A One Dish Deal or Lunch

Pad See Ew

Pad see ew is a standard lunch fare among Thais and is very popular here in the US. My sister's favorite too. It is not difficult to make and tastes great.

As kids, we loved pad see ew. It is a comfort food; nice and warm. Normally people make it spicier at the table (not in the wok) by adding red pepper sauce.

2 Servings

1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 cup pork, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons light soy sauce
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 lb fresh flat rice noodles
1 egg
1 tablespoon dark soy sauce
1 lb Chinese broccoli

If your fresh flat rice noodles are not pre-cut, cut them into strips of 3/4 inch wide. Cut Chinese broccoli into 2 inch long pieces. Halve the stems lengthwise because thick stems take longer to cook. You are going to want to cook them at the same time.

Heat a wok to high heat and then add 2 tablespoons of oil. Drop in the chopped garlic and stir. Add the sliced pork. Stir to cook the pork. When the pork is somewhat cooked or turned from pink to light brown, add rice noodles. Stir to break up the noodles. Add light and dark soy sauce and sugar.

Stir to mix the seasonings into the noodles and pork. Open a spot in the middle of the pan, and drop the egg in. Scramble the egg until it is almost all cooked (not watery any more). Fold in the noodles and mix them all. Add the Chinese broccoli, stems first. I usually add half of the Chinese broccoli and stir until it wilts and then add the rest. But if you have room in your wok, you can cook all the Chinese broccoli at once. As soon as the Chinese broccoli is cooked, turn off the heat.

Put on a serving plate and sprinkle white pepper on top. Serve with the usual noodles condiments; sugar, fish sauce, vinegar and dried ground pepper. I usually like mine with ground chili peppers and vinegar.

Pad see ew that you find in Thailand is little sweeter than mine because many street vendors add more sugar than I prefer.

Tips and substitutions

For a vegetarian version, skip the pork. Add firm tofu if you like. I often enjoy pad see ew with just the egg.
Dark soy sauce gives the noodles the color while light soy sauce seasons the dish.

If Chinese broccoli is tough to find where you live, try kale or regular broccoli.

more information http://www.thaitable.com/

Choo-Chee Goong (Red Curry Shrimp with Kaffir Lime Leaves and Basil)

Choo-Chee Goong (Red Curry Shrimp with Kaffir Lime Leaves and Basil)

Recipe from: Dancing Shrimp: Favorite Thai Recipes for Seafood by Kasma Loha-unchitServings: 4 to 5

My mother has a soft spot in her heart for choo chee curries - those red hot curries with a rich, thick sauce cooked in a pan so hot that it pops and sizzles, making a swishy sound, like choo chee. Just enough of the concentrated sauce coats the pieces of seafood cooked with it, or is spooned over seafood cooked separately. Although excellent with shrimp and prawns, America's favorite seafood, Mother is first and foremost a fish lover and, now that she is advanced in years and no longer cooks, she, without fail, orders choo chee fish whenever we take her out to dine at her favorite restaurants.

So, after you've tried this recipe and enjoyed enough choo chee with shrimp, make the spicy and aromatic sauce to spoon over crispy fried fish. Mother's favorite fish for choo chee is a small, flat fish called bplah neua awn ("soft-flesh fish"), which fries to a delightfully crunchy crispiness and can be eaten almost entirely, bones and all. When it comes to eating crispy fish fins, heads, and bones, Mom beats us all. People from her generation know no waste and, from her, I've learned that food is sacred, and a life that has been sacrificed to keep us nourished should not be dishonored by throwing out any of its parts. Watching her enjoy every small bit of her crispy fish, even at a ripe old age, is a heartwarming sight.

1 pound medium shrimp

3 orange or red serrano, jalapeño, or fresno peppers

1 cup rich unsweetened coconut cream (preferably Mae Ploy or Chao Koh brand-spoon the thickest cream off the top of an unshaken can of coconut milk)

2 to 3 tablespoons red curry pastenam plah, as needed (some packaged curry pastes are already heavily salted)

2 teaspoons palm sugar, or to taste

8 kaffir lime leaves, very finely slivered

½ to 1 cup Thai basil leaves (bai horapa)

1 to 2 short sprigs of Thai basil (bai horapa) with purple flower buds, for garnish

Shell, devein, and butterfly the shrimp; give them a saltwater bath to freshen. Rinse and drain well, and let sit at room temperature for 20 minutes before cooking.

Cut two of the three red peppers into thin rounds, including seeds, and pound with a mortar and pestle to a coarse paste. Cut other pepper with seeds into fine inch-long slivers.

Heat 2/3 cup coconut cream in a wok or skillet over high heat. When it has warmed to a smooth consistency, spoon out 1 tablespoon and reserve. Reduce remaining cream for a few minutes until it is thick and bubbly and the oil begins to separate from the cream. Add curry paste, mushing it into the cream and fry, with stirring, over medium-high heat for a few minutes, until it is aromatic and darker in color; and the mixture is very thick.

Increase heat to high and add the remaining 1/3 cup coconut cream, stirring to make a thick, well-blended sauce. Season to taste with fish sauce and palm sugar: Stir well to melt sugar and blend seasonings. Toss in shrimp and cook in the sauce, stirring frequently. When most of them have lost their raw pink color on the outside, stir in the crushed chillies and kaffir lime leaves. Stir-fry 10 to 15 seconds before adding basil and slivered chilli. Stir well to wilt basil and, when shrimp are just cooked through, turn off heat.

Transfer to a serving dish and dribble reserved tablespoon of coconut cream over shrimp. Garnish with a sprig or two of basil.

Notes:

To make the sauce, follow the instructions to the end, simply skipping the shrimp. Try the sauce over crispy fried, whole small or flat fish, such as pompano, butterfish, sole, white perch, smelts, and anchovies. The sauce is also good over pan-fried or grilled mackerel. Or, if you prefer, smother over grilled halibut, salmon, albacore, tuna, mahi mahi, jumbo prawns, lobster, or whatever else you like to toss on your charcoal grill. Top with the coconut cream and garnish with basil sprigs. For strong-tasting fish, about 2 tablespoons of fine inch-long slivers of fresh rhizome (qkrachal) can be added to the sauce at the same time as the basil and cooked until both are wilted.

Besides cooking with shrimp, as in this recipe, substitute squid, scallops, shelled clams, and mussels, or a combination of shellfish and mollusks.

more information http://www.allthaifood.com/

THAI FISH CAKES (Tod Man Pla)

THAI FISH CAKES (Tod Man Pla)

1.Place the fish in a food processor and process for 20 seconds or until smooth. Add the cornflour, fish sauce, beaten egg, coriander leaves, curry paste and chillies. Process for 10 seconds or until well combined.
2.Transfer the fish mixture to a large bowl. Add the sliced green beans and chopped spring onions and mix well. Using wet hands, form two rounded tablespoons of the mixture at a time into flattish patties.
3.Heat the oil in a heavy-based frying pan over medium heat. Cook 4 fish cakes at a time until they are dark golden brown on both sides. Drain on paper towels and serve immediately, with a dipping sauce.

Ingredients :

1. 450 g firm white fish fillets
2. 3 tablespoons cornflour or rice flour
3. 1 tablespoon fish sauce
4. 1 egg, beaten
5. 1/2 cup fresh coriander leaves
6. 3 teaspoons Red Curry Paste or commercial paste
7. 1-2 teaspoons chopped red chillies, optional
8. 100 g green beans, very finely sliced
9. 2 spring onions, finely chopped
10. 1/2 cup oil, for frying

11. Basic Dipping Sauce or commercial sauce

more information http://sunsite.au.ac.th/thailand/Thai_food/page1.html

Laab Bped Tod Grob

Laab Bped Tod Grob
(Crispy Mandarin Duck in Isaan Sour and Spicy Salad)


Prepare:
1 mandarin duck (1kg.)
5 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup sliced red onion
1/2 cup sliced lemon grass
1/2 cup kaffir lime leaves
1 tbsp. chili powder
3 tbsp. lemon juice2 tbsp. fish sauce
3 tbsp. fried or roast peanut
7 dry chili peppers (fried)
1/4 tsp. sugar
4 tbsp. roasted uncooked rice (ground finely)
Any vegetables you like


Cooking Instructions:
1. Clean the duck very well. Cut the meat part that attached to its skin. Boil it in boiling water cut it a bite size and rest them drain in a filter.
2. Heat the pan on medium flame. Fry red onions, lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves, one after each one. When they get crunchy, remove from the pan and leave it drain in the filter.
3. Next, in the same pan, fry the boiled mandarin duck. When it turns gold and crunchy, remove and leave it drain.
4. Now, in a big bowl, add chili powder, lemon juice, fish sauce and mix well. Add fried red onion, lemongrass, kaffir lime leave, peanut, fried dry chili peppers and roasted uncooked rice.
Making it taste more or less sour and spicy are up to you. Balance the taste with sugar. Arrange fried mandarin duck on the plate and dress the spicy and sour salad on top.
Put fresh vegetable on a side, any kind that you like. I would love to have cucumber, long string bean, cabbage, winged bean for sure, and eggplants. Laab Bped Tod Grob is one of my favorite recipes from Sisaket. :) You can either grill the duck or fry before you mix with Isaan spicy and sour salad.

Rice recipeThai Pineapple Fried Rice

Rice recipeThai Pineapple Fried Rice (ข้าวผัดสัปปะรด Kao Pad Sub-Pa-Ros )

This Thai recipe serves: 2
Serving rice in a pineapple shell is a charming tradition that brings a festive atmosphere to the simplest meal. If you prefer, serve it in a medium-sized serving dish, mounding it high. Although Jasmine is the prized rice in Thailand, I believe its delicate flavor is lost when cooked in a dish like this.This dish comes from the south of Thailand, an area which has been influenced greatly by the foods of India and Malaysia.

Ingredients

2 cups cooked jasmine rice

1 fresh pineapple (cut in half,remove fruit)

1/2 cup(s) pineapple pieces

1 cup small shrimp peeled and deveined

2 tablespoon(s) oil

1 teaspoon(s) finely chopped garlic

1/3 cup diced carrot

1/3 cup diced onion

1 tablespoon butter

1/3 cup sweet peas

1/3 cup raisin

Seasoning sauce ingredients

1 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon white pepper
2 tablespoons light soy sauce

For the garnish

fried cashewnuts

Cooking Instructions

1. In a wok at medium-high heat, add the garlic and oil and stir until golden brown. Add the shrimp and cook for 3 more minutes, stirring occasionally. Follow with carrot and onion, stirring for 2 minutes

2. Add rice, butter, salt, sugar, white pepper, sweet pea, raisin, soy sauce and fresh pineapple and stir until the ingredients are thoroughly mixed, approximately 3 minutes. Remove from heat, place in hollowed-out pineapple halves and top with cashewnuts before serving.