From mightymidget69@hotmail.com Mon Jul 12 11:17:30 2004 Date: Sat, 10 Jul 2004 12:54:42 +0100 (BST) From: mightymidget69@hotmail.com Reply-To: currygalore@smartgroups.com To: currygalore@smartgroups.com Subject: [currygalore] RE: Thai Curries Colonel Ian F. Khuntilanont-Philpott's Recipes Chapter 9 Main Dishes - Meatless, Eggs, Noodles, Rice, Tofu (Dates in parentheses are the approximate dates of posting to Chile-Heads - GDN 1/18/99) Contents: Eggs [THAI] Khai Luk Koei (Son-in-Law's Eggs) (3/3/96) Noodles Pad Thai I (2/26/96) pad mi Korat phet (3/30/96) ("Hot Pad Thai" Pad Thai II) *PAD THAI -- GENERAL NOTES: (8/10/97) Rice Rissoto in a Thai style (3/30/96) Tofu [THAI] pad phak taohu (stir fried vegetables and tofu)(5/19/96) -------------------------------------------------- Eggs [THAI] Khai Luk Koei (Son-in-Law's Eggs) (3/3/96) This dish is traditionally made from quail's eggs, and the name is literalistic euphemism. The story goes that if a young man is being less than kind to his wife, then on a regular visit to his mother-in-law, she will give him a salutary reminder that his behavior has been noted by serving this dish. The message is plain, straighten up and fly right, or his wedding tackle will take the place of the similarly sized eggs in a dish of khai luk koei. Mrs. Bobbit was not an original. Thai wives with errant husbands have for centuries taken a singular solution to their woes; the husband returns home with too much alcohol in his belly and lipstick on his collar to be pacified with a blow from the granite sakh (pestle) and relieved of his offending glands which are typically fed to the pigs or geese so they cannot be restored -- a step Mrs. Bobbit omitted. :-) Seriously though, this dish is delicious and easy to make. If you don't have quail's eggs, then use 8 hen's eggs. You can also use the sauce to go with fried eggs or simple omelettes. Ingredients (for 4 people): 24 quail's eggs 4 tablespoons shallots, (purple onions), thinly sliced 3 tablespoons fish sauce 1 tablespoon dark sweet soy sauce 2 tablespoons honey 1/2 teaspoon of prik phom (ground red chillies) The eggs are hard boiled then shelled. If you are using hen's eggs, cut them in half. They are then stir fried in a little oil on medium heat until they are beginning to crisp and then removed from the pan and placed on the serving platter. Add the shallots to the pan and saute until they are beginning to crisp. Remove about half of the shallots and set aside. Combine the remaining ingredients of the sauce, and add them to the wok or skillet and stir until the sauce thickens. Pour the sauce over the eggs; then sprinkle the reserved shallot flakes on top. Regards, Colonel Ian F. Khuntilanont-Philpott -------------------------------------------------- Noodles Pad Thai I (2/26/96) Pad Thai is often called the signature dish of Thai cuisine. There are several regional variations, indeed it has been said that Thailand has a different curry for every day of the year, but a different pad thai for every cook in Thailand! This is my wife's variation. This variation uses a small amount of khao koor (powdered fried rice), which occurs as an ingredient in several other Thai recipes. You can make a small amount and keep it almost indefinitely in a jar with a tight lid. Khao Koor: get a medium sized wok fairly hot, and add a couple of tablespoons of uncooked rice, and keep in movement until the rice starts to turn golden brown. Remove from the heat and allow to cool. Grind to a fairly coarse powder in a spice mill (a pepper mill works quite well), or a mortar and pestle. (I find that a coffee grinder doesn't really do the job as it tends to grind too fine - the powder should retain some "texture".) You also need a cup of dry roasted, unsalted peanuts. We roast them in their shells on a charcoal brazier, but you can do it just as well in an oven, or even in a skillet. However, they should be freshly roasted to bring out the full flavor for this dish. Ingredients ----------- 8 ounces rice vermicelli (either the sen mee or the sen lek style of Thai noodles or indeed any rice noodles will do). These should be soaked for a short while (perhaps 30 minutes to an hour, depending on the brand of noodles) until soft. 5-6 cloves of garlic, finely chopped. 2 tablespoons chopped shallots 1/4 cup dried shrimp (these should be rolled, or roughly pounded in a mortar and pestle to break them up) 1/4 cup fish sauce 1/4 cup palm sugar 2-3 tablespoon tamarind juice 2-3 tablespoon chopped, pickled radish (mooli) 1 medium egg, beaten 1/4 cup chopped chives 1/2 cup roasted peanuts, very coarsely broken up 1 cup bean sprouts Protein ingredient. This can be half a cup of fried tofu that has been marinated in dark sweet soy, or an equivalent amount of coarsely chopped pork or chicken. Method ------ Heat a little cooking oil in a wok and add the garlic and shallots, and briefly stir fry until they just shows signs of changing color. Add the remaining ingredients except the egg and the bean sprouts, and stir fry until the protein ingredient is nearly cooked. Continuing to stir with one hand, slowly "drizzle" in the beaten egg to form a fine ribbon of cooked egg (if you don't feel confident with this make an egg crepe separately, and then roll it up and slice it into quarter inch wide pieces, which you add to the mix at this point). Finely add the bean sprouts and cook for no more than another 30 seconds. Remove from the pan to a serving platter. Garnish ------- Mix a tablespoon of lime juice with a tablespoon of tamarind juice and a tablespoon of fish sauce, and use this to marinade half a cup of uncooked bean sprouts, half a cup of chopped chives, and half a cup of very coarsely ground roasted peanuts. Sprinkle this mixture on the cooked pad thai. Cut several limes into segments and also slice up some cucumber into rounds then halve the rounds. Put the lime segments and cuke segments around the serving platter. You can also sprinkle a quarter of a sliced up banana flower and some Indian pennywort leaves over the top as edible decoration. Pad thai is served as above, but Thais add copious amounts of the four basic condiments (chilis in fish sauce, ground dried red chili, sugar and crushed peanuts) at the table, to suit their individual predilections. Regards Colonel Ian F. Khuntilanont-Philpott -------------------------------------------------- Noodles pad mi Korat phet (3/30/96) ("Hot Pad Thai" Pad Thai II) ================= The route to this recipe started with a couple of requests for a "hot" version of pad Thai. Unfortunately for those that asked, whilst you can add anything you like to pad Thai -- including chilis -- the result is not authentic. It simply isn't done (which is not to say that Thais don't load their plates of pad Thai with prik phom and chilis in fish sauce or vinegar according to taste) Pad Thai is quite an elaborate dish. The style usually found in Thai restaurants outside Thailand is particularly elaborate, being referred to somewhat insultingly my Thai housewives as "pad Thai Krungthep" -- the implication being that rich people in the capital do it that way to show off. Ignoring the countryside versus capital debate, there is a local, very simple variant of the dish, known as pad mi Korat. Made with the round egg noodles known as sen mi, rather than the narrow rice ribbon noodles, and with a recipe that consists of partly cooking a cup of noodles, then stir frying them with a cup of sliced and shredded pak bung (swamp cabbage), adding a little tamarind juice for flavor, and drizzling a beaten egg over it to complete it. However my wife prepares a more elaborate version of pad mi Korat, which is also fairly hot. This version I will call pad mi Korat phet (hot stir fried noodles in the Korat style). Before I get into the details, I would like to make two comments. The original of this dish is made with sen mi (Thai egg noodles), but if you can't find them I find it works very well with a spagghetti or similar (the little shell shapes are good). The original uses swamp cabbage, but any greens will do. If I fancy splashing out we make this with a mixture of broccoli and asparagus. To simplify the dish I should point out that it is actually made using table condiments, thus the ingredients are not as complicated as they look. I will first include recipes for the table condiments you need. In Thailand these would probably be on every housewife's table, but if you don't have them you should make them about a week before you intend to cook the dish. We make them in vast quantities for the restaurant (in 5 gallon containers), but for home use we use 1 pint spring top preserving jars. These have the advantage of fitting in the door shelves of our fridge... -- nam pla prik Put two thirds of a cup of prik ki nu (finely sliced green birdseye or dynamite chilis) in a 1 pint jar, and fill with fish sauce. Seal and keep for a week before using. -- prik dong Put two thirds of a cup of prik ki nu daeng (finely sliced red birdeye or dynamtie chilis) in a 1 pint jar, and fill with rice vinegar (any white vinegar will do, as will cider vinegar, if rice vinegar is unavailable). -- prik siyu wan Put two thirds of a cup of prik chi fa (sliced red or green Thai jalapenas) in a 1 pint jar, and fill with sweet dark soy sauce. -- kratiem dong Peel and slice two thirds of a cup of garlic, place it in the 1 pint jar, add 1 teaspoon of palm sugar, and one teaspoon of salt and half a teaspoon of MSG (optional but recomended). Fill the jar with Rice vinegar. -- khing ki mao Julienne two thirds of a cup of fresh ginger (into match stick sized pieces). Place in the 1 pint jar. Add half a cup of Mekong whiskey (Mekong is a whiskey made from Rice. If you can't find it or prefer something else, any spirits, even sherry, will do). Add half a cup of rice vinegar, and fill up the jar with fish sauce. ------ Now we'll progress to the pad mi itself. For this you will need a cup of noodles, half a cup of green veggies, half a cup of mild peppers such as prik chi fa (Thai jalapenas). If you want to try this but at a lower heat level, use the Thai chili called prik yiek, or a bell pepper. You also need one large egg (preferably a duck egg), some tamarind juice and sugar, and chillis, bai chi (coriander leaves) and a sliced cucumber for garnish. Method. Place the noodles in water to soak for about 15 minutes. Place two tablespoons of the liquor from each of the five condiments listed above, together with two tablespoons of tamarind juice, in a small saucepan and simmer to reduce it to half its volume. When this is done heat a wok, and stir a teaspoon of the fish sauce from the nam pla prik into the egg, and beat it lightly. Drain one tablespoon of the pickle from each of the five condiments. If you are using Italian pasta, boil it for half the normal cooking time. Add all the ingredients except the egg and the reduced sauce to the wok and stir fry until the noodles are just "toothy" in texture. Add the sauce, turn the heat to as high as possible, and when the sauce has come to a vigorous boil, gently drizzle the egg into the mix, which will cook it. Serve immediately, with the listed condiments, together with sugar and prik phom (powdered red chili), and decorate with the garnishes. -------------------------------------------------- PAD THAI -- GENERAL NOTES: (8/10/97) (Note: This is probably not one of the Colonel's recipes. No sig. line, thai names for ingredients are not used, the writing style, though personal is slightly different and the date is very late. It is added because it seems to supplement the information in the previous recipe - G. Nelson 1/18/99) Rice Noodles: You can use fresh or dried, in widths from 1/8 to 1/2 inch wide. I've never tried fresh. The dried ones have to be soaked in water to soften them. The recipes call for soaking in cold water, lukewarm water, hot water, and boiling water for anywhere from 7 minutes to 2 hours. I put mine into warm tap water and let them soak while I'm preparing everything else. Just before I start cooking, I dump them into a colander to drain. One recipe suggests cellophane noodles as an alternative to rice noodles -- I've never tried that variation. Meat or No Meat: The most common meat called for is shrimp, with chicken and/or pork use in addition to or in place of the shrimp. Some recipes add bean curd; some substitute it for the meat. Jeff Smith's recipe uses deep fried bean curd. My own variation is to substitute various veggies (asparagus, red bell pepper, broccoli, snow peas, or whatever else looks good.) As Nancie McDermott says, "Thai cooks blithely tinker with the classic formula to create signature variations, and you can, too." Oil and Seasonings: Cooking pad thai starts with vegetable or peanut oil. Most versions add garlic, and sometimes shallots, shrimp paste (be prepared for the smell!), onions, fresh red chilies, and/or preserved sweet white radish. The Sauce: What makes pad thai, in addition to the rice noodles, is the sauce. The general mix of flavors is sweet, salty, sour, and hot. Typical ingredients are: * fish sauce (sometimes soy sauce is used in addition, or in place of for pure vegetarian versions) * sugar (sometimes palm sugar is suggested) * vinegar (various kinds specified; tamarind sauce or lime juice are sometimes used instead) * "red stuff" -- may be paprika, tomato paste, catsup, chili powder, hot chili sauce, chili paste with garlic, tomato sauce, or cayenne pepper, depending on the recipe. * Other possible additions: salt, black pepper, chicken stock, dried shrimp powder. One recipe calls for boiling the sauce before using. Eggs: Anywhere from 0-6. Some recipes call for beating the eggs before adding; others suggested breaking the yolk after adding the egg to the pan. Various techniques are suggested for manipulating the egg while cooking. One recipe calls for cooking the egg before starting the pad thai, cutting it into strips, and then adding the egg strips back at the end of cooking. I haven't tried this myself but have had it in restaurants. Bean Sprouts and Scallions: These are usually added last in cooking, or added to the finished dish without cooking. Garnishes: Various things can be added to finished dish as an edible garnish: * lime or lemon wedges * ground roasted chilies * ground roasted peanuts * dried red chili flakes * fresh coriander leaves * cucumber slices * dried shrimps * fried basil leaves * cherry tomatoes * mint sprigs Experiment, and enjoy! -------------------------------------------------- Rice Rissoto in a Thai style (3/30/96) ======================= This is a simple vegetarian style dish, that in this case is cooked in an electric rice steamer. You need two cups of Thai style jasmine rice one tablespoon of sliced garlic one tablespoon of ground ginger one tablespoon of chopped shallots (purple onions) one table spoon of red prik ki nu (birdseye or dynamite chilis) sliced one table spoon of green prik ki nu, sliced A quantity of good chicken stock, equal to the volume of water specified by the rice cooker to cook two cups of rice, plus two tablespoons. Method. Place the rice in the cooker. Stir fry the other ingredients (except the stock of course :-) Add the ingredients to the cooker, and switch on. When the cooking time is finished the dish is ready to serve. (if you wish you can add a pinch of saffron or turmeric to colour the rice yellow.) -------------------------------------------------- Tofu [THAI] pad phak taohu (stir fried vegetables and tofu)(5/19/96) This is a basic vegetarian stir-fry. The chilis are optional. You may use green bell peppers instead of the Thai sweet chilis. ingredients 2 tablespoons kratiem (garlic), sliced thinly 2 tablespoons khing (ginger), julienned thinly 2 tablespoons prik ki nu daeng (red birdseye chilis), julienned 2 tablespoons prik ki nu (green birdseye chilis), julienned quarter cup of hom daeng (shallots/purple onions) sliced thinly quarter cup of bean sprouts quarter cup of snow peas quarter cup mooli (chinese white radish), sliced thinly quarter cup water chestnuts, sliced quarter cup prik yuet (Thai sweet chilis), sliced quarter cup sliced mushrooms quarter cup of cauliflower florets quarter cup of broccoli florets quarter cup of asparagus tips 2 cups of fried tofu 2 tablespoons light soy sauce 2 tablespoons of dark sweet soy sauce 2 tablespoons of mushroom soy sauce 1 tablespoon of corn starch, dissolved in a little water freshly ground black pepper to taste method Take two cakes of hard tofu, and cut them in quarters, then divide the squares in half diagonally, then divide each piece in half "height-wise" to yield 32 bite sized pieces. Place a little peanut oil in a hot pan and stir fry the tofu pieces until they turn golden brown. Next sautee the garlic, ginger and chilis (if used) in a little oil, and then add the soy sauces and then all the other ingredients except the bean sprouts, and stir fry for about a minute, then add the cornstarch and continue to stir fry for a further minute. Add the bean sprouts, stir very briefly to warm them, but not cook them, and then serve with steamed white rice. -- Regards Colonel Ian F. 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