Pad King _ Thai Ginger Chicken

This dish is deceptively simple to make and gives a great impression when cooking Thai food for guests.
It is also very flavorful without being spicy at all
- which makes it a nice introduction to Thai food for those who do not prefer spicy dishes.

The first rule of any Thai recipe is to make sure to prepare your ingredients in advance.
The second rules is that everything is approximate - add or lessen any ingredient to taste.

3 or 4 tablespoons oil  
2 to 3 cloves finely chopped garlic 
1 1/2 cup chicken, dark or white meat
1 cup wood ear mushrooms (Asian black fungus)
1 ginger root
3 scallion/green onion
fish sauce 
white soy bean paste 
sugar 
black pepper


Preparation:

Garlic cloves should be cleaned and chopped finely.

Chicken can be white or dark meat - I find dark meat is tastier in this dish.
Cut chicken in thin slices or in chunkier bite size pieces.

Wood ear mushrooms are generally available in any Asian grocery.
They tend to be available dried.
A couple of hours prior to cooking, soak a handful of dried mushroooms
in luke warm water to reconstitute. Don't reconstitute a whole cup!
The mushrooms reconstitute to large, fluffy size.
Reconstitute just enough for 1 cup reconstituted.
Once reconstituted, rinse several times in cool water.
Run a knife through them once or twice, no need to finely slice.

Peel ginger root an cut so that it is 1 to 2 inches in length.
Slice evenly lengthwise, and then turn and slice envenly lengthwise again.
You should have thin slivers, 1 to 2 inches in length.

Clean scallions in cold water, trimming the ends.
Slice the green into 1 inch pieces.

In a large pan or wok, heat oil over medium high heat.
Peanut oil is best, but any vegetable oil is fine.
The pan should be quite hot, but not smoking.

Add garlic to the oil and sautee briefly.
Garlic should just barely be turning golden.

Add chicken immediately, sauteeing to cook thoroughly.
The chicken should be mostly cooked, only slightly pink if at all.

Add mushrooms, ginger and scallions.
Moisture from these will gather in the pan.
Keep tossing everything to cook evenly for about 3 to 5 minutes.
Liquid should reduce by about half.
You want enough liquid for a nice sauce, but you don't want soup.

Add fish sauce and white soy bean paste a teaspoon at a time until it's tasty.
Probably 3 to 4 teaspoons is approximately right.
Add a teaspoon of sugar to enhance flavor of the ginger.
Add a pinch or three of black pepper too.

Serve with freshly steamed jasmine rice.

Substitutions:

This recipe works just fine with pork or beef.
A dash of oyster sauce in this dish is tasty also.
Shiitake mushrooms can be subsituted if necessary.