Quick Rice Wraps

Great as a starter or as a quick lunch this light and flavorful Thai dish might get you addicted. Adapted from Doi Kham Cookbook.

Rice Paper Wraps

Ingredients
package of rice sheets
2 eggs
2 tbs. fish sauce
vegetable oil
5 shitake mushrooms
2 scallions, chopped
a small bunch of sweet basil
2 cloves garlic, chopped
salt and pepper to taste


The Recipe
Make the egg sheets: beet the eggs and season with the fish sauce, pour a thin layer into a frying pan, remove when cooked and set aside. This should yield 4/5 sheets.
Prepare the shitake: heat a bit of oil in a frying pan, add the chopped garlic and then the shitake mushrooms. Season with salt and pepper and saute for a few minutes. Be careful not to let the mushroom turn too soft. Set aside.
Prepare the rice paper: (follow the instructions on the package) soak in lukewarm water for one minute, 2 sheets at a time (they tend to tear otherwise). Spread the sheets on a flat surface, top with an egg sheet, some shitake, scallions and chopped basil. Roll tightly and slice into bite size pieces. Delish!

Thai Black Grape and Cashew Muffins

In Bangkok we bought the wonderful Doi Khan Cookbook. It's a funny little cookbook, with a collection of recipes compiled by the Royal Project Foundation. The recipes are all written by Thai aristocrats including the Royal Highness herself! Though most of the book is Thai food, we found this delicious recipe for Black Grapes and Cashew Muffins and had to try it out. Apparently, Thais don't only eat Thai food, and if it's fit for their Queen, it will most certainly suit us Royals.

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup lightly crushed cashews
1/4 cup sugar
1 tbs baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup milk
125gr melted butter
1 cup fresh black grapes

The recipe:
Preheat the oven to 200 C.
In a large bowl sift together the flour, salt, sugar and baking powder. Mix in the cashews.
In a separate bowl, beat the eggs together with the butter and milk and then combine with the flour mixture. Finally, lightly stir in the black grapes.
Spoon into buttered muffin pans, making sure you don't fill them up completely (allow room for them to rise).
Bake for about 20 minutes, and serve warm.

Deep Fried Bananas

An all time favorite snack, deep fried bananas are easy, fun and de-licious!

To make the batter you'll need 1/2 cup shredded fresh coconut, 1/2 cup white flour, 1 cup rice flour, 1 egg, 1/2 tsp salt, 2 tsp sugar and 1 cup water.
First mix the flours with the egg. Then add salt and sugar and mix again. Finally add the shredded coconut and knead into a dough (Shredded fresh coconut may be difficult to come by outside of South East Asia. Instead, You can soak dried coconut in a few tablespoons of coconut cream to retrieve the moisture to the dried flakes).
Transfer the dough to a large shallow container. Pour water and mix with your hands until the dough is completely incorporated into the batter. For extra crunchiness you may add 3 tbsp soda water. Finally, add about 1 tbsp roasted sesame seeds and mix well.


Heat oil in a wok, slice the bananas lengthwise, 1/2 cm thick, and immediately dip in the batter. Throw the slices into the oil and fry for several minutes until golden on each side. Be sure to use low heat so the bananas won't burn.
Frying the bananas takes a bit of practice so don't feel discouraged if you don't get it right the first few times.

Not only bananas work with this recipe. The batter goes well with many vegetables like sweet potato, taro or squash. experiment!

Khao Kiab Pak Moh

After we tried Khao Kiab Pak Moh at the market in Sukhothai we craved it for weeks. The steamed dumplings filled with savory-sweet peanut mix became a culinary mystery. Lucky for us Lee knew the recipe and even though it took some time to figure out (folding the steamed batter was not easy) it turned out exactly as we remembered it. Try this at home at your own risk though, this is not an easy one.

The filling is made from a paste of shallots and coriander root crushed in a mortar and pestle and sauteed with palm sugar and finely chopped pickled radish (you can use Japanese pickled daikon). It is then mixed with crushed roasted peanuts.


The batter, made of rice flour, tapioca flour and water, is applied like a crepe on a tightly stretched cheese cloth which covers a special pot with boiling water. The steam, coming through the cloth, cooks the liquid batter into an opaque thin dough which is then folded around the filling.

Fried cloves of garlic are poured over the dumplings as garnish.

Absolutely delicious.

Khao Mun Kai, Chinese Chicken

Khao Mun Kai is one of our favorite lunch options in Bangkok, so learning how to make it (and discovering how easy it is) was a big treat. Simply a boiled chicken, it is served with steamed rice and a small bowl of chicken broth. But what makes the whole dish worth your search for the stall is the extraordinary sweet - sour - salty - spicy sauce. Yikes.

To make the chicken and rice just boil 2 cups of water with 1/4 tsp. salt and 1/4 tsp. sugar. When the water starts to boil add one chicken breast with skin and let cook for 15 minutes. That's it. The chicken is done, but leave the remaining stock as it will be used for the rice.

For the rice, first saute 1 tbsp. chopped garlic in 1 tbsp. vegetable oil. Then add 1 cup of long grain rice mixed with 1/4 cup of sticky round rice and continue to saute for a few more minutes. Add 1 1/4 cups of the remaining chicken stock and cover on low heat for 15 minutes or until done.

The broth is minimal. Two coriander roots, a garlic head, 1/4 tsp. salt, 1/4 tsp. of white pepper and chicken neck and bones boiled in 3 cups of water for 15 minutes over low heat. Make sure to skim the fat off the top while cooking.

And now for the sauce:
In a wok over low heat, pour 3 tsp. of sweet black soy sauce, 4 tsp. white vinegar and 1 1/2 tsp. soy bean paste. Mash the soybeans while stirring. When it comes to a boil, remove from the wok and into a small bowl.
Add 2 birds eye chilies (one red and one green), 1 clove of garlic and 1 1/2 tbsp. ginger, all finely chopped. Then add 1 tbsp. of lime juice and mix. Add more ginger and sugar to taste.

To serve the dish cut thin slices of chicken breast and spread them a little with the knife.


Pour the sauce and serve with the rice, sliced cucumber and chicken broth.

Cooking Again, Bangkok

Our last day in Thailand was well spend with a final cooking class conducted privately by Lee at "Cafe The Flow". We collected a list of our favorite street food dishes and presented it to her a few days before. Lee showed no hesitation. She immediately jumped into her research, asking endless family members and "hawkers" (food stall owners) and came up with a fantastic one day workshop of Thailand's best: Fish ball soup, Satay sauce, Khao Mun Kai (Chinese chicken), Khao Kiab Pak Moh (steamed dumplings), sticky rice with mango and fried bananas. Yum, yum and yum.

Loi Krathong Street Snacks, Chiang Mai

We happen to be in town during the Loi Krathong festival. While the sky was lit with drifting lanterns and floating candles crowded the river, stalls took over the streets, selling local specialities. Unfortunately we could not taste them all (nor completely identify them). Sit-down dinner was gladly replaced by an all night snacking frenzy. This just might turn into a habit...

Grilled omelet in a folded banana leaf mixed with a choice of mushrooms, crab or shrimp.


Take away sticky rice in different ways: sweet, savory, with coconut or chillies and folded in pretty banana leaf packaging. Hard to resist.

Pumpkin fritters smothered in batter.

Northern Eats, Chiang Mai

In Chiang Mai you are never too far from a hearty and incredibly delicious bowl of Khao Soi. This egg noodle curry soup, made from red curry, coconut milk and pieces of chicken, is topped with pickled mustard greens, sliced shallots, fried noodles and a squeeze of fresh lime juice. The place to get it is on Faham Road where many local restaurants serve the dish.

The Cooking Class

Chiang Mai offers many cooking classes. We randomly picked one and had a go. The Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School is one of the more popular establishments for vacationing Brits and Aussies searching for a way to impress their mothers back home. The course was well run (considering the large number of participants, we were 30!) and consisted of demonstrations and individual practice. We cooked and enjoyed 6 dishes in 6 hours and went home satisfied.

Fellow chefs at lunchtime.


Tom Yam Goong.
This famous fresh Thai soup is so easy and quick to prepare. All you need to do is chop garlic, shallots, lemon grass and galangal root and add them to a chicken/fish/veg broth. Wait till it boils then add cubed straw mushrooms and tomatoes. After a couple of minutes add chopped chillies, fish sauce and kaffir lime leaves and cook on low heat for 2 minutes. Finally, throw in some fresh prawns (clean an headless) or chunks of white fish (but don't over cook). Remove from heat, squeeze in lime juice and top with coriander.

Ingredients clockwise: tomato, straw mushroom, lemon grass, lime, purple shallot, galagal root (the pinkish chunk) and kaffir lime leaf.


Tom Yam soup, ready.


Tord Man Plaa, a deep fried fish patty is made out of ground white fish, red curry paste, fish sauce, tapioca flour, baking powder, palm sugar, shredded kaffir lime leaves and thinly sliced green beans. Just mix the ingredients and deep fry in a wok until brown.


Laap Gai is a spicy chicken salad served with cold cucumber. To make this one you need to toss minced chicken breast, sliced shallots, finely chopped galagal, fish sauce, lime juice and chili powder together in a wok. When the chicken is cooked, remove from heat and mix in chopped fresh spring onion, coriander and mint.

Pink Deserts in the Market, Chiang Rai

We stumbled upon these pretty fluorescent coconut deserts in mid preparation. We didn't have the chance to taste them, but as they were so pretty, we had to share them with you.

Lunch in Chiang Rai

Today for lunch we had Lahp Gai, minced chicken fried with herbs and topped with crispy deep-fried shallots and garlic. It was a nice change from curry and Yum soups as it was dry and crunchy.
We had it with steamed rice at Loong It, a shack on Th Phranorn in Chiang Rai.

A Snack Stall in Sukhothai

As we returned from our long day at the Sukhothai Historical Park, a stall with a queue caught our attention at the market. Like all stalls in Thailand which usually specialize in one or two dishes, this one does only two snacks, found in Central Thailand.

Khao Yum Nam Kuk is a crunchy cold spicy salad. The base of this salad is deep fried rice balls made from white rice, egg, garlic, pepper, soy sauce, coriander root, fried bread crumbs (panko) and coconut flakes. To make the actual salad you have to mash these with your fingers adding ground pork (may substitute with chicken or tofu), chili pepper, shallots, sugar and fish sauce. Vinegar, dried shrimp and more fried bread crumbs can be added to taste. Top with fried peanuts and eat wrapped in a green mustard leaf.


Khao Kiab Pak Moh is a savory and sweet Thai dumpling steamed over a pot covered in thin white cloth. The batter is a mixture of rice flour, corn starch and water and the filling is a combination of salted preserved daikon raddish, fish sauce, palm sugar and peanuts all ground together.
The batter is treated like a crepe on the cloth, when the color becomes opaque it is divided, filled and swirled into a dumpling.


The finished product is served with coconut cream and flakes, with a side order of coriander.

Our Banana Lady, Bangkok

Our favorite lady vendor in all Bangkok makes the most delicious fried bananas we have had. Her stall was dangerously situated around the corner from our guesthouse (Samsen Road Soi 1, Bangkok, for those of you in the area). We think her secret lies in the sesame seeds added to the batter.
Deep fried bananas are a simple but divine delicacy. This one calls for a shorter yellow banana with a firmer body, sliced 1 cm thick (1/3 inch). The pieces are drowned in batter (the contents of which remain a mystery to us) and deep fried in a wok. Praise the Lord!

Deep fried bananas.


Our favorite woman in Bangkok.

Chicken and Rice Two Ways

Chicken One:
A very tasty dish found in many street stalls around Bangkok is Khao Mun Kai, a Thai version of Chinese Chicken Rice. We had this one in Chinatown for 35 Baht (1 dollar). The chicken is boiled and served sliced over steamed rice (cooked in the chicken stock of said chicken). The secret to this dish is the special sauce, a mixture of soy sauce, soy bean paste, ginger root and chillies. Pour liberally.

The stall in Chinatown.


The Chicken. We were also served a small bowl of broth on the side.


Chicken Two:
Thais like to eat their Yums, spicy and tangy salads with chili as the most important ingredient. We tried a cold spicy chicken salad with red onions, mint, lime juice and of course chili. The mint was a nice addition to the usual Thai fare.

Coconut and Pumpkin Custard, Sangkaya Fuk Thong

One of our favorite Thai deserts, is easily made and easily addictive. Its a simple custard made of eggs, palm sugar and coconut cream poured into a cleaned out pumpkin, and then steamed over low heat for half an hour. Let cool, slice and serve. You can also use sweet potatoes or squash.

The hollowed out pumpkin.


Before steaming.


The finished product, as sold in many street stalls.


The custard is often served over sticky rice (another Thai desert called Khao Niew Moon).

Red Curry Paste, Nam Phik Gang Phet

Curry pastes are not bought but hand ground in mortar and pestle (can be made in a blender). We used this red curry paste as the base for Red Curry with Grilled Duck.

Mash together:
1 red chili
1 tsp. galangal
1 tbs. lemon grass
1/2 tsp. kaffir lime rind
1 tsp coriander root
5 pepper corns
1 tsp. ground coriander seeds
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. salt
1/4 cup shallot
10 cloves of garlic.

(The recipe is taken from the Thai Chef International Cooking School)


Kaffir lime, its rind, juice and leaves are widely used in Thai cuisine.


Chopping the chillies. Watch your eyes.


Grinding the ingredients in a stone mortar and pestle.

Tom Kha Gai, Chicken and Coconut Milk Soup

Chicken breast, galangal, lemon grass, kaffir lime leaves, straw mushrooms, coconut milk, chicken stock, fresh cayenne chillies, fish sauce and lime juice make up this deliciously tasty and aromatic soup. Boil the coconut milk and stock first, then add mushrooms and chicken, and finish with the rest. Serve in a bowl and garnish with fresh cilantro.

Freshly sliced lemon grass.


Straw mushrooms, kaffir lime leaves and bird chillies.


Fish sauce (rosey color) and lime juice (yellow).


The finished product.