Joy’s Thai Food Recipe & Dessert Blog!

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.

Fish and Sour Soup Tom Som Pla

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This recipe is called “Goong Sator Pad Gapi” in Thai. Here’s what you need to prepare for 1 serving.

Prepare:
10 big shrimps
100g fava beans
2 tbsp. sliced long red chili
1 tsp. shrimp paste (mix with 1 tbsp water)
1 tbsp. minced garlic
2 tbsp. sliced scallion
2 tbsp. vegetable oil

Sauce ingredients:
6-10 red chilli (depend on the level of spiciness you like)
10 cloves peeled garlic
1 tbsp. sliced coriander root
2 tbsp. fish sauce
3 tbsp. lime juice
1 tbsp. sugar

Cooking Instructions:
1. Making the sauce first by finely crush red chili, coriander root and garlic together. Add fish sauce, lime juice and sugar. Mix it well.

2. Now, heat up the pan. Add minced garlic and vegetable oil. Fry until the garlic has aromatic smell then add shrimps. Until the shrimps are cooked, add shrimp paste and fava beans. Add water if it gets too dry.

3. Then change the heat to low. Add the sauce we made earlier.  Try 2 tbsp first, then taste it. If you like the stronger taste, add 1 tbsp at a time until you get the taste you like.

4. Next, add sliced long red chili and scallion. Quickly stir for 10 seconds.

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Talking about what is the most expensive Thai dessert that I think available in Thailand morning market and people tend to not buying it because because they really want to save it for a very special occasion, it is Foy Thong.

Foy Thong is the most expensive Thai dessert among many other Thai dessert that available for you to choose in the market. Not talking about the high-end food store but a local market where everything you buy is lying on a concrete counter where the sellers are comforting themselves with electric ceiling fan.

And yes, you can buy this dessert for only 20 Baht!

Foy Thong, was originally introduced to Thai people by the Portuguese Republic. It has the word Thong which mean gold in it, as wishing that it will bring luck and prosperous life.
You will need:
Brass  pan
1 pair of long chopstick
wooden turner

Banana leaves
white filter cloth

Prepare:
1000 gram sugar
1000 gram water with Jasmine essence [made it naturally by soak jasmine in the water for 1 night. Use regular water if you don't have jasmine.]

7 eggs from chicken
7 eggs from duck
1 tbsp. vegetable oil
4 tbsp. white part that was left in the egg’s shell (or not more than 4 tbsp.)

Cooking Instructions:

1. Let’s prepare the eggs first. Separate the yolks from the white part using your hands. Do this with everyone of them. Now you get 7 yolks from chicken eggs and 7 from duck eggs. Use spoon to stir the eggs gently so it blended well together. Use the tea spoon to scratch the white part that was left in the egg’s shell and pour it in the yolk mix we got from earlier.

2. Cover a big bowl with white cloth filter. Use 2 layers is giving a better result. If you have only one piece, that’s fine too. Now pour the egg mix over the white cloth filter and squeeze it out into the bowl. Leave this aside and let’s make the syrup.

3. In a brass pan, mix the water with add sugar. Stir until you see the sugar is quite dissolved. Now, heat it with maximum heat until the sugar is completely dissolved. When you put it on the stove to heat it up, don’t stir too much or it will turn out crystal-like coating on your Foy Thong.  Whenever the sugar is completely dissolved, lower the heat down to minimum. Boil the syrup 20 minutes approximately.

4. While we wait, make the banana leave to be in cone shape. Leave a little hole at the end, so the egg mix can get through smoothly. Now, test it by pouring the egg mix into the cone. Use your finger to cover the other end first, then let it go and see if the egg mix getting through the hole smoothly. If it does going and stop in the middle, you might want to make the hole bigger or make a new cone.

So much to do right?? Let’s take a break

5. Ok! now, looking at the syrup after you boiled for 20 minutes. The syrup must be boiling hard but only with low heat. You can tell by looking at the bubbles it makes. The smaller the bubbles are, the better.

6. Next, over top of the boiling syrup, add eggs mix into the cone and use your finger to close the end of it. Then, remove your finger and gently pour the eggs in boiling syrup. This step, you have to pour it in a circle and make it 30-40 round.

7. Let it sit in the syrup for a while and then you can use one of your chopstick to pick it up. Don’t squeeze, just insert the chopstick under the egg and then pull it of. You may want to use the chopstick to pull and swing it in the syrup first to make your Foy Thong come out neat in one flat piece.

8. Lay it on the plate and that is it!

Things to remember:
As you are making Foy Thong, the syrup will become thicker by time. You should add 1-2 tbsp. water at a time to make sure that the syrup won’t be too thick for the next round to pour the egg mix in it.

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Prepare:

1 cup  sliced pork
1 cup  cut onion
1 cup  cut pineapple
1 cup  sliced sweet pepper (any color)
1 cup  cut tomato
2 cup sliced cucumber

1 tbsp. vegetable oil
1 tbsp. minced garlic
1 tbsp. fish sauce
1 tbsp. soy sauce
1 tbsp. oyster sauce
2 tbsp. tomato sauce (ketchup)
1 tsp. sugar

Cooking instructions:

1. In a hot pan, add vegetable oil and minced garlic. Fry it until it has aromatic smell. After that add pork. Cook pork for 2 minutes use maximum heat. If you don’t like pork you can use chicken, fish, shrimps as substitution or even skip the meat if you are vegetarian.

[For the fish, you should deep fried it first and add the fish last. Same with the shrimps, soft boiled them first.]

2. After the pork is done, add the vegetable that takes time to cook first, cucumber and pineapple. Then, add fish sauce, spy sauce, oyster sauce, tomato sauce, sugar. Mix well.

3. Next, add sweet pepper, onion, tomatoes. Turn of the fire and serve it with hot jasmine rice.

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PART ONE

Prepare Ingredients to cook filling:
2 cups of steamed mung bean
250 ML of scent of candle coconut milk (use regular one if you can’t find this)
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tbsp. palm sugar

…………………

PART TWO
Prepare the flour to make Bua Loy balls:

[Yellow Bua Loy Balls]
1 cup glutinous rice flour
2 pieces of steamed pumpkin
some hot water

[Purple Bua Loy Balls]
1 cup hot concentrated purple cabbage juice  (Slice then boil it with 1 cup of water to get the blue color out of it)
1 cup of glutinous rice flour

[Green Bua Loy Balls]
5 pandanus leaves (Slice then boil it with 1 cup of water to get the green color out of it)
1 cup of glutinous rice flour

…………………

PART THREE
Ingredients to prepare the coconut milk:
250 ml regular coconut milk
1 tbsp. palm sugar
1/4 tsp. salt

…………………

Cooking Instructions:
1. Take ingredients from Part One. Add mung bean into a hot pan use low heat. Pour scent of candle coconut milk just a little, don’t pour all of it. This is to make the mung bean turn soft and thick like a mash potato. So, adding little by little and keep stirring are the key. Now change the heat to medium, add palm sugar and salt, then keep stiring.

Keep doing this until the mung bean is look like a mash potato.

Now let’s call it mashed mung bean. (^_^) As you can see from the photo, it is not too soft and not to thick to make it into a small ball right?? Can you prepare small mung bean balls as in the next photo?

Anybody who doesn’t like the mung bean or too lazy to make it, just skip this step.

2. Now, mix the ingredients from Part Two. Start with yellow Bua Loy. Here, you only have to add very small amount of water because the pumpkin is juicy by itself. Knead the flour very well until it get soft. Last, cover it with wet white cloth for 10-15 minutes.

Next, purple Bua Loy, mix concentrated purple cabbage juice with glutenious rice flour. Add the juice little by little. Then, do the same as what we did with the yellow Bua Loy.

The green Bua Loy is also applied with the same cooking instructions.

3. After leaving the flour to raise for 10-15 minutes, make a small ball of your thumb size. Then flatten it. Add mung bean ball in the middle and wrap the flour around it. Now, do this until you finish either the mung bean balls or the flour.

4. Leave those Bua Loy with mung bean filling aside and let’s do the sweet coconut juice from the ingredients in Part Three. Heat up the coconut milk with low heat then add palm sugar and salt. Now Keep stirring until the sugar melt and the coconut milk is boiling. Then, turn off the fire and remove it from the stove.

5. Boil the Bua Loy balls in boiling water. Watch… the balls were first sink into the bottom of the pot. When it’s done, the Bua Loy balls will float to the top. As soon as it does that, remove it quickly and dump it in to the sweet coconut juice we made from step 4.

6. Serve when the dessert is cool off.

It took me 2 hours to make all of this for one dessert! To have the picture in your mind of how to make this Thai dessert Recipe, here’s my video on Youtube.

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Prepare:

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.

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Prepare:

300 g. soft bone from pig (ribs)
2 tbsp. stock powder
2 branches lemongrass (diagonally sliced)
2 tbsp. sliced galangal
1 handful kaffir lime leaves
1 liter water
3 tbsp. fish sauce
2 tbsp. lime juice
1 tsp. dry chili powder
2 tbsp. sliced coriander and scallion
1 tbsp. sliced sawtooth coriander
1 crushed coriander root
1 handful beansprout (optional)

Cooking Instructions: (Video is at the bottom of this page)

1. Boil 1 liter of water. Once it is boiling, add stock powder, lemongrass, sliced galangal, kaffir lime leaves, coriander root.
2. Wait until it is boiling again. Then add soft bone from pig’s ribs.
3. Cook for 8-10 minutes with low heat. Let the lid open just a little bit, in case the water is leaking out when water gets too hot.
4. Now, turn off the fire. Scoop the soup and put it a a bowl. Add sliced coriander, scallion, sawtooth coriander, dry chili powder, fish sauce and lime juice.
5. Bean sprout is an optional when you want to have some veggies in your soup.

Remember to change the taste the way you like. I fight with mom all the time about the taste because mom doesn’t like it too sour but I like it super sour. If you don’t like soft bone then chicken, fish, mushroom can be used as substitution. I have never seen anywhere add seafood into this kind of soup though.

Again, for the stock powder I use, I choosed Rod Dee from Ajinomoto brand. This brand has 32% of MSG, if you allergic to it or doesn’t want to have it in your food, then you can look for a different one which I show in the photo. At the time when I shop for the ingredients, I couldn’t find the one without MSG. awe.. it seems like this recipe should be called MSG Spicy and Sour soup, doesn’t it?

Anyway, with or without MSG.. it is up to you.

Talking about the used of MSG in Thailand, I guarantee that all restaurant in Thailand use it in the food. Once you tell them “NO MSG PLEASE”, some restaurant get mad and scold at you. I once got scold from one restaurant for telling them no msg, they said “the food wouldn’t be any good without it”. hmmm… ok

You can’t avoid MSG if you are in Thailand, unless you cook by yourself at home.

and below is a stock powder with no msg.

\(^_^)/ JOY

\(^_^)/ JOY

\(^_^)/ JOY

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Prepare:

6 chilli peppers / add less if you don’t like spicy
1 tsp. sugar
2 tbsp. fish sauce
2 tbsp. lime juice
2 big tsp. shrimp paste
2-3 cloves of garlic
1 tbsp. sliced shallot
6-10 small eggplants

Cooking Instructions:

1. In a mortar pound garlic, sugar, chili peppers. Add shallot and eggplants and hit them softly till the eggplants crack.
2. Add fish sauce, shrimp paste and lime juice. Mix it well. Garnish it with coriander leaves.
3. Serve this sauce with Cha-om omelet or soft boiled vegetables. Cucumber and long bean will be the best choice.

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Nah!!! You are fooled by the title of my post!!!! Yes the name of this egg is literary translated as Preserved Eggs with Horse’s Pee!! but it actually has nothing to do with the horse Pee!!!

As I looked up on the internet, Kai Yiew Ma is originally and accidentally found by Chinese people. It was discovered  in the horse’s stall after it has been cover with hays over and over (of course the horses pee on it!). Someone, as they said,  picked it up, tasted it and happened to “LIKE” it. Then, people form an instruction of how to make Kai Yiew Ma based on the way it was found.

No one ever knows if this story was true.

Honestly, I don’t know how to make it but I found the instruction in Thai language which I could translate it. However, it has many chemical ingredients. Make sure you don’t eat too much Kai Yiew Ma because those chemical will definitely collected in your body and course health problem. It used to be my favorite, but not anymore after I know this.

I used to think the way to make Kai Yiew Ma (preserved eggs) is as simple as making Salted Eggs  and has no chemical. Especially the name that literary means Eggs with Horse’s Pee and pink color make me think this food is friendly to nature and friendly to human body!

If you are insist that you have to make and eat them, here’s the recipe.

Source: http://www.chemtrack.org/News-Detail.asp?TID=4&ID=29
Credit to Department of Science Service, Thailand

Prepare:

32 duck eggs

Ingredients that were used to preserved the eggs:
5 liters of water
80 grams black tea leaves
500 grams salt (Sodium chloride ( NaCl)
300 grams Sodium carbonate  (Na₂CO₃)
750 grams Calcium oxide (CaO)
2.5 grams Zinc oxide ( ZnO)

Ingredients that were used to coat the eggs:
=== Please uses instantly after you made it====
1 portion of Tapioca flour + water
5 portions of white Kaolin clay (same type that is used for beauty re boost because it passed the test for bacteria infection process.)

container must be tolerant to Base (chemistry)

1 big pot used for boiling the ingredients
8-10 liters Plastic container with lid
big flat sponge (use it to cover the eggs and push them under the mixed and boiled liquid)

Instruction on How to make Kai Yiew Ma/ Kai Yeow Ma:
1. Mix water, black tea leaves, salt (Sodium chloride ( NaCl),  Sodium carbonate  (Na₂CO₃) and Calcium oxide (CaO)
in a big pot that is tolerant to Base (chemistry).
2. Boil the liquid until it is boiling.
3. Let it cool off and then use a piece of thin white clothes to separate the liquid and its residue. Then, add  Zinc oxide ( ZnO).
4. Gently stir until the Zinc oxide is dissolved.

***** Be ware that this mix has strong effect from Base. It could give reaction to your skin, so make sure you ware gloves, mask and glasses. ********

5. Arrange the eggs in a plastic container. The eggs must be clean and not having a crack on it.
6. Pour the mixed liquid from step 4 into the container. Use a flat sponge to cover the top or use anything to make sure the eggs stay under the liquid. Cover the container with the lid and keep it for 30 days. (Some say 45 days is ok)

7. After 30 days, remove the eggs and leave them to get dry.

Now, prepare the coating:
The eggs need to be coated in order to keep it moisture and not letting it evaporate.

1. Mix tapioca with water and stir quickly until the flour dissolved.
2. Pour the mix in boiling water and keep stirring until you get the clear and sticky liquid.
3. Now, add light Kaolin clay. Mix this extremely well.
4. Coat the eggs with this mix.

Now you can keep the eggs for 2 weeks. If you put the eggs in a closed plastic bad, you can also keep it for about a month.

Click to see Thai version TV show of how to make Kai Yiew Ma. Fast forward to 1.30.

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