Q&A -- Thai Cooking

[hildi]

Hi,I'm wondering if I should increase the amount of lemongrass/galangal if

they've been frozen? I made the Massaman Curry in the article and missed the

'citrusy undertones' that I find so appealing in Thai food - the same goes for

a red curry paste I've made from Hot Sour Salty Sweet. Then again that could

be my personal preference speaking;)

I was unable to find cardamom leaves from my Asian grocery or at an online store,looks like a rare find.

Thanks for a great article,next up Pad Thai!

[pim]

In using the Mae Ploy pastes, there are several variations. What does the differences between the yellow, red, green and massaman pastes? I find most of these very similar when I use them but I'm not why I should do any variation.

Yes there are definitely differences between the different color pastes. The yellow paste is much more mellow than the other ones. The main use for the yellow paste (Nam-prik Gank Kari) is to make a Gang Kari Gai, chicken in mild yellow curry, which is served with Ajad (cucumber relish). The Massaman paste has more of an "Indian" flavoring in it, betraying its provenance. The red curry paste (Gang Dang/Gang Ped) has a bit stronger citrus quality than the green, and is used for different type of curries. The Gang Dang or Gang Ped curries are sometimes garnished with julienned lime leaves, to accentuate the citrus flavor in certain seafood curries.

Another question is about the Pad Thai recipes. I've found them to have too much sugar. I didn't find this particular recipe but it's a some what too sweet too. I don't restaurants to be too sweet in Pad Thai food but I'm not sure what has thought in the recipes.

I have the same problem you do about Pad Thai in Thai restaurants outside of Thailand being too sweet too. The recipe in this class was Mamster's, I haven't made it myself. But you can easily control the sweetness of your padthai by adjusting the taste of the sauce. You don't have to put as much sugar as asked for in the recipe. Just trust your own taste.

My last question is about "Dok Pfak Pene" which I buy often in the Asian stores. I am not sure if it's a Thai, Vietnamen, or Chinese ingredient. This is great in many recipes and fits nicely into Thai food, so I use it a lot but I'm not sure if it's normal. This has a lightly garlic sound and kinds of looks like chives too. 

I'm not sure what that is. The name sounds Vietnamese, I wouldn't be able to tell what it is unless I either see it or know the Thai name. Next time I go to the market I will look for it. Most vegetables are labeled in both the Chinese and Vietnames names around here. I'll tell you what it's for if I could find it.

If there is going to be a second lesson, how about having a shot at Kai Phad Kaphrao. My current recipe is in German and is okay but could be helped. It came out okay but not spectacular.

When I get around to making Mag's Ped Krapow and write down the recipe I will send it to you as well. The basic Pad Krapow recipe can be adapted for Duck (Ped) or Chicken (Gai).

[pim]

Hi,I'm wondering if I should increase the amount of lemongrass/galangal  if

they've been frozen? I made the Massaman Curry in the article and missed the

'citrusy undertones' that I find so appealing in Thai food - the same goes for

a red curry paste I've made from Hot Sour Salty Sweet. Then again that could

be my personal preference speaking;)

I was unable to find cardamom leaves from my Asian grocery or at an online store,looks like a rare find.

Thanks for a great article,next up Pad Thai!

Perhaps you should give it a try. I don't think Galangal would be very good after having been frozen though.

The Massaman curry is not supposed to have a very strong citrusy undertone at all. The red curry, on the other hand should have a much stronger citrus taste compared to the Massaman.

Cardamom leaves are not essential. They are nice to have but you could easily skip it and just add a pinch of cardamom to the finished curry, just a pinch though.

[mamster]

I grew up on sweet phad thai (well, grew up since 1996 or so) and still like it that way. The recipe I gave uses a lot of sugar, but also a lot of acid, and they tend to balance each other. By all means reduce the sugar if you prefer, of course.

If you're using frozen galangal, you might actually start with less. I haven't bought prepackaged frozen galangal, but I often put fresh galangal in the freezer, and it freezes well, but it tends to dry out a bit and this concentrates the flavor. Shrimp paste lasts a long time in the refrigerator. Put the jar in a Ziploc bag or the smell will permeate your fridge.

I couldn't find cardamom leaves either.

Isaan sour sausage is one of my favorite things. It's very simple, really. You make sticky rice and mix it with ground pork, lots of garlic, and salt or fish sauce. Then you let it ferment at room temperature until sour. Traditionally it's made into one-inch links, but you can also just make a log and wrap it in plastic. There is a very small but real risk of botulism with any home-fermented sausage product that doesn't use curing salts, and at some point I'm planning to see if I can develop a version of sai krok that uses nitrates without adversely affecting the flavor. Basically, if you try sai krok and end up in the hospital, you didn't hear about it from me.

[mamster]

I should add that I told pim I'd be on question duty for most of today, so ask away--just don't ask me about my childhood in Bangkok!

[davidthomas8779]

Making Nam-sod

Pound the garlic into a fine paste.

In a large bowl, use your hand to forcefully mash together the garlic, ground pork, pork skin, jasmine rice, and salt. Knead the mixture a bit to build up gluten which gives the Nam a nice structure.

Which of those ingredients has gluten? I hope that the gluten sentence was just imprecision in writing, because I have a gluten-free household and would like to make the Nam-sod as you describe it.

[Jason Perlow]

Mamster/Pim

Any plans for a follow up course? Advanced Satays and Yum?

We made this thai beef salad dish last night, in honor of your course.

[mamster]

None of the ingredients in the nam sod/kao tod has gluten. It's more a figure of speech here, meaning "it gets sticky." The rice has a little amylopectin, which I think is the culprit.

Jason, you put the yum in yam. And I'll get to work on part two as soon as you double our salary.

[Jason Perlow]

Sure, I can double your salary. No problem. Triple it even.

[snowangel]

I'd like to see a follow-up with some recipes for some of the more obscure dishes that we don't see often in many of the Thai restaurants -- the kinds of dishes that pim and I grew up eating, but don't see on local menus.

As an aside, I prefer a less sweet pad thai, and often make it without any meat, or with a little pork, tofu, or whatever I have on hand.

[trillium]

On the frozen galangal front... in our house we prefer buying the frozen galangal from Thailand over the fresh stuff from Hawaii. It's darker orange in color and has a much stronger taste. If a recipe is developed using Hawaii grown galangal and you have Thai stuff, you might want to keep that in mind.

Pim's comment about slicing kilos of stuff by hand made me laugh, we have a recipe for rempah that has you slicing kilos of red chillies, garlic, shallots, galanga and a little fresh tumeric and then pounding it. The partner's nonya stepmum gave us permission to do it in the Cuisinart since we don't have a servant in the kitchen who can spend all day with the chore.

Where do you guys stand on freezing curry pastes? Kasma gives it the green light, David Thompson says it's a big no no. In an ideal world, I'd agree with David, but we freeze stuff all the time.

regards,

trillium

[fifi]

The few times I have made the curry pastes, (I am a lazy, Mae Ploy slug) I have frozen them. I don't really see a difference. One warning... Freeze them in a glass canning jar, I use the small half pints, otherwise the whole freezer will start to smell and taste of the stuff. (The same thing goes for pestos, roasted garlic etc.) Plastic is permeable and that hurts the quality of the product you are storing as well as the contents of the freezer.

[mamster]

Snowangel, I often make phad thai without any meat as well. And I'd love to do a class on more obscure Thai dishes at some point. I don't know when my next trip to Thailand is, but it's gonna be big--I've already learned enough Thai to decipher many menu items.

trillium, I freeze chile pastes. And hey, I'll give frozen galangal a try. I assume it's cheaper, too.

[prasantrin]

While I missed the class, I am wondering if you might be able to tell me what makes Royal Thai-style food different from commoner (?) style. I'm thinking of curries in particular, especially massaman. It seems that my father's massaman curry was very different from other massaman curry I have had--both in and outside of Thailand. He spent many hours at his mother's side while she supervised the cooks and from what I was told, she instructed them to cook in the style of the Royal household. Unfortunately, my father did not pass his secrets on to us before he died, so we are at a loss as to how to recreate his curries. The only thing I can remember is that his curries seemed to be richer than others. I think he may have added powdered coconut cream to canned coconut milk to make it richer, but I'm not sure about this. Is richness a characteristic of Royal Thai cuisine?

[mamster]

My understanding, and pim may need to correct me, is that Royal Thai cuisine is distinguished largely by presentation, and that the idea that there were once many recipes known only to the royal court is a myth. Nowadays, a restaurant that claims to serve "Royal Thai" cuisine is likely to have more vegetable carvings and higher prices. (Many such places do serve good food regardless.) Certainly, though, since the royal court has long been in the central plains, it's not surprising that many royal Thai dishes are rich in coconut milk.

pim, help me out here!

Oh, and prasantrin, you didn't miss the class--it's linked from the first post in this thread, and is available in perpetuity. It's not a one-time event.

[pim]

None of the ingredients in the nam sod/kao tod has gluten. It's more a figure of speech here, meaning "it gets sticky." The rice has a little amylopectin, which I think is the culprit.

Mamster is right. That's what I meant in spirit. I was just referring to Gluten because it was better known from bread baking etc, just to get the message across. It's sort of similar to refering to Caffeine in Tea, which in fact has no caffeine at all, only theine.

Sorry for the confusion.

Jason, you put the yum in yam. And I'll get to work on part two as soon as you double our salary.

umm..Mamster, our salary is $0, so Jason could easily double it, or even triple...we still wouldn't get anything.

[pim]

The subject of Royal Thai Cuisine is a big one that I don’t think I can really cover here, especially considering I just staggered back to my hotel from a huge meal at the New Tayyab in Whitechapel and it’s almost 3am in London. I’ll give a short answer here and will return to it when I get home next week.

There is a Royal Thai style of cuisine, and it is distinguished from the commoner style by the quality of ingredients and the care put into the preparing and serving of the food. In general that means much more than just presentation, but include the complexity of the recipes and preparation as well. There are dishes that are rarely seen in common restaurants. There are sometimes a commoner version of the same dish, that usually involves less ingredients and short cuts in preparation.

For example, Kanom Bueng, a crispy rice flour “crèpe” topped with Foy Tong (golden strands) and shredded coconut. The commoner version can be seen at any open market. The Royal version, however, is rarely seen these days except in Patrician households. The same goes with Kao Chae, which is the cold and fragrant rice soup served with many different sides, a definitely a Royal dish that is also rarely seen. There are restaurants that serve it but usually in a watered down version, as the royal recipes are much too complicated to be profitable in a restaurant. Many of the royal style recipes ask for ingredients that are absurdly indulgent, like a dish made of only “Jamook Hoy” or the little tentacle like piece of meat that stick out of a clam. To get a sufficient quantity for the dish you would need hundreds of clams.

I’ve also noticed that common curries are definitely thinner than the properly made ones, for economic reason I presume. Coconut milk is somewhat expensive and time consuming to produce so it would make sense that street side shops make curries that are thinned somewhat by water.

Another thing that distinguishes Royal (or Patrician) style of Thai food from the commoner one is the care that goes into the balancing of taste, texture, and variety. This is perhaps a matter of economics as well.

[pim]

Mamster/Pim

Any plans for a follow up course? Advanced Satays and Yum?

Hey Jason,

I'm bringing my satays and peanut sauce to the eG California potluck at Maureen's. Why don't you come on over so you could try some.

Pim

[Episure]

Pim + Mamster,

Thanks for such an informative class.

I've often seen the multicoloured sweets and desserts in Thailand but after a thai meal ( as if it's my last one! ), I seem to have never left any room for them.

What are they like, do you have a favourite that one could replicate at home?

[mamster]

I'm hoping pim knows more here (again!) because most of my sweet consumption in Thailand has been limited to mango with sticky rice, fresh fruit, those little popsicles sold on the street, and Pocky sticks.

One thing I was just reminded of last night is that the photos showing me cooking phad thai were taken by eGullet user LaurieA-B. Thanks, LaurieA-B!

[BettyK]

Great class! Thanks.

I have one question. What size of rice noodles do you use for Pad Thai?

I don't know when my next trip to Thailand is, but it's gonna be big--I've already learned enough Thai to decipher many menu items.

Can we tag along? How about organizing a eG group tour to Thailand? Actually I'm serious.

[mags]

Good lord. I would adore that. Mamster, will you think about it?

[mamster]

Betty, for phad thai I use "rice stick" noodles, the ones that are approximately the width of tagliolini, wider than the vermicelli noodles and thinner than the fettucine-like ones. Perhaps I'm not being clear. The noodles are about 1/8" wide, I'd say.

Laurie and I took three friends to Thailand on our last trip, and I've thought about leading a tour, but I don't know if I have the knowledge to make it worthwhile. pim, on the other hand, could do a knockout job.

[BettyK]

Thanks Mamster. Perfectly clear. I have so many different kinds of noodles in my pantry I get confused sometimes.

Well, I'm sure you know Thailand better than many of us. I've never been there myself but I'm dying to. And if Pim wants to join that would be wonderful. So when are we leaving? My suitcase is ready, well almost.

Mags, start packing!

Edited October 17, 2003 by BettyK (log)

[mags]

I am seriously there, Betty. No lie.

Edited October 17, 2003 by mags (log)