Bu Neung (Steamed Crabs)

The food should be steamed in a bamboo steamer to avoid condensation dripping onto the cooking food. Alternatively, if you use a metal steamer cover the food with a paper towel which is not in contact with the food.

Serve steamed cracked crabs with nam prik kiga. A little practice will enable you to remove the meat from the crabs with minimal difficulty. You will need a small, heavy, sharp kitchen knife and a mallet. You'll find the meat in the body sections where the legs attach to the body and in the claws. There is a very good guide to the technique of picking crabs at MarylandInfo.com

3 blue crabs

Put crabs in a large pot with rack and tight fitting lid, or large steamer. Steam covered, until crabs turn bright red color, about 15 to 25 minutes. Serve hot or cold.

Bu Ob Woon Sen (Crabs with Glass Noodles in Claypot)

Recipe from: Royal Thai Cuisine
Servings: 4

• 2 whole crabs (about 2 pounds or 1 kg)

• 1 tablespoon oil

• 7 cloves garlic, peeled and left whole

• 2 slices lean bacon, cut into 1 inch (2 ½ cm) pieces

• 2 coriander roots, cut in half

• 2 inches (5 cm) ginger, sliced

• 1 teaspoon white peppercorns, crushed

• 8 ounce (250 g) dried glass noodles (bean threads or cellophane noodles) soaked in cold water to soften for 5 minutes and drained

• 1 teaspoon butter

• 1 tablespoon soy sauce

• 2 spring onions, cut in 1 ½ inch (4-cm) lenghts

• 1 spring coriander leaves (cilantro)

Stock

• 2 cups (500 ml) Thai Chicken Stock
• 2 tablespoons oyster sauce
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 2 teaspoons fish sauce
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 2 teaspoons brandy or whisky
• 2 teaspoons sugar

1. Place all the Stock ingredients in pan, bring to a boil and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool.
2. Clean each crab by scrubbing it briskly with a brush. (If still alive, make sure the pincers are tied securedly.) Rinse well with cold water. Using a cleaver or a heavy knife, cut the crab in half, then halve it again. Chop off the pincers, crack them and set aside. Remove the shell, scrape it out and set aside any roe.
3. Heat the ol in a large clay pot or heatproof casserole. Stir-fry the garlic over high heat till lightly brown. Add bacon and stir-fry for one minute. Add crab, coriander roots, ginger and peppercorns. Stir-fry for 3 minuters.
4. Add glass noodles, butter, soy sauce and Stock. Mix will, cover and cook over high heat for 15-20 minutes or until crabs are cooked. Stir in spring onions and rarnish with cilantro. Serve hot.

Bu Pad Pong Karee (Curried Crab Claws)

Recipe from: Colonel Ian F. Khuntilanont-Philpott

This is a mild curried dish, usually served as a counterpoint to a more intense curry or garlic dish. It can be prepared with crab claws, or with a cup of crab meat, or a mixture of crab meat and shrimp. Since it is often eaten with chop sticks, you might consider removing the meat from the claws, as this makes it easier for the spice flavours to penetrate and easier to eat the food. Thai curry powder (phom kari) is unlikely to be available outside Thailand. Use a mild Indian curry powder instead. Prik yuak is a sweet green chili, if not available use green bell peppers or canned jalapeños to taste.

• 2 spring onions (scallions/green onions), sliced thinly

• 1 cup crab meat

• 1 tablespoon garlic, sliced thinly

• 2 tablespoon fish stock

• 1 teaspoon phom kari

• 1 tablespoon light soy sauce

• 2 tablespoon fish sauce

• 2 tablespoon shallots, sliced thinly

• 1 tablespoon julienned prik yuak

• pinch of sugar

Heat some oil in a wok, and stir fry the garlic and onions. Add the fish stock, soy sauce and fish sauce, and stir fry the crab until nearly cooked, then add the remaining ingredients. Line a serving dish with lettuce and pour the crab over it, garnish with coriander leaves, lime leaves, and slices of cucumber. If using crab claws, then steam the crab claws, and combine the remaining ingredients separately, and reduce them to form a dipping sauce.

This dish is of course served with the usual Thai table condiments, and personally I like to add quite a bit of prik dong (red chilis in vinegar) to it. As always with this type of tropical seafood dish, you can serve it hot, at room temperature, or chilled.

Gaeng Gai (Chicken Curry)

Recipe from: Amanda

This recipe is better than most Thai restaurants.

• 4 tablespoon vegetable oil

• 10 dried red chilies, crushed (adjust heat to your taste. this amount makes a fairly hot dish)

• 1 medium yellow onion, chopped

• 4 cloves garlic, chopped

• 1 teaspoon ground galangal (kha)

• 1 stalk fresh lemon grass, chopped fine

• 4 tablespoon fresh coriander, chopped

• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

• 6 kaffir lime leaves

• 1 tablespoon ground coriander seed

• 1 tablespoon sugar

• 2 tablespoon fish sauce

• 1 teaspoon ground cumin

• 1 teaspoon salt

• 2 whole chicken breasts, skinned, boned, cut into 1/8 inch slices

• 10 ounce shredded bamboo shoots

• 16 ounce coconut milk (frozen is better, but you can substitute 1-14 ounce can)

• 20 fresh basil leaves (dried basil is not a good substitute)

Heat the oil in a wok and stir-fry the chilies, onion, and garlic until light brown. Add galangal, lemon grass, fresh coriander, nutmeg, lime leaves, cumin, ground coriander, sugar, fish sauce, and salt. Cook for about 2 min. over medium heat. Add the chicken and stir-fry for 1 minute. Add the bamboo shoots and coconut milk. Bring to boil,reduce heat and simmer about 10-15 minutes until checken is tender. Garnish with fresh basil, serve over rice. This dish is even better if you refrigerate it overnight and reheat it the next day!

Choo-Chee Goong (Red Curry Shrimp with Kaffir Lime Leaves and Basil)

Recipe from: Dancing Shrimp: Favorite Thai Recipes for Seafood by Kasma Loha-unchit
Servings: 4 to 5

My mother has a soft spot in her heart for choo chee curries - those red hot curries with a rich, thick sauce cooked in a pan so hot that it pops and sizzles, making a swishy sound, like choo chee. Just enough of the concentrated sauce coats the pieces of seafood cooked with it, or is spooned over seafood cooked separately. Although excellent with shrimp and prawns, America's favorite seafood, Mother is first and foremost a fish lover and, now that she is advanced in years and no longer cooks, she, without fail, orders choo chee fish whenever we take her out to dine at her favorite restaurants.

So, after you've tried this recipe and enjoyed enough choo chee with shrimp, make the spicy and aromatic sauce to spoon over crispy fried fish. Mother's favorite fish for choo chee is a small, flat fish called bplah neua awn ("soft-flesh fish"), which fries to a delightfully crunchy crispiness and can be eaten almost entirely, bones and all. When it comes to eating crispy fish fins, heads, and bones, Mom beats us all. People from her generation know no waste and, from her, I've learned that food is sacred, and a life that has been sacrificed to keep us nourished should not be dishonored by throwing out any of its parts. Watching her enjoy every small bit of her crispy fish, even at a ripe old age, is a heartwarming sight.

• 1 pound medium shrimp

• 3 orange or red serrano, jalapeño, or fresno peppers

• 1 cup rich unsweetened coconut cream (preferably Mae Ploy or Chao Koh brand-spoon the thickest cream off the top of an unshaken can of coconut milk)

• 2 to 3 tablespoons red curry paste

• nam plah, as needed (some packaged curry pastes are already heavily salted)

• 2 teaspoons palm sugar, or to taste

• 8 kaffir lime leaves, very finely slivered

• ½ to 1 cup Thai basil leaves (bai horapa)

• 1 to 2 short sprigs of Thai basil (bai horapa) with purple flower buds, for garnish

Shell, devein, and butterfly the shrimp; give them a saltwater bath to freshen. Rinse and drain well, and let sit at room temperature for 20 minutes before cooking.

Cut two of the three red peppers into thin rounds, including seeds, and pound with a mortar and pestle to a coarse paste. Cut other pepper with seeds into fine inch-long slivers.

Heat 2/3 cup coconut cream in a wok or skillet over high heat. When it has warmed to a smooth consistency, spoon out 1 tablespoon and reserve. Reduce remaining cream for a few minutes until it is thick and bubbly and the oil begins to separate from the cream. Add curry paste, mushing it into the cream and fry, with stirring, over medium-high heat for a few minutes, until it is aromatic and darker in color; and the mixture is very thick.

Increase heat to high and add the remaining 1/3 cup coconut cream, stirring to make a thick, well-blended sauce. Season to taste with fish sauce and palm sugar: Stir well to melt sugar and blend seasonings. Toss in shrimp and cook in the sauce, stirring frequently. When most of them have lost their raw pink color on the outside, stir in the crushed chillies and kaffir lime leaves. Stir-fry 10 to 15 seconds before adding basil and slivered chilli. Stir well to wilt basil and, when shrimp are just cooked through, turn off heat.

Transfer to a serving dish and dribble reserved tablespoon of coconut cream over shrimp. Garnish with a sprig or two of basil.

Notes:
To make the sauce, follow the instructions to the end, simply skipping the shrimp. Try the sauce over crispy fried, whole small or flat fish, such as pompano, butterfish, sole, white perch, smelts, and anchovies. The sauce is also good over pan-fried or grilled mackerel. Or, if you prefer, smother over grilled halibut, salmon, albacore, tuna, mahi mahi, jumbo prawns, lobster, or whatever else you like to toss on your charcoal grill. Top with the coconut cream and garnish with basil sprigs. For strong-tasting fish, about 2 tablespoons of fine inch-long slivers of fresh rhizome (qkrachal) can be added to the sauce at the same time as the basil and cooked until both are wilted.

Besides cooking with shrimp, as in this recipe, substitute squid, scallops, shelled clams, and mussels, or a combination of shellfish and mollusks.

Choo-Chee Pa (Curried Spicy Mackerel)

Recipe from: Appon's Thai Food

Mackerel is an oily fish and a good source of essential fish oils. This dish is how we serve it in Thailand, with a spicy green pepper and curry sauce together with strips of lime leaves.

• 1 to 2 Mackerel Fish

• 250 ml Coconut Milk

• 1 Tablespoon Red Curry Paste

• ½ Teaspoon Salt

• 1 Teaspoon Sugar

• 2 Kaffir Leaves

• 2 Red Chiles

Clean the mackerel and cut in half, gut it and steam for 10 minutes.

Put the coconut milk in the frying pan and warm it on the heat. When the coconut milk starts to steam, add the red curry paste and oil and stir until mixed for 30 seconds. Add the salt and sugar until it's all mixed together then turn off the heat.

Place the mackerel on a plate, spoon over the red curry paste and finely slice the kaffir leaves and chiles and garnish the fish dish with it.

Dtap Waan (Sweet Liver)

• 1 pound beef liver, thinly sliced

• ¼ cup nam pla

• ¼ cup lime juice

• ½ teaspoon ground chili (prik khee noo pon)

• 1 tablespoon ground roasted sticky rice

• 4 shallots, thinly sliced

• ¼ cup lemon grass (ta-krai), lower 1/3 of stem, thinly sliced

• ¼ cup mint leaves

• selection of raw vegetables

Heat a large pot of water to boiling. Blanch the liver slices in the boiling water for 30 seconds or until they are almost cooked. Drain and set aside.

Place the liver slices in a large frying pan, add the fish sauce and lime juice and cook on medium-high heat for 1 minute. Remove from heat and add the chili, rice, shallots and lemon grass. Stir to combine. Sprinkle with the mint leaves and remove the contents of frying pan to a serving plate. Arrange the vegetables around the liver slices.

Gai Yang Isaan (Barbequed Chicken)

Chicken barbequed roadside in Thailand

Gai yang is literally "barbequed (or grilled) chicken", and is peasant food. As such there are as many recipes as there are cooks in Thailand. There are however two main styles: gai yang khrung thep ("Bangkok Style") which is slightly more elaborate, and the basic gai yang isan ("North East style"), which this is. Originally the chicken was cut open along the belly, and opened out, then knocked flat with a couple of judicious blows from the back of a cleaver, marinated, pegged in a split stick to hold it and then grilled over a charcoal brazier.

Faced with the needs of restaurant cooking, my wife adapted the classic recipe for an industrial rotisserie by adding a stuffing. You can do this in a broiler oven or rotisserie. If you want a barbeque version, take two flattened chickens, place them face to face with the stuffing between them, and hold them in a pair of barbeque tongues, or one of those wire frame things, and barbeque the sandwich.

Thai chickens tend to be quite small. You can use a 2 pound bird, or a couple of cornish game hens, or other small poultry.

Marinade:

• half a cup of fish sauce
• half a cup of sweet dark soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons of crushed garlic
• 2 tablespoons of freshly ground ginger root
• 1 tablespoon of freshly ground black pepper.

Marinade the poultry overnight.

Stuffing:

1. Mix half a cup each of freshly ground ginger, freshly ground galangal, thinly sliced bruised lemon grass stalk, chopped coriander (cilantro) (use the whole plant, including the roots, if you can get it), and fresh mushrooms. Add the marinade left over from the night before, and heat in a small saucepan to bring out the flavour if you are doing the mock gai yang (see below). Stuff the body of the bird(s).
2. Bake or broil until cooked, and the skin is crispy brown.
3. This is served with Thai sticky rice, and nam prik jaew, you should also put some more fresh ground ginger on the table and the usual Thai condiments (I particularly like chilis marinated in sweet dark soy sauce with this one). you can also serve it with a simple green salad.

Mock gai yang
Wondering what to do with the left over turkey? well its a bit late now I guess, but next time you have the problem try this:

Shred some pre-cooked poultry, to make about 4 cups of shredded meat. Add about half a cup of the marinade (above) and mix well, and leave for the meat to absorb the marinade. Make up about a cup of stuffing, moistening it with a tablespoon of the marinade mix, and heat it in a saucepan to bring out the aroma, then mix thoroughly with the marinaded meat. Serve cold with a salad and the other ingredients... (If you prefer you can mix the meat in with the stuffing and heat the whole thing, then eat it hot or cold to suit yourself).

Kao Niow (Steamed Sticky Rice) ​

Servings: 4

See the excellent article by Kasma Loha-unchit for additional information about sticky rice.

• 4 cups sticky rice

Place the rice in a saucepan or bowl and add enough water to cover. Rub the rice between your hands several times and drain off the milky water. Add clean water and repeat the process until the water runs clear. Soak the rice overnight in enough water to cover or, to save time, the rice can be soaked in hot water for 3 hours before steaming, rather than overnight. Drain the rice and place in a cloth-lined steamer or in a steaming basket. Place the basket over a pot of boiling water, making sure that the basket does not touch the water. Cover the steamer and steam for approximately 30 minutes.

Laab Issan (Raw Chopped Beef Salad)

Recipe from: Ian Hoare

Servings: 4

From Thai Cooking by Josephine Brennan -- This recipe comes from the Issan Restaurant in Udon, in its original form raw buffalo meat and blood are used. Since most supermarkets don't have a "water buffalo" section I have suggested a common cut of beef steak.

• 1 ½ tablespoon raw rice

• 4 small dried red chiles, seeded

• 1 pound top round steak, finely minced juice from 2 limes
  

• 3 stalks lemon grass, finely minced

• 1 large red onion, finely chopped

• 1 large bell pepper, cored, seeded and chopped

• 10 mint leaves

• 2 tablespoons nam pla

In small dry frying pan, parch the rice and chiles until the grains are brown and the chiles darkened. Remove the rice and chiles to a mortar or grinder and pound or grind until you have the consistency of coarse sand. Place the minced steak in a bowl and mix with your hands, adding the ground rice and chiles, lime juice, lemon grass, red onion and green pepper. Chop half of the mint leaves and stir them into the mixture, reserving the remaining mint for garnish. Season this mixture with fish sauce and transfer to a serving dish. Mound attractively, and garnish with mint.

Laab Moo (Ground Pork Salad)

Recipe from: Real Thai: The Best of Thailand's Regional Cooking prepared by Nancie McDermott, San Francisco: Chronicle Books. 1992. p.126. Some adjustments made by Samart Srijumnong

The picture to the left is Laab Moo at a the Lek restaurant in Koh Samui, Thailand. After a few days of eating "farang-style "Thai food" on the strip in Chaweng Beach, I was craving authentic Thai food. We had a discussion with a security guard and cab driver at the resort -- We asked them where they would go for dinner -- The cab driver took us to Lek Restaurant. It was the real thing!

I ordered larb moo "spicy", but I think the staff in the restaurant were afraid to hurt me. I was served the larb with prik pon served on the side, to taste.

Eoy wasn't afraid. She took the liberty of spicing the larb with prik pon.


The larb was served with fresh vegetables, cucumber, wing beans, long beans, and "cham-wuan" (this is what Eoy called the leaves). I wrapped the larb moo in the leaves.

• 1 cup chicken stock

• ½ cup pound coarsely ground pork (beef or chicken)

• ½ cup coarsely chopped shallot (hawn daeng)

• 3 tablespoons finely chopped green onion

• 2 tablespoons coarsely chopped fresh cilantro (phak chi)

• A handful of fresh mint leaves

• 3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice

• 2 tablespoons fish sauce

• 2 tablespoons roasted rice powder

• 1 tablespoon coarsely ground dried red chilli (or hot green pepper)

• ½ teaspoon sugar (option)

• A few lettuce leaves (or Chinese cabbage)

• 2 wedges green cabbage

• 6 green beans, trimmed and halved crosswise

In a small saucepan over high heat, bring the stock to a boil. Add the meat and cook for 1 to 2 minutes, tossing often with a large spoon to break up the meat and cook it to fairly evenly. When the meat is cooked, remove the pan from the heat.

Using a slotted spoon, transfer the meat to a medium bowl, leaving most the of the liquid behind. Stir in the shallot, green onion, cilantro, and most of the mint, reserving a few leaves for a garnish. Add the lime juice, fish sauce, rice powder, chilli, and sugar (if preferred); stir to combine everything well. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed for a pleasing balance of sour, salty, and hot.

Line a serving platter with lettuce leaves and mound meat mixture in the center. Garnish with the cabbage, green bean, and mint. Serve at once.

Laab Ped (Ground Duck Salad)

I am very fond of laab in all its forms, and duck seems to escpecially lend itself to this style of cooking, which can be both simple and elegant.

I recently watched a neighbor cook this and I am strongly tempted to start with an explanation of how you make the dish "from scratch", but decided that I didn't care to be accused of putting people off their food. Suffice it to say that the duck for this dish should be exceedingly fresh.

How fresh? Well ideally it should have been walking around a couple of hours ago.

Take your duck, and cut it into portions, reserving the meatier portions for this dish and then bone the carcass out and use the bones to make good strong stock. Though you only need a little stock, you can use the rest to make soup -- a nice mildy seasoned vegetable soup makes an excellent adjunct to the laab incidentally.

• 1 cup minced duck meat

• 2 tablespoons of lime juice

• 2 tablespoons of fish sauce

• 3 tablespoons of duck stock

• 1 teaspoon of prik phom (powdered red chili)

• 2 tablespoons shallots, very finely sliced

• 2 tablespoons lemon grass, bruised, and very finely sliced

• 1 tabelspoon of bai magkroot (kaffir lime leaves), shredded

• 2 tablespoons of spring onion/green onion, thinly sliced

• 1 tablespoon of prik ki nu (green birdseye chilis), thinly sliced

• 1 tablespoon of prik ki nu daeng (red birdseye chilis), thinly sliced.

In a dry wok or skillet, carefully toast 2 or 3 tablespoons of long grained (uncooked) rice, until light brown, then allow it to cool and grind to a coarse powder.

Take the duck meat and chop/mince it to a fairly fine consistency (you can use a food processor or meat grinder, but this tends to reduce it to a paste - it is better if you can manage it to cut it very fine. Thais chop with two cleavers at once, but a single very sharp knife will do.)

Put the minced duck in a small bowl and allow to marinade in the lime juice and fish sauce for about an hour.

In a hot wok or skillet, briefly stir fry the meat until it is just cooked, then remove to a mixing bowl, and combine with the other ingredients, using about one tablespoon of the toasted rice. Taste and if necesary adjust the seasonings.

Serve on a bed of lettuce leaves, garnishing with mint and lime leaves, and putting cucumber slices, water chestnuts and radishes (or slices of fresh white radish [mouli]) around the plate. Add small dishes of sliced red and green chilis, and the usual Thai table condiments.

Note that traditionally laab is a very hot dish. You can virtually add as much powdered chili, and sliced fresh chilis as your palatte can stand. Do bear in mind however that it is easier to add spice at the table than remove it, so please prepare the dish to a reasonable degree of heat and rely on the diners adding spice as desired.

Nam Prik Pao (Roasted Chile Paste)

Prik Pao is legendary in Thailand and has been a staple in Thai households for generations. This is a cooked chile paste that is eaten in Thailand in a wide variety of ways. For example, mix one tablespoon with a small bowl of steamed jasmine rice and serve. Use this as a spicy vegetable dip. Add it to soups and noodles, and even use it as a spicy sandwich spread.

• 4 tablespoon oil
• 3 tablespoon chopped garlic
• 3 tablespoon chopped shallots
• 3 tablespoon coarsely chopped dried red chiles
• 1 tablespoon fermented shrimp paste
• 1 tablespoon fish sauce
• 2 teaspoons of sugar

1. Heat the oil, and add the garlic and shallots. Fry briefly, then remove from the oil and set aside. Add the chilies and fry until they start to change colour, then remove them and set them aside.
2. In a mortar and pestle pound the shrimp paste, add the chiles, garlic and shallots, blending each in before adding the next. Then over low heat return all the ingredients to the oil, and fold into a uniform paste.
3. The resulting thick, slightly oily red/black sauce will keep almost indefinitely. If you wish you can add more fish sauce and/or sugar to get the flavour you want.

Organic Homemade Soy Milk- simple way

Vegans and people who are lactose intolerant appreciate soy milk as a dairy-free substitute in milkshakes, puddings, soups, and creamy sauces. Soy milk contains fiber; it's a good source of protein, low in saturated fat and cholesterol-free. Nowadays, it is very easy to make at home. With 3 cups of soy beans, we can make about 1 gallon of soy milk.
Well you can buy sweetened soya milk in packets, but it's quite easy to make your own if you have yellow soya beans. I've photographed the milk sitting on dried soya beans, but if you can get fresh yellow or even green soya these both work well.

Ingredients

• 100 gms Soya Beans
• 500 ml Water
• 70 Sugar

Preparation
1. Rinse the soya beans to clean them. If the beans are dried, soak them overnight to soften them.
2. Blend the soya beans with water and sieve the mixture in a fine cloth sieve to remove the skin and pulp, leaving yourself with a white liquid.
3. Heat in a pan with soya and the sugar until boiling then simmer for 10 minutes.
4. Serve chilled.

Spicy Sardine Salad (Yum Pla Ka-pong)

Thai food can be overwhelming, with lots of strange ingredients and foreign vegetables. So here we have a very simple and very tasty recipe using sardines! We used sardines in oil, but you can also use sardines in tomato sauce, in which case you don't need the tomato puré. This should be served with fragrant Thai rice, but can also be served along with salads.

Ingredient for 2 People

• 2 Cans of Sardines in Oil
• 2 Teaspoons of Tomato Puré
• 20 gms Lemon Grass
• 20 gms Coriander Leaves
• 50 gms Onion
• 2 Red Chillis
• 2 Bird Chillis
• 1 Tablespoon Lemon Juice
• 1 Tablespoon Fish Sauce

Preparation
1. Remove the sardines from the can.
2. Mix the oil from the can with the tomato puré in a small mixing bowl.
3. Slice the onion, lemon grass, and chilles, and add to the bowl.
4. Add the fish sauce and lemon juice and mix all the ingredients together well.
5. Pour over the sardines.
6. Chop the coriander put around the edge of the sardine plate.

Serve With

• Hot rice or salads.

Wing Bean Shrimp Salad ( Yum Tua Plu )

This is a sauce, or is it a salad? It's difficult to classify Thai dishes into English recipe classifications, so lets call it a salsa. It is normally served with rice, a shared dish is placed in the centre of the table and guests take a spoonful onto their plate to eat as they like. It is made from Thai winged beans, but long green beans can be used instead. The flavor is of coconut, both from coconut milk in the liquid and from desiccated coconut added to the salsa at the end. This is a dish suitable for 'gop-gam', a party dish served with alcoholic drinks.

Ingredients for 2 People

• 50 gms Pork Mince
• 30 gms Cooked Shrimp
• 20 gms Peanut Toasted in Dry Frying Pan
• 10 gms Chopped Spring Onion
• 30 gms Chopped Wing Beans (or Long Green Beans)
• 10 gms Chopped Coriander Leaves
• 2 Chopped Big Red Chillies
• 3 Garlic Cloves
• 4 Tablespoons Coconut Milk
• 1 Teaspoon Dry Coconut
• 1 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
• 2 Tablespoons Lime Juice
• 1 Teaspoon Salt
• 1 Teaspoon Sugar
• 1 Teaspoon Dried Flaked Chilli
• 170 ml Water

Preparation
All the vegetables and meats should be chopped into fine small pieces for this recipe. The peanuts should be lightly browned in a dry frying pan and chopped or pounded in a mortar. If you are using uncooked shrimp, cook them with the pork, for cooked shrimp they can be added later.
1. Boil the water add the salt, and chopped garlic.
2. Add the pork to the water by forcing it through a very course sieve, this will keep the mince into nice and separate pieces.
3. Cook for 1 minute.
4. Pour off half of the cooking water.
5. Chop the shrimp meat into small pieces and add to the pan.
6. Add the chopped spring onion, chopped wing bean, coriander, and toasted peanut, into the pan and mix all the ingredients well.
7. Mix the chilli powder, chilli, fish sauce, lime juice, and sugar, in with the rest of the ingredients in the pan.
8. When serving place the salsa in a dish and add a little dried shredded coconut to the top.

Serve With

• Salads, rice, whisky, or beer

Spicy Prawn Salad ( Gung Yum Ta Kia )

I wondered whether the word 'spicy' in the name of this dish was redundant. Perhaps I should say 'non-spicy' for the few salads that aren't spicy!

Ingredients for 2 People

• 8 Prawns
• 200 ml Water
• 1 Tablespoon Chopped Lemon Grass
• 1 Tablespoon Chopped Chillies
• 1 Clove Garlic Chopped
• 1 Teaspoon Chopped Spring Onions
• 5 gms Mint Leaves
• 2 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
• 1 Tablespoon Lemon Juice
• 1/4 Teaspoon Sugar

Preparation
1. Boil the shrimp in water for 1 minute and set aside.
2. Make the spicy sauce by mixing the lemon grass, chilli, garlic, chopped spring onions, with the fish sauce, sugar, and lemon juice.
3. Layer the salad, with a bed of mint, a layer of shrimp and pour the sauce over the top.

Serve With

• Lettuce
• Cabbage

This is another 'gup-gam' style dish, a small spicy dish designed to be eaten with beer or whiskey to cut through the alcohol. Its bulk comes from glass noodle and nuts, with pork mince and spicy onion salad to add the strong flavours.

Ingredients for 2 People (Medium Hot)

• 100 gms Pork Mince
• 100 gms Glass Noodle
• 50 gms Peanut
• 20 gms Bird Chillies
• 1 Spring Onion
• 1 Sprig Coriander
• 2 Tablespoons Lemon Juice
• 3 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
• 1 Teaspoon Salt
• 1/2 Teaspoon Sugar
• 200 ml Water
• 2 Garlic Cloves

Preparation

1. Boil water in the saucepan, add the salt and chop the garlic and add it into the pan.
2. When the water is boiling, add the pork mince and glass noodle and simmer for 4 minutes. Then pour out half of the water.
3. Chop the chillies, spring onion, and coriander into a pot with glass noodles.
4. Toast the peanuts in a dry frying pan to bring out the flavour.
5. Add the fish sauce, sugar, lemon juice, and peanuts and then mix.

Serve With

• Lettuce
• Tomato
• Beer or Spirits!

Cuisine of Thailand

Thai cuisine is known for its balance of five fundamental flavors in each dish or the overall meal - hot (spicy), sour, sweet, salty and bitter (optional). Although popularly considered as a single cuisine, Thai food is really better described as four regional cuisines corresponding to the four main regions of the country: Northern, Northeastern (or Isan), Central and Southern. Southern curries, for example, tend to contain coconut milk and fresh turmeric, while northeastern dishes often include lime juice. Thai cuisine has been greatly influenced by its neighbors, especially India, China, Malaysia, Laos. Many dishes are in fact Chinese dishes adopted to local tastes.