Thai Cooking at Home, 2005 - 2006

[Susan in FL]

We're having Asian two nights in a row, and I'll be back to post both last night's and tonight's, but in the meantime, I need your help in identifying a couple of the things I bought yesterday, when I made a good haul at the Asian market. This photo was just the green stuff! I was thrilled with how stocked she was with fresh items. On the left is what looks like broccoli rabe, and I think it is extremely close to that. The yard long beans are obvious, and we had them last night (very, very good). The small bok choy, same, and we're using that tonight. What I am not sure about is the thing in the middle... a sponge gourd, perhaps? And what might I do with it? She said that it would be good in a soup. I looked into a book of mine that has some pictures, and that is what it looks closest to. I'm also not sure about the green on the right... she said it is very similar to the broccoli-whatever. She told me what all three of these vegetables in question are, but she has a heavy accent and I couldn't understand her. After already asking her to repeat what she said twice, I thought it too awkward to ask the third time.

Thanks!

[FoodMan]

That is I believe a bitter melon. I've never cooked with them, but I think they need a good soak to remove the bitterness before cooking. They are quiet popular in Indian cuisine.

Elie

[origamicrane]

hello

can anyone help me with a recipe for

Goong Chae Nam Pla

(raw prawn with chilli lime and fish sauce)

the raw prawns can they be from frozen? do you have to blanch or anything?

and

Kho Moo Yang

(thai char grilled pork)

thanks

[vinelady]

"On the left is what looks like broccoli rabe, and I think it is extremely close to that."

This is Gai Lan. Also known as Chinese Broccoli. Very Yummy.

"What I am not sure about is the thing in the middle... a sponge gourd, perhaps?"

This one is Bitter Melon. I have seen this used in a dish where it is cut into pieces about 2 inches long, hollowed, stuff with meat and then poached.

[Susan in FL]

Thanks for the info so far. I'm doing some planning and prep cooking now for tonight's dinner. Stuffing and poaching the bitter melon sounds interesting. I'll look that up for possibly another time. Maybe I'll do a Thai-style stir-fry with the Chinese broccoli.

Kho Moo Yang

(thai char grilled pork)

Without doing a search, I can't help you with a raw prawn recipe, but interestingly I'm making a variation of this recipe tonight. We're going to grill it. Don't know how similar this is to what you want...

I've made a Thai melon soup (this one has no bitter melon in it ) that is chilling now. The first taste test was good!

[Susan in FL]

I posted the photos from the last two nights here, on the dinner thread. Thursday night, the best was the pork and yard-long beans and the Jasmine rice, which we had with Thai-style frog legs (they were only so-so). Hot Sour Salty Sweet hardly ever lets me down. Having yard-long beans really makes a difference in the dishes calling for them. I'll definately make this again. For those with the book, it's page 238.

The preparation of Jasmine rice is noteworthy. Before I got this interested in Thai cooking, I didn't think it was so important how one cooks rice. I have surely learned that for Jasmine rice and sticky rice it is very important to me. I have used Hot Sour Salty Sweet's directions for Jasmine rice since I got the book, and I love it. Thursday night's was the best yet. I used a different pot, and the lid for this one is more tightly fitting. As always I followed the directions exactly, not taking off the lid until it was serving time. The grains of rice were beautiful and delicious.

Last night's dinner was Chilled Thai Melon Soup, adapted from this recipe, followed by Seared Coriander Scallops with Bok Choy and Hoisin. Then we had the Thai BBQ Pork with Lemon Grass, which I mentioned in the last post, and Gai Laan/Chinese Broccoli (recipe page 156, Hot Sour Salty Sweet). The resulting sauce was really good, too. We saved it to use for basting chicken or pork on the grill another time. The marinade is very intense, and I marinated longer than the recipe said. Next time I would follow the directions of 1 to 3 hours. I did not use the whiskey.

[snowangel]

This topic needs reviving, so revive, I will!

My cousin and his kids were over for dinner tonight. We're talking a lot of little kids, but, I know they like greens stir-fried ala HSSS. And, I had a hankering for curry.

So, for the kids, some regular ordinary broccoli and a whacked up chicken breast (horros, I know), stir fried ala these greens from HSSS along with a big batch of massaman curry.

So, I didn't pound my own paste. I dug out that container of Maesri that was languising in the fridge. But, I did take some pointers from the Thai Cooking course on ECI by Mamster and Pim, and marinated and cooked the meat, and added in the add-ins suggested, and it was a vast improvement. The other thing I did was used venison, a meat of which I have a freezer full.

I demured to my husband and did include potatoes (not my choice), but cubed them small and was "selective" when I served my portion.

I was a little heavy handed with the curry paste, but then again, all of the adults at the table have head colds.

Reminder to self. Cook more Thai food. Make more curry.

[Susan in FL]

Wow Susan, great minds... We Susans are on the same track. I've made a few Thai meals recently, and had been intending to revive this thread. We've had a couple of completely Thai dinners, and a couple of Thai-inspired or Thai-style. I've got photos on my camera that I haven't loaded for weeks, but I've been so busy I just haven't been able to post like I want to. Blah blah blah... Will catch up someday. Tonight I made a dipping sauce for pot sticker dumpling like things that got me craving totally Thai sticky rice all balled up and dipped in such a sauce, using fingers, with some larb or something. Down and dirty Thai, yum.

Your dinner sounded really good. We had a green Thai curry and shrimp the other night! I have never pounded my own paste. You have it all over me. Thanks for posting here!

[C. sapidus]

I’m really glad that the Susans revived this thread. I adore Thai food, so I've been drooling on my keyboard (that explains any typos). This week I have been cooking from Eng Tie Ang’s Delightful Thai Cooking. I never get a chance to take pictures of weekday meals, but described the results on the “What’s for Dinner?” thread. To recap:

Spicy fried rice (twice) – excellent!

Pork with red curry – sabotaged by my too-mild homemade red curry paste

Tonight I made green curry with beef, and it was delicious. The curry paste was from a can, and I substituted lime zest + lime juice for kaffir lime leaves. It didn’t matter a bit – the curry was really good. I must be getting better at adjusting the seasonings just before serving. The boys had hamburgers, rice-a-roni, and pickled beets. Elder son was brave and asked for a small sample of the green curry, heavily diluted with rice.

Some time this weekend I’ll make green curry with shrimp (the final dish in the series). Schedule willing, I’ll break in the new mortar and pestle on some green curry paste. So far, Eng Tie Ang is batting .750 (3 for 4). Not bad for a ballplayer or a cookbook, especially since the one miss was my fault.

[snowangel]

Elder son was brave and asked for a small sample of the green curry, heavily diluted with rice.

←

I puff chest with pride. As our dinner guests were leaving, and I was going to send a boatload of leftovers home with them, the Teenage Daughter prononced to me that this was the best curry ever, and that I should keep most of the leftovers.

[C. sapidus]

Susan: congrats on gaining approval from Teenage Daughter. We had a similar experience with a friend’s TD and dum aloo (potato-tomato curry from India). TD was reputed to be a very picky eater, but she had seconds and thirds of the dum aloo, then insisted on taking the leftovers home.

People who like my cooking are far more likely to be invited back.

Bruce

[C. sapidus]

OK, I made the green curry paste from scratch. It was OK. One of the problems is that Ms. Ang was not terribly clear on the type of chilies to be used. I made the first half of the batch with green Thai chilies, but they lacked heat. Have you ever heard of mild bird chilies? For the second batch, I used some red bird chilies, about double the amount. The color was wrong, but at least the chilies contained some capsaicin.

What kind of chili is typically used for Thai curries? I have started testing the chilies beforehand, but this is a no-win proposition. If the chilies are mild, then the curry paste will be lacking. If the chilies contain the proper amount of heat, then I will be running for some yogurt.

My other question is about use of the mortar and pestle. Ours has a 6" inside diameter (8" outside diameter). After pounding for a fairly short time, the paste liquefied but "chunks" of chilies remained. Is this proper? Should I chop up the chilies into smaller pieces before adding them to the morter, or should I just keep pounding away until all recognizable bits have been obliterated?

Anyway, I used the homemade paste to make shrimp with green curry. It was quite mild, but very pleasantly flavored. I added strips of poblano chilies when stir-frying the shallots. I love poblanos, and their rich flavor goes wonderfully with coconut milk. Sort of a Thai-Mexican fusion thing.

The small amount of leftovers will make a nice breakfast.

Bruce

[Austin]

C. sapidus: In terms of fresh chilies, the only ones Thai ever use to make curry paste are the tiny, tiny very hot chilies known as phrik khii nuu "mouse shit chilies". Dried chilies can also be used, and are either dried phrik khii nuu, used for their heat, or the much larger dried chilies, used more for color. The chilies you use depends on on the recipe: some curry pastes call for a combination of fresh and dried chilies, some only dried, some only large dried, some only small, etc. Thai-language cookbooks are specific about this, not sure about English-language ones.

Regarding pounding of chili paste, again, this can also vary with the type of curry you're making. Very generally, I would say that coconut milk-based curries should have a very fine curry paste, whereas more soupy/watery curries can have a coarser paste. In general though, you should mash the stuff up until it's quite fine; you certainly don't want your guests (or yourself) to bite into a big fat chunk of curry paste! This post on my blog has a good pic of what a curry paste should look like.

The Chinese broccoli mentioned earlier is probably my favorite "Thai" veggie. I make a stirfry with it nearly every week. I have some baby brocolli stems (somewhat similar) waiting to be fried up. I'll try to do a recipe for that on my blog today.

Austin

[C. sapidus]

Austin: Thanks for the advice on the curry paste. Based on your recipe for kaeng som, I probably used the right kind of chilies, just not enough of them. I may pound some more chilies into the existing pastes, or maybe just start over with a different recipe. This summer, I will be able to use homegrown Thai Hot Dragon chilies. They are prolific and very hot.

Awesome web site, by the way.

Bruce

[C. sapidus]

For those keeping score at home, this my follow-up attempt to make green curry paste from scratch. After some especially helpful advice from Austin, I pounded about 10 hot bird peppers to smithereens in the mortar, and then mixed them with the previously-made (but bland) green curry paste. Result: success!

Using the upgraded paste, I made green curry with beef and Anaheim chili strips. Coconut jasmine rice accompanied the dish nicely. This was by far the best green curry that I have ever eaten. Here is what it looked like (please ignore my lack of food photography skills).

Unfortunately, pixels don't transmit taste, which was abundant. Of course, I have no idea what green curry tastes like in Thailand, and our travel budget will probably prevent me from knowing for some time. I can say that the green curry was better than any I have ever had in the U.S., and the results definitely justified the effort. Now we need to invite some folks over that will appreciate the unique and potent combination of flavors.

Thanks again for the helpful advice. So, who's next?

Bruce

[echocolate]

Now we need to invite some folks over that will appreciate the unique and potent combination of flavors.

←

Isn't that the truth! My husband and I frequently cook spicy & exotic dinners, and wish that we could invite someone over to share with us, but we know few who will tolerate such taste bud "attacks"!

Your beef curry looks very, very good... reminiscient of a meal I had in Chicago in a little hole-in-the-wall by Grant Park a couple of summers ago.

I live in a small town in Illinois and have given up hope of buying kaffir or lemongrass in the local grocery stores. Even the curry pastes are hard to get - one store offers a tiny 4 oz. jar of paste for $2.99. But I lucked out and found a local Asian "store" that is in someone's garage and might not even be legal , and there I found a 12 oz jar of Mae Ploy for $1.79 ...I like the sound of that! I completely forgot to ask the owner about the kaffir & lemongrass - on my next visit, I will certainly do that. She also sold me a block of tamarind paste, and jars of coconut milk that were 0.79 cents each (in the regular grocery stores they are $1.89 each).

I have thought about making my own paste, but the ingredient list is overwhelming. Many, many kudos to those of you who have made your own.

[C. sapidus]

echocolate: Thanks for the kind words. There are a number of mail-order places that sell canned and fresh Thai goods.

Thai Table.com

Thai Grocer.com

Temple of Thai

Grocery Thai

You can also grow a dwarf kaffir lime tree if you have a sunny window. Four Winds Growers has a good reputation:

Good luck!

Bruce

[snowangel]

echocolate: Thanks for the kind words. There are a number of mail-order places that sell canned and fresh Thai goods.

Thai Table.com

Thai Grocer.com

Temple of Thai

Grocery Thai

You can also grow a dwarf kaffir lime tree if you have a sunny window. Four Winds Growers has a good reputation:

Good luck!

Bruce

←

I've kept one alive in Minnesota for 4 years now! They can be grown, and easily.

[Austin]

Bruce: your curry looks excellent, great job! My only advice would be to serve the curry in a separate bowl on the side. The amount of curry you have there looks a bit overpowering! Just take a spoonfull of curry at a time and mix it with a mouthful of rice; that's the way the Thais would eat it. Also, your curry would be complete if you can find the tiny "pea eggplants" always served with green beef curry.

Austin

[Susan in FL]

I went to the Asian market yesterday after work to see what was fresh, and buy what looked best. It was another good haul. I am hoping fellow Thai home cooks can help me decide how to best use the fresh produce I got. Also, do one of you experts know what this vegetable, with the yellow blossums, is (and what I might do with it)? She said she usually puts it in soup with noodles. I couldn't understand her when she told me what it is, even when she repeated herself.

It's different than this, what is usually called "Chinese Broccoli" around here; this is less bitter than broccoli rabe:

I also got some little round eggplants, a lot of basil and cilantro, baby bok choy, and lemongrass which is "fatter" than what's growing in my back yard.

In my freezer I have kaffir lime leaves and Thai chiles. I think I have most of the usual staples on hand: Jasmine rice, sticky rice, rice noodles of various thicknesses, curry pastes, coconut milk, palm sugar, oyster and fish sauces, dried shrimp and shrimp paste, and other sauces and pastes -- some I've never even used, etc.

What shall we have for dinner?

[bigbear]

By the way..... For those who have access to the Food Network and might be interested, Alton Brown's Good Eats show, 10 PM EST tonight, is titled Your Pad or Mine: Thai.

[snowangel]

Susan, I think the stuff with the yellow flowers is called yu choy, and my favorite preparation is to stir fry ala HSSS.

The little eggplants are traditionally used in curry. I particularly like this in green curry with some sort of poultry.

If the basil is Thai or holy basil, add to the curry. Another great use for the basil would be the stir-fried chicken with holy basil (p. 202 in HSSS; also good with Thai basil).

Have you made Tom Yum?

[Susan in FL]

I don't think that I've made Tom Yum, but I'm not sure. You have me thinking in terms of some HSSS recipes. I've been looking through it, after looking up the recipe on page 202. I've got to decide soon, so Russ can pick up anything I might not have on hand on his way home from work. I hate it when I get this indecisive... We'll probably end up eating at 10:00 tonight.

Meanwhile, any other ideas are welcome, everybody.

[mrbigjas]

Susan, I think the stuff with the yellow flowers is called yu choy, and my favorite preparation is to stir fry ala HSSS.

almost definitely yu choy. one of my favorite vegetables.

[Austin]

Since this is a Thai thread, we should go by the Thai name of the yellow-flowered veg, which is phak kwaang tung, literally, "Cantonese vegetable"! It is not usually stir fried, but rather put in soups (especially bamii, egg noodle soup), or par-boiled and eaten with nam phrik (Thai "salsas").

The second one, the Chinese broccoli, is called phak khanaa in Thai, and is almost always stir-fried. I like to flash-fry it with chilies, gratuitious garlic, oyster sauce and fermented soybeans known as tao jiaow. This is one of my favorite Thai dishes, although it's actually Chinese in origin.

Those eggplants I see in the back look similar to the ones used in curries, but actually there a bit different, and most Thais would eat them raw, again with nam phrik.

Can't see the basil.

Judging by what you have, I would suggest using the lemongrass and galangal to make tom yam. Stir fry the khanaa, and maybe make or buy some sort of nam phrik to eat with the phak kwaang tung and the eggplants. If you have shrimp paste, you can make nam phrik kapi, a very simple mixture of shrimp paste, garlic, chilies, lime juice, sugar, and a tiny bit of water to thin it out. Parboil your phak kwaang tung, and serve with raw cucumbers, the raw eggplants, raw carrots, whatever you have around. I'll try to do recipes for both flash-fried khanaa and nam phrik kapi on my blog soon.

Austin

Edited March 16, 2006 by Austin (log)