Ever since I picked up my queen Chrissy Teigen’s recipe book, “Cravings,” six months ago, I’ve been eyeballing her recipe for Actual Drunken Noodles, one of my favorite things on this earth to shove into my mouth. However, given my less than, shall we say, refined cooking skills, I’ve been avoiding it, as I am wont to do.
But this week I wanted to give myself a challenge with this “Thai-ish” recipe, as Chrissy refers to it. Whether I was actually up for that challenge was later to be determined.
By the time work ended the day of my cooking plans, I was sprinting out to my car – I had eaten a sad salad for lunch, and the feeling of near starvation numbed any intimidation I felt about making this dish. I was irrationally ready to charge ahead.
I began with the sauce, which included brown sugar, soy sauce, oyster sauce, whiskey (which I may or may not have taken a shot of for good luck), mirin, sambal, and garlic. Now, aside from not knowing what half the things on this list of ingredients actually are, I H.A.T.E. anything pertaining to seafood. And that includes you, oyster sauce. So I made the modification of leaving it out. I also have zero clue as to how to find sambal, so I swiped it out for Sriracha sauce. I hope that’s OK.
Next, it was time to make some stir-fry, which I, not surprisingly, have never done before. I threw down some oil, and scrambled (then cooked) four eggs in a giant skillet. I removed them from the pan once I was finished, then tossed in my boneless chicken breasts that I had cut up into small cubes. Except I had forgotten to turn the stove back on. Once I finally discovered that little problem, I was par for the course once more.
After transferring the now-cooked chicken to the separate bowl with the eggs, it was time to fry up my scallions, ginger, and garlic. Because I was, for once, following the directions, my garlic and scallions were singed to a near crisp on the suggested high heat level because I am not an X-Men (X-Man?), and could not add in the broccoli and chicken broth into the pan fast enough. This was also the part of the recipe where I was supposed to add in mushrooms, but like my feelings on seafood – gross.
As I was waiting for the chicken broth to evaporate within the suggested two to three minutes, I realized that I had actually just dumped twice the amount of broth that I was supposed to into my stir-fry. It was going to take a lot longer than a handful of minutes to vaporize what now looked like a witch’s cauldron. I waited for what I felt was an acceptable amount of time, then dumped in the noodles, chicken, eggs, and sauce.
I tossed and stirred the dish until I thought at least most of the noodles looked like they wouldn’t snap in half if you poked them. The recipe said to wait about four to five minutes, but amidst the chaos of a messy kitchen with little counter space and a growing headache, I decided setting my timer was too much work.
Should I have taste-tested my rice noodles? Yes. But was I tired of standing over the stove and stirring my giant pot? Also yes.
Dishing up a big helping into a bowl and snagging a bottle of Thai sweet chili sauce, I scuttled into my living room and sat down to eat as I finished my podcast about the Jonestown massacre (I do realize I am a strange person, yes).
My execution of this dish was, uh, poor, to say the least. It’s a good thing the ingredients were covered in a healthy glob of delicious spices and sauces because my sad, limp broccoli was far from fresh and quite overcooked, while my noodles, maybe not so surprisingly given my lack of patience, were so undercooked I could hear them crunching as I choked them down.
But with the grit of a poor young woman who couldn’t afford to buy more groceries that week, I gulped the rest of it down with a “Meh. I’ve made worse.” They can’t all be winners… or edible.
Amanda Push is a writer who wishes she lived with a cat and just wants to learn how to not eat like a college student anymore. Contact her at [email protected].
