My Thai cooking lesson

[Abra]

My Thai neighbor Tum owns the Bainbridge Thai restaurant here in town, and turns out delicious food for lunch and dinner 7 days a week. She's always wanting to teach me some of her tricks, but she practically never sees the light of day because she's always at the restaurant. Normally they close it down and head to Thailand every Thanksgiving, but this year they decided to stay here and have a few days off. I seized the chance to invite them to Thanksgiving dinner, which I reported a bit about here, and in return she came over on Sunday to give me a little cooking lesson.

Here is where we started, down on the kitchen floor, as she pounds out Nam Prik Ka Pi.

That stuff is the elixir of the gods, I swear. It looks dreadful

or even worse than dreadful, but it's ambrosia to me. She pounded together a pile of green Thai bird chiles with a fermented anchovy paste (that's the ka pi part), plus fresh garlic, dried shrimp, palm sugar, lime juice, fish sauce, and hot water. It has a funky, enticing, aroma and flavor that I love on eggs, or rice, or as we ate it here, on fried eggplant.

Here's the eggplant frying

Tum dips the slices in a light batter made from Gogi tempura mix and water. They make a perfect platform for the anchovy sauce.

She also showed me how to make a perfectly delightful version of Larb, with canned tuna. I have some really good tuna, caught and canned by a local guy. It's important that you don't use oil-packed tuna, so get the best water-packed one you can find. She combined the tuna with about half as much sliced shallots as tuna, then tossed it with cilantro, leek stem slivers, a bit of green onion and cilantro, lime juice, sugar, roasted red chile flakes, and topped it with ground roasted rice. We ate it folded into cabbage leaves.

I had a jar of bai ka pow in my fridge, Thai chile sauce with holy basil, and Tum turned that into a really nice little pork dish. It was very hot, but then, she used about half the jar. I advise moderation, if you make this one.

She minced a nice fatty pork chop and fried the meat with the bai ka pow, some roasted chile flakes, sugar, and fish sauce. Since this was a spontaneous dish, she tossed in the remains of the eggplant and a carrot from the fridge, but you could use other vegetables as well.

And then, because so many things were really spicy, she made a bland soup. I never caught on to this before, but Tum said that there always has to be one bland dish, in addition to the rice. So in this case she made a great and simple tofu soup

This soup was made with about 2 parts chicken broth to one part water, some Golden Mountain seasoning (a Thai version of soy sauce) a couple of tablespoons of the minced pork for added flavor, black pepper, cilantro and green onion, tofu, and then a big handful of chopped garlic, fried until golden. It was amazingly good, and not at all "bland" except in the context where bland means "won't blow your head off."

And then we sat down to lunch.

None of her recipes are written down, and she laughs at me as I scribble furiously as she cooks. It's a great way to learn, though, since I get to see exactly what she does, but have to analyze each step at the same time, in order to capture it on paper. There's lots more Thai cooking in my future, that's for sure. By the way, Tum scoffed at my Vietnamese fish sauce. I always use Three Crabs, or Three Shrimp brand, but she insisted that for true Thai flavor it has to be Squid brand fish sauce.

[Megan Blocker]

OMG...drool! Abra, this is amazing! I'm now ticked at myself for defrosting a steak for tonight. All I want is Thai!

That "bland" soup sounds like just the thing for the colds going around NYC at the moment...

[Chris Amirault]

By the way, Tum scoffed at my Vietnamese fish sauce. I always use Three Crabs, or Three Shrimp brand, but she insisted that for true Thai flavor it has to be Squid brand fish sauce.

Why, exactly, Squid brand?

[Abra]

Because Tum Said So! She has very strong opinions about sauces: only Panda Brand oyster sauce, only Golden Mountain soy sauce, and only Squid brand fish sauce. I don't even try to argue, because her food is so wonderful.

[snowangel]

From experience in Thailand, there is the Squid Brand camp, and the Tiparos camp. I'm a Tiparos woman, but next time, I will get a bottle of Squid Brand and do a comparison. I do know that my local Asian market outsells Tiparos to Squid by a fairly large margin.

And, I do know that the bottles that are labeled with the nutrition label including the ingredients are not necessarily correct. On the last two bottles of Tiparos, the U. S. added-on label listed sugar as an ingredient, but this was not included in the Thai label.

[eje]

Why, exactly, Squid brand?

←

I was recently looking at Thai cooking classes and trips in my area and ran across this web page concerning various fish sauce brands.

No 3 Crabs!

Been using Squid for the last year or so and am pleased at how much nicer it is than my previous brand.

[Abra]

Very interesting, eje. I started using Three Crabs because Bruce Cost recommended it and it tasted good to me. The label on my bottle does indeed cop to fructose and hydrolized wheat protein, which I hadn't noticed before. I avoid those ingredients in soy sauce, and am glad you got me to look at the label.

I hate to say it, but I don't get the artificial taste he refers to. It's sweeter than the Squid brand, that's noticeable, but otherwise they taste not very different to me.

[KatieLoeb]

Ohmigosh! Soooo jealous! How wonderful to have such a learned and generous instructor and such a lovely lunch to celebrate the fruits of your labor.

Wow! Awesome.

Note to self - buy Squid fish sauce.

[BarbaraY]

I would love to have been there to observe.

I have two fish sauces in my pantry. One is Orchid brand Patis, not my favorite. I prefer Tiparos but my store was sold out when I got this. I'm not especially fond of Orchid Brand or Dynasty products but that is just about all I can get here.

The other sauce is one I picked up in PA last fall. The only English on it is the ingredient list but it smells and tastes just right.

I've never seen the Squid brand but will check next time I make a food product expedition.

[trillium]

I'm a big fan of Tra Chang, I find it much more robust and complex compared to say, Squid brand (which seems harsher/bitter and more watery but salty and sweet to me). Fish sauce is so inexpensive it's easy to buy a few different brands and find your favorite.

When I was in Thailand, whenever I was in a grocery store I would check out the fish sauce. I saw Golden Boy, Tra Chang, and Squid, along with other brands not available here in the US, but not Tiparos or Three Crabs. I was in the south, it might change by region.

regards,

trillium

[jgm]

If you have (or can get) the equipment, and if she will allow, think about videotaping her as she demonstrates her cooking for you. It would be such a treasure!