Nam-Pla Wan - Thai Sweet and Salty Fruit Dipping Sauce (น้ำปลาหวาน)

Makes about 2 cups
Printable Version

330g of palm sugar (or, as I prefer 165g of palm sugar plus 165g of either brown sugar or unrefined cane sugar)
1/3 cup (80 mL) fish sauce
8g shrimp paste
2 large (46g) shallots, peeled and cut into thin slices lengthwise
66g dried shrimp, divided
Small dried red chilies (I use arbol), to taste

Crush the palm sugar (and cane sugar, if applicable) with a large cleaver or a granite pestle into small chunks. This allows it to melt more quickly and easily.Place the sugar(s) in a medium pot along with the shrimp paste and fish sauce; set the pot over low heat.Keep stirring until everything has melted and come to a gentle boil.Remove the pot from heat and let the syrup cool to about 100°-115°F (43°-47°C); it will also thicken up slightly upon cooling. You should end up with about 1 1/2 cups (360 mL) of sticky sauce that has the consistency of maple syrup.While waiting for the syrup to cool, divide the dried shrimp into two equal portions. Pulverize one portion in a food processor or coffee grinder until you get fluffy, tiny flakes; keep the other portion whole.Stir the dried shrimp and the shallots into the syrup. The residual heat of the syrup will wilt the shallots slightly. And while the moisture from the shallots will thin out the sauce somewhat, the dried shrimp flakes give it body.Crush up with your fingers the amount of dried chilies commensurate with your heat tolerance and stir that in.The sauce is ready to be served with your favorite tart fruits. Provided that you keep the sauce in an air-tight container and don't dip (or, worse, double-dip) the fruit right into the container, the sauce should keep, refrigerated, for a month.

Bûche de Noël with Eggnog Ice Cream Cake, Chocolate Streusel, and Butterscotch Sauce by Pastry Chef Patrick Fahy

Chocolate Streusel
125g cold butter, cut into cubes
65g brown sugar
65g white sugar
170g feuilletine or cornflakes
100g all-purpose flour
25g cocoa powder

Blend everything in a food processor until the mixture comes together. Spread it thinly onto a parchment-lined sheet pan and bake at 350°F for 8 minutes until crispy and slightly dry on top. Allow to cool and break it up into a coarse meal.

Butterscotch Sauce
200g water
100g brown sugar
5g salt
200g heavy cream
In a saucepan, bring water and brown sugar to a boil over medium heat. When the mixture reaches the soft-ball stage (235°F–240°F), stir in salt and heavy cream.

Eggnog Ice Cream
(Yields about 3 quarts)
438g heavy cream
750g whole milk
250g granulated sugar
4g salt
30g nonfat milk powder
325g egg yolks
Half a vanilla bean
5g freshly grated nutmeg
50g dark rum (Meyer's), optional
Gently heat the cream, milk, sugar, vanilla seeds (scraped off of the vanilla pod), and the vanilla pod in a large heavy-bottomed pot. Put the egg yolks in a large mixing bowl and place it close to the cream mixture. Quickly whisk in 3-4 ladles of the hot cream mixture into the egg yolk to bring the temperature of the yolks closer to that of the cream. Pour the tempered yolk mixture back into the cream pot and continue to heat, whisking occasionally, until the temperature falls between 70 °C (156 °F) and 85 °C (185 °F). Take the ice cream base off the heat and strain. Once that is done, add the milk powder, salt, nutmeg, and rum to the ice cream base and mix well. Then leave the mixture to cool in an ice bath. Churn the ice cream base in an ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions. Freeze.

Vanilla Roulade
5 large eggs
90g sugar
43g bread flour
25g cornstarch
1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract
Beat the eggs and sugar over a bain marie until the mixture becomes viscous and increases about 5 times in volume. Beat in vanilla. Sift together bread flour and cornstarch and sift the flour mixture into the egg mixture in small increments. Carefully fold in the flour mixture so as not to deflate the egg mixture. Spread the mixture onto a parchment-lined half-sheet pan and bake in a 450°F for about 5 minutes until the top is golden brown. Cool and brush with some simple syrup (optional).

Chocolate Mousse
250g dark chocolate couverture, melted and kept warm
80g egg yolks
16 fluid ounces (473 mL) heavy cream
65g simple syrup (35g water and 35g sugar), boiling hot
Whip heavy cream until slightly thickened (the consistency should be similar to that of runny yogurt); set aside. Whip egg yolks with an electric mixer, carefully and slowly pouring the hot simple syrup down the side of the mixer bowl; continue to whip until the yolk mixture is frothy. Stir in the whipped cream and the melted chocolate.

Sorry for not making any blogs lately but I was kind of busy..

Enjoy! (:

Steamed Pumpkin Cake in the Style of Thai Khanom Tan (ขนมตาล)

Makes enough batter to steam in six 8-ounce ramekins

Starter:
20g rice flour (use this type of rice flour for best results)
4g active dry yeast
2g sugar
34g lukewarm water

Batter:
One 14-ounce can (400 mL) coconut milk, lukewarm
30g plain vegetable oil
128g sugar
210g rice flour
2g active dry yeast
100g pumpkin or squash purée
2g salt
4g baking soda

Topping:
40g of grated coconut meat (this type that comes frozen is best; I grated my own using a bunny.)

Combine the starter ingredients together in a large mixing bowl; let the mixture sit for about 20 minutes, uncovered, in a warm place.Once the starter is bubbly, whisk in the batter ingredients, except baking soda.Cover the mixing bowl with a piece of plastic wrap. Let the mixture rise in a warm place for 4-5 hours. You know the batter is ready when it has doubled in volume and is bubbly. Alternatively, the batter can be left to rise, covered, in the refrigerator overnight.While waiting for the batter to rise, prepare your steaming vessels of choice. You can do what I did here which is lining six 8-ounce ramekins each with one 5-inch round of banana leaf, making 3-4 pleats to make the banana leaf rounds fit into the ramekin bottoms more easily. I do this, because I love the tea-like scent that steamed banana leaves impart to the cake, but you can simply grease the ramekins with oil or butter and steam the batter right in them without the banana leaf cups.Once the batter is ready, prepare the steamer. We want the water to boil furiously and remain so for the entire duration of the steaming process.Once the steamer is ready to go, whisk the baking soda into the batter. Spoon the batter into the prepared ramekins, top the cakes with grated coconut, and steam them until they pass the toothpick test. The amount of time varies depending on your steamer.Let the cakes cool before serving.

Strawberries in Spiced Red Wine Syrup

Strawberries in Spiced Red Wine Syrup

2 pounds fresh strawberries, cleaned, dried thoroughly, and hulled
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups dessert red wine such as port or madeira
3-4 cinnamon sticks
4-5 whole cloves
3 pieces of star anise
5-6 whole chiles de árbol

Add all the ingredients, except the strawberries, to a large pot; bring to a boil.
Add the strawberries to the wine mixture; let the mixture come back to a boil for one minute. Turn off the heat and let the mixture cool, covered.Once the mixture has cooled, transfer the whole pot to the refrigerator and let the strawberries macerate overnight.

*note: very nice with some ice-cream or pancakes.
 

Enjoy! (:

Pad Ka-Prao (ผัดกะเพรา)

Pad Ka-Prao
(Serves 2)

 You don't need to add shallots, if you don't want to. Many recipes don't call for them.
I like shallots in my Pad Kra-Prao, though.
1 pound of ground pork, beef, or chicken (You can do what I do here which is chop up 1 pound of skinless chicken breasts with a cleaver. You get better texture that way.)
7 (26g) large cloves of garlic, peeled
7 (16g) bird's eye chilies (or however many you can tolerate)
1 large shallot (20g), peeled and roughly chopped
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon fish sauce
2 tablespoons dark soy sauce
1 tablespoon dark sweet soy sauce (kecap manis)
1 tablespoon oyster sauce
1 cup holy basil leaves, packed If you have a mortar, pound together the garlic, chilies, and shallot until you get a coarse paste. If no mortar, either chop them all up with a cleaver on a chopping block or pulse them into a coarse paste in a mini-chopper.In a skillet, heat up the vegetable oil over medium-high heat. Add the paste to it and fry until fragrant.Add the meat to the skillet and break it up with the spatula into small pieces.Add the remaining ingredients, correcting seasoning as needed. [I don't like sugar in my Pad Ka-Prao; besides, the dark sweet soy sauce provides enough sweetness for me. But if you think you'd like it even sweeter, either add about a teaspoon of palm or brown sugar or double the amount of dark sweet soy sauce (which will also make the end product darker in color). Purists, as mentioned in the post, won't even use anything for salinity other than fish sauce.]Once the meat is cooked through, check the amount of liquid in the skillet. If it's too dry, add a little bit of water or sodium-free broth.Before taking the skillet off the heat, add the basil leaves to the mixture and give it a couple of stirs. We only want to wilt the basil with the residual heat that is still in the pan so as not to mute the fragrance of the fresh holy basil leaves.
Serve over rice. A Thai-style crispy fried egg on top and a tiny bowl of nam-pla prik would be nice.

[1] And if holy basil also happened to be linguistically-inclined, it would have something else to say as well. But that's for another post.

 

 

Naem Khao Tod (แหนมข้าวทอด) by Spoon Thai Restaurant, Chicago

(Serves 2)

2 cups of cold, cooked long grain rice (preferably jasmine)
1 tablespoon Thai red curry paste
2 tablespoons rice flour (All-purpose flour also works.)
1/2 cup naem slices
1/2 tablespoon finely-chopped fresh bird's eye chilies, or to taste
3 tablespoons fresh lime juice
3 tablespoons fish sauce
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 cup ginger slivers
1/3 cup thinly-sliced red onions
1/2 cup mixture of chopped cilantro and green onions
Approximately 1/3 cup fried or roasted peanuts

Make the rice croquettes by mixing rice, curry paste, and flour together very thoroughly.Form the mixture into 3 patties of equal size.Deep fry them until the exteriors are golden brown and crunchy.Split each croquette in half and let them cool down enough for you to handle.With a spoon, scoop out and discard the inside and tear up the crunchy shells by hand into 1/4-inch bits; set aside.Add to a mixing bowl, fish sauce, lime juice, sugar, and chilies; stir.Add naem, followed by the rice bits and the remaining ingredients. Toss and serve immediately. (These last two steps are flexible in terms of the order in which the ingredients go in. It's best, however, to mix together the dressing ingredients in the bowl until the sugar has dissolved before adding other ingredients.)

Enjoy! (:

 

Thai Spicy Mixed Vegetable Soup - Kaeng Liang (แกงเลียง)

(Serve 6-8 as a main course)

64g peeled shallots, sliced
6g whole white peppercorns
100g cooked shrimp meat
4 cups (~ 1 liter) broth
300g firm-flesh winter squash (kabocha or calabaza are ideal), cut into 1-inch cubes
300g zucchini, cut into 1-inch cubes
300g chayote, cut into 1-inch cubes
300g baby corns
200g mild-flavored mushrooms (button or oyster are great), cut into bite-sized pieces
500g large shrimp, peeled and deveined
Fish sauce, to taste
20g fresh lemon basil leaves

In a mortar, pound together the shallots and peppercorns into a smooth paste. Add the shrimp meat and continue to pound until the shrimp and the paste become homogenous. If you don't have a mortar, use equal amount of ground white pepper and blend that with the shallots and the shrimp meat in a small food processor until you get a smooth paste.Put the broth into a large pot along with the paste; bring to a boil.Immediately add the pumpkin, zucchini, chayote, corns, and mushrooms to the pot; bring to a gentle boil once again.Add a tablespoon of fish sauce to the pot.Once the vegetables are tender but still hold their shape, add the shrimp.Once the shrimp is cooked through, immediately turn off the heat.Add more fish sauce, if needed.Stir in the lemon basil leaves.Serve with rice as a main course.
Note: Angle luffa is also an ideal vegetable for this soup. Feel free to play around with the amounts of vegetables. If you like zucchini but not chayote, omit the chayote and double the amount of zucchini. Etc. But in terms of the kinds of vegetable to use in this soup, traditionally the Thai people don't venture too far from this recommended list.

 

Century Egg Salad with Pork and Fresh Ginger (ยำไข่เยี่ยวม้า) -- with Video

Serves 2
Printable Version

1/3 pound ground pork
4 century eggs, peeled and quartered
1 4-inch knob of fresh ginger, peeled and julienned
3 tablespoons fish sauce
5 tablespoons lime juice
1/2 teaspoon sugar
3-4 red bird's eye chilies, slice crosswise thinly
A few cilantro leaves

Add the pork and about 1/4 cup of water to a small saucepan; put the pan over medium heat. Stir the pork around with a spatula, breaking it up into small pieces, until it's cooked through. Set aside to cool slightly.Arrange the quartered century eggs on a platter, followed by cooked ground pork (which has been drained).Sprinkle ginger over it.Mix together fish sauce, lime juice, sugar, and chilies in a bowl. Drizzle the dressing over everything on the platter.Garnish with cilantro.Serve immediately.

Enjoy! (:
 

 

Spicy Green Apple Salad (ยำแอปเปิ้ล)

Makes about 2 cups

One medium Granny Smith or very firm and tart apple
One medium (50g) shallot
Two small tomatoes, cut into 1/4-inch dice
Lime juice, to taste
Fish sauce, to taste
Dried red pepper powder, to taste
About 2-3 tablespoons of chopped cilantro leaves

Put 2-3 cups of iced water in a bowl; keep it handy.Core the apple and cut it in half. Slice each half lengthwise into thin slices. Make stacks of 4-5 apple slices and cut them lengthwise again into thin matchsticks.Soak the apple matchsticks in the prepared iced water.Slice the shallot thinly lengthwise.In a mixing bowl, toss together the shallot slices, tomatoes, the well-drained apple matchsticks, and cilantro.Season to taste with fish sauce, lime juice, and dried red pepper powder.Serve immediately as a topping for grilled or pan-fried fish. (This salad goes particularly well with a piece of halibut, lightly salted, dusted with flour, and pan-fried until the skin is golden brown and crispy and the flesh is moist and flaky.)

Variation: Throw in about ¼ cup of roasted cashews.

Enjoy! (:

Spicy Salad of Boiled Pork Sausage (ยำหมูยอ)

Have this as an appetizer with a cold pale ale, or serve it as an entrée with rice.
Spicy Salad of Boiled Pork Sausage - Yam Mu Yo
Serves 4


 
1 1/2 pounds (700g) Vietnamese-style boiled pork sausage
Six 2-inch tomatoes (250g), quartered
1/4 large Vidalia onion or any sweet onion1 (about 130g), sliced thinly lengthwise
2 large ribs of celery (about 88g), cut into 1/2-inch slices crosswise
2-3 tablespoons of lime juice, more or less to taste
2-3 tablespoons of fish sauce, more or less to taste
4-5 Thai bird's eye chilies, more or less to taste, finely chopped
1/2 cup (12g) cilantro leaves
Slice the pork sausage into 1/4-inch thick, bite-sized pieces. (These sausage rolls come in different sizes. This one you see here measures 3.5 inches in diameter, so I had to quarter it.) Transfer the sausage slices to a large mixing bowl.Add the onion, tomatoes, celery, and chilies to the mixing bowl.Season with lime juice and fish sauce, toss, and correct seasoning as needed. I'd start out with a tablespoon each of lime juice and fish sauce since the flavors of the tomatoes and the pork sausage vary. You can always add more as needed. For this salad, I don't add any sugar, because the tomatoes are already very sweet.Top with cilantro leaves and serve immediately.
1 If you can't find sweet onions, use a yellow, white, or even red onion. You may want to cut it into thin slices as instructed and soak the onion slices in iced water for 10-15 minutes to get some of the raw flavor out of them. Be sure to drain the onion slices very well and pat them dry before adding them to the salad.

Zucchini "Fish" Cakes with Thai Sweet Chilli Sauce (ทอดมันซูกินี)

Zucchini "Fish" Cakes with Thai Sweet Chilli Sauce
Makes approximately 20 3-inch cakes
Printable Version

2 pounds (~1kg) zucchini
3 large eggs
2 ounces (57g) Thai red curry paste
1 1/2 cups (180g) rice flour
2 teaspoons (12g) salt
2 teaspoons (8g) baking soda
3 kaffir lime leaves, julienned
1/2-3/4 cup plain vegetable oil for frying
1 cup of store-bought or homemade Thai sweet chilli sauce
1/2 cup finely-chopped dry-roasted peanuts

Grate the zucchini coarsely, skin and all. Place the grated zucchini in a large kitchen towel and wring out as much liquid as you possibly can. The crispiness of the zucchini cakes depends on how much liquid you can wring out of the grated zucchini at this point.Place the grated zucchini in a large mixing bowl. Stir in the red curry paste, baking soda, and salt, followed by the eggs, one at a time.Stir in the rice flour and kaffir lime leaves; mix well.In a 12-inch nonstick skillet, heat up 1/2 cup of oil over medium heat. When the oil is hot (but not smoking), drop the batter into it 1/4 cup at a time. Once one side is brown and crispy, turn over. Transfer the fried zucchini cakes to a paper towel-lined plate. Replenish the oil as necessary.If you're not eating these cakes right away, arrange them in a single layer on a cookie sheet and bake them at 375°F until they're heated through and the exteriors become crispy again.Serve the warm zucchini cakes with Thai sweet chilli sauce with some peanuts sprinkled on top or mixed in.

Enjoy! (:
 

 

Tom Yam Kung (ต้มยำกุ้ง) with Video

AppId is over the quota AppId is over the quota

One generous serving as a main course
 

1 1/2 cups unseasoned chicken or pork broth (as concentrated as you can make it)
7-8 large shrimp, peeled with the head and tail sections left
3-4 fresh kaffir lime leaves, torn into pieces and lightly bruised
4-5 slices of lemongrass, approximately 1/8-inch thick
4-5 very thin slices of fresh galangal
3/4 cup canned straw mushrooms [2] (or fresh white mushrooms), drained and halved
1 tablespoon of Nam Prik Pao
2 tablespoons of fresh lime juice, or to taste
2 tablespoons of fish sauce, or to taste (see notes in the post about the sodium level in the broth)
4-5 small dried red chilies (I use arbol), broken up
1/4 cup lightly-packed cilantro leaves

In a medium saucepan, bring the broth to a very gentle boil over medium heat. Monitor the temperature so that the liquid is not boiling furiously but barely simmering. [We're infusing the broth with fresh herbs in the manner similar to making tea; we're not cooking the life out of them.]Add the lemongrass, galangal, and kaffir lime leaves to the broth; continue to monitor the temperature.Add the mushrooms.Stir in Nam Prik Pao.Add the fish sauce, followed by the dried chilies.As the broth is gently simmering, lower the shrimp into it while monitoring the temperature somewhat closely (meaning you don't need to whip out the thermometer but keep an eye on the broth to make sure it doesn't drop too low that the shrimp won't cook or surge too high that the shrimp is boiled to death).Give the shrimp a couple of stirs. Once the flesh has firmed up and turned opaque, remove the saucepan from heat.Season the soup off the heat with the lime juice. Taste. Add more fish sauce or lime juice as necessary.Stir in the cilantro leaves and serve the soup piping hot with rice (it is, after all, an entree).[

Turmeric-Roasted Red Snapper (ปลากะพงอบขมิ้น)

Serve 4
Printable Version

One 3-pound (~1.5kg) very fresh whole red snapper, gutted and scaled
A handful of assorted fresh herbs (I use lemon basil flowers, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, galangal slices, and a few slices of lime. Feel free to use any fresh herbs you have on hand that you think go with fish and turmeric.)
14g fresh turmeric or 4g ground turmeric
16g peeled garlic
4g whole white peppercorns
4g cilantro roots or stems, finely chopped
8g salt
2 tablespoons (30 mL) vegetable oil