One of my neighbors was giving away a bunch of vegetarian cookbooks. In the pile, I noticed Real Vegetarian Thai by Nancie McDermot, which is my mother’s favorite thai cookbook. This recipe from page 164 was the first one I tried. It was described as a quick weeknight alternative to pad thai. If you don’t have si-yu Nancy offers an alternative combo of soy sauce and sugar, which I used. I’d like to try it with the actual si-yu next time. So far I’ve made this twice, once for myself and once for my sister’s family while in Germany. It was a hit both times. Easy, tasty, filling, and indulgent. A very good weeknight dish indeed. The only issue we had with the dish was the ratio of pasta to broccoli. Everyone, including my seven-year-old niece, agreed it needed more broccoli. Although I think I messed up the proportions when I made it for my sister’s family, so it probably was more that than the recipe. Still, I’d do 4 cups of broccoli instead of 3 and probably 7 ounces of pasta instead of 8 and see how that went. The other issue I had both times was volume. Flipping this recipe without a big wok is really hard. Next time I’m going to try making it in my cast iron dutch oven and see how that goes instead.
Nimble Veggies 