Tag Archives: Thai cookery

Thai Recipe: Stirfried Pork with Basil Leaf and Garlic

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STIRFRIED PORK WITH SPICY HOLY BASIL, CHILLIE AND GARLIC

Thai Name:  Phad Bai Grapow Muu Sap (literally: Stirfried Spicy Holy Basil with Minced Pork)

Minced Pork with Holy Basil & Chillie and Cucumber Garnish

You can see a video on how to make this dish on www.YouTube.com under the cheftummycooks page.  It features a discussion of the cooking technique and the unique Thai ingredients that give this dish its flavor and aroma.

INTRODUCTION

This is a favorite “anytime of the day” dish that gives a spicy punch. The original recipe calls for a paste made from spicy Thai bird’s eye chillies and tiny Thai garlic.  A unique type of basil known as”holy basil” or bai grapow is added at the end of the cooking process to give flavor, aroma and color. 

The key technique is to add the spicy basil at the end of the cooking process to retain its flavor, aroma and color. I learned the recipe from Mister Diim at the Sailomjoy Restaurant in Chiang Mai.  I ate it over 45 times ( I was attending Thai language school near the restaurant and this dish helped fortify me for my daily inquisition by the stern Professor Malee at the language )!

A NOTE ABOUT INGREDIENTS

Thai food depends unique ingredients used to give this type of traditional dish a spicy and aromatic note – in this case it is the Thai bird’s eye chillies, the tiny Thai garlic and the holy basil.  If these are not available in your area, you can use other types of spicy chillies, the larger Western garlic and sweet basil – the dish still tastes great.

Holy Basil has great flavor and aroma - notice the serrated edges & matte / dull color

Metric System Users:  Some Thai recipes use small quantities of ingredients that are difficult to measure if the cook doesn’t have an accurate measuring scale in the kitchen. So, we use measuring spoons to approximate the quantity of ingredients in the recipe.  Remember that 1 Imperial teaspoon is the same as the amount in a 5 ml measuring spoon and 1 Imperial tablespoon is the same amount in a 15 ml measuring spoon.  Thai cooking should be a balance between the spicy, salty, sweet and sour flavors in the ingredients.  This type of volume (versus weight in grams or ounces) measuring gives the cook in a home kitchen enough accuracy in measuring the ingredients (especially since most home cooks do not own a digital scale with the precision to measure small gram units).  Most cooks will change these traditional recipes to suit their own taste as they experiment and create Thai food at home.

 INGREDIENTS

Ingredients Setup for the dish using the Holy Basil
  • 1.5 cups / 400 grams minced pork.  I recommend a mixture of 20% fat with 80% meat – the fat helps convey the flavor of the pork.  Some butchers or stores call this ratio for fat to meat “20% lean”. 
  • 2 tablespoons / 30 ml garlic, roughly chopped or pounded in a mortar
  • 1 tablespoon chillie / 15 ml (preferably the small but potent bird’s eye chillie), stem removed and pounded in a mortar - I used three medium bird’s eye chillies
  • 1 cup holy basil leaves (these have a serrated edge and a matte finish so look different than the sweet basil used in Western cooking that has a smooth leaf edge and shiny leaf)  
  • 2 tablespoons  / 30 ml water or chicken stock
  • 1 tablespoon / 15 ml fish sauce
  • 2 tablespoon / 30 ml oyster sauce
  • 2 tablespoons / 30 ml cooking oil
  • 1 teaspoon / 5 ml of white cane sugar (optional if the chillie heat is excessive to your taste, the addition of sugar will lessen the spice)

A Note to the Chef About Garlic

Most Thai chefs prefer to use the small garlic cloves called “Thai garlic” since the tiny, gossamer peel imparts a lovely aroma to the dish. If you do not have access to these small garlic cloves, the larger “Chinese” or “European” garlic can be used.  Either way, addition of some of the peel from the garlic is preferred to impart aroma.  You can alert your guests that the inclusion of the peel in the cooked dish is traditional; your guests can pick out the peel or deftly move the peel to the side of their plate if they don’t want to chomp on it.

Tiny Thai garlic on the left and larger Western garlic on the right

Thai chefs will pound the small “Thai” garlic and chillies in a mortar until they are roughly ground together, then scrape out the mixture and add it to the hot oil in the wok. 

EQUIPMENT

  • measuring cup for the pork and basil leaves
  • measuring spoons for the oyster sauce, water / chicken stock and fish sauce
  • mortar & pestle for pounding the chillies and garlic
  • spoon for scaping the inside of the mortar
  • wok
  • ladle for stirfrying
  • serving bowl
  • spoon and fork for eating

COOKING METHOD: STEP BY STEP

  • Smash the chillies and the garlic in a mortar to make a rough paste.  The goal is to have the spice in the seeds of the chillie evenly dispersed in the final dish.  As you pound, you can use a spoon to scrape the bits of chillie and garlic into the center and continue to pound until you get a rough paste.
  • If you do not have a mortar, you could chop the chillies and garlic and mix together before cooking.  In the video I made posted on www.Youtube.com, I did not have a mortar in the kitchen where I was filming.  So, I put the chillies and garlic in a bag and whacked them with a hammer.  The result is the same – when we face obstacles in the kitchen we must adapt and overcome. 
  • Turn on the heat under a wok to medium high and let the pan heat for about 30 seconds.
  • Add the vegetable oil and swirl in the wok to coat the inside.  Let the oil warm up about 30 seconds.
  • Add the smashed garlic and chillie to the hot wok and stirfry for 30 seconds until the garlic starts to brown slightly.
  • Add the pork and mix the pork and garlic & chillie in the pan to evenly distribute the garlic and chillie through the pork.  Continue stirfrying, making sure to frequently flip the pork so it all comes in contact with the hot wok surface. Cook the pork until it turns from pink to a uniform white color.  Depending on your stove and the thickness of your wok, this may take 3 to 5 minutes. 
  • When the pork is nearly cooked, add the oyster sauce, fish sauce and water/chicken stock and stirfry until well mixed and the pork is cooked all the way through. 
  • Turn off the heat under the pan, dump in the holy basil leaves and stir well to combine. Adding the basil leaf at the end will wilt the leaves and help them retain their color, flavor and aroma.
  • Once you are satisfied that the pork is cooked, taste to determine if the mixture is a balance of spicy from the chillies and holy basil, sweet from the oyster sauce and salty from the fish sauce and oyster sauce. You can add a little sugar to temper the chillie heat, to your taste.

Variation:  One traditional presentation is to add a fried egg on the side. 

Variation:  Some chefs use a prepared, bottled Mushroom sauce instead oyster sauce to impart a savory flavor.

The dish is served with steamed jasmine rice. 

Serves two persons as part of a multi-dish Thai meal

Thai Recipe: Northern Thai Pork & Tomato Dipping Sauce – Naam Prik Ong

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Northern Thai Pork & Tomato Dipping Sauce ready to eat

This Northern Thai style pork and tomato dipping sauce is a popular dish that is served with fresh sliced vegetables such as cucumbers, green beans and cabbage.  It is often served with steamed sticky rice but can also be served on a sliced baguette “bruschetta” style or even on pasta as a sort of distant Thai culinary cousin to Bolognese sauce - sort of “East Meets West” for dinner.  I learned this recipe in Chiang Mai from my buddy “Chef Jeep” when I should have been doing my Thai language school homework.

I recorded an instructional video on www.youtube.com under the cheftummycooks page for one version of this recipe – please take a look.

The Thai name is “Naam Phrik Ong” or น้ำพริกอ่อง

Ingredients for the dish including vegetables to help you eat it

INGREDIENTS FOR THE DIPPING SAUCE

  • Pork, minced, 14 ounces / 400 grams or about 2 cups
  • Tomato, 3 to 4 large, seeds removed and the tomato flesh chopped into small pieces, about 12 ounces / 350 grams or 2 packed cups
  • Garlic, minced, about 5 cloves, or about 2 tablespoons / enough to fill a 30 ml measuring spoon
  • Shallot or red onion, minced, about 2 tablespoons  / enough to fill a 30 ml measuring spoon
  • Vegetable oil, 3 tablespoons / 45 ml
  • Red chillie paste, 1 tablespoon or enough to fill a 15 ml measuring spoon
  • Water, 4 tablespoons / 60 ml
  • Fish sauce, 2 tablespoons / 30 ml
  • White cane sugar, 1 teaspoon / enough to fill a 5 ml measuring spoon
  • Coriander, one sprig to add as a garnish (optional but it adds a little color contrast to the red tomatoes)

INGREDIENTS FOR THE SIDE VEGETABLES

  • one large cucumber, skin removed and cut into diagonal slices (a diagonal slice helps give more surface area for scooping up the food).
  • green beans, broken into 3 inch / 8 cm pieces

You can slice cucumbers, green beans, cabbage or lettuce to scoop the dipping sauce into your mouth.  The vegetables help cool the spice from the red chillie paste, as does serving this dish with sticky rice.  This dish is also served with sticky rice and pork cracklings. 

As you can see from the final dish display photo in this recipe and the ingredients photo, I took the skin off a cucumber and used a fun Thai serrated cutter to make a cucumber slice for using as vessel for eating the finished dish.  I also used some fresh green beans – you could try lettuce leaves or cabbage as well.

METHOD

Step 1:  Heat the vegetable oil in a wok or saucepan over low to medium heat and swirl the oil in the pan to coat the inside of the pan.  Add the minced garlic and shallots and saute until the shallots and garlic are softened, about 1 minute.

Step 2:  Add the red chillie paste and saute it with the shallots and garlic until the aroma is released, about 15 seconds.  Don’t let the chillie paste or shallots and garlic burn – you can always turn down the heat or just remove the cooking pan from the heat if the pan gets too hot.  Since every stove and pan are different, be watchful to not let the ingredients get too hot.

Step 3:  Add the minced pork to the cooking pan and stir it well with the chillie paste, shallots and garlic.  Add the water and fish sauce to help disperse the other ingredients and keep pressing and flipping the ingredients in the pan so they cook evenly for about a minute. 

Step 4:  Add the tomatoes and sugar and continue stirring until the pork cooks through and the tomatoes become soft.  Depending on the thickness of your pan and the heat on your stove, this will take five to seven minutes. 

Step 5: Give the dish a taste;  if it is too spicy, you can add more sugar to reduce the spice in the dish.

Step 6:  Once you are satisfied that the pork is fully cooked, remove from the heat and place into a bowl for serving.  Add some coriander leaves as a garnish if you like.

You can also place on the table a bowl with the cucumber slices and other vegetables.  Thai cooks often add some ice to the bowl with the vegetables to keep them crisp and cool.

THAI COOKING TOOLS

Inexpensive Thai kitchen tools for slicing vegetables

These inexpensive kitchen tools can give your dishes a Thai touch.  Thai cooking supply stores offer a number of cooking tools for making decorative shapes and designs for Thai food.  The photo shows a blue peeler that makes cute serrated edges when peeling a cucumber and the red handled cutter makes ridged slices – a fun thing to bring home from a trip to Thailand.  These items are also available for home delivery from the various Thai food import firms.

EAST MEETS WEST FOR DINNER

East meets West for dinner - the Thai dipping sauce on pasta

This dish vaguely resembles Italian Bolognese sauce in that meat is cooked with tomatoes.  True Bolognese sauce uses veal or pork with tomatoes or tomato paste and is served on pasta.  So I decided to boil some pasta until it was al dente and it tasted pretty good, although much more spicy than the traditional Italian Bolognese!

Thai Recipe: Stirfried Shrimp with Thai “Pesto” – Coriander, Peppercorns and Garlic Paste

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Thai Shrimp in Coriander, Garlic & Peppercorns "Pesto"

Thai Name:  Kung Gratiem Phrik Thai Sot

INTRODUCTION

The chillie has become an icon of Thai cooking but the fruit is not native to Thailand.  Food historians chart the journey of the chillie from the Americas to Asia by Portuguese or Spanish explorers in the 1600′s.

Before the arrival of the chillie, Thais were living on rice, fish, vegetables and fruit – a nutricious but somewhat bland diet.  So, they invented a paste to enliven their food.  One such paste is a combination of peppercorns, coriander and garlic pounded in a mortar.  This resembles a Thai version of the traditional Italian “pesto” paste, except Thai cooks don’t use cheese in their cooking, but I like the way it sounds anyways.

Despite the rise in popularity and availability of chillies, this paste is still used but is not often seen in Thai restaurants outside of Thailand. 

For this recipe, I substituted dried white peppercorns instead of the fresh green peppercorns that are commonly available in Thailand.  Both white and green peppercorns give the paste a spicy taste; since fresh green peppercorns are sometimes not available, the white peppercorns are a great substitute.  Green peppercorns that are preserved in brine make this dish sour; black peppercorns make the paste look like it has little ants in it, so the white peppercorns are preferred if you cannot find fresh green peppercorns.

INGREDIENTS

  • vegetable oil, 2 tablespoons / 30 ml
  • peppercorns, white dried peppercorns, 20 corns, approximately 1/2 teaspoon
  • garlic, 1 tablespoon / enough to fill a 15 ml measuring spoon
  • coriander / cilantro. 1 cup loosely packed (see note below on coriander / cilantro)
  • fish sauce, 1 tablespoon / 15 ml
  • shrimp, ten (see note on shrimp preparation below)

CORIANDER OR CILANTRO – A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME

Coriander and cilantro are the same plant – just a different name but I include both as the name can vary depending on the country where it is sold.  The highest concentration of flavor in the plant is in the root and stems, not the leaves. 

In Thailand, the plant is sold with the roots on, while in other countries the roots are trimmed off.  If you can get coriander with the roots on, you are blessed.  Rinse off any dirt, and scrape off the outer brown layer and the small tendrils – then you will have concentrated coriander flavor for the paste.  If coriander is sold without the roots, you can use the lower stem to give flavor to the dish.

SHRIMP PREPARATION

  • shrimp, ten medium in size, head and scales removed, inner veins removed and the spiky thorn removed from the the tail.  You can retain the tail of the shrimp in case your guests want to eat the shrimp with their hands.  Alternatively, you can remove the tail and serve the pesto covered shimp using a toothpick or on a bed of steamed jasmine rice.

    Remove the head, shell, guts and the thorn from the tail as shown above

PASTE PREPARATION

  1. Place the peppercorns in the bottom of a mortar.  Use the pestle to firmly crush the peppercorns until they are partly cracked – if you pound with too much vigor, the peppercorns will fly out of the mortar and tears will fall like rain from your eyes.
  2. Add the garlic and press into the bottom of the mortar – again, start with pressing into the garlic with the pestle so the garlic gets crushed and doesn’t leap out of the mortar.  Once the garlic is crushed, then begin to pound so the garlic and peppercorns become a uniform paste – this takes about a minute.
  3. Add the coriander / cilantro leaves, stems and roots to the mortar and slowly press the pestle into the mortar to crush the contents.  Once you are satisfied that the coriander will not escape, begin the process of pounding the stiff coriander into the peppercorn and garlic.  You want to achieve a smooth paste, so keep pounding the coriander and pause occasionally to scrape the sides of the mortar with a spoon.  The result you want is a smooth paste, so keep pounding until the coriander stems and leaves blend into the peppercorns and garlic. The result is a vibrant green paste. 
  4. Heat a wok over medium heat for 30 seconds.  Add the vegetable oil and swirl it in the wok.  Add the paste and mix it with the oil so the paste breaks apart.  We want the paste to evenly coat the shrimp. 
  5. Add the shrimp to the wok and mix in with the paste and oil.  Turn the shrimp often in the paste in paste and oil, making sure each part of the shrimp touches the hot pan.
  6. The shrimp should cook until they are a uniform white/pink color.  You can check that the shrimp are done by artfully cutting into the center of a shrimp to check the color.
  7. Once the shrimp are cooked, turn off the heat in the pan and add the fish sauce.  Mix the shrimp and fish sauce and then arrange the shrimp on a serving plate. 

Thai Recipe: Thai Omelet of Joy – Crispy Goodness and Easy to Make

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Thai omelet with coriander garnish and The Sauce of Life on the side

How often has this happened to you – you get home from work and there is nothing to eat.  Will you suffer the indignity of instant noodles, again?  Order food for delivery and moan with hunger until it arrives? 

I teach cooking classes and sometimes have time to eat and sometimes I don’t.  So I arrived home the other day and opened the refrigerator to find two eggs, some cooked cold rice, a lime and lots of air.  Did I despair?  No.

I made a Thai omelet – it took only five minutes and I ate it with the rice and the blessed naam bplaa prik Sauce of Life (recipe in this blog).  All was well with the world,  A smile returned to my face.  I thought happy thoughts.  I showered and went to bed satisfied.  Life was good.

This traditional Thai omelet is crispy on the sides and light in the middle.  It is not the soft all over European style omelet.  The loads of oil and high heat make the omelet have more texture and the accompanying sauce make is a simple meal to eat with rice, or as a side dish as part of a multi-course Thai meal.

INGREDIENTS

  • 2 eggs
  • fish sauce, 1 teaspoon / 5 ml
  • lime juice, 1 teaspoon / 5 ml
  • rice flour, 1 tablespoon / 15 ml (corn starch or potato starch work as well)
  • vegetable oil, 3/4 cup / 200 ml (do not use olive oil – it smokes and burns easily and tastes nasty when heated over high heat)
  • steamed Thai jasmine rice on a plate ready to serve as a canvas for the omelet
  • sauce:  see the recipe in this blog for the quintessential Thai Sauce of Life made of fish sauce, lime juice, finely chopped chillies and sugar to pour over the cooked omelet
  • coriander leaf for garnish (optional but it makes the dish look pretty)

All the ingredients you need for a quick and delicious Thai style omelet

 EQUIPMENT

  • wok or 10 inch saucepan
  • ladle or slotted spoon (helps the oil drain off the cooked omelet)
  • mixing bowl – I used one nine inches across and three inches deep so I could really whisk the corn flour into solution with the eggs without it slopping over the sides (use a bowl approximately 23 cm wide and 8 cm deep)
  • whisk (helps get the rice flour evenly mixed into the eggs)
  • measuring cup for the oil
  • measuring spoons for the fish sauce, lime juice and rice flour
  • plate for the rice
  • spoon to eat the food
  • an apron in case any oil splatters on you

METHOD

  1. Place your cooked rice on a plate.
  2. Crack two fresh eggs into the mixing bowl. Crack the eggs on flat surface and then break into the bowl – if there are any contaminants on the outside of the egg, this trick lessens the chance they will mix in with the egg white and yolk. 
  3. Add the fish sauce and lime juice.
  4. Whisk the eggs, fish sauce and lime juice until they are well mixed.
  5. Sprinkle the rice flour over the liquid contents in the bowl and whisk with vigor until the dry rice flour is absorbed – keep on doing this to eliminate any lumps of dried rice flour as these lumps will taste dry and chalky on your tongue.
  6. Heat the wok over high heat for 1 minute.
  7. Add the oil and let the oil heat until it is smoking.  The oil must be very hot so the omelet puffs up, so be patient.  In my wok it took two minutes for the oil to heat until it was smoking – your stove and wok may produce a different result, so seeing the smoke is a better measure than time.
  8. Once the oil is smoking, pour the egg mixture into the hot oil in the center of the wok.  It will immediately start to sizzle. 
  9. Wait 25 seconds as the omelet cooks in the oil.
  10. Deftly flip the omelet with a spatula or slotted spoon and wait another 25 seconds. 
  11. Remove the omelet from the oil and give it a shake to help any excess oil drip back into the wok or saucepan.
  12. Place the cooked omelet on top of the jasmine rice and serve with some spoons of the Sauce of Life (fish sauce mixed with lime juice, finely chopped chillies and sugar – the recipe for this is in this Blog).

Note:  You can drain and strain the excess oil out of the wok and reserve for use in frying something else.

Thai Recipe: The Sauce of Life – Thai Fish Sauce, Chillie, Lime Juice and Sugar Sauce You Cannot Live Without

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The Sauce of Life - Fish Sauce, Fresh Chillies, Lime Juice and Sugar

A recent visitor to Thailand felt victory and acceptance at a local eatery when he ordered a traditional Thai omelet and asked the server for น้ำปลาพริก or “naam bplaa prik” sauce that makes life worth living and is a common condiment on Thai restaurants.  Here, “naam bplaa” means fish sauce and “prik” is chillies. While a Western restaurant might have salt and pepper shakers on the table so diners can add some flavor to their food, Thais use a version of this fish sauce and chillie combination to offer the chance to customize food.   

The restaurant makes this sauce fresh everyday and had not yet placed it on the table.  So the cook took the 30 seconds it takes to combine the ingredients and gave it to the eater with a smile and the welcome “gin gaeng” or colloquial Thai for “You know how to eat our food” – a complimentary phrase that all real Thai foodies crave.

In its simplest form, the sauce is fish sauce combined with finely chopped Thai bird’s eye chillies. 

There are other variations on this simple sauce, too. So what is this important and life sustaining sauce?  It is a simple combination of salty fish sauce, tangy lime juice, fiery finely chopped chillies and sweet white sugar – the fantastic four flavors that a diner can add to a dish to give it the balance and power it might need.  

My cooking mentor and employer “Mister Aow” has his own version.  As his time is limited, when we have the occasion to dine together, I make sure this sauce is on the table according to his formula.   My epicurean sister Susan visited me in Thailand and ate with Mister Aow and I.  After she discovered the simple beauty of this sauce, she now makes it at home in America.  I’m told she sends it to my nephew who is away from home studying at university.  I hope he appreciates his mothers love, and this sauce!

Some of the many brands of Thai fish sauce

There are a dozen brands of Thai fish sauce for sale in Thailand – the most popular brands exported are TIPAROS and SQUID BRAND.  I use the TIPAROS brand – high quality and has 4.5% sugar added that helps temper the salty flavor. 

TUMMY TIP:  When buying fish sauce, I recommend you purchase it in 60 ml bottles or 300 ml bottles.  Fish sauce can go stale and lose its flavor and aroma over time.  One sign that fish sauce has gone stale is the color of the fish sauce changes from a tea color to the color of black coffee.  So, buy smaller quantities and use the bottle, the replace rather than trying to economize and buy a large 1 liter bottle and have the chance that it goes stale before your next Thai cooking adventure in your home kitchen. 

The bottle on the left has gone stale but the one on the right is prime

I like to use this sauce to enliven omelets or add a kick to other dishes such as steamed fish or just on top of steamed jasmine rice.

INGREDIENTS

  • Fish sauce – 2 tablespoons / 30 ml
  • Lime juice – 2 tablespoons / 30 ml
  • Chillies – use Thai bird’s eye chillies, stems removed and finely chopped, 2 teaspoons / enough to fill a 10 ml measuring spoon
  • White sugar - 1 teaspoon / enough to fill a 5 ml measuring spoon

EQUIPMENT

  • measuring spoons
  • cutting board to cut the chillies
  • bowl for serving the sauce
  • spoon for stirring the sauce so the sugar goes into solution with the fish sauce and lime juice – you can use the same spoon for serving the sauce

METHOD

  1. Cut off the stem of the Thai bird’s eye chillies and slice the chillies finely into rings.
  2. Add the chillies to the serving bowl.
  3. Measure in the lime juice and fish sauce.
  4. Add the sugar and stir until it is dissolved.
  5. Taste and adjust for your own palate – if it is too spicy, add more sugar.

This Sauce of Life makes a plain omelet come alive and generally makes life worth living.

If you have sauce left over, you can store it in an airtight glass container in the refrigerator for a day or so, but it tastes best when freshly made.

A typical tabletop jar of the Sauce of Life - I hope there is enough for the next diner

Thai Recipe: Northeastern Thai Style Steak with Spicy & Tangy Dipping Sauce

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Here is a pretty way to display the beautiful beef and the spicy sauce

“CRYING TIGER” BEEF STEAK WITH THAI DIPPING SAUCE

Thai Name:  เสือร้องให้

Thai Name:  Seua Rong High where Seua is “tiger” and Rong High is “crying”

INTRODUCTION

This dish is a simple way to use a spicy, salty and crunchy dipping sauce to make your steak Thai style.  We are going to grill a steak and prepare a dipping sauce that combines fish sauce for a salty flavor, lime juice to make the sauce tangy, chillie flakes for a spicy note, some fresh coriander / cilantro and spring onion plus toasted and powdered rice to give it a crunchy texture.

HOW THIS DISHES GETS ITS UNUSUAL NAME

This grilled  beef dish is often called “seua rong high” or “crying tiger”.  According to legend, it is named after the sound of the fat dripping from the steak onto the coals of the grill that sounds like a tiger’s cry. Alternatively, some food historians say the tiger in the forest outside a village is crying because he smells meat cooking and wants to be invited to dinner.  No matter what the origins of the name, this dish will have your quests crying for more.  I learned this dish in Northeastern Thailand, where eaters like their dipping sauces spicy hot.

Metric System Users:  Some Thai recipes use small quantities of ingredients that are difficult to measure if the cook doesn’t have an accurate measuring scale in the kitchen. So, we use measuring spoons to approximate the quantity of ingredients in the recipe.  Remember that 1 Imperial teaspoon is the same as the amount in a 5 ml measuring spoon and 1 Imperial tablespoon is the same amount in a 15 ml measuring spoon.  Thai cooking should be a balance between the spicy, salty, sweet and sour flavors in the ingredients.  This type of volume measuring (versus weight in grams or ounces) gives the cook in a home kitchen enough accuracy in measuring the ingredients.  Most cooks will change these traditional recipes to suit their own taste as they experiment and create Thai food at home.

 INGREDIENTS

Beef steak, 1 pound or 450 grams

Let the meat reach room temperature before you grill it – this will help the steak cook evenly. 

There is no reason to season the steak with salt or pepper – the seasoning will come from the sauce we make.

Grill the steak in a hot pan with a little cooking oil to keep it from sticking to the pan, or over hot coals, to your desired level of doneness – I prefer it rare to medium rare so the steak is juicy.  After grilling, let the steak rest for five minutes without cutting into the steak so the juices remain inside the meat – if you slice the steak just after cooking, the juices will run out of the steak and it will be too dry.

Dipping Sauce:

The dipping sauce combines lime juice and fish sauce, fresh herbs and a toasted and ground rice powder to make a salty, tangy and crunchy topping.  You can think of the toasted rice topping as like a bread crouton used in Western salads to make the salad crunchy. 

THERE IS NO “ONE SIZE FITS ALL” IN THAI COOKING

You may adjust the seasonings in the sauce to suit your own palate – adding more lime juice to make it tangier, adding more or less chillie powder according to your enthusiasm for spice or by adding a little white cane sugar to temper the heat from the chillies.  The method and technique in this recipe will produce the correct result – then you can customize the dish to suit your own palate.

INGREDIENTS FOR THE DIPPING SAUCE

  • 2 tablespoons / 30 ml equivalent measure of Thai sticky / glutinous rice (as a substitute you could use the Italian riso that is used in making risotto – try Italian arborio or carnaroli rice).  These types of rice have a high starch content and so when toasted give lots of flavor and aroma.  You can also use other types of rice in a pinch.
  • 1 tablespoon / 15 ml measuring spoon Thai chillie powder (not to be substituted with mild chillie pepper found in Western supermarkets)
  • 1 tablespoon / 15 ml measuring spoon coriander / cilantro leaf
  • 1 tablespoon / 15 ml measuring spoon chopped spring onion (scallion/green onion)
  • 3 tablespoons / 45 ml fish sauce
  • 5 tablespoons / 60 ml lime juice

SIDE VEGETABLES FOR THE PLATE

  • 1 medium cucumber, peeled and sliced into 1/4 inch / 0.75 cm slices

Step 1:   Toasting the raw rice grains requires no oil in the pan.  Place a wok or frying pan over medium heat and add the dry rice.  Stir in the pan until the rice grains are toasted to a light brown color.  Remove from the heat and place the toasted rice grains in a mortar. Grind the toasted rice grains until they are a coarse grind – I prefer the rice to have a crunchy texture, so do not grind into a fine powder.

Step 2:  In a serving bowl, mix the fish sauce, lime juice, spring onion, coriander / cilantro and chillie powder together and stir.  Sprinkle the toasted and ground rice on top of the sauce.

Step 3:  Slice the steak into small strips (about 2 inches / 5 cm long and 1/2 inch / 1.5 cm wide) and place on the side of a plate in an artful pattern as seen in the photo above. 

Step 4: Array the cucumber slices on the other side of the plate and place the small bowl of sauce in the middle of the plate.

Eat your creation by dipping the beef slices into the sauce and eat the cucumber slices to cool your mouth. 

This dish is customarily served with steamed Thai sticky rice or you can serve Thai jasmine rice on the side.

Thai Recipe: Massaman Curry with Chicken, Potatoes & Onion

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The Spoon Says Eat Me! Massaman with Chicken, Onions, Potatoes and Coconut Milk

The Spoon Says Eat Me! Massaman with Chicken, Onions, Potatoes and Coconut Milk

 

This traditional Southern Thai dish is easy to make.  Once you have mastered the technique, you can customize the dish for your own preference for spicy, salty, sweet and sour/tangy flavors.     

 A video on how to make this dish can be seen on www.YouTube.com under the cheftummycooks page.

Thai Name:  Kaeng Massaman Kai (literally “Muslim style Chilli Paste with Chicken”)

INTRODUCTION

 A short history and language lesson: This dish is commonly called “Massaman curry” where Massaman notes the Indian or Persian origins of the dish made by people of the Muslim faith.  But there is no curry leaf or curry powder in the Massaman chilli paste itself.  The name “curry” comes from the word “kari” in Tamil language in India, where it means “sauce”. This Indian word became incorporated into the English language to mean food cooked in a flavorful paste of fresh and dried ingredients.  In Thai cooking these pastes are called “kaeng” where fresh and dried ingredients are pounded into a paste; but not all Thai pastes contain the curry leaf or curry powder. That is why I call the Thai pastes “pounded chilli pastes” instead of the common word “curry”.   

  • This sweet and spicy southernThailand dish shows it’s Indian and Persian origins with the use of fresh ingredients such as potatoes, onions, plus a paste made from dried chillies and dried spices such as coriander seed, cloves, cinnamon as well as other dried spices, plus pounded shallots, garlic, galangal and other fresh ingredients in the paste.  Many of theThailand’s Muslims live in Southern Thailandand this dish is widely cooked in the South with chicken or beef.
  • If you like the taste of curry powder, you can add curry powder at the end of the cooking process to help give this perfumed dish its characteristic Southern Thai taste. 
  • To allow the rich flavor of the spices to marry with the chicken and potato, this dish can be cooked ahead of time and served reheated the next day.
  • Metric System Users:  Some Thai recipes use small quantities of ingredients that are difficult to measure if the cook doesn’t have an accurate measuring scale in the kitchen. So, we use measuring spoons to approximate the quantity  of ingredients in the recipe.  Remember that 1 Imperial teaspoon is the same as the amount in a 5 ml measuring spoon and 1 Imperial tablespoon is the same amount in a 15 ml measuring spoon.  Thai cooking should be a balance between the spicy, salty, sweet and sour flavors in the ingredients.  This type of volume (versus weight in grams or ounces) measuring gives the cook in a home kitchen enough accuracy in measuring the ingredients.  Most cooks will change these traditional recipes to suit their own taste as they experiment and create Thai food at home.

 INGREDIENTS

  • 2 tablespoons / 30 ml vegetable oil (soybean oil, canola oil or palm oil all work well)
  • 1 cup potato (enough to fill a 250 ml measuring cup), peeled and cut into 1 inch / 2.5 cm pieces, cooked until nearly soft in a pan of water, about ten minutes, then drain off the water
  • 1/2 cup onion (enough to fill a 125 ml measuring cup), cut into 1 inch / 2.5 cm pieces
  • 1 – 2 tablespoons / 15 ml – 30 ml Massaman chilli paste, to taste
  • 2 tablespoons / 30 ml tamarind juice (see Tummy Tip below)
  • 1 tablespoon / 5 ml palm sugar (you can substitute cane/castor sugar)
  • 2.5 cups / 625 ml coconut milk
  • 1 tablespoon / 15 ml fish sauce
  • 2 tablespoons (enough to fill 30 ml in a measuring spoon) cashew nuts or peanuts, unsalted and dry roasted over low heat in a dry pan until fragrant, about one minute (optional)
  • 1 tablespoon / 15 ml curry powder (optional)
  • 1 tablespoon (enough to fill a 15 ml measuring spoon) coriander/cilantro leaves

METHOD STEP BY STEP

Making the Massaman

  • We cook the potatoes in advance to make them soft; if you put large chunks of raw potato in with the uncooked chicken, the chicken will be over cooked by the time the potatoes are soft enough to eat.  So take the skin off the potato as is suggested in the Ingredients section above and cut into pieces.  Cook in a pan of boiling water until you can pierce the potato with a fork. Don’t over cook the potatoes – fork tender (al dente as the Italians say) is enough to make them softer, but still retain their shape and a little bite or resistance to the teeth when they later cook with the chicken and coconut milk.
  • Place a wok or saucepan on the stove over low-medium heat and let it warm for 30 seconds.  Put the vegetable oil in the heated pan.  After the oil has heated about 10 seconds, add the Massaman chilli paste.  Stir fry the paste in the oil until fragrant, about 30 seconds.  If your pan has gotten too hot where the paste starts to burn, lift it off the stove so the chilli paste doesn’t burn and make the whole dish bitter instead of fragrant. 
  • Add the chicken pieces and the onion pieces to the wok.  Stirfry the chicken, onions and Massaman chilli paste, turning the chicken pieces so they are coated with the curry paste.  Stir fry about 1 -2 minutes until the chicken is coated well with the curry paste and the outside of the chicken has cooked.  This will help seal in the juice inside the chicken pieces so the pieces remain tender.
  • Add the potatoes and the coconut milk to the wok. Continue cooking over the low heat for 5 minutes, occasionally stirring the chicken, potatoes and onions. Even though the cooking pan is over low heat, the coconut milk will start to boil lightly.  We cook this dish over low heat so the chicken remains tender and doesn’t get dried out and tough.  After five minutes, cut into the chicken pieces to see if they are cooked through; the chicken should be a uniform color all the way through.  Depending on the heat under your cooking pan and the thickness of the pan you may have to cook the chicken pieces longer than five minutes.  After you are satisfied that the pieces of chicken are fully cooked, turn off the heat under the pan.
  • You can customize the dish for your own preference for adding a tangier taste with the tamarind juice, a saltier taste with the fish sauce and a sweeter taste with palm sugar.  Remember it is easier to add than subtract these flavors, so add a little and taste the dish.  Add these ingredients to your own taste. Now taste the dish to see if it pleases your own preference. You can adjust the dish by adding small portions of the tamarind juice, fish sauce or palm sugar until you achieve the balance your prefer. Every cooks’ palate is different so you must rely on your own tongue and preference to customize the dish to your own taste. 
  • The Massaman should be a balance between spicy from the chilli paste, sweet from coconut milk and palm sugar, sour/tangy from the tamarind water and salty from the fish sauce.
  • Once you are satisfied you have achieved this balanced flavor, place the Massaman in a serving bowl.
  • Sprinkle the curry powder on top of the cooked Massaman, if you like that taste.
  • Sprinkle the toasted nuts on top of the Massaman, if using.
  • Add the coriander leaf to the top of the serving bowl to add a little green color.

 

Here is the glory of Massaman topped with peanuts and a little coriander

TUMMY TIP:  Tamarind seedpods are sold in specialty Thai and Asian ingredient stores.  The seeds pods are covered with a tangy date like pulp.   In a bowl, for each ¼ cup (enough to fill about 60 ml) of tamaring seeds and pulp, add ½ cup / 120 ml of warm water.  Soak for 10 minutes and stir occasionally to separate the tamarind pulp from the seeds.  Strain the tamarind liquid from the seeds by pressing the pulp and seeds with a spoon through a strainer.  This strained tamarind water stays fresh for only about a day, so make it as you need it.  You can freeze the tamarind water, but it will lose some the flavor and aroma as it sits in the freezer.

Tummy Thai Travel Tales: Flying Spinach Team Tryouts in Phitsanulok Thailand

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Catching the elusive flying spinach takes the correct gear

In the last post, I shared a recipe for stirfried Thai spinach.  Here is an exerpt from the Thai travel and food book I wrote about learning to catch the airborne version of Thai spinach.  Even with the correct gear, it is harder than it looks.

Incoming! – Flying Vegetables Fly By My Head In Phitsanulok

The phak bung stirfried vegetable winged past my ear and was expertly caught by the adept waiter to my rear. Perhaps I should tell you why vegetables were being hurled at me.  But first, let’s discuss why vegetables can fly.

My earnest attempt to make the flying spinach catching team in Phitsanulok

Phak bung is a hardy green hollow-stemmed vegetable with slender and tender leaves that grows widely inThailand, especially by bodies of still water. It is gathered for cooking as a quick vegetable stirfry, stays crisp after cooking and is packed with vitamin A, calcium, and iron (but not so much iron compared to spinach that you feel like you have chewed on aluminum foil when it is eaten). Names for this common vegetable include the more glamorous and attractive name of morning glory (in the way a Hollywood starlet might change her name to something more alluring), but it is also called water convolvulus or swamp cabbage.

The green is combined in a wok with hot cooking oil, mashed garlic, crushed chillies, and black bean sauce or yellow bean sauce and is quickly stirfried. As cooking oil drips over the edge of the wok, spectacular flames can erupt, giving the dish a smoky flavor. Some chefs tilt the edge of the wok to induce the conflagration, adding to the taste and spectacle of the dish. This flaming version is called phak bung fai daeng or literally “red fire flaming water spinach.”

To further make the stirfry an exciting eating experience, some Thai chefs have invented a new variation―phak bung lawy faa or “sky floating water spinach” where the chef flings the cooked greens through the air in a practiced arc and an agile waiter catches them on a plate. The aeration is thought to give the stirfry an added flavor.

We had heard that tryouts for the flying vegetable caching team were held every night in Phitsanulok, so we motored to the night market and parked by a riverside restaurant. At the side of the restaurant near the open-air cooking station was an aged, rusted, brick red delivery van with a set of steps leading to a platform on top.

I figured having vegetables flung at me was a logical continuation of the ‘Fun with Food” theme of the trip which had already included dodging durians, wrestling with dancing shrimp in Chiang Mai, and later chasing chickens in Isaan.

I resolutely stepped up to the chef and asked to participate in the sport. To get in the swing of things, those trying out for the phak bung catching team could don a Nutty Tourist ensemble of a red rubber apron, which I accessorized with a red hula skirt and a headband into which a waiter stuck two long eggplants as Viking horns. I declined the rubber flesh-colored fake breasts, feeling this added bit of equipment might constrict my catching arm. I climbed the steps to the top of the van and did a few light stretching exercises.

The chef set a large blackened wok over a high gas flame and added vegetable oil. After the oil had begun to smoke slightly in the pan, handfuls of the green vegetable were tossed into the wok with sliced chillies, mashed garlic cloves and black bean sauce and quickly stirfried. The chef tilted the edge of the wok so some of the oil caught fire in a spectacular supernova flare-up, like dragon’s breath. The chef drained off most of the liquid from the wok so just the greens nestled with the garlic and chillies remained. This made a cleaner missile to hurl towards me.

Four motorcycle taxi men thumped on bongos and chanted a song about phak bung to encourage my successful catch. One of them even showed his commitment to the theme music by putting down his bottle of Chang beer. Of course, it was empty.

The chef gave me a rookie oversized vegetable catching platter the size of a truck hubcap, while an encouraging waiter stood by with a plate the size of a teacup saucer. The chef stood fifteen feet away on the ground beneath the van. As I preened for Kitty’s camera, the flying vegetable hurtled past my head and the waiter leapt up to catch it like a major leaguer leaping up to snatch a line drive in the World Series.

How I managed to miss catching the hurled vegetables three times is a matter of debate. I blamed the light from the restaurant in my eyes and the flashbulbs from Kitty’s camera (One of her many nicknames earned during the trip was “Snaps” due her diligence in documenting our trek with hundreds of photos.)

My sports failure echoed my brief and unremarkable career in Pee Wee baseball where I managed to have the ball land anywhere but in my glove. Then I got eyeglasses and the world changed from Impressionist to Realist so I could see beyond my nose, but I had already become interested in cooking and never returned to sports unless compelled by the school.

 But I looked great in my phak bung catching gear and have been shopping for my own red hula skirt, size XXXXL.

 Here is what the dish looks like.

The delicious Thai water spinach from Phitsanulok

I’ve since tried my hand at slinging phak bung in the yard in front of my bungalow. I can’t tell if the aeration process substantially adds to the flavor or not, but the neighborhood kids like trying to catch the sky-floating vegetable and the local birds are well fed.

 If you are in Phitsanulok, you can practice your phak bung catching skills at the Savik restaurant near the night market on the banks of the River Nan.