When Leftovers Taste Fishy

Last week I made two dishes that I did not blog about. One was this curry dish that was really good, but not all that blog worthy because of all the store bought ingredients.  I sauteed some onions, added in a Penang curry paste, coconut milk, chicken (poached in the liquid) and roasted delicata squash—served over brown basmati rice.

Dish two: spaghetti squash** and baked sweet potato chunks with a cream sauce.

**RIP
Spaghetti Squash
Dec 2008—Jan 2009

We had one mighty fantastic meal, but now, it must end. It’s over. I can’t deal with baking something that small for TWO FUCKING HOURS and then when I’m done, taking another 15 minutes to scrape the clingy pulp and seeds out AND THEN continue to scrape until tiny strands pry loose. And I mean PRY. Even after two hours you wouldn’t let go over your insides.  And, I’ve had it. I cannot be wasting precious after work time worrying about an effing squash. So, I’m done. At least until I can convince 80P to take over cooking duties. Don’t wait up for it. 

So with those two dishes, I had leftover rice and squash. As this was only my second time fighting with the monster, I hadn’t thought about using the squash in an un-pasta like fashion, until I saw this post over at Coconut & Lime. With all of my new gear from the NJ Asian market, I thought I’d trip this dish out with some Asian flare.

I incorporated two ingredients:

Tom Yum Paste

Soy bean oil, lemon grass, salt, onion, galanga, chili, lime, dried shrimp, kaffir lime leaves, garlic, sugar, paprika

Wasabi Fumi Furikake Rice Seasoning

Sesame seed, horse radish, shaved bonito, Japanese mustard plant, sugar, seaweed, soy sauce, salt, cooking rice wine, sugar

Tom Yom Spaghetti Squash

In a dry pan, toast some sesame seeds until just starting to brown, add in cooked spaghetti squash (1/4 of the whole squash), a drizzle of sesame oil and a scant tablespoon of tom yum paste and mash the thick paste into the strands. Add in whatever you got of leftover rice, I had brown basmati. The paste stuck a bit to the bottom so I added in just a bit of water to help ease it off the bottom of the pan.

Now this is where I think I messed up: a few dashes of fish sauce. I tried to go with the Thai theme, but the sauce just ended up making the vegetarian dish taste, well, fishy. And not in a good way.

Okay, so then I stirred that all around and right at the end I squeezed in a bit of lemon and dropped in scallions and parsley. After plating, I topped it with rice noodles, which added a much needed textural element and then the wasabi rice seasoning, which also helped in the crunch department.

(I would also like to thank 80P’s parents for buying us new plates. I guess they, too, were sick of all our food pics on white backdrops. Stay tuned for more colors!)