger, julienned, if jarred)
• 1 stem green peppercorns, picked from the stem
• 1 handful holy basil (bai gaprao) or Thai sweet basil (bai horapa), washed
• 2-3 stems green peppercorn, on the stem (for garnish, optional)

First, make your chili paste. In a mortar and pestle (preferably stone), pound chilies until well mashed. Add garlic cloves and repeat the procedure. Add peppercorns and mash, then add coriander roots and do the same. By the end, you should have a nice, generally uniform reddish paste.

In a wok over medium heat, add oil. WIth a spoon, scrape paste out from mortar into the wok. Stir-fry paste in the oil until golden and aromatic, about 1-2 minutes. This is when you might start sneezing. This is a good thing! It means the paste has the right amount of spice in it.

Turn heat up to high and add scallops (or shrimp). Stir to encase in the nice aromatic paste. Add 1 Tablespoon fish sauce, oyster sauce, a splash of water (not all), and sugar. Taste for seasoning. Add julienned wild ginger and green peppercorns (stemmed) and stir. Because scallops (and shrimp) cook quickly, check doneness after 3 minutes, and do not cook them beyond 5 minutes. There is nothing worse than rubbery scallops (or shrimp). Remove them to a plate next to the wok, but continue cooking the sauce.

Taste the sauce again. If it’s too salty, add a bit more sugar and water. If it’s too sweet, add more water. If it’s not salty enough, add another Tablespoon of fish sauce. The point is to make this sauce intensely flavored, like it’s been dialed up to 11, as Nigel Tufnel would say. You are supposed to eat this stir-fry with rice, after all.

Once satisfied with the taste, continue with the sauce bubbling for about 5 more minutes. The sauce should get glossy, like a red wine sauce for coq au vin. You want enough sauce that it will coat the scallops (or shrimp) and form a pool around it, but not so much that it will look like a soup. The Thai term for this (halfway between “dry” and “soupy”) is “kluk klik”. 

Right before the end of the 5 minutes, add your scallops once again to the wok, turn off the heat, and add basil and green peppercorn stems (if using). Stir to incorporate, then plate and serve immediately with rice and the rest of your nice Thai meal.