The final dish is vegetarian and is a mixture of bean curd and mushrooms. There are several stir fried dishes that use bean curd and they are quite easy to cook yourself.
A very delicious meal for less than $4. Now, I wonder what we will buy for our lunch next Friday. If you want to know, then just come back next Friday to see! All of the food seen here was bought in Paknam at stalls on the street.
Always a good idea to have a dish of stir-fried vegetables. This one comes with fresh shrimp. So many variations. To get the bright colours, a good tip is to dip into boiling water for one minute before stir frying.
You can use just about any fish in this dish. as well as the fried black pepper, there is red chili and onions. You can also use red and green peppers.
Every Friday from now onwards I will be sharing with you what we eat at lunchtime! Well, at least some pictures. I have had so many letters from people asking if we can feature some of the street food from Paknam. So, hopefully this will be the first of a regular series of food blogs showing some of the cheap and delicious food that we can buy here. The first dish on the table was a variation of my favourite. I like chicken and bamboo shoots in green curry a lot. However this is a yellow version using turmeric powder.
ฝอยทอง
It is not often that I get a chance to see Thai desserts being made in person. So, I was particularly thrilled at the weekend to see some demonstrations of how to make a few of my favourite Thai sweets. The one I want to show you today is called Golden Threads, or foi thong in Thai. It is not strictly speaking a Thai dessert as it was believed to have been introduced by the Portuguese over 400 years ago. However, the Thai have made it their own now. The basic ingredient is egg yolk which is gently cooked in a syrup of water and sugar.
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It all looks quite easy to make but I am sure you need to practice a lot to get it just right. First the eggs are separated and then the yolks are beaten in a bowl. This is then placed in the refrigerator until it is needed. A syrup is then made with a mixture of sugar and perfumed water. This is done in a large wok. The egg yolks are then put into a funnel with two small holes at the bottom. This is then swung above the wok in a circular motion.
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As soon as the egg yolk hits the hot syrup it starts to cook. It only takes about 1 minute before it is ready. The lady then used a knife to cut the strands in four places. She then used what looked like knitting needles to collect these threads. She then dipped them into another syrup solution which gave it a gleam and then placed it on the tray. A very interesting dessert indeed.
raat naa
One of the first Thai meals I really enjoyed when I came to Thailand was this one - rat naa. It not only tasted good but the name was memorable too. I remember writing home and telling people that I had eaten a Thai dish made from rat (I was young back then). And not forgeting of course the other delicious meal made from cow pat (khao pat). Anyway, this meal is basically noodles served with a thick gravy containing kale (Chinese broccoli) and pork. However, I once had a version with seafood. The type of noodles is up to you. In the picture above you can see that I chose sen yai (the wide noodles). But, I sometimes have mee grob (deep fried noodles) with this dish to make a change. You can see that noodle in the picture below.
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The recipe for rat naa varies a lot so some people, like myself, will cross town just to find the perfect version. Actually, I don't have to travel far as my local rat naa food shop is at the top of Tetsaban 4 Road where my school is located. It is easy to tell this is a popular shop as there is always a line of Thai people waiting to buy. There are two shops in my soi that cook rat naa. They are Ok but not perfect. So, I have to cross Sukhumwit Road to buy my noodles in gravy. A word of warning, if you go to my favourite shop then make sure you are very hungry. A normal serving costing only 25 baht will easily fill a big bowl. They give you a lot of gravy unlike other shops. For an extra 5 baht you can order special but don't do that unless you can eat for two people!
The recipe for rat naa that I want to share with you today is for food shops. The ingredients here are enough for 40 plates and apparently will only cost you 150-200 baht.
The main ingredients are:
Mix the pork with the light soy sauce, ground pepper and one tablespoon of sugar cane. Leave to marinate for one hour. Mix together the noodles and dark soy sauce. Add one tablespoon of oil to a wok. Once it is hot, add the noodles and fry until it is ready. Take out and place on a plate. Add the remainder of the oil to the wok. When it is hot, add the garlic and fry until it is fragant. Add the fermented soybeans and stir as you fry. Add the sliced pork and fry for a little longer. Then add the kale and stock. Season with sugar cane and fish sauce and give it a good stir. When it is boiling, add the corn flour which has been mixed with water. When it is ready, serve.
One thing that you should know is that when you add the fish sauce, the dish may develop a strong smell. Don't worry. The smell does not reflect the taste at all.
2 tablespoons toasted rice
½ lime
1 teaspoon ground dried chili pepper
2 green onion, sliced
1 teaspoon fish sauce
½ bottle bamboo shoots
The bamboo shoots for this dish come is a bottle or jar that indicates bamboo shoots in/with bai yanang leaves. The shoots are partially shredded. But you will need to shred it all the way through to produce independent strands. Boil the shredded bamboo shoots in water or its juice. Remove from heat after boiled.
Add sliced green onion, fish sauce, ground dried chili pepper, lime juice and half of ground toasted rice. Mix well and place on a serving plate. Sprinkle the rest of the ground toasted rice.
Add more chili pepper, if you like it hot. If you find that you overseason the dish, add more ground toasted rice to tone down the seasonings.
Serve with sticky rice.
Ingredients
500 g of soybean
12 cups of water
2 tablespoons of Calcium Sulfate
4 tablespoons of tapioca flour
1 kg of old ginger
Method
1. Soak soybean in hot water about 1-3 hours or until it inflate.
2. Take all crust and clean soybean.
3. Blend soybean, while blend add water little by little. Then filter with white and thin fabric.
4. Put soymilk on fire, always stir it. If boil put it down from fire.
5. Burn calcium sulfate then pestle it. Sift it one time before use.
6. Mix tapioca flour with calcium sulfate and water 1/4 cup to pot which you let soymilk hard.
7. Strongly pour soymilk to pot (ingredient no.6) and do not stir it. Let it hard without move or shake.
Method for making ginger soup
Clean ginger and pound it lightly, add it to water and boil it.
Ingredients :
· 2 cups coconut milk
· 1/4 cup sugar
· 1/2 teaspoon salt
· 4 medium-ripe bananas, peeled, cut into 1 1/2 inch chunks
(Measurement Guides)
Cooking Procedures :
1. Combined coconut milk, sugar and salt in a 1-quart saucepan.
2. Bring to boil.
3. Then add bananas, reduce heat, simmer, uncovered for 5 minutes or until bananas are partially softened.
4. Cool to room temperature.
5. Serve bananas in bowls with the sauce.
6. Makes 6 Servings.
This dessert is as good as it is easy.
ต้มยำกุ้ง
Probably one of the most famous Thai dishes around the world is the one called tom yum kung. In English, it is sometimes called Hot and Sour Shrimp Soup or Lemongrass and Shrimp Soup. I took the above photograph at Pornsiri Kitchen in Samut Prakan this afternoon. This version has shrimp, but you could also cook it with chicken if you like. The basic ingredients are all the same. Shrimp, straw mushrooms, lightly crushed hot red chilis, sliced galangal, lemongrass stems, torn kaffir lime leaves, coriander, and seasoned with fish sauce, sugar and some lime juice. Use chicken stock to make up the soup. It is very quick and easy to make. In the supermarkets in Thailand, you can buy the starter kit with most ingredients for only about 8 baht!
kaao pat ga prao moo sapOne of the most famous Thai dishes around the world is this one, stir-fried pork fried with chili and holy basil. You don’t have to use minced pork, as variations include chicken or beef. In Thai it is called moo pat ga-prao. The last part refers to the basil. It is quite simple to cook and the result is very delicious. Can you believe that the above was cooked a few days ago at my local food shop? It is one of those places with an open front with a minimum of decoration. There are thousands of these shops around Thailand. They are much cheaper than going to a restaurant. Believe it or not, this dish was only 25 baht which is about 60 cents. Most foreigners miss out on these meals as they think that they will get ill if they eat street food. So, they decide to pay three or four times as much in a restaurant for exactly the same dish. The ingredients probably came from the same market and were cooked in the same kind of kitchen. I am not saying you won’t ever get ill by eating street food. You just need to use some common sense. If you see a lot of Thai people eating at a food stall or food shop, then the chances are high that the food is not only delicious, but safe to eat too!
kaao pat Probably one of the simplest meals to cook is fried rice. If you want to go down the path to cooking Thai food then this is a great one to start with. I cook this one every now and then as it is a good way to use up rice left over from the day before. You can use seafood or meat, it is up to you. In the above dish, pork was cooked in a frying pan first. Then an egg was broken into the pan and mixed up. Cooked rice was then added. It is important that this is rice left over and not fresh rice. You then add some fried garlic, chopped onion and tomato slices and then later season with soy sauce/fish sauce, sugar, salt and some chili sauce. When it is finally ready, garnish with coriander and sliced spring onion. Very simple and delicious.
The other day, I was having a conversation with one of the teachers in the lift. As usual, she had bought some Thai desserts from the market to share with her fellow teachers. She asked what my favourites were and I had to admit that I had only eaten a few. What sprang to mind, were the delicious desserts khanom mor gaeng and also the equally delicious khao nieow dtut. Now, most people at the school know I am writing Thai Food blogs, so she immediately volunteered to educate me in Thai desserts! And so today, she came up to me with a bag full of Thai desserts for me to photograph and taste! She explained which ones I had to eat straight away and which ones I could save for a later day by putting in the refrigerator. I can tell you, I was really stuffed today. But, it was a really good introduction.
Today I am going to introduce you to khanom chun, or layered dessert. It is named like this because it has nine layers. As you may know, this is an auspicious number. So, it is often used for important ceremonies such as job promotion (representing going up levels) and at weddings. In the above example, each layer is a shade of green. I have seen ones before where it was green/white stripes. If you have read my previous blog about khanom thuay you might be able to guess where the green comes from. Yes, it is from the pandanus leaf. You make the liquid by putting it in a blender and then straining it though muslin.
To make this dessert, mix the coconut milk and sugar. Bring to boil and then set aside. Mix the topioca flour with the plain flour and add coconut milk. Knead the mixture. Add the coconut milk and sugar which you had set aside. Now separate them into two containers. in one add the green water from the pandanus leaves. Leave the other white. (In the case above, some pandanus water was added to the coconut milk before boiling. Then later, more was added to the second container to make a darker shade of green.) Grease the mould with some coconut milk and then heat it in a steamer. First, add some of the white mixture and steam for 5–10 minutes. Then repeat this with the green mixture, white mixture etc. Finish with a green layer. Leave in the mould for 3–4 hours before removing it. Sounds quite labour intensive, especially as they only sell for 10 baht! The result is quite tasty. I would eat it again for sure.
pat see iwA little while ago, I blogged about a favourite dish of mine called noodles in a gravy (rat naa). Well, today I want to introduce you to its twin! Usually, if a food stall is cooking rat naa, they will also cook noodles fried in soy sauce (pad see-eel). You could say that this is the dry version. The noodles here are the wide ones called sen yai, although you could use the small ones such as sen lek. It is quite simple to cook. First fry some garlic until golden brown. Then add pork or chicken and fry until it is almost cooked. Add the noodles together with some dark soy sauce, then kale (Chinese broccoli) and one egg. You then season with soy sauce, sugar, salt and white vinegar. As usual, I have a video of one of my local food shops cooking this dish. There is also a new video of rat naa being cooked by this same shop. The videos are numbers 22 and 23 on the list.
ขนมเบื้อง khanom buang
This is a nice snack you often see being cooked by the side of the road. It is called khanom buang.It looks a bit like Mexican tacos but the taste is of course very different. The pictures here were taken near Paknam market.
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It looks simple but I assure you that it is harder than it looks. First he spread a batter mix onto the hot plate. When this was just starting to set, he then spread on top a generous helping of coconut cream.
He then placed on top of this a variety of different toppings. One version has shredded coconut and golden threads. This is made from strips of egg yolk. It is the lighter orange mixture. Another version has shredded coconut and either coriander or chopped spring onions. In the photos you can see a darker orange mixture which is in fact shredded coconut with a colouring agent.
Try some the next time you are next in Thailand. They are very tasty.
ขนมลา khanom la
The temple fair is still continuing here in Samut Prakan. The weather has also been improving so I have been able to go out and get some good photographs. As people come from far and wide to sell their produce at the fair, this is actually a good opportunity to see food from other provinces. Today I want to introduce you to khanom la which is a famous product from Nakhon Si Thammarat. There are several versions of this sweet. One is flat and the other tube like.
I don’t have much information yet on the ingredients. One person suggested it contains rice flour, granulated sugar, plam sugar and egg yolk. Honey can also be used. Coconut oil is used for the wok. I will try and update this more later. As you can see from the above photo, the mixture is poured into a can with holes in it. This is then swung above a pre-heated wok in circle motions until a kind of spider’s web is weaved. Less than a minute later it is set hard and a kind of poker is then used to make the tube like end result. It was quite fascinating watching her do this. She was obviously very skilled as she did every step very quickly.
khanom jaak One of the famous desserts for Samut Prakan is Khanom Jaak. I quite often see them selling it down by the market near the jetty for the cross-river ferry. The dessert is prepared inside the leaves of a nipa palm and then roasted over a charcoal fire.
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Like anything, there are local variations, but here is a recipe that I managed to get hold off from a local person:
Sticky rice flour (1.5 kilos)
Palm sugar (half a kilo)
2 Shredded coconuts
Salt (2 teaspoons)
As you can see from the pictures, the mixture is spooned onto the leaves of a nipa palm which is then joined together with toothpicks. It is then roasted over a charcoal fire.
A bundle of khanom jaak costs about 20 baht. Now you know what it is, try some the next time you are in Thailand.
ขนมหม้อแกง khanom mor gaeng
I seem to be in the habit of blogging about Thai food and saying things like, “Oh, this is my favourite curry” or “This is my favourite Thai dessert”. Well, today I want to show you khanom mor gaeng which is definitely in my top 10 for Thai desserts. Probably quite close to the top though it is a little on the sweet side. You can find this dessert around Thailand (we have it in Paknam market sometimes) but the authentic dish can only be bought in Phetchaburi. When people from Bangkok go down to the beach resorts at Cha-am or Hua Hin, they will nearly always stop at these large roadside food shops selling Thai desserts. Phetchaburi is famous for this dessert and others too. Everyone knows I like this dessert so I was pleasantly surprised this morning when our local samlor driver knocked on the door with two bags of Thai desserts. No, he hadn’t just been to Phetchaburi! Around here people use samlor and motorcycle taxi drivers as their personal messengers.
This dessert is a bit like our custard pudding. In fact, some people reckon that it was introduced to Thailand by Portuguese traders in the 18th century. Or, at least it was influenced by Western visitors. The main ingredients are duck eggs, mung beans and coconut milk. There are different variations, but I will give you the directions from one recipe I have here. Beat together 4 chicken eggs with 2 duck eggs. Add 1 cup of palm sugar and 1 cup of coconut cream. Use pandanus leaves to knead this mixture until the sugar dissolves. Strain through a cheesecloth and add either mashed taro or mung beans and mix well. Put the oil from fried shallots into a wok and add your mixture. Stir until it becomes thicker. Transfer to a baking tray and bake for about 30 minutes or until the custard is set and the top is a golden brown.
You must really try it. They do export it to Bangkok and you might find it in Chinatown and some department stores. It is VERY delicious.
ขนมเทียน
I was hurriedly walking to school this morning in a very un-Thai manner. I could see it was about to rain again and I had neglected to bring my umbrella. I was so deep in thought about whether I would make it in time that I didn’t notice at first someone shouting out my name. “Ri-chaaard. Ri-chaaaard,” someone was shouting with the emphasis firmly on the second syllable. Had to be a Thai person. When I turned around I was surprised to be confronted with the sight of Wirat cycling towards me.
Now, my regular readers might remember this person as my local “khanom krok” lady. She is the one that never stopped talking and was always trying to be more than my friend. Bascially, her ex-husband had abandoned both her and her newborn child 15 years ago and now she wanted me to marry her. Of course I was flattered but then I later found out that she was proposing to just about anyone who would listen! Not that I minded my little chats with her. And, actually, I kind of missed her as she has not been selling khanom krok around here for several months now. We had all been wondering where she had got to. And then, here she was, cycling down Sukhumwit Road out of the blue.
Naturally, I shouted out to her “bai nai ma” meaning “where have you been?” She stopped and soon brought me up-to-date. She said that she had been disappointed with slow sales at the top of my soi so she now sells something different in Samrong! She then reached into a couple of large plastic bags and brought out some Thai desserts wrapped in banana leaves. “I now sell khanom thien” she told me. “Here, try some, no charge!” She then proceeded to give me two bags full of these desserts. In one bag she put a marker made from a sliver of banana leaf. She told me “This one sai-kem with the marker and the other sai-waang. You might find the sai-kem one a little spicy.” If you didn’t know, “kem” means salty and “waang” means sweet.
I thanked her and wished her good luck by saying ‘chok dee”. I made a mental note to try and find out where she had set up her new stall. Samrong is about 10-15 minutes away by car. At school I decided to give away some of the desserts to other teachers. There was too much for me to eat alone. And anyway, it is Thai custom to share food around like this. I soon discovered that Thai people prefer the salted version much more than the sweet one which surprised me. I always thought Thai people had a sweet tooth. But, after I tried it, I could see what they meant. I like the “sai-kem” one much better too.
My helpful teacher went on to say that you can tell the difference between them even before you unwrap them from the banana leaves. All you have to do is squeeze them slightly. The softer one is “sai-waang”. In the picture at the top, it is “sai-kem” on the left and “sai-waang” on the right. The common ingredients between these two are white sticky-rice flour, black sticky-rice flour, palm sugar and fragrant water.
The salted one then has: mung bean, chopped red onion, crushed pepper, sugar, salt and oil. The sweet one has: shredded coconut, and palm sugar. As you can see from the faded colour of the banana leaves in the picture, the final product is cooked in a steamer for about 15 minutes and served when cold. As far as I can understand, these desserts are Chinese in origin and are used in a festival to honour dead ancestors.
They certainly have an interesting taste. But to be honest, I really miss my fresh piping hot khanom krok. I think tomorrow I will walk down to Paknam market to see if I can find anyone selling this coconut pudding.
