Appetizers

Thai Fresh Spring Rolls

8:28 AM MC 0 Comments

These little spring rolls (cups) are healthy and nice looking food. They are good for a party like cocktail party or the mood that you want to make something special for yourself. The party season is coming so I had this idea came up making something nice and healthy. It basically is a bite salad.

This healthy dish can be served all seasons as all the ingredients are available at the market. If you are allergic to seafood you can simply change shrimp to be grilled breast chicken, and if you are vegetarian you can just use grilled firm tofu sticks instead.

In this recipe, I use Thai brown rice vermicelli but if it is not available in your area then you can just use ordinary one.




Ingredients
30               Shrimp, peeled and deveined (size 31 – 40)
1 tbsp         Soy sauce
2 tbsp         Water
1 tbsp         Vegetable oil
150 g.          Thai brown rice vermicelli or rice vermicelli
5 pieces       Rice paper (for size 22 x 22 cm) or 7 pieces (size 15 x 15 cm.)
1                  Green or red lettuce
1                  Small carrot, cut into long thin sticks or julienne, 1 ½ - 1 ¾ inch long
1                  Small cucumber, cut into less than ½ x 1 ½ - 1 ¾ inch long (60 sticks)
60 leaves      Mint
1 tsp             Salt

Peanut Dipping Sauce (recipe follows)

Instructions
  1. Bring a medium pot of water to a boil over medium high heat. Add salt and noodles, and cook until noodles are tender. Drain and transfer to a bowl. Put aside.
  2. Combine shrimp, soy sauce and oil.
  3. Place a frying pan on medium high heat. Add shrimp and water, and cover the frying pan with a lid while the shrimp is cooking, cook shrimp 1 minute each side until it is cooked or turn pink.  Remove from heat and transfer to a plate.
  4. Dip rice papers in room temperature water and cut into 1 ¼ inch strips with scissors. And lay rice paper strips flat on wooded cutting board.
  5. Cut green lettuce leaf 1 ½ inch from the ruffly edge of lettuce leaf by 3 inches long. Place a small bundle of noodles on top of mint leaves, and top with 2 cucumber sticks, 7 - 8 carrot sticks and shrimp. Roll lettuce around it tightly and secure the roll by wrapping around with a rice paper strip. Repeat with remaining ingredients.  Serve with peanut dipping sauce.

Peanut dipping sauce 
1 cake            Palm sugar (see the picture on "Herbs" page)
2 tbsp            Water
½ cup            Roasted unsalted peanuts, crushed
½ - 1              Fresh Thai chili or Prik Kee Noo, finely chopped
1 ½ tbsp        Fresh coriander, finely chopped
1 ¾ tbsp        Fish sauce (or soy sauce, if seafood is an issue)
1 ¾ tbsp        Lime juice

 Instructions
  1. Place palm sugar and water in a small pot over medium heat. And cook until palm sugar dissolved, and remove from heat. Add fish sauce and lime juice, and mix well.
  2. Add crushed peanut, chopped chili and chopped coriander, and mix well.



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Stir-Fry

Pad Cha Squid

8:24 AM MC 0 Comments

Pad Cha (literally, stir-frying with cha cha sound or sizzling sound of burning food from the hot wok.) is a very popular stir-fried spicy dish and commonly is seafood. Pad Cha dish has many different versions from different kinds of seafood for example squid, fish, shrimp, crab and or clam. Each kind of seafood may have slightly different flavors from different herbs beside the kind of seafood itself.

This dish has a very nice and strong fragrance from herbs which is good as the herbs be able to cover the smell of seafood and at the same time the aroma and nice flavor delight the palate.

This dish is not complicated to make, and it doesn't consume a lot of time to make either, to create a nice real Thai meal at home.

*All the ingredients are available at Asian grocery stores.



For 2 servings
Ingredients

1                         Fresh squid (about 400 – 420g.)
3                         Fresh Thai chillies or Prik Kee Noo (adjustable)
3 cloves             Garlic
½ cup                 Bai Ga Prao or Holy basil
¼ cup                Fingerroot (about 3 - 4 roots), shredded or cut into stripes
2 tbsps               Young or green peppercorn
2 - 3 tbsps          Vegetable oil
1 tbsp                 Fish sauce (adjustable)
1 tbsp                 Oyster sauce
2 - 3 tbsps          Water

Garnish (optional)
¼ cup  Bai Ga Prao or Holy basil – for deep frying in oil until crisp.

You can also follow the instructions from the video.



Instructions

  1. Cut the squid tube in half lengthwise. Clean and remove the quills. Cut into rectangle or square pieces and cut each piece a criss-cross pattern on the inside of the squid.
  2. Pound fresh Thai chilli and garlic in mortar until break to be small pieces or you can use a knife to chop chillies and garlic.
  3. Place the wok on medium heat with vegetable oil and swirl the oil to cover the bottom of the wok.
  4. Add the mixture of chilli and garlic, stir-frying until its sends the fragrance and then add squid and stir to mix well.
  5. Add fish sauce, oyster sauce, young pepper corn, fingerroot and stir to mix well and add the water on the wok beside the food and so that water will be hot before the water mix into food.
  6.  At last, add Bai Ga Prao or Holy basil and mix into the mixture and stir until Holy basil wilt and remove from heat.
  7. Garnish with crispy Bai Ga Prao. Serve hot with hot steamed Jasmine rice.

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Grill Roast,

Nam Tok Neua or Waterfall Beef

11:05 AM MC 0 Comments

Nam Tok (literally, waterfall) is the North Eastern Thai or Isan food. The name “Nam Tok Neua”, or “waterfall beef” refers to the juices that flow out of the meat when it is cut, due to its being lightly grilled and so slightly rare in the center.

It is a popular Thai dish in among North Eastern Thai people or beef lovers. Actually most of the ingredients for Nam Tok are the same as “Laab” accept the meat and the process of cooking the meat is different. We use chopped meat in Laab and cook with the small amount of water in a pot. For Nam Tok, we use a big piece of meat and use grilling as the process of cooking.


For 2 servings

Ingredients

280 - 300 g.                 Beef loin (sirloin, tenderloin) or rib eye steak
1 - 2 cloves                  Garlic, chopped fine
Pinch of salt
1 tsp                             Sugar
1 tsp                            Vegetable oil (optional, if the meat has not much fat)
1 tsp                            Oyster sauce
½ tsp                           Soy sauce
-------
15 leaves                     Mints
4 - 5 leaves                 Culantro ( Eryngium foetidum leaves ) cut into ¼ inch long
4 - 5 leaves                 Kaffir lime leaves, cut into thin stripes
1 tbsp                         Galangal, chopped fine
2                                  Shallots, slice thin
1 ½ tbsp                     Lemongrass, chopped fine
1 tbsp                         Ground roasted sticky rice
½ tsp                          Ground Thai chili pepper (adjustable)
1 – 1½ tbsp               Fish sauce (adjustable, different brand of fish sauce has different level of sodium)
1 – 1 ½ tbsp              Lime juice
2 – 3 tbsp                 Chicken broth or beef broth (optional, if the mixture is too dry)

Vegetable Side Dish
(These vegetables are not processed; they are just plain fresh vegetables. We use them for breaking the feeling of hot and spicy on the tongue from a spicy food and at the same time we can get more nutrition from the vegetables beside from the meat and herbs in the mixture.)
  
Cabbage or Chinese Napa
Snake beans
Or any salad vegetable (like lettuce or cucumber) 


                             You can also follow the instructions from this video!

Instructions

  1. Marinate beef with garlic, salt, sugar, (oil,) oyster sauce and soy sauce for at least ½ hour.
  2. Grill the meat on charcoal, on gas or (broil) in oven until brown on both sides and the meat medium rare to medium cooked.
  3. Slice the meat into ¼ inch thick and remove to the mixing bowl.
  4. Add fish sauce, lime juice, beef broth, ground chili, ground roasted sticky rice, mints, cilantro, galangal, shallot, and lemongrass. Mix all well.
  5. Add fresh vegetables on the side of the mixture and serve with hot sticky rice.

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Noodles Rice

Pad Thai with Chicken

9:27 AM MC 0 Comments

You can also follow the instructions from the video below!

 Pad Thai is a well known and popular dish in Thailand and the world, from street vendors to high end restaurants food. Pad Thai in Thailand uses shrimp the most, for street vendors they use dry shrimp, and for more expensive and high end restaurants use fresh shrimp. Here my recipe is from real and original Pad Thai so there are some ingredients you might not be familiar with for example, garlic chives (Chinese chives) and salty radish. There are available at Asian grocery stores. Thai restaurants in North America use green onion instead of garlic chives and they skip the salty radish but if you would like to try the original favor then here it is.

For 4 - 5 servings for a single dish meal.



Ingredients

1 pkg. (450 g)              dry Rice stick noodles
300 g                           or 2 small skinless boneless chicken breasts  
½ pkg (250 g)              pressed Tofu – cubed
3                                  eggs
½ - 1 cup                     chopped Salty Radish (optional)
3 – 4 cloves                 chopped Garlic
2- 2 ½ cups                 or half batch of Tamarind sauce from recipe (see recipe below)
9 -10 tbsp                    Vegetable oil (if it’s too dry you can add more)
2 - 3 tbsp                      Fish sauce  (you can replace fish sauce with soy  sauce if there is a seafood allergy issue)
1 tsp.                            Soy sauce
1⁄6 tsp                           Salt
½  tsp                           Fresh ground pepper       
1 lb                               Bean sprouts
1 bunch                        Garlic chives (Chinese chives) (cut into 1 inch long) or green onion cut into ½ inch
           Ground chili pepper
1 - 2                                                            Limes (optional)



  Instructions

  1. Place noodles in bowl and cover in room-temperature water.  Soak approx. 1 hr. and drain.
  2. Marinate chicken in soy sauce, salt and garlic at least 10 minutes.
  3. Stir-fry tofu cubes with 2 tbsp oil until golden at medium high heat, remove tofu from wok.
  4.  Fry eggs with 2 – 3 tbsp oil at medium high heat and cut the eggs in the wok with a turner of frying pan and remove from wok.
  5. Stir-fry chicken with 2 tbsp oil until nearly cooked and adds radish and mix well, and removes from the wok.
  6. Add noodles in the wok with 2 – 3 tbsp oil and stir-fry until noodles set and then add tofu, eggs and chicken, mix well. Pour tamarind sauce gradually until the noodles absorb all the sauce. In the same add fish sauce and stir-fry until noodles are soft and fully cooked.
  7. Add fresh ground pepper and mix well.
  8. Have a taste if the favor just what you want or need more fish sauce or tamarind sauce as your favor.
  9. Add some bean spouts and Chinese chives. Turn the heat off. Mix the bean spouts and Chinese chives into noodles well and serve.
** Because of this recipe is pretty big it will take a while before everything is cooked, some ingredients need less time and some need longer time so I cook them separately and mix them later but if you make a small batch just for 1 or 2 servings you can stir-fry tofu and then add an egg and then add chicken and then add noodles and mix well with the sauces.
       
Garnish with
  • Bean sprouts
  • Chopped Chinese chives ( cut 1 inch long or you can substitute with green onion)
  • Chopped peanuts
  • Ground Chili pepper
  • A piece of Lime (if you need more sour favor beside from Tamarind)
Sauce (makes 2 batches) you can make this sauce in advance, it can be kept in the fridge for 4 – 6 weeks.

200 g.            Tamarind (cake of dried fruit, see picture of Tamarind this blog)
4 ½  cakes     Palm Sugar ( 8 cakes in a pkg = 454 g) (see the picture of Palm Sugar this blog)
5 cups            Water

Instructions

  1. Soak tamarind in water until soft, about 30 minutes (break apart the cake of fruit as it becomes possible to speed up the softening).
  2. Discard the seeds and pods.
  3. Dissolve palm sugar into tamarind mixture of heat.   Heat to boiling.
  4. Set aside.



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Grill Roast

Gai Yang Ta Krai or Chicken Lemongrass Skewers

12:45 PM MC 0 Comments

Gai Yang Ta Krai or Chicken Lemongrass Skewers is another outdoor summer food, but you can still have this dish on a rainy day by using oven grill or pan grill. You can have different kinds of meat for this dish – like pork, lamb or beef. The overall process of making this dish is pretty easy.

If you have the fat lemongrass then you can cut the lemongrass into half lengthwise, it is good in a way so you can get more favour and scent from lemongrass on your meat.





Ingredients

2              Large skinless boneless chicken breast (about 500 g) cut into chunks (3⁄4” x 2” x 2 ½“)
6              Lemongrass, cut into 6 -7 inches long
3 cloves  Garlic 
Lemongrass sticks
3              Coriander roots
1 tsp        Fresh ground pepper
1 tsp        Crashed coriander seeds
1⁄3 tsp      Salt
1 tbsp      Honey or palm sugar
2 tbsp      Thick cream of Coconut milk
2 tbsp      Soy sauce
1 tbsp      Oyster sauce
1 tbsp       Vegetable oil

Instruction


  1. Pound garlic, coriander roots with mortar and pestle or chop very fine.
  2. Marinate chicken with garlic, coriander roots, ground pepper, crashed coriander seeds, soy sauce, salt, honey or palm sugar, soy sauce, oyster sauce, oil and water  for 2 -3 hours.
  3. Cut lemongrass into 6 -7 inches, and cut the smaller end of each lemongrass into pointy shapes.
  4. Thread the meat into the lemongrass sticks – 3 pieces for each stick until finish all and ready to grill.
    Skewers on charcoal
  5. Serve with Cucumber pickles (see recipe) and steamed rice or sticky rice, and or just serve with cold beer.

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Appetizers

Hor Mok Ta Lay or Seafood Curry Custard

11:59 AM MC 0 Comments

Hor Mok (literally, wrap and hide and “Ta Lay” is from “Ah Han Ta Lay” means seafood) is a steamed curry custard in banana leaves. This dish is a common food in Cambodia, Laos and Thailand, each country’s Hor Mok has some slightly different ingredients but Thai Hor Mok is always with seafood and some kinds of fresh water fish.

You can find this dish at Khoa Kheng Shop or and street food vendors to luxury Thai restaurants. The process is pretty straight forward even it has lots of different kinds of ingredients.

  • It is better to use uncooked seafood for this dish so that it will mix and blend into fish and herb purée well. You can use any kind of seafood for examples (the popular ones in Thailand) are shrimp, mussel and squid. You can either have only one kind of seafood or mix seafood in this dish.
  • In traditional way we use banana leaves for wrapping or making bowls for the size of one serving, but nowadays many chefs use nice little glass or ceramic dipping or sauce bowls for this dish.
  • You can have your Hor Mok more texture by adding more chunks of seafood meat in purée besides indicating in the recipe. This is where the name of Hor Mok (wrap and hide) from – the chunks of meat are wrapped and hidden in the custard.


 12 servings
Ingredients

14                Shrimp (size 31 – 40) uncooked and thaw cut in half
14                Mussel uncooked and thaw cut in half
42 leaves     Sweet basil
Mussel, shrimp cuts
4-5 leaves   Coriander, garnishing
4-5 leaves   Kaffir lime leaves, slice very thin for garnishing
4 tbsp          Thick coconut milk
½ tsp           Potato or corn starch
Banana leaves enough for making 12 bowls.

*First part - herbs
1                  Large long chilli, slices for garnishing
10               Dried large long chillies, soft in warm water and remove seeds
5 roots         Fingerroot
2 roots         Coriander
Ingredients
2 tbsp          Lemongrass, slice
1 tbsp          Galangal, cut into small pieces
1–2               Fresh Thai chillies or Prik Kee Noo (optional, if you like spicy food)
3                  Shallots
3-4 cloves   Garlic
 1                 Kaffir lime, skin( 1 small one or ½ for a big one)
1 root          Turmeric, about 1” long
1⁄3 cup         Water or coconut water

**Second part
100 g           King Mackerel, remove bones and skin
2                  Eggs
1 tsp        Palm Sugar
1 tsp            Shrimp Paste, roasted (wrap in foil and roast on the element of stove)
½ tsp           Fresh ground pepper
1 ½ cup       Coconut milk, the thick one from a can
3 tbsp          Fish sauce

Instruction


  1. Making banana bowls (if you use glass (pic. below) or ceramic bowls then skip this part), cut banana leaves into 5 x 5 inches. Fold each corner and secure with staples until finish for 4 corners.
    Bowls
  2. Pur̩e the ingredients of first part Рherbs until smooth, and add the second part blend together until smooth. Pour into a mixing bowl and add shrimp and mussel and mix well. Store the mixture in the fridge for 10 Р15 minutes to set.
  3. Heat a steamer on high heat.
  4. Mix 4 tbsp of coconut milk with potato or corn starch well on medium heat until thicken or you can cook it in microwave. Set a side.
  5. Place 3 basil leaves on the bottom of each bowl, scoop 2 tablespoon full of the mixture into the bowls (you can put more or less of the mixture, depending on the size of the bowls). The mixture of each bowl must have meat and sauce purée combined.
    For garnishing



  6. Steam in boiling hot steamer for 8 minutes. Remove from the heat garnish with coconut milk sauce, long red chilli slices, kaffir lime leaf stripes and coriander leaves. And serve hot with steamed rice.
With glass bowl

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Appetizers

Tod Man Pla or Thai Fish Cakes

12:29 PM MC 0 Comments

Tod Man Pla or Thai Fish Cakes with red curry favour is a popular and well known dish. You can find this dish at street vendors to fancy restaurants in Bangkok. Original or in Thailand this dish is made from Clown featherback or Clown knifefish which is Southeast Asian fresh water fish. The textures of fish cakes from this kind of fish are tough, firm and resiling so this kind of fish is ideal for making fish cakes and fish balls. Fish balls in Thailand, are original from Chinese cuisine, and are made from king mackerel or mackerel family fish.

Some Thai people use mackerel fish the kind that we have in Thai sea for making fish cake as well but it’s not that popular, because people have fixed the idea to the original one. Here we can find fresh king mackerel easily at a market so I use king mackerel for my fish cake recipe. The results from these two kinds of fish - Clown featherback and king mackerel, are very similar.

For the curry paste, we use red curry paste for the favour but it is not as spicy as the red curry. We use the same curry paste as Chu Chee curry, you can see the recipe on page Chu Chee curry- here.

In Thailand most people will deep-fry their fish cakes but you can also pan-fry the fish cakes as well.
*** I found the information of king mackerel substitutes:  Spanish mackerel OR shad OR bluefish OR herring OR small trout, the fish that has similar texture. 




For 13 - 14 pieces of fish cakes / size 2 ¼ inches x 1⁄3 inch

Ingredients

300 g                Fillets of king mackerel
4 tbsp               Curry Paste (see recipe from Chu Chee curry)
1                       Egg
1⁄3 cup              Snake Beans, cut into ¼ inch
6 – 7 leaves     Kaffir Lime Leaves, cut into very thin stripes
½ tsp               Potato or tapioca starch
Snake bean and Kaffir lime leaves
4 – 5 tbsp        Cold water (or about 1⁄3 cup)
2 tbsp              Fish sauce
Oil for frying

Instruction

  1. Remove fish’s skin and bones by scratching it with a spoon. Ground the fish in mortar with pestle or food processor until paste like.
  2. Remove fish paste to a mixing bowl, and add egg, fish sauce and potato starch. Start kneading, in the same time add cold water gradually 3 - 4 times, and knead and grab the fish dough throw it back to the bowl, basically beating the fish repeatedly until the mixer tough and bouncing. (This process originally, the bowl with the fish mixer will be sitting on the ice. Beating the cold fish mixer will create a nice bouncing texture – bouncing fish cakes. The same process is for making fish balls as well) 
    The process of making fish cakes
     
  3. Add snake beans and kaffir lime leaves, and mix well
  4. Heat a frying pan or wok on medium heat, and add oil. Mould the mixer into 2 ¼ inches x 1⁄3 inch or shape like cookies. And fry both sides until nice brown colour or cooked. Remove and drain oil on paper towels.
  5. Serve with cucumber pickles (see recipe below)
 Cucumber pickles 
1              Cucumber
2 tbsp      Coriander, chopped
1⁄3 cup     Peanuts, ground (optional)
1              Fresh Thai chilli, chopped (optional)
½ cup     White vinegar
½ cup     Sugar
1 tsp       salt

Instruction

  1. Mix vinegar, sugar and salt in a pot on medium heat. Boil until bubbling for 1- 2 minutes. Remove from heat and set a side until it is cool.
  2. Cut cucumber into quarter in lengthwise and slice into ¼ thick. Pour into vinegar mixer in a serving bowl. Add chilli and peanuts, and mix well.
  3. Garnish with coriander.

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Curries

Chu Chee Salmon

12:31 PM MC 0 Comments

Chu Chee or Choo Chee is the sound of sizzling in Thai, and because of the amount of curry is small comparing to other kinds of curry so the sound is loud.  The curry paste for this dish has the same ingredients as red curry paste, except it is not as hot as red curry because there are no fresh Thai chillies or Prik Kee Noo in Chu Chee curry paste, but there are only dried big chillies which are mild. If you’d like your Chu Chee dish spicy, you can always add some Prik Kee Noo in your curry paste.

Chu Chee Curry is commonly with fish, but you may find some restaurants’ Chu Chee menu with shrimp as well. The curry sauce is supposed to be thicker, saltier and sweeter than ordinary curry as the fish is plain so you need the sauce to give some favours to the fish.


Chu Chee dish is pretty common and popular dish in Thailand as you can find this dish from street vendors to luxury restaurants.




For 2 - 3 servings  Spiciness: mild

Ingredients

1  lb.            Salmon Steak, slice into 2 pieces or 2 Salmon Fillets
3 tbsp          Curry paste (the recipe below)
2 tsp            Palm sugar or sugar
4 leaves       Kaffir Lime leaves, cut into very thin stripe
7                 Thai basil or sweet basil
¾ cup          Thick Coconut milk from a can
1-1  ½ tbsp   Fish sauce
1 tbsp          Vegetable oil
1⁄3 cup          Water

Curry Paste
Ingredients – for about ½ cup of curry paste

7                  Dried big chillies, remove seeds and soak in water until soft and chop into small pieces
1-2               Fresh Thai Red chillies, chopped (optional)
2 tbsp           Lemongrass, chopped fine
2                  Shallots, chopped
2 tbsp           Garlic, chopped
2 tsp             Galangal, chopped fine
1                   Kaffir Lime, skin only about 2tsp, chopped fine
½ tsp            Ground pepper
2 - 3 roots     Coriander, chopped
 3⁄4tsp            Shrimp paste, roasted
¼ tsp            Salt

Instruction


  1. To make the curry paste, wrap shrimp paste in foil and roast two sides on the stove element until fragrant.
  2. Paste dried chillies, lemongrass, shallots, garlic, galangal, kaffir lime peel, ground pepper, coriander roots, shrimp paste and salt in mortar and pestle, and pound until smooth.
  3. Grill 2 sides of salmon on frying pan on medium heat until golden brown but not cooked. Remove salmon from the frying pan.
  4. To make the curry sauce, the same frying pan on medium heat, add vegetable oil until hot and add curry paste, stir-frying until fragrant. Add coconut milk, palm sugar, fish sauce and water, mix well and cook until bubbling and becomes a thick curry sauce.
  5. Add salmon into the curry sauce and let salmon sit for a few bubble each side until salmon absorbs the favour of the curry sauce. Remove from the pen to a plate and garnish with kaffir lime leaves and basil. Serve hot with Jasmine rice. 

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Salads

Yam Makeua Yao

9:32 AM MC 0 Comments

Yam Makua Yao or Eggplant Salad is one of healthy and yummy popular “YAM” Thai dishes. Some recipes may have hard boiled eggs in this dish. For people who can not eat pork or don’t like pork then you can just simply change it to be chicken.




3 - 4 Servings. Spiciness: Medium

Ingredients

2                         Large egg plants (Chinese Eggplants)
200 g.                  Pork mince
1 tsp                   Soy sauce
2 cloves              Garlic mince
Pinch of salt
12                       Shrimp (size 31 -40 or any size)
3                         Shallots, slice thin or ½ cup of red onion
3 tbsp                 Lemongrass, slice very thin
2 tbsp                Kaffir Lime leaves, cut into thin stripes (about 4-5 leaves)
10 – 15 leaves     Mint
3                        Fresh Thai chilli or Prik Kee Noo (spiciness is adjustable)
1 tbsp                 Nam Prik Pao or Chilli paste with soya bean oil
3 tbsp                Lime juice
2 tbsp                Fish sauce
2 tbsp                Water

Instruction

  1. Marinate pork with soy sauce, garlic and salt.
  2. Roast or grill the eggplants either on charcoal or in the oven until soft and cooked. Peel the skin and cut into 1 ½ inch long. Remove to a mixing bowl.
  3. Heat a frying pan or a small pot over medium heat. Add the marinated pork and 2 tbsp water cook until changes colour and breaking up any lumps, before pork is cooked add shrimp and cook until pork and shrimp are cooked (you can cook  pork and shrimp separately also).
  4. Making salad dressing, combine Nam Prik Pao, lime juice, chilli and fish sauce, and mix well or until Nam Prik Pao dissolved.
  5. Combine eggplants, pork, shrimp, shallots, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves and mints. Pour into salad dressing and mix well.
  6. Serve with steamed rice.

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Salads

Yam Tuna with Herbs

11:23 AM MC 0 Comments

Yam Tuna with Herbs or Tuna Salad with Herbs is a healthy dish. Nowadays more and more people think about healthy diet – less process, less oil, less sodium and or no chemical but contains with all nutrition.  In Thai food, there are many different Thai dishes that are considered in the category of healthy food.
                                                   
For me I am always careful what to make for my family and I to eat, the food that I make have enough nutrition or is healthy enough or not. Some people say coconut milk is not good for your health but people in many tropical countries who consume coconuts (original they used coconut oil for cooking) for hundreds of years but they don’t have cardiovascular disease or obesity problem more than others, actually coconuts have some good nutrition. Over all I think beside what we eat we should think how much quantity to have for our body base on the input and output energy of each person. In general we don’t have an obesity problem in adults in Thailand but there are more and more overweight children, especially children in cities that have less active activities but with lots of corner shops and western junk food restaurants (in Thailand, going to the import western junk food restaurants is a privilege and it is popular). It becomes a global classic problem.

One of the most important ingredients of this dish is Piper Sarmentosum leaves. The leaves, are commonly used in traditional medicine, contain the antioxidant naringenin and in cuisine are used to wrap Miang Kham or a traditional snack. Miang Kham, is a bite size snack, made of roasted shredded coconut, roasted peanuts, shallot cubes, small ginger cubes, dried shrimp, a small piece of lime, small pieces of fresh chilli and a drop of thick sweet and salty sauce wrapped in Piper Sarmentosum so this Yum Tuna dish adapted the idea of Miang Kham snack.

This yam tuna dish is typical Thai, array of flavours that addresses all 5 taste senses – sweet, sour, salty, spicy and bitter. You can taste only a slightly bitterness at the end of the palate so it doesn’t really bother your enjoyment but it creates the sense of (all) good for your health.

***Piper sarmentosum is available at Asian grocery stores.


2 -3 servings

Ingredients

130 g.                   Tuna (solid) in oil
2                           Small shallots, slice thin (see picture)
2 tbsp                   Lemongrass, slice very thin
2 tbsp                   Ginger, cut into very thin stripe about 1 inch long
2 tbsp                   Galangal, cut into very thin stripe about 1 inch long
2 tbsp                   Kaffir lime leaves, cut into very thin stripe
2 tbsp                   Fingerroots (see picture from the link), slice into thin diagonal slices
12-15 leaves         Piper Sarmentosum
Herb cuts

Salad Dressing

2                           Fresh Thai chilli (spiciness is adjustable)
3 roots                   Coriander or cilantro
½ tsp                     Sugar
1 tbsp                    Fish sauce (saltiness is adjustable, depends on sodium in tuna and your palate)
2 tbsp                    Lime juice

Instruction

  1. To make the dressing, crush fresh Thai chilli and coriander roots (cut into small pieces first) with mortar and pestle. Remove the mixture into a sauce bowl and then add sugar, fish sauce and lime juice, and mix well or until sugar dissolve. 
  2. Remove the floating oil from tuna if there is too much oil (the tuna in a can I got in Ottawa is pretty dry and it is just perfect).
  3. Combine all herb cuts or slices in a mixing bowl with tuna and pour into the dressing and mix well.
  4. To serve, place a spoonful of the mixture on a piper leave and fold into a bite size. You can serve this dish as salad or finger food (snack). If piper leaves are not available – can be replaced with Chinese Napa or lettuce. 

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Salads

Pla Scallop

9:02 AM MC 0 Comments

“Pla”, “Yam”, Tam”, “Laab” are kinds of processing food in Thai cuisine, all these processes are similar to the process of salad in Western cuisine, the dishes from these processes usually combine the balancing of 4 tastes – sourness, sweetness, spiciness and saltiness. We consider the food from these processes is healthy food as it is less processed, less oil and always combined with fresh herbs.

Not only “Pla”, “Yam”, Tam” and “Laab” dishes are healthy food but more over than that it doesn’t consume a lot of time to make which is an ideal for people who have a busy life and aim to live healthy.

All Thai people love “Pla”, “Yam”, Tam” and “Laab” dishes, sometimes we feel we have no appetite because of the weather as the weather is warm all round year in Thailand or other reasons, but as soon as we see “Pla”, “Yam”, Tam” and “Laab” dishes our mouth is watering.





Ingredients

300 g.                   Scallop
1⁄3 cup                  Lemongrass, slice very thin
3                           Shallots, slice thin
5                           Kaffir lime leaves, chop into very thin strip
8                           Mint leaves
2 - 3 pieces          Iceberg lettuce

Salad dressing
2                           Fresh Thai chilli, chopped fine
1 tbsp                   Nam Prik Pao or chilli paste with soya bean oil
1 ½ tbsp               Lime juice
1 tbsp                    Fish sauce
?  Sugar (there is only one brand of Nam Prik Pao in my city and it is sweet enough for this recipe.)


Instruction


  1. Grill scallop in a frying pan or grill pan on both sides. Set aside.
  2. To make the salad dressing, combine Nam Prik Pao, lime juice and fish sauce and stir until (sugar and) Nam Prik Pao dissolves, and add chilli. Mix well.
  3. In a mixing bowl, combine scallop, lemongrass, shallots and kaffir lime leaves, then pour in the salad dressing and mix well.
  4. To serve, spoon the mixture onto Iceberg lettuce on the serving plate, garnish with mints. Serve as salad or healthy finger food.

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Noodles Rice

Goong Ob Woon Sen

11:10 AM MC 0 Comments

Goong Ob Woon Sen or proper name – Goong Ob Woon Sen Mo Din (literally, shrimp baked with mung bean vermicelli noodles in clay pot) is originally a Thai-Chinese dish (created by Chinese in Thailand). Goong Ob Woon Sen is well known and popular dish – it is a restaurant and food catering dish, you don’t see it at street vendors.

We have very famous and popular food catering businesses in Nakhon Pathom Province. Nakhon Pathom Province is one of the central provinces of Thailand, is about 58 km. away from Bangkok. When we talk about Nakhon Pathom we will think of 2 things from this province, one is Phra Pathom Chedi, a chedi commissioned by King Mongkut in 1870, it is one of the tourists’ destination and the other one is food catering, this style of catering is called “Dto Jiin” or Chinese Table means Chinese food with a set of 10 -12 dishes including dessert, are served at the round tables for 10 -12 people per table. I don’t know how many food caterers are in Nakhon Pathom exactly but it’s a lot. The caterers will carry pots, pans, chairs, tables and necessary utensils or kitchen wares with them in a big truck and they do it for any occasion across Thailand in a very reasonable price with fresh made food from scratch.

One of popular dishes on the food catering menus is Goong Ob Woon Sen. This dish normally we use the large size of Tiger shrimp or fresh water shrimp. The frozen tiger shrimp and fresh water shrimp from Thailand are available at Asian grocery stores.

*** If Chinese celery is not available, it can be replaced by coriander or cilantro.




For 4 servings
Ingredients

240 g                  (Dried) Mung Bean Vermicelli noodles
1 ½ lbs.               Shrimp (size 31 – 40 /lb or larger)
1 root                  Ginger 2 ½  inch long, slices
10 - 12 slices       Fat pork
1 cup                  Chinese Celery, cut into 1 inch long
1 tsp                   Ground peppercorn
6 roots                Coriander or cilantro
4 cloves              Garlic
2 tbsps               Soy Sauce
2 tbsps               Oyster Sauce
2 tbsps               Sesame Oil
½ cup                 Water

Instruction


  1. Soak Mung bean vermicelli noodles in lukewarm water for ½ hour or until soft and drain, and cut into 4 inches long. Set aside.
  2. Pound peppercorn, coriander roots and garlic in a mortar and pestle (chop coriander roots and garlic first before put in the mortar and pestle so that it’s easier to be broken in small pieces but not paste like yet)
    1. Lay fat pork and ginger over bottom.
  3. In a mixing bowl (see picture), combine shrimp, Mung bean vermicelli, mixer from 2., soy sauce, oyster sauce and sesame oil, and mix well. Set aside.
  4. In clay pot (see picture), lay fat pork over clay pot bottom and layer ginger slices on fat pork.
  5. Transfer the mixer from the mixing bowl to the clay pot and let shrimp stay at the bottom (see picture) and noodles on the top, before put on the heat pour (spread) ½ cup of water on noodles and cover with the lid.
    1. Mix in a bowl. 2. Transfer to clay pot.
  6. Bake on the stove burner over medium heat until steam coming out and continuing for another 2 -3 minutes or until shrimp is cooked. Stir in Chinese celery.
  7. Remove from heat and serve immediately.

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Grill Roast

Moo Daet Diao or Thai Style Pork Jerky

12:50 PM MC 0 Comments

Moo Daet Diao (literally, a day of sunshine pork) is Thai style pork jerky. We have two different kinds of pork and beef jerky in Thailand, the first one we can find in China town, on Yaowarach road, this one we don’t call Moo Daet Diao but it is called Moo Pen, means pork sheets, this Moo Pen is sweet jerky. Pork and beef jerky in China town, Bangkok has been selling for nearly hundred years and has been very popular. I remember when I was a child living in Southern Thailand, every Chinese New Year my young adult brother or sister who worked in Bangkok would come home and bring us pork jerky in the red bright colourful tins. Nowadays you can find pork and beef jerky from China town at the luxury shopping centers in Bangkok or other big cities and also it is one of the most popular souvenirs for the tourists who visit China town in Bangkok.

The other one, Moo Daet Diao, is normally found at Som Tum vendors or Issan style restaurants. Som Tum or Papaya salad is one of Issan or North-Eastern Thai food so it is understood that Moo Daet Diao is Issan or North-Eastern Thai food. North-Eastern of Thailand is a biggest part of the country and is a flat land, growing rice is main economic activity, and majority of population are farmers. This Moo Daet Diao is perfect food for the farmers base on the style of work in the field all day and tropical climate which is warm all round year so they need the food that will not go bad easily, and they use a few ingredients like fish sauce and salt as the preservatives and flavour.

And for restaurants and street vendors, they develop the simple Moo Daet Diao from upcountry to be more cities’ style with more flavour and taste by adding more kinds and differences of ingredients.





Ingredients

1 kg.              Pork lion, cut into long stripes about ½ inch x ½ inch thick
3 cloves         Garlic, chopped fine
2 tsps            Ground black pepper
3 tsps            Coriander seeds, roughly crushed
4 tbsps          Sugar or Honey
½ tbsp           Salt
2 tbsps          Soy sauce
3 tbsps          Oyster sauce
2 tbsps          Vegetable oil (add this oil if using roasting in oven method)
Vegetable oil for deep frying (deep-frying method)

Instruction


  1. Marinate pork with garlic, ground pepper, coriander seeds, sugar or honey, salt, soy sauce, oyster sauce and 2 tbsps oil (add oil in marinade if you bake it in oven) marinate over night in the fridge.
  2. Spread on a rack and dry in the sun for a few hours and deep fry in hot oil until nice brown colour. Remove from oil and drain on paper towels. OR
  3. Bake in oven at 70 °C/160 °F for 3 -4 hours or until cooked.
  4. Serve with steamed sticky rice.

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Stir-Fry

Pad Prik Khing with Squid

11:47 AM MC 0 Comments

Pad Prik Khing is one of popular Khao Khaeng dishes. Raan Khao Khaeng is a type of traditional Thai diner; the style of this diner is similar to cafeteria that all the food, it can be 20 – 30 different kinds of items are ready made and display for customers to choose and food will be served to you at the table.

Raan Khao Khaeng is one of food services that play a big part of city life; people who living in cities from low level labours to white collars rely on it as it is served as a breakfast, lunch and or dinner for many people. Every time when government increase the price of cooking gas (In Thailand, the price of cooking gas is controlled by government) and the prices of Khao Khaeng food will increase as well. Often the prices of food increase more than cooking gas by percentage because it’s easy to take an advantage of increasing the price of food each time by 5 baths rather than 1 or 2 bath base on the part that increased. The gas price increased last time was in February 2013 and the prices of Khao Khaeng food are still at 25 – 40 baths per dish. (Bath is, Thai currency, about 30 bath= 1 USD)  We use the prices of Khoa Khaeng measure the economy in a sense of everyday life of cost living so the inflation rate in Thailand is still pretty good as Khoa Khaeng food prices are not much different than many years before.

This recipe, I use curry paste from a can instead of making curry paste from scratch so that people who don’t have much time on cooking will be able to enjoy some Thai food. Some time I will post another recipe with homemade curry paste on this blog as well.

*** Prik Khing curry paste in a can is available at Asian grocery stores.



     
Level of spiciness - mild
For 2 – 3 servings

Ingredients

2                      Fresh squid tubes, about 300g.(or 2 skinless and boneless chicken breasts)
1 ½ cups          Snake beans, cut into 1 inch
2 tbsps             Prik Khing Chilli Jam or Prik Khing Curry Paste (114g./can)
5                      Kaffir lime leaves, chop into very thin stripes
2 cloves           Garlic, chopped fine
 2⁄3 tsp              Sugar
1 tsp                Fish sauce
2 tbsp              Vegetable oil
2 – 3tbsps       Water

Instruction

  1. Clean the squid and cut the squid tubes in half lengthways. Cut a criss-cross pattern on the inside of squid. Cut into 1 ¼ inch x 2 inch. Or if use chicken breasts, cut into ½ inch x 1 ¾ inch.
  2. Heat the steel wok over high heat with 1 tbsp oil and swirl to coat. Add squid or chicken and chopped garlic, and stir-fry for 2 minutes and add curry paste. Mix well.
  3. Stir in snake beans, sugar, fish sauce, the other tbsp of oil. Stir-fry for another 2-3 minutes during the process adds 1 -2 tbsp of water before remove from heat stir in kaffir lime leaves.
  4. Serve with steamed rice.

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