Thai food recipes and cooking blog from authentic Thailand cook with instructions, photos, videos, and stories. Pad Thai, Tom Yum Goong, Tom Kha Gai, desserts and more!
One of my favorite Thai Isaan food is Pumpkin and Pork in Clear Soup (Gang Moo Sai Fuhk Thong). You will get the spiciness along with sweetness from pumpkin. Hmm… thinking of hot jasmine rice with this soup, I am hungry again even I already got 2 big bowl of rice for my breakfast!!
Prepare:
500g ribs from pork or fish (Tilapia or snapper is good)
1 cup cut scallion
5 chilies (change this to your spiciness tolerant level) (^_^)
1/2 cup Fermented fish juice (optional)
1-2 tbsp. Stock powder (with no msg type)
2 cups sliced pumpkin
Paste:
1 cup shallot
1 cup sliced lemongrass
10 chilies
(pound this 3 ingredients together)
Cooking Instructions:
1. Boil 1 liter of water in maximum heat with stock powder. Add the paste and wait until the water boiling hard.
2. After it’s boiling, add fish or pork and pumpkin. Shut the lid but have it open a little bit so that steam could get out. Now cook the meat for 10 minutes.
3. Add fermented fish juice and remove from the stove.
4. Now, put some food in the bowl. Topping the soup with sliced scallion and red chilies. Change it to your taste by adding 1-2 tbsp. of fish sauce.
5. Then, you can serve the soup with hot jasmine rice.
A quick and easy recipe with Isaan style green chili pepper paste filled up our stomachs at lunch yesterday. As the green chilies were about to get rotten and I have to get rid of them real soon, this Isaan recipe came into my mind. The food is so healthy. It contains lots of vegetable and fish is non-fat type which I can easily grab from the market. Here are the ingredients.
Prepare:
1 whole fish (Remove the scale and cut into 4 big pieces)
3-4 Coriander roots (crushed)
1 handful sliced ginger
2 handful Chinese celery (cut to 2 inches long)
2 Chinese celery roots (cut above the roots about 2 inches and crush them) <—-optional
5 pieces of sliced galangal (optional)
1/2 tsp. salt
Paste ingredients:
6 Green chili peppers
6-10 red chilies
6-10 clove garlic
15 shallots
1/2 cup of Fermented fish juice (Plara)
1 tbsp. fish sauce
2 tbsp. lime juice
Side vegetables:
Cabbage
Long bean
Raw papaya
Guard
Eggplants
Morning glory
etc…
Cooking instructions:
1. Mix the fish with salt. Then steamed the fish, coriander roots, sliced ginger, Chinese celery and the roots, and galangal for 10-15 minutes on boiling water.
2. Grilled all of the paste ingredients. Making paste by pounding garlic, red chilies, shallots altogether. Leave the green chili pepper for last because it has juice. We don’t want to splash any of the ingredient into our eyes as we pound them.
3. Some people peel of the chili peppers skin but I didn’t.
4. Now that you pound all of the paste ingredients together. Add fermented fish juice, fish sauce and lime juice. Mix well.
5. Serve with steamed fish and soft boiled side vegetables.
This recipe made of my favorite aromatic rice paddy plant or Finger grass. I’ve got a guarantee from my husband that it has a nice taste. Easy to prepare! Here’s the ingredients for 2 servings.
Prepare:
1 whole fish (clean and , you may use tilapia or snapper- fish with soft and fatty meat will taste the best on this recipe)
1 big tbsp. stock powder see picture below of which kind to use. If you can’t find it, add 2 tbsp of light soy sauce.
5-6 cups or 1/2 liter of water
Finger grass as much as you like
10 chili (sliced or crushed) change the mount if you don’t like spicy.
1 handful cut scallion
1 handful sliced galangal
1 handful sliced lemongrass
1 handful shallot
1/2 cup fermented fish juice
1/2 cup lime juice
fish sauce
Cooking Instructions:
1. Boil 1/2 liter of water on maximum heat. Add chili, crushed shallots, galangal, lemongrass, stock powder. Shut the lid and wait until it’s boiling.
2. When it’s boiling, add the fish and fermented fish sauce. Cook the fish until it’s done- 10 minutes approximately.
3. Add finger grass and scallion. Quickly mix it and turn the stove off.
4. Now in a small bowl, add 3 tbsp lime juice and 2 tbsp fish sauce. Pour the soup in the bowl and check the taste the way you like. It should have the balance of 3 tastes- sourness, saltiness and spiciness.
There are only few aromatic plants that remind you about things in the past or symbolize something. To most people, there could be a scent of jasmine, Thai ice tea, lemongrass or incense sticks that remind them of Thailand. To me, one of those meaningful scent of the past is Rice Paddy Plant!
The Rice Paddy Plant is called differently in each countries. In Thai language as well, it has more than 6 names. (Phak Ga Yang, Phak Pha, Phak Ka Yang, Phak Ga Om, Ma om, etc…)
In Thailand, we used this kind of plant in a fish in clear sour soup to get rid of the fishy smell. When I was young and lived with my mom far away from town. Those memories were still clear in my head. My favorite cousin (who later turn into monkshood) used to take me and my brother to see my mom and his mom in the rice field, 5 Kilometers on foot. On his shoulders, he carried a basket which is full of food. It is supposed to be our moms’ lunch. My cousin is 10 years older than us, that’s why he’s the one had to carry the heavy stuff. As a little kid, we were only asked to carry sticky rice.
Three of us walking along the rice field ridge. Some part is not connect, I am not sure why. Anyway, I guess it is because of my cousin loved us so much, he loves to make us laugh by doing so many silly things. Thing like pretending to be caught on his foot and fall. On that same day too, he definitely wanted to make us laugh but bad of luck he drop all the food he carried. We managed to collect most of the dry food back into the food box. As you all can guess, he got yelled by his mom.
Wait for a second, we are so lucky being born in a farmer family. No one had to walk 5Kms. back to make new food and come back. Letting all of the hungry farmers behind was not right! At the rice field, we had some cooking utensils – just for when the emergency situation happened like this case. Cooking food at the field, fresh fish from the farm, salt, tamarind leaves, lemongrass, shallot, rice paddy plant and chilies will do just fine. Those ingredients were fresh from our own veggies plantation.
OMG! (>_<) Those memories are so precious to me. Things were so happy back then when I get to stay with mom. This was a few year before I have to moved to my aunt’s for school at 7 years old and lived with her. It was really sad the day dad dropped me off. I didn’t cry because dad bribed me with food I like…hahaha and never in my life, I discuss how my brother felt on that day. I am thankful to my aunts for taking me though… if not, I would have had married at 12? 15? like the other girls in the village and never have chance to go to university.
Life in Baan Nok (countryside) is really special. Back then, everything was so pure. Things changed now, but I really hope you had a chance to leave a big city behind and live a quite life in Thailand countryside someday.
Many times, I bet that you have noticed Thai dessert has a unique scent even when you were chewing it in your mouth. A scent of candle is the answer for that. Looking close into it, the scent of candle in the coconut milk is not just the only long time secret of cooking that was transfer from generation to generation but scents of flowers as well included in the recipes.
I am going to write about the Scent of Candle Coconut Milk first.
Wait for a second!!! Scent of Candle is not a smell of smoke! Then, How to make Scent of Candle Coconut Milk? Here’s how we do it.
Prepare: A ceramic container – must have a lid
good quality candle
small aluminum cup
coconut milk
Instructions:
1. Pour coconut milk in a ceramic or glass container. Do not use the plastic box or anything plastic because there’s a chance that it will catch on fire. Importantly, the plastic will absorb all the aromatic smell and mix it up with it own plastic scent and then your coconut milk will have a strange plastic smell instead of candle.
2. Light the candle and lay it on the small aluminum cup. Let the fire burn the wax a little bit. Now, float the cup on top of coconut milk. Blow the candle off. Important thing to remember, you should chase away the very black smoke which you will get as the first result after you blow the candle off. That one I call it “smoke”. what come later is a scent of candle.
After you chase away the black smoke, quickly shut the lid and leave it like that for 10-15 minutes. Then, repeat this 3 times.
If you don’t want to go through all this mess (like me), Chao Koh Brand is you solution. I don’t get any commission for advertising their product on my blog… but hey! They are really thoughtful of creating the wonderful artistic scent of Thai dessert. I have a big
This video is not showing hot to make Scent of Candle coconut milk. It is just Thai TV commercial from Chao Koh brand
7-10 sliced chicken breast All purpose flour 1 tbsp. white pepper powder 1 egg
Vegetable oil
2 tbsp. sliced shallot
2 tbsp. sliced coriander and scallion
1 tsp. chilli powder
2 tbsp. fish sauce
2 tbsp. lime juice
1 tbsp. roasted and crushed uncooked rice
1 tsp. sugar (optional)
5-10 mint leaves
Cooking instructions:
1. Soak the chicken into the salted water for 10-20 minutes. After that remove and dry the chicken well with paper towel.
2. Dip the chicken in the egg that you already beat (Use spoon to beat it and make it less bubbles as possible0. After that drop the chicken into flour. Then, drop it into the egg again. Last, drop it in the flour for the second time. Do this piece by piece.
First thing is to fry the chicken. There is no right portion to prepare the tempura flour as all purpose flour would give the best result itself. You will only need to mix the flour with white pepper powder, add more or less in the way to like it.
3. Now, turn on the pan with maximum heat. Add a lot of vegetable oil (or just enough to soak the whole piece of chicken). When the pan and vegetable oil is really really hot, drop the chicken in and lower the stove down to minimum heat. Fry the chicken until the flour turn gold then remove in from the pan.
4. Next, add fried chicken a big bowl. Add shallot, sliced coriander and scallion, mint.
5. In a different bowl, add fish sauce, lime juice, sugar, roasted and crushed uncooked rice and chilli powder. Now pour it in a bowl of fried chicken. Mix quickly and arrange in a plate.
6. Serve it with hot jasmine rice and sliced tomatoes.
Thai Isaan Sauce: Jaew Plara (Minced Fermented Fish Mixed in the Sauce)
Prepare:
5 red chili peppers
5 red onions
3 cloves garlic
1/2 cup cooked fermented fish
2 tbsp. fermented fish juice
1/4 tsp. sugar
1 cup fish meat (throw away the bone)
1 tbsp. lemon juice
eggplant
pumpkin tree shoot
cabbage
papaya
string bean
bamboo shoot
Cooking Instructions:
1. Roast or grill red chili peppers, onions and garlic in a hot pan until it smells aromatic.
2. Then, ground all of the together. Add fish, minced fermented fish, plara juice, sugar, lemon juice and fermented fish juice.
3. Put vegetables in boiling water until it is cooked. For green leave vegetables, we drop it in boiling water and take it out right the way. Then, immediatly soak it in a bowl of cold water. That will keep the same green color. Bamboo, eggplants and papaya usually take 3-5 minutes.
7 oz. Sliced Pork
7 oz. sliced pork entrails (optional)
3 oz. sliced pork skin(optional)
2 tbsp. ground roasted uncooked rice
1 group coriander
3 leaves parsley 1 group scallion
1/2 cup mint
Sliced red chilis as much as you can stand!
2 tbsp. sliced red onion
1 tsp. dry pepper powder
2 tbsp. fish sauce
5 -6 tbsp. fresh lemon juice
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup water
3. Cook the sliced pork, entrails and skin in 1 cup of boiling water for 8 minutes. Add salt.
4. Take the pot off the stove. Put lemon juice, roasted uncooked rice, coriander, parsley, scallion, red chilis, red onion, dry pepper powder, fish sauce and 1/2 cup of mint leaves.
5. Dress with mint leaves on the top. Serve with sticky rice, and fresh vegetables; cabbage, lettuce, cucumber, eggplant or string beans.
6. Don’t use spoon or fork!! Eat sticky rice and lab moo with your fingers, you’ll get the real taste.
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