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Monthly archives for January, 2011

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Hungering for Thai Street food 1.0

Jan30
2011 1 Comment Written by chefshane

Thai street food here we come

In two weeks we're back to Thailand for 8 days, jetting straight into sweaty, steamy, smoky, bustling Bangkok for a couple of days of warmth and excitement, and then onwards to Chiang Rai in the chilly North.

Here in Da Nang we've been hovering around the 16 to 19 degrees C mark, which is far from my favourite temperature.
Chiang Rai has more of the same, but Bangkok is a much happier 30 degrees which both of us need badly.

I'm missing my fix of Thai street food.

We both are. Even though we cook great Thai at home, there's nothing like being seduced by smells, sights and tastes whenever you head out of the house.
I have yet to find a country with the depth of flavour, variety and freshness that you find on most Thai city streets.

While I'm enjoying my Pho, Banh Mi Thit, Banh Xeo and banana flower salads here in Vietnam I feel a sort of mourning for the loss of my always prevalent tasty Thai street food.
Here we have a steamed bun vendor, a baguette vendor and a couple of elderly motorbike hooligans that troll the streets at 20 km/hr with a tinny monotonous recording offering clumpy overcooked bags of short grain sticky rice and waxy white sweet corn.

For other street food, we can go into Da Nang City a few kilometers away where there is slightly more variety, but still lacking in flavour compared to a jaunt through Bangers.
For those giddying extremes of hot, sweet, sour and salty that one becomes addicted to in Thailand, one has to beg and cajole here in Da Nang.
If they are available, the flavours come out as condiments that you add to the dish yourself at the table.

It's not the same.
I like the roller coaster of taste and emotion that Thai food inspires. A party in the mouth.
Today and over the next couple of days I'll post some pics of Thai street food to get myself back in the mood.

Love these jumbo river prawns or "Goong Mai Nam"  Just barbecued, and served with nam jim.
Found on the street, at makeshift seafood places that spring up in carparks, and also markets, restaurants and more.

Grilled bananas. How many ways would you like them?

Crispy pork or Moo Krob is just as addictive as Heroin. Perhaps more so.
It's also hell on your teeth.
Are you religious? Then that's why your God invented dental floss.
Suck it up, and keep chewing. It's just delicious.

Thai tea, made with black tea dust
This cannot be described. It has to be drunk. Guzzled. Wallowed in.
This is REALLY nice. Both versions are great – with canned milk , ice, condensed milk or sugar, or just with ice and lime.

The 'black tea dust' has a deep reddish hue and a memorable flavour like no other.

The Holy Trinity. Som Tam green papaya salad, Gai yang barbecued marinated chicken, and khao nieow white sticky rice.
This is your classic 'som tam lady' and you'll find her within walking distance of almost every Soi in Thailand.
Healthy and tasty.

Fresh green unripe mango.
Take your pick of plain sliced mango with seasoned salt – or tossed with a roasted dry chilli dressing.
Tart, resinous and a bit exotic with a good mango tang.
The salt is an acquired taste

Posted in Asian Hawker & Street food, Thai food classics, The essentials - Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Kaeng khae recipe with Frog,betel leaf, galangal flower

Jan28
2011 10 Comments Written by chefshane

  

Heirloom Kaeng Khae recipe from Chiang Khong

Here's very different and delicious North Thai Kaeng Khae recipe, and it's made with barbecued frog. 

Not every kaeng khae recipe has frog – it's a mixed leaf and vegetable curry and you can use many base meats for it – beef, chicken, pork etc or you can even keep it vegan/vegetarian. As it's thickened with ground roasted rice, it's also gluten free.

This kaeng khae recipe is a 'curry' of many different freshly picked leaves, flowers and vegetables which is thickened with ground roasted rice and scented with toasted dry red chillies.

Kaeng Khae is a pretty special dish and not so common on the usual Thai menus in restaurants.

A Kaeng Khae recipe is a really great choice if you've got access to a garden full of edible herbs, flowers and vegetables, or a fresh Asian market.
This kaeng khae recpe was made for me at home in rural North Thailand, where I spent 4 months living and documenting the local dishes on this site. I was told we were going to eat 'barbecued frog' and the dish was a mystery until almost the very end.

As a rule of thumb, the average Kaeng Khae recipe uses one type of meat only – and it doesn't have to be frog.
The frog version was delicious though. Perhaps even ranking in my top 5 Thai dishes that I've tasted.
With the flowers, sticks, herbs and vegetables, you don't need to use the same ones listed here.
They're just a guide.
The whole idea of the dish is that it's made with lots of freshly picked stuff from the garden.

Here's the step-by-step recipe of the frog version that was made for me.

Kaeng Khae recipe ingredients (serves 4 )

  • 2 ea whole bbq frogs skin on. (you can use other meat, or keep it vegetarian or vegan if you prefer)
  • Hung wai – the white things in the bowl that look like a cross between palm heart and bamboo.  
  • Betel leaves – “bai chorpoo” (Pepper leaf, or La Lot leaf)
  • Kaffir lime leaf
  • Large Thai Eggplant (apple eggplant)
  • Small Thai pea egg plant 
  • Pak tam leung – a type of creeping morning glory  
  • Ja-kaan – a local North Thai aromatic wood used in cooking
  • Galangal flower Dok kha 

  • 1-2 tbsp roasted dry red chilli flakes (See my tom saap recipe for method)
  • 100g / ½ cup ground roasted rice khao krua
  • 25g fresh garlic, peeled & crushed 2 tbsp
  • 750ml Water 3 cups
  • 30ml Cooking oil 2 tbsp

At first the frogs look and smell really grim. It really worried me. That will cook out and they will taste & smell amazing

  1. Chop the frogs into large chunks
  2. Cut the Ja-kaan wood into small pieces then split into quarters. Mix the wood with the chunks of frog.
  3. Get your greens ready – like in the photo above and below.
  4. Heat a wok or frying pan and sauté the garlic & roasted chilli for 1-2 minutes till aromatic
  5. Add the frog and chunks of ja-kaan wood. Add a little water to the wok and stir. This will stir any tasty garlic and roasted chilli that sticks to the pan back into the ‘sauce’
  6. Put the water in a saucepan, and move the frog, wood and ‘sauce’ from the wok/pan into the potful of water
  7. Add the slower cooking ingredients (hung wai, thai eggplants, & kaffir lime leaves)  
  8. Simmer gently for 5-10 minutes 
  9. Add the betel leaves, galangal flowers, and quick cooking greens
  10. Now thicken it by stirring the ground roasted rice in. 
Two barbecued whole frogs from the local market in Bun Rueng.
Betel leaves, Galangal flowers and Cha-om (Acacia/wattle shoots)
The galangal flowers are spicy and delicious, the betel leaves give a peppery depth and the 
roasted chilli is just wonderful in most Northern dishes.
Chop and mix the chunks of frog and the aromatic wood 
Heat the wok, Add oil and fry the frog, wood, garlic and dried roasted chilli flakes
 
Add a little water, and stir to 'deglaze' the pan. This is a 'chefs trick' – it's how you make gravy!
The stuff stuck to the pan has a lot of flavour. When you add liquid & rub it off into the liquid
with a wooden spoon, it makes a great-tasting sauce.

Put a pot or casserole dish with water on the stove and empty the wok and its contents into this. 
The wok should be clean. If not, add more water and rub the 'baked on' bits off into the water and
add it to the pot. 
Check the colour of the 'water' in the pot. 
This is a tasty garlic chilli, frog & wood sauce already – just a bit thin and runny right now. 
Add the vegetables that take the longest to cook. 
That’s the eggplants, kaffir lime leaves & 'hung wai' (the stuff that looks like palm hearts)
It should look like the photo above at this point. 
Simmer for around 7-10 minutes to cook the veggies through properly. 
The flavour will come out of the kaffir lime.
Delicious, but it’s still not where we want to be yet! 
When the eggplants are tender, add in the 'delicate greens'.
That's the cha-om, the betel leaves and the galangal flowers. 
The green leafy veg will cook in a couple of minutes – so add in the
ground roasted rice ('khao krua') first.
This is the thickening agent for your gravy
Here's the almost finished product. Taste it -  an essential part of cooking!
If I pass on nothing else of use whatsoever – just remember, taste as you cook and adjust.
Taste and season. Taste and tweak.

Here's the finished dish, ready to serve.  
In a restaurant, we'd make this "no twigs and sticks' for the final service, and present it in a more sophisticated manner.
We sat on the floor family style with this one.
This is a local 'heirloom' recipe that was handed down from the grandparents.
It doesn't get written down, and it's is one that most foreigners and city people don't know about.
In the North it's eaten with white sticky rice, which is rolled into balls 
and dipped into the gravy. Here's a method for cooking sticky rice perfectly every time
I still get my own plate, spoon & fork and a wee bowl, and sit awkwardly on the floor.
We all sat around the table the first few days for my benefit but it became a bit too much effort.
Besides,‘When in Rome' also applies to North Thailand, where the hospitality is genuine.

About the frogs – they smelled bloody horrible, semi barbequed from the market.
It’s ok –they don’t retain that smell or appearance when cooked using this Kaeng Khae recipe.
The skin is a great feature and it's barbequed to enhance the aroma for the finished dish.

After the cooking this frog has the texture of chicken, and being large, they're quite meaty.
For me, the combination of the betel leaf and galangal flower combined with the ja-kaan wood
defines this dish.
Galangal flower is very different from the root and leaf – it’s quite spicy and peppery.
I’ll definitely be cooking this dish around Asia – albeit more tidily.
When I do, it willl be presented as an upmarket dish with heirloom flavours and pedigree.
A celebration of local culture and family cooking, but knife and fork ready.
I have to say if I ever enjoyed sucking my fingers clean, it was while eating this. 
If you can find the ingredients, jump on it right away.
It is a dish that you have to try before you croak.

  

Posted in Exotic meats & ingredients, Gluten free, Northern Thai, Thailand - Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Eating your loofah gourd and having it too.

Jan27
2011 1 Comment Written by chefshane

How to cook an old scrubber

Enter the loofah, that coarse wiry thing that hangs somewhere in the bathroom,
and sometimes gets used for back scrubbing.
Mine has a wooden handle, and used to hang off the window hook at a bit of an angle
because of the short string.
From time to time when my back felt particularly reptilian, I would remember to grab it
and start see-sawing it across my back to pry off the scales.
When I was a kiddie, we used to have a long Phallic loofah that laid nonchalantly around
the bathtub – threatening quick dippers with its unknown potential.
For me, that was the loofah.

They do have other uses.
One, apparently, is for sexual fantasies and envisaged by Fox TV show executives. 
Wikipedia makes reference to this seemingly innocent dried gourd skeleton in the Bill O'Reilly harassment suit 
"Mackris produced quotations from phone conversations between herself and O’Reilly in which
he suggested various sexual fantasies he had for her.
A widely publicized portion of one conversation included a scenario where O'Reilly would
massage her with a loofah in the shower. At one point during the conversation, O'Reilly referred
to the loofah as "the falafel thing." "Falafel" eventually became a short-hand reference to the affair."

That use is probably more interesting to the casual reader than my loofah gourd recipe. Each to his or her own.

Broadminded though I definitely am, I find it difficult to become aroused over the
inclusion of any type of loofah in my sexual repertoire.
Perhaps that's my loss, or maybe I'm just getting old. In my culinary repertoire however, it has definitely found a place. 



Loofah is a type of gourd, but every time I hear 'gourd' I think of that scene from Monty Python's
"Life of Brian"
As for loofah, the ones you find in shops for bathroom use are a bit like me… old, past their prime,
and allowed to hang on their vine and die, drying out to expose their dry fibrous interior.
The young ones however, are a bit like zucchini.
You can slice them and fry them up in a similar way.
This recipe was actually done with bamboo and glass noodles after what you see below.
Also good, but I was really getting into just eating the loofah part out of the wok as cooked below. Awesome.

Stir-fried loofah with pork
Cooking oil
1       Loofah, sliced thinly
200g  Finely chopped pork fillet (or could use chicken, or onion if vegetarian)
20g   Chillies, fresh, chopped
50ml  Oyster sauce, Thai Maekrua brand
1       Pinch Black pepper, freshly crushed

First wash, then chop up your young loofah.
Slice the chillies also. To taste.
Slice the pork thinly. If you have a less tender cut, it can be chopped or coarsely minced

Heat a wok or frying pan.
Add a little oil, and when smoking, add the pork. Stir-fry 1  minute until just coloured and
sexy, then add and stir-fry the loofah and chilli, still over high heat.
It should make a loud sizzling sound the whole time, just like my lily-white skin during an
hour in the midday sun. If it doesn't, then the wok isn't hot enough.

We want to stir-fry it all at high heat for about 2-3 minutes until almost cooked.
Next, add the oyster sauce. About 1 tablespoon for this amount of pork,  loofah and chilli.
Season with a liberal sprinkle of freshly crushed/ground black peppercorns.
that's it.
Eat it with rice, or just as is.

Posted in Exotic meats & ingredients, Healthy & Low fat, Northern Thai, Quick & easy - Tagged , , , ,

How to make duck confit and duck rillettes

Jan25
2011 1 Comment Written by chefshane

New Year is a time that I always lash out on lavish dishes, and nothing tastes as lavish as a nicely made duck confit.

When I make confit, I almost always end up going the extra step to make rillettes.
Rillettes is like a pate, but it's meat, not offal, which is slowly cooked for hours, then shredded and mixed with a little fat.
It's pronounced "ree-yet" but you need to add a little crazy French accent to get it sounding perfect ;-)  

The melt-in-your-mouth texture of rillettes is great with freshly baked sourdough baguette, Italian sourdough ciabatta or thin croutons (or crostini or toast, depending on your language)
 
Eat it with champagne, sparkling wine, traminer or a Pinot Noir and you'll be in heaven.
Traditionally rillettes recipes are made with pork which is stewed slowly, the fat being added later

Confit is meat that's been salted and semi cured for a day with aromats, then poached very slowly in fat or oil until it melts in the mouth – It literally takes hours.
Confit is normally done with duck or goose.

I make this dish with pork AND duck. Extra points for me.

Time to make this: 2 days

30 to 40 minutes prep the first day, then leave overnight to cure
4 hours to cook and prepare the second day, then an hour or two to cool and set

Duck confit ingredients:

750g        Pork meat – fresh not frozen. Pork leg is good but most cuts are OK
1 ea         Duck 2kg – 2.2kg
450g        Coarse rock salt
1 bunch   Thyme – fresh branches
2 bulbs    Fresh garlic
2 tsp       Ground allspice (Jamaican / Carribbean spice called Pimento. NOT mixed spices!)
2 dsp       Whole black peppercorns  
12 ea       Bayleaves
4kg          Duck fat (enough to cover everything for poaching. Olive or other oil is Ok – but duck fat is best. It tastes amazing)

You'll need something to eat it with:
Crusty baguette, Sourdough / wood fired bread, melba toast, plain toast, crostini, croutons – even crackers are OK

Duck confit method:

  1. Cut the pork into chunks or strips – don't be too fussy. Not too small though.
  2. Cut the duck into sections
  3. Lay both in a steel, plastic or crockery tray  
  4. Mix the aromats (herbs, garlic, pepper, allspice) into the coarse salt. Basic kosher salt, rock salt or any cheap coarse salt is perfect. Expensive sea salts are not. We're going to throw the salt away tomorrow, so DON'T use Maldon salt or any of the gourmet salt flakes.
  5. Sprinkle the coarse salt, herbs, pepper and spice mix over the cut meat.
    Be generous. Mix it in well.
    Cover it and rub it in. Too much is fine. We're going to wash it off tomorrow. It's there to draw out liquid from the meat as well as to infuse flavour
  6. Cover and put in the fridge overnight.
    It should sit and cure for 24 hours before proceeding to the next step. We're both infusing the meat with flavour, AND drawing out the liquid inside so tomorrow there will be lots of water and juice in the tray, which we'll discard
    duck confit curing in salt & aromats
     
  7. The following day, remove the tray and take each piece of meat and rub it free of salt and spices with a clean wet cloth. Some even wash under the tap and pat dry. Both methods are OK.
  8. Put into a pot and cover with the duck fat (or oil or other fat)
    duck confit in duck fat
     
  9. Add a little more taste (optional) – a few more garlic cloves, some thyme springs, a couple of bay leaves and some peppercorns
     
  10. Bring to a gentle simmer. DON'T BOIL.
    This is really important. There should be almost no movement. We're aiming to keep this at around 90 degrees C.
    Bring the pot to a simmer on the stove top, then transfer it, covered, to a preheated oven at around 150 degrees C and leave it there for a couple of hours. You wan't to poach in the fat with no colour.
    Fat keeps getting hotter until it starts to burn or deep fry. This is NOT what we want, so control the temperature
     
  11. Poach for several hours until the duck meat is so soft, it crushes between the fingers and is easy to pull off the bone. It should be ready to fall off the bone.
    The pork should also shred easily apart. You now have confit duck and confit pork. Easy.
    Here's mine
    duck confit cooked

  12. Remove from the fat and drain on a rack.
    Put on some food handling gloves and shred the meat into a bowl, discarding any fat, gristle and bone. You should end up with a bowl of pure, soft shredded pork and duck meat with an incredible flavour
     
  13. Next step you can do one of two things. You can press the meat down into a bowl or terrine, and cover with a layer of the cooking fat to keep the air out – and that's it….OR you can do what I do
     
  14. I like to keep half the meat shredded and the other half, with all the ugly, non-perfect bits is pureed in a food processor.
    Mix the pureed confit with the shreds of confit and use a spatlua orwooden spoon to combine and mix well
  15. NOW it's time to press into a bowl, and cover with a thin layer of the cooking fat. (This preserves it)
    You can actually keep this outside the chiller at any temperature where the fat stays solid.
    I always keep mine in the fridge because I live in a warm country.. 
    You can put some thyme sprigs or other non-perishable decor into the fat on top.

    Bon Appetite. This is an incredible snack. Let me know how yours turns out

Posted in The essentials, Western Food - Tagged , , , , , , , ,
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