Thai Cooking at Home, 2007 – 2012

[v. gautam]

You are most welcome. The credit goes to all those who have taken the touble to create and upload these videos on the internet, and to the writers who continue to open our eyes to the complexities of South-East Asian cultures and cuisines. I cooked for a time in a Lao-Thai take-out joint and played my part in massacreing the cooking of this culture, churning junk night after night---- I guess much retribution is owed!!

Coming from Bengal, a land with close cultural and religious links with Thailand and Indonesia, I have been surprised to learn that there are no less than 80 linguistic groups in Thailand and its culinary culture is equally complex. Just the areas contiguous to the two river banks in Bangkok harbor several distinct native styles, to say nothing about the multiplicity of non-indigenous cuisines. However, that was in the past. Today, with great mobility, these ancient boundaries created by the slow pace of ancient times may have been erased, and the circumstances and that gave rise to them gone for ever.

[djyee100]

Jungle Curry (Gkaeng Bpah Gkoong), a soup-y, very hot curry with plenty of dried and fresh chiles, brined green peppercorns too, but no coconut milk to mediate the heat. Those jungle people are tough. For this curry I combined prawns from the freezer, leftover corn from the fridge, and vegs from my last impulsive shopping trip at the farmers market--fresh peas, okra, tomato, Chinese and Thai eggplants, and King trumpet mushrooms.

This curry tasted good even though it was very spicy. Hey, who turned up the thermostat?

[v. gautam]

One style throws in some chicharones [here: packaged fried pork rinds will suffice] ground fine into the spice paste. This adds some richness and body. Not too much, though! Call it the Issan coconut milk!! Have you tried a jungle curry this way?

[Ader1]

djyee100,

That Jungle Curry looks great. Did you get the recipe from Kasama's book or web site? Sorry I havn't read this whole thread.

[djyee100]

Ader1,

Kasma's recipe for Jungle Curry is taught in her classes, but it is currently unpublished. However, one of her long-time students has published what appears to be an adapted recipe here:

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art34658.asp

Instead of frog meat, you can substitute chicken, pork, or prawns. Instead of krachai, you can substitute a little less of fresh ginger root.

I made my curry with about 1 cup fresh peas, a total of 8 small purple Chinese eggplants and green Thai eggplants, 1 cup sliced king trumpet mushrooms (shittake mushrooms would be a good substitute), about 1 cup fresh corn kernels, 1 med-size green tomato, a handful of trimmed whole okra pods, and 1 TB of brined green peppercorns (they come in jars at Asian markets).

Instead of slivered jalapenos, I used slivered red fresno chiles.

This curry is really hot. Fortunately I had some yogurt and fresh fruit handy for dessert.

Edited August 20, 2009 by djyee100 (log)

[Ader1]

djyee100,

Thanks. And that's an excellent Thai food resource you posted. ;-)

[Peter Green]

As I'd heard it......

"jungle curry is a hunter's meal, which means that it can contain just about anything you can find in the bush and toss in. They're trademark is to be burning hot, as the Thai of old would travel with salt and chilies as their "gear" (which led to the old stories of "we were so hungry, all we had to eat was salt and chilies"), which would clear away any gaminess in what they ate."

[Shalmanese]

OK, eGullet, I need your help.

I have steak strips marinating in soy, oyster sauce, sesame oil & pepper in the fridge, from the farmers market: broccoli, green beans, thai basil, mint, a profusion of asian chillis & the usual assortment of kitchen staples which I want to turn into a stir fry tomorrow night.

Can anyone point me to a recipe packed with flavor? Everything I'm finding on the web looks kind of insipid.

[mgaretz]

OK, eGullet, I need your help.

I have steak strips marinating in soy, oyster sauce, sesame oil & pepper in the fridge, from the farmers market: broccoli, green beans, thai basil, mint, a profusion of asian chillis & the usual assortment of kitchen staples which I want to turn into a stir fry tomorrow night.

Can anyone point me to a recipe packed with flavor? Everything I'm finding on the web looks kind of insipid.

←

I'd add rice noodles and garlic and a stir fry sauce consisting of one part each soy sauce, fish sauce and golden mountain sauce (aka Maggi seasoning), 1.5 parts water, and 2 parts brown (or palm) sugar. Parts by measure, not by weight. I'd leave out the mint.

Stir fry the veggies in peanut oil until almost tender, then add the noodles and stir fry for another 5 minutes or so. Then add the beef and garlic (figure 1.5 cloves per serving) and stir fry till done. Pour in the sauce and mix well - let cook for another minute or two. Serve.

[Ader1]

I want to buy a nice and simple Thai cookery book. I've got a few already including the Thompson book. I'm considering either getting the 'It Rains fishes' book by Kasma or 'Crying Tiger' by Supatra.....at least for now. Or would somebody suggest the 'Hot Sweet Sour' book. What I particularly like about the Kasma book is that she suggest brands to use eg Mae Ploy and a brand of Coconut too. Any suggestions?

[djyee100]

Ader1, I wouldn't call Kasma's food nice and simple. She typically does very traditional, artisanal food, so you have to like to spend time in the kitchen. In any case, It Rains Fishes has been out-of-print for awhile, and the price for a used book is astounding. Kasma's website has much of the product info that you like in the book. I hope somebody else can suggest cookbooks for you.

[djyee100]

A foray into Thai sausage-making, Spicy Northern Thai Pork Sausage (Sai Oa), one of my favs. It's a sausage of ground pork, red curry paste, cilantro, soy sauce and fish sauce. Reminds me of hot links, but being Thai, it's spicer than any hot links I've ever tried. I cook Kasma's recipe, but this is a classic sausage and I've seen recipes for it in many Thai cookbooks.

Served with Lemongrass Coconut Rice and Stirfried Greens with Garlic and Chiles from James Oseland's Cradle of Flavor.

I make sausage infrequently, and in small quantities (less than 2 lbs), so I don't own sausage-making attachments or machines. I use a funnel to stuff my sausages--a method that makes hard-core charcuterie people cringe. But it works for me. The bad news is that it's slow. (But it does goes faster as you get the hang of it.) The good news is that you rarely tear the casing because it's slow. The other good news is that you listen to music and catch up on your audiobooks as you stuff sausage.

I buy these nalgene funnels for sausage-making. The tube of the funnel should be about 20mm. Model No. 78014:

http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/variant.asp?catalog_name=usplastic&category_name=25422&product_id=20578&variant_id=78014

[Chris Amirault]

Those look great: a good bind, juicy, all the stuff you want from sausages. What pork did you use? Do you have the recipe handy?

[snowangel]

Sao Oi is one of my favorite sausages. I've made the version from Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet -- this one does not use curry paste but birds instead, although it also has lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves. They are not smoked.

I've also made the version from Thompson's Thai Food, which is also very good. His version calls for a curry paste which includes lemongrass. He calls for smoking them over coconut (I used the Trusty Old Weber with a foil packet of coconut).

My local Asian market also makes these, and since they are only $1.79/lb, I tend to buy them rather than making my own. Their version has discernible bits of lemongrass and lime leaves.

When I've made them, I used fatty butt.

[djyee100]

What pork did you use?

I made this sausage with "picnic" pork shoulder from my local Whole Foods market. It was the fattiest pork available there. The Berkeley Bowl market sells boneless country-style pork ribs, really just very fatty pork shoulder, that their staff recommends for sausage-making. I've tried that meat and liked it too.

When buying pork for sausage, I look for meat that is 25%-30% fat. If necessary I ask the counter person to cut open the rolled up meat so I can view the cross-section of fat to meat. A meat dept can grind in some back fat if the pork shoulder is not fatty enough. I ask the meat dept to coarsely grind the meat "like for chile," or "on the chile plate." Don't ask me what size plate that is in numbers, but the meat depts always understand me.

[Pan]

djyee100,

That Jungle Curry looks great. Did you get the recipe from Kasama's book or web site? Sorry I havn't read this whole thread.

Yeah, that really does look amazing. And I love a spicy jungle curry, myself.

[djyee100]

Do you have the recipe handy?

The ingredients for Kasma's Spicy Northern Thai Sausage (Sai Oa):

Make a spice paste of:

15 dried red chiles, seeded, soaked to soften, then minced (japonais or similar chiles are fine here)

1 tsp sea salt

2 stalks lemongrass, trimmed, cut into thin rounds, then chopped

1 TB minced Thai galanga

1 TB minced kaffir lime peel (if using dried peel, soak to soften before using)

2 TB minced cilantro roots or bottom stems

10-12 large cloves garlic, chopped

4 shallots, chopped

1 TB gkabpi shrimp paste

Combine the spice paste with:

2 lbs ground pork (see above, Post #824, for cut of meat and grind)

1 TB finely slivered kaffir lime leaves

1/4 cup cilantro, coarsely chopped

2 tsp black soy sauce

3-4 TB fish sauce (nahm bplah), or to taste

Stuff the meat mixture into hog casings, about 6 feet will do it. If you have the time, let the sausages sit in the fridge for a few days to develop the best flavor.

I check the meat mixture for seasoning before stuffing sausages. I fry up a little bit in a skillet, or zap a mouthful in the microwave. In this recipe, the mixture was too spicy for me, so I added another 1/2 lb of ground pork to bring down the heat. Alternatively, you can gradually add spice paste and seasonings, tasting as you go, until you find a blend you like.

have fun making sausages.

[djyee100]

Another experiment in Thai sausage-making, Northeastern-Style Soured Pork Sausage (Saigkrawk Naem). A classic sausage, very simple, consisting of pork, garlic, salt, fish sauce, cooked sticky rice, and white pepper. The raw sausages cure at room temp over a period of days. In hot and humid Thailand, the cure may take only a couple days. In the more temperate climate where I live, the cure is usually more like 5-6 days.

My sausages basking, drying, and fermenting in front of a sunny window.

The trick is to let the sausages ferment until the sourness balances the saltiness in the sausages. I taste-tested a sausage on the fourth day, first steaming it, and it tasted...not so good. It was very salty and also pungent from the raw garlic. I was disenchanted with the sausage, so I pushed the pan onto the top of a tall cabinet, still in a warm room, and decided to leave the sausages alone for a couple more days.

Except that I forgot about them for four days. When I looked in on the sausages again, they had somewhat mummified.

But they smelled OK, so I ate a sausage. It tasted pretty good. The fermentation had definitely decreased the perception of saltiness, the garlic had mellowed, and the texture had turned smooth. I thought the sausage was still a little too salty, and it didn't taste that sour to me. But after 8 days, it was time to move on, so I put the sausages in the fridge.

To serve the sausages, I first steamed them to plump and moisten them, then I grilled them. Served on an appetizer platter with tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, lightly steamed eggplants, blanched okra, sweet peppers, lime pieces, and peanuts.

[dmreed]

I am curious about the safety of eating raw pork which has only been fermented...any comments?

[Ader1]

I watched this Thai lady make some Wantons. I was familiar with all of the indredients except for something which she called 'Maggy' or 'Maggi' Soya. According to here it wasn't dark Soya or light Soya but I can't be sure of this although her English was reasonable. Have you heard of Cai daw (not sure of the spelling) but the fried egg on top of rice. She said that the 'Maggi' Soya sauce was good with that. Any ideas?

[dmreed]

Maggi is readily available...usually next to soy sauce in supermarkets and Asian stores.

[Ader1]

Maggi is readily available...usually next to soy sauce in supermarkets and Asian stores.

Thanks. But what is it though? Is it dark Soy sauce? It can't be light because I saw the bottle and the recipe specified light as an additional ingredient.

Edit:

I see that it isn't a Soy Sauce from the following link. I understood her correctly then that it wasn't a Light or Dark Soya Sauce.

http://www.thekitchn.com/thekitchn/seasonings/ingredient-spotlight-maggi-seasoning-091316

Edited September 21, 2009 by Ader1 (log)

[djyee100]

I am curious about the safety of eating raw pork which has only been fermented...any comments?

It's like salami. There's quite a bit of salt in the sausage also.

[Catherine Iino]

When I have a Thai rice noodle dish at a restaurant, the noodles are long. Whenever I prepare Pad Thai or some other rice noodle dish at home, the noodles break up into short little pieces when I am stir frying them. I've tried presoaking the rice noodles in hot water, in boiling water, and actually boiling them a bit, but they still break up. Any advice on keeping them long? Or is it the brands or age of the rice noodles I'm using?

[heidih]

I would not be that aggressive with the dried noodles. Pre soak in lukewarm water just to get pliable enough to cram into the dish.