Papaya Salad

One of my favourite meals, which is definately in my Top 10, is Som Tam, otherwise known as Papaya Salad.

The meal is quite simple to make. The main ingredients are shredded green papaya, chopped green beans, tomoato, dried prawns, unsalted roasted peanuts, chillies, garlic and lime juice. These are all pounded together in a mortar using a pestle. The sound it makes is "pok pok". Whenever I hear that sound while walking down the street I always turnaround to look for the som tam stall.


The papaya salad is best served with sticky rice (khao neow) and grilled chicken. That is the way I like it. But you can have fish instead. There is also a recipe which has crab.

When you come to buy Papaya Salad, it is nearly always prepared in front of you. This way you can tell them how many chillies you want! I like mine hot. Papaya Salad with sticky rice from a roadside stall will cost you about 20 baht.

Recipe:

1 medium dark green papaya
4 garlic cloves (kratiem)
6 green Thai chilies (prik khee noo)
2 tomatoes, cut into wedges
1/2 cup chopped green beans, in 1-in (2.5-cm) pieces
2 tablespoons anchovy sauce
1/2 teaspoon sauce
1/4 cup (2 fl oz/60 ml) lime juice or tamarind juice (ma-kaam piag)

How to make:

1. Peel the papaya and rinse with running water to remove the acid. Remove the seeds and shred the papaya with a grater. Set aside.
2. Place the garlic cloves and the chilies in a mortar and mash with a pestle until crushed into chunks. Place the papaya and the remaining ingredients in the mortar and gently combine all ingredients by mixing with the pestle and a spoon. Serve cold.

Or try other tips :

Papaya Salad Ingredients
1. 2 cups shredded green papaya
2. 1/2 cup shredded carrot
3. 1/2 cup sting bean (cut into 1" long)
4. 2 tablespoons fish sauce
5. 1 1/2 tablespoons palm sugar
6. 3 tablespoons lime juice
7. 1/2 cup tomato (wedged)
8. 1/3 cup dried shrimps
9. 1/4 cup peanuts
10. 10 green chilies
11. 5 cloves fresh garlic

Papaya Salad Preparations
1. Use motar and prestle to crush the chilli and garlic, add shrimps, continue crushing.
2. Add sugar, continue beating with the prestle, then add the papaya, carrot, sting bean, fish sauce, lime juice, tomato, and peanuts. Continue beating until all ingredients mixed well.
3. Finally, season with sugar, fish sauce, or lime. The original taste this dish should be the balance taste between sweet, (pepper) hot, salty, and sour.
4. Serve with vegetables (e.g. cabbage, string bean, napa, etc.). Thai people love to eat Sticky Rice with Papaya Salad. In this case, sticky rice can be served together with finished Papaya Salad.

Chicken with yellow rice

There used to be a guy at the top of our soi selling khao mun gai. I used to go there quite often to buy my chicken and rice. He was always quite friendly and was keen to practice his English with me. Then, one day, he was no longer there any more. As this was at the height of the "bird flu" scare I guessed he closed his stall because of dwindling customers. Or, maybe he just wheeled it elsewhere because of the fierce competition from the "chicken guy". This is the muslim man I told you about before who sells fried chicken which not only tastes better than KFC but is also half the price.

Nearly a year has passed now and most people are not so worried about bird flu. You do hear reports about it in the newspapers every now and then, but people tend to ingore it now. After all, it would seem that the majority of people that have died had direct contact with the birds. Either they reared chickens or they were a butcher. So, I was quite excited last week to see a new food shop open around the corner. This not only sold khao mun gai, but also another of my favourites, khao mok gai. It is owned by a muslim family. Their daughter used to be one of my students. This dish is similiar to the chicken and rice I told you about before. However, the rice in this meal has been coloured yellow with the use of turmeric. To cook khao mok gai, you fry some garlic in a pan until golden brown. You then stir in the rice, curry powder, salt and chicken pieces. You then transfer this mixture to an electric rice cooker. You add the chicken stock and cook for about 20 minutes. Quite simple really.

You don't really need to be able to read Thai to buy food on the streets. You can usually work out what they are selling by looking at the ingredients in the glass display cabinet. However, it wouldn't hurt if you could read! In this picture, the top line says khao mun gai tod and khao mun gai. The first one is fried chicken (tod means fried) and the second one is boiled. The second line says khao mok gai tod and khao mok gai. The last line is obviously telling you that a normal plate is only 20 baht (50 cents) and a bit of extra meat (called piset in Thai) is 25 baht.

Spicy Stir-fried pork with long beans

One of my favourite school lunches is similar to this one. It is called spicy stir-fried pork and long beans, or pat prik king moo in Thai. I took this picture at Pornsiri Kitchen in Samut Prakan where I recently spent the afternoon making Thai cooking videos. I didn’t actually eat this one as it was for a customer. (Even other people have to wait these days while I photograph their food first!) It looks a lot spicier than the version we have at school. The recipe in one of my cook books is slightly different. It calls for 300 grams of pork, a quarter of a cup of prik king chili paste, 200 grams of long beans, 1 red spur chili, 3 shredded kaffir lime leaves, 1 tablespoon of palm sugar and 1 tablespoon of fish sauce. You need to cut the pork up into small pieces and then marinate it for 5 minutes in fish sauce. Cut the long beans up into one inch lengths. Blanch them in hot boiling water until nearly cooked. Then loosely tie them. Heat the oil in the wok and then saute the chili paste until fragrant. Add the pork and keep stirring until it is done. Season to taste with sugar and fish sauce. Add the beans and stir well. Garnish with shredded kaffir lime leaves and red chili.

The local food shop version is a little different. After all, it only costs 25 baht (about 60 cents) so you cannot expect too much preparation. First heated up the wok and then add the pieces of pork. Give it a good stir. Add the chili paste and then some chicken stock. Let it cook for a while longer while continually stirring. Season with some sugar and fish sauce. Most food shops will add a touch of MSG. Add more chicken stock if needed. Then add the long beans. Keep stirring. Make sure you don’t over cook them as they are better if still crunchy. And that is about it! If you like, you can download the cooking video of this meal being cooked.

Fried Mackerel with Shrimp Paste Sauce

Fried Mackerel with Shrimp Paste Sauce

As you probably know by now, I live in Paknam which borders the Gulf of Thailand. As you can imagine, seafood features quite heavily in menus at numerous restaurants in this area. Even the roadside stalls sell plenty of dishes which have seafood as their main ingredients. Today I want to tell you about a popular dish in this area called "nam prik pla too". This basically translates as Fried Mackerel with Shrimp Paste Sauce.

As you can see from the above pictures, the meal is served ready cooked. You choose your fish, which raw vegetables you want and even the spicy sauce. This meal costs 15-30 baht depending on the size of your helping. The "nam prik pla too" sauce is made up from dried shrimp paste, garlic, green chili, shrimp paste, fish sauce, lime juice and palm sugar.

Massaman Curry

Massaman Curry

In Thailand we are blessed with a variety of curries such as green curry, red curry, yellow curry, massaman curry and panaeng curry. The two former curries are probably the most popular and what most people would label as genuine Thai food. The other curries are more influenced by Indian and Muslim food as they contain spices such as cassia, cumin and cardamon.

I usually eat these mulsim curries at the weekend when I go to watch a movie or do some computer shopping at Seri Center on Srinakarin Road. In the food market in the basement, there is a food stall run by some muslim ladies. They have four or five different curries for sale. You can choose to eat the curry with either rice or a fresh roti. I usually go for the latter just to make a change from the rice I normally eat during the week. This meal is relatively expensive at 40 baht (about US$1). I don't usually spend so much money on meals but these curries are really filling. And of course they are all really delicious.

Normally I would eat this meal at Seri but today I thought I would do it as a take-away so I could share it with you. I don't mean I am going to let you taste any. I just wanted to share with you the pictures of my lunch today! By the way, to take food home, you just tell them to "sai toong" which means put in a bag. So, they poured the massaman curry into a plastic bag and tied it up with a rubber band. The cucumber relish was put in another and then the roti in a third bag.

Thai Muslims of course usually eat this dish with beef. But today, I decided to eat gang masaman gai which is with chicken. There are different recipes for this dish, but some of the main ingredients include: coconut milk, potatoes, roasted peanuts and onions. It is seasoned with cardamon pods, cinnamon sticks, palm sugar, tamarind juice and lemon juice.

Of course, it is the massaman curry paste which gives it is distinctive taste. The ingredients for this include: red chilies, roasted shallots, roasted garlic, sliced galangal, sliced lemon grass, roasted coriander seeds, roasted cumin, roasted cloves, white pepper, salt and shrimp paste. This is all then pounded together to make the paste. Of course, you have a choice to do all this yourself or just buy a packet of massaman paste for about 5 baht! I bought some today at Foodland and will try to cook some massaman curry later this week.

This curry has a side dish of cucumber relish. You may remember me talking about this a few months back in my blog about satay pork as they both use the same relish. As you can see, this is made up with red chili, sliced cucumbers and sliced shallots. it is then mixed in a sauce of vinegar, salt and sugar.

Chicken Yellow Curry

Chicken Yellow Curry

You may remember me sharing you pictures last week of the Massaman Curry that I ate for lunch. I bought this at Seri Center where I quite often go at the weekend. This week I bought gang gari gai otherwise known as Chicken Yellow Curry.You might be interested to note that "gari" is actually a Tamil word which gave us the English word "curry". Like before, I ordered this meal with a roti. A few readers pointed out that I should really call it a "Parantha" as roti is a single layer and is cooked without oil. That might be true, but Thai people still call it "roti"!

The main ingredients include: coconut milk, potatoes, onion, palm sugar, fish sauce and deep-fried shallots. You could also add cherry tomatoes which I quite like to do in my curries. The meat here can either be chicken or beef. The ingredients for the yellow curry paste include: red spur chilies, roasted shallots, roasted garlic, galangal, ginger, lemon grass, coriander seeds, roasted cumin, curry powder, salt and shrimp paste.

Chicken Yellow Curry

Chicken Yellow Curry

You may remember me sharing you pictures last week of the Massaman Curry that I ate for lunch. I bought this at Seri Center where I quite often go at the weekend. This week I bought gang gari gai otherwise known as Chicken Yellow Curry.You might be interested to note that "gari" is actually a Tamil word which gave us the English word "curry". Like before, I ordered this meal with a roti. A few readers pointed out that I should really call it a "Parantha" as roti is a single layer and is cooked without oil. That might be true, but Thai people still call it "roti"!

The main ingredients include: coconut milk, potatoes, onion, palm sugar, fish sauce and deep-fried shallots. You could also add cherry tomatoes which I quite like to do in my curries. The meat here can either be chicken or beef. The ingredients for the yellow curry paste include: red spur chilies, roasted shallots, roasted garlic, galangal, ginger, lemon grass, coriander seeds, roasted cumin, curry powder, salt and shrimp paste.

Chicken Coconut Soup

Chicken Coconut Soup

I read in the newspaper the other day, that a research team from the UK had proved that an extract of galangal can both kill cancer cells and protect healthy ones from the disease. As this is a common ingredient in Thai stir-fries and soups I was intrigued to learn more. I went onto the Internet and googled "galangal". I eventually found a recipe for Tom Kha Gai (chicken coconut soup). As this is on my favourites list I decided to have a go at cooking it.

My first stop was my collection of cookery books. I soon discovered that although each book had a recipe for Tom Kha Gai they were quite different from each other. From my memory of eating this dish I decided to use the recipe from "Thailand The Beautiful Cookbook". I made a list of the ingredients before setting off to the supermarket. I needed: coconut milk, galangal, lemon grass, kaffir lime leaves, lime juice, coriander leaves and some chili. They wanted green but I wanted red.

(Left): galangal (Right): lemon grass

On the left is the galangal (kha). As you can see, it is similar in appearance to ginger. It is pinkish and has a peppery flavour. The label on the pack said it cost 45 baht per kilo. This pack cost 5.75 baht. More than enough. On the next shelf I noticed another pack with both lemon grass (right), galangal and kaffir lime leaves (below right). These are the ingredients for Lemon Grass Soup (more famously known as Tom Yum). As this was only 7 baht I decided to go for that. (1 US$ is presently 38 baht.) As far as I understand, although these two dishes have similar ingredients, Tom Yum focuses more on the lemon grass and Tom Kha Gai focuses more on the galangal. If you are wondering at this stage what "tom" means then I will tell you that it means "boiled".

(Left): coriander (Right): kaffir lime leaves

Next I needed the coriander or "pak chee" in Thai. There were two varieties on the shelf. One was "pak chee tai" and the other "pak chee jeen". I guess the former was Thai and the latter Chinese. As "pak chee jeen" was translated into "coriander" on the label I knew which one to pick. This only cost 4 baht. Next on my list was the small green limes, coconunt milk, chilis and of course the chicken. Oh yes, did you know that the red chilis that are labelled in English as "red bird chili peppers" are called in Thai "mouse shit chilis"! I wonder why they didn't translate that properly in the supermarket?

Tom Kha Gai - Chicken coconut Soup

Ingredients:
2 cups of coconut milk
6 thin slices of galangal
2 stalks of lemon grass (cut into 1 inch strips and crush with cleaver)
5 fresh kaffir lime leaves (torn in half, not cut)
250 g of boneless chicken
5 tablespoons of fish sauce (naam blaa)
2 tablespoons of sugar
Half a cup of lime juice
1 teaspoon of black chili paste (nam prik pow)
Quarter cup of coriander leaves
5 green chili peppers (I will use red chilis)

Method 1:
(1) Combine half the coconut milk with the galangal, lemon grass and lime leaves in a large saucepan and heat to boiling. Add the chicken, fish sauce and sugar.
(2) Simmer for about 4 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked. Add the remaining coconut milk to the saucepan and heat just to boiling.
(3) Place the lime juice and chili paste in a serving bowl then pour the soup into the serving bowl.
(4) Garnish with the torn coriander leaves and chili pepers, and serve.

Other recipes I have read don't include the lemon grass. I also saw another one that said add the chili at the same time as the chicken. I will do that. This next version of the same recipe comes from a book called "Simply Thai Cooking". I am thinking I will go for a mixture of the two. However, they say add lemon juice which I don't have!

Method 2:
(1) Slice the chicken into thin strips.
(2) Smash lemon grass with the flat side of a chef's knife once and then cut into 1 inch pieces; slice galangal into thin rounds; tear lime leaves into thirds; cut chilis in half.
(3) Heat coconut milk and water in a saucepan for 2-3 minutes. Don't let it boil. Reduce heat to a medium and add lemon grass, galangal, lime leaves, chilies and cook for another 2 minutes, stirring continuously and not letting it boil.
(4) Add chicken strips and cook for 5 minutes, stirring over medium heat, until the chicken is cooked.
(5) Add 2 tablespoons of lemon juice, 1 tablespoon of fish sauce and quarter tablespoon of sugar. stir, and continue cooking for another minute or two/
(6) Transfer to a soup bowl and serve immediately, garnished with fresh corriander leaves.