Pad See-Ew

My search for quick vegetarian dishes continues. Going out 3 nights in a row with our vegetarian friends from London has convinced me that while it's a bit inconvenient to go meatless in China, it's not impossible. While I'm not considering becoming a strict vegetarian, my conscience dictates that eating more vegetable and grains and having meat only once or twice a week is better for good ol' planet Earth. (The conscience thing I can blame on Fast Food Nation, this Michael Pollan article, and having lived in gentrified Brooklyn, which probably has the highest concentration of vegetarians outside India and San Francisco.)

Pad See-Ew is a Thai noodle dish that can be made with meat or without. (Some people call it Thai-Chinese, because the technique of stir-frying noodles came from Chinese immigrants.) It's a lot like the Cantonese chow hor fun, with thicker sauce and the addition of egg. I have had it countless times in Thai restaurants, but never thought to make at home until I came across Blazing Hot Wok's recipe from earlier this year. This dish has fewer ingredients than Pad Thai and is easier to make, perfect for those lazy "crap, I'm starving but my fridge is practically empty" days.

If you don't have omnivore guilt like I do, feel free to throw in chicken, pork, even shrimp. BHW emphasizes that the main ingredient is mushroom-flavored soy sauce, which can be found in Chinese markets (I believe Lee Kum Kee) makes one. However, I've found that soaking dry shiitake mushrooms in soy sauce for about an hour, while periodically squeezing the juices out, gives a similar umami effect. If you're using flat rice noodles instead of fresh, soak them for about 20 minutes to soften before stir-frying.

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Garlic Lamb Stir-fry with Broccoli

Until 3 or 4 years ago, I had an aversion to lamb. My father hated lamb, so we never ate it at home. My first experience with lamb (that I can remember) was at a Greek restaurant in Boston when I was a teenager; I ate a decidedly unfresh hunk of meat that left a horrible aftertaste for hours. After that, I swore off lamb. And Greek food.

Fortunately, after college, I decided I needed to expand my culinary horizons. In The Man Who Ate Everything, Jeffrey Steingarten writes about how moderate exposure to hated foods is the key to getting ride of aversions. He creates a 6-step program to dealing with a bunch of his own food phobias, including kimchi, Indian desserts, and yes, Greek food, by trying everything 8 to 10 times. I can't say my own culinary enlightenment was this organized, or steadfastly recorded for publication. But I do know that over the years of going out of my comfort zone I have come to love anything Greek I used to loathe, including olives and feta. And especially lamb.