Thai-Inspired Roast Chicken

Actually, this is a tale of 2 chickens, both inspired by Thai cuisine...

I bought 2 spring chickens from the weekend market... I was thinking of grilled or roast chicken for dinner... both Thai-inspired.

The first one was a chili-lime chicken, for hubby who loves spicy dishes!

The second one was this...

1 spring chicken, about 1 to 1.1 kilo (clean and rinse), cut in half lengthwise

8 to 10 cloves of garlic
3 to 4 stems of wansoy (coriander)
1 teaspoon black and white peppercorns
3 pieces 3-in tanglad (lemongrass, white part only)
2 tablespoons each fish sauce, dark soy sauce, honey
1 to 2 chilis, optional

Place everything in a (small) food processor or pound (mortar and pestle).

Marinate the chicken halves overnight.

Roast at 400F for about 30 to 40 minutes.  Cover with foil if the skin gets too burned.  (I placed each half in its own little roasting pan.)

Rest for 10 minutes before slicing.

Everyone agreed that this was the better of the 2 chickens... and even better than the local Andoks!

Thai-style Garlic Chicken, Barbecued

Yes, I am still into Thai food.

Here's an experiment with chicken!

The recipe came from this book (which I got last Christmas!)

And, as always, I made some changes.

The recipe specified boneless chicken breasts, but I only had thighs (with bone).  And I used way more garlic (love the flavor!), skipped the shallots (didn't have any) and added more fish sauce...

My version:

1 head of garlic, peeled
1 cup packed fresh wansoy, with stems (I omitted the roots)
1/4 cup calamansi juice
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 teaspoon whole black peppercorns
4 pieces large chicken thighs

Rinse and dry the chicken thighs.  Place in a shallow dish just big enough to hold the chicken.  Put the garlic, wansoy, calamansi juice, fish sauce and peppercorns in a food processor.  Whiz until the mixture is smooth.  Dump the mixture onto the chicken thighs and rub all over, including between the skin and meat.  Marinate overnight in the refrigerator.

Grill over hot coals until done!  Serve with sweet chili sauce.

Thai-style Pork-stuffed Omelet ( ไข่เจียวยัดไส้ด้วย หมู)

When I need comfort, I turn to food...

My first choice is almost always soup, but for today, I am settling for my number 2 comfort food - eggs.

And I remembered that a long time ago, hubby and I ate this supremely tasty pork-stuffed omelet in a (literally) hole-in-a-wall eatery.  Don't ask me where though because we were just walking around and we saw a lot of people going into this door.  We were curious so we went in and up some narrow, rickety stairs was this rambunctious crowd lined up (haphazardly) for food - "turo-turo" (literally "point-point") style.  Which was actually a good thing because we didn't speak a word of Thai and it did not seem like they spoke any English!

Obviously all these people could not be wrong (as to the quality of the food) so we lined up as well and pointed to what we felt we wanted to eat... rice, soup, curry (obviously) and this square parcel of scrambled egg (which I chose because I thought it would not be spicy).  Turns out the best of the lot was the omelette!  It was slightly spicy, but it got really spicy because it was garnished with sriracha sauce!

Here is the latest of many attempts to re-create that dish.

This latest try is the one that looks most authentic... I (finally) checked youtube for demo videos on how to wrap the filling into a square.

For the filling, I found the interet abound with recipes (as usual), but I based my filling (roughly) on the recipe which I found in this book

For the filling:

Marinate for 15 to 30 minutes: 

1 cup ground pork (about 150 to 180 grams)

5 pieces large, shelled shrimp, minced

1 teaspoon sesame oil

1 teaspoon Thai fish sauce

1 teaspoon crushed black peppercorns

Meanwhile, prepare:

3 thin slices ginger, smashed

1 medium onion, minced

4 cloves garlic, minced 

1 large tomato, diced

1 medium potato, diced

small handful wansoy, minced finely

2 teaspoons Thai fish sauce

2 teaspoons oyster sauce

1 to 2 teaspoons chili sauce (or sriracha), optional (for me)

3 eggs, beaten with

1/2 teaspoon fish sauce, or to taste

Heat a wok and saute the ginger, onion and garlic.  Add the tomatoes and stir-fry several seconds.  Add the marinated meat and wansoy; cook a couple of minutes then add the diced potatoes.  Season to taste.  Add water or stock, if necessary (the final mixture should be rather dry).  Cook until done; set aside.

Heat about a tablespoon of canola oil in a non-stick, flat frying pan, 11 to 12 inches in diameter.  When hot, pour in the beaten eggs and spread around to form a thin layer.  When the eggs are cooked, place the cooked ground meat filling in the middle and fold into a square parcel.  Flip into a serving plate.  Garnish with wansoy and serve with sriracha or sweet and sour sauce.

Shrimp Vermicelli in Claypot (กุ้งอบวุ้นเส้น หม้อดิน)

Here's another try at Thai food.  This time the recipe link was forwarded to me by friend M, who currently lives in Bangkok.

As usual I made changes... the first of which was that I did not use a clay pot.  I didn't have a clay pot so I just used a glass casserole.

And because I couldn't find my mortar and pestle, I couldn't grind the spices together, so I just layered them as is.

I also added mini shitake mushrooms... and skipped the celery...

And I scaled the recipe to make about 6 servings...

The verdict?  Super yummy!  Another favorite!  Yey!

Tom Kha Gai (ต้ม ข่า ไก่)

If it seems like I am on a Thai-food binge, it's because I am!  After tasting real Thai cuisine, I am absolutely hooked! (And to think I already like the "localized version" Thai food.)  Time to recreate a popular Thai dish in my kitchen.

The Chicken and Galangal in Coconut Milk Soup is by far my most liked dish.  It's the easiest one for me to make too, considering I have galangal (havested mid-last year and frozen/dried), lemongrass and kaffir lime in the food garden!  Then, just last Sunday, I found lime in the weekend market.  Together with the fish sauce (น้ำปลา) I brought back from Thailand, my ingredients line up was virtually complete.

And given its popularity, the web is full of recipes.  In my case, however, I followed the recipe in this book (which I bought at the airport on our way back).  The book is not a new publication (it was first published in 2003) and certainly not the latest by the author but it has been re-published almost every year!  And flipping through its pages, I found it more suited to a novice to Thai food (like I am) considering it has a section on basic Thai ingredients and a general introduction to various Thai sauces and pastes, as well as "step-by-step" photographs.  (And notice the bookmark - Thai souvenir from MBK!)

While there are many recipes on the internet, quite a number of them indicate ginger as an ingredient rather than galangal.  I don't believe that ginger should be substituted, especially since Asian markets already have galangal paste, dried galangal, etc.  Besides, it cannot be Chicken Galangal (ข่า or Kha) Soup without galangal!

In any case, here is a recipe quite similar to the one in the book.  The slight differences - I used coconut cream (about 400 ml), chicken stock (made from the breast bones, about 500 to 600 ml) and instead of straw mushrooms, I used about 250 grams oyster mushrooms.  I also added a generous teaspoon of coco-sugar and adjusted the fish sauce according to personal taste.

My verdict?  While it tastes great immediately after it is cooked, I discovered that it was better the next day!

Poached Fish in Lime & Coconut Cream (ปลา ใน มะนาว และ กะทิ)

I am still recovering from my Bangkok vacation, which includes withdrawal symptoms due to the yummy Thai food that I am missing now that I'm back home.

Solution?  Try to cook food, Thai-style.  I say Thai-style because I don't know if this dish exists in Thai cuisine, but I am making it inspired by Thai food and using "Thai" ingredients - kaffir lime (I have a couple of trees in the food garden!), coconut cream, lime, galangal, chili...

300 ml thick coconut cream
2 fillets of sole, about 700 to 800 grams
3 tablespoons fish sauce
3 pieces kaffir lime leaves (double leaf)
1 large lime or 2 small limes (or lemon)
2 pieces dried galangal
2 pieces finger chili

Place 150 ml of coconut cream in a baking dish (just big enough to fit the fillets).  Rub 1 tablespoon of fish sauce on each fillet then lay the fillet in the coconut cream.  Add the remaining 1 tablespoon fish sauce to the remaining 150 ml of coconut cream; mix then set aside.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350℉.  Slice the kaffir lime leaves into thin strips.  Slice half the large lime or 1 small lime into thin rounds.  Slice the finger chilies in diagonal strips.
Place the dried galangal in the baking dish (not on the fish).  Arrange the lime slices on the fish fillets, then place the kaffir lime leaf strips and finger chili pieces all over.

Bake about 30 to 35 minutes.  Drizzle lime juice over the fish after it bakes, in accordance to personal taste.

Minced Chicken and Corn Cups

This was originally intended to be (Thai) krathong thong,  but I didn't want to make the pastry "cups".  I found several recipes but they all seemed so complicated that I nearly backed out.  Well, I did back out of making the cups but I still wanted to make something like krathong thong.

So I decided to use those ready-made wonton wrappers that were available in the supermarket.  But I quickly realized that I needed something to form the wonton wrappers into a "cup" or "bowl" shape, otherwise it would be a flat shell with filling piled on top.

The only thing that I could find which could work was a an individual mold for puto (rice cake).  I used it in a similar way to a krathong thong mold.  As can be seen, it's not perfect (I've read that the mold is really crucial to achieve the shape) but it could contain a couple of tablespoons of filling (and yes, it is rather big for a krathong thong because the ones I've eaten are smaller than a mini muffin cup!)

Still, our guests found their snacks delicious!  In fact, someone asked for more... :)

This is how the filling was made...

Marinate, for 20 minutes or so, a cup of ground chicken with a teaspoon of rice wine, 2 teaspoons soy sauce and a teaspoon of hoisin sauce, as well as a small piece of ginger (grated).

The rest is easy - saute minced onions (a medium onion) and then add the chicken.  Add half a cup of drained corn kernels and cook until all liquid has evaporated.  Adjust seasonings as desired (a little chili or curry is good!).  Sprinkle chopped parsley and spoon into the cups!

I based my recipe for the filling from the book "Authentic Recipes of Thailand" (page 32) but I used more soy sauce and less salt, more corn and no carrots, parsley instead of coriander... and I added some chili!

Green Papaya Salad, My Way...

My way being a rather bastardized version of the Thai green papaya salad (Som Tam)...

Truth is, ever since I tasted a really delicious green papaya salad at a lovely Thai restaurant, I'd been obsessed with making one...

The original version uses long beans but I forgot to get some at the market, so I substituted a small carrot instead.  Also, I was told that to make the salad, the traditional way was to "hack" the papaya with shallow cuts using a knife then slicing thinly across the hacked cuts to make the strips (the technique was actually shown to me by our old/ex household help using an Indian mango!).  I actually tried to do it except that I was so afraid to cut my hand.  I ended up using a julienne peeler, which I got at the Japanese thrift store!  Fast and easy!

The recipe for my bastardized version...

1 green papaya, about 500 to 600 grams, julienned
1 small carrot, julienned
2 small tomatoes, sliced
1/4 cup chopped roasted peanuts

3 cloves garlic
1 to 2 pieces siling labuyo (birds eye chili)
1 tablespoon dried shrimp
juice from about 6 pieces medium sized calamansi
1/2 teaspoon bagoong (shrimp paste)
2 to 3 tablespoons fish sauce
1/2 tablespoon coconut sugar

Place the garlic, chili, dried shrimp, juice, bagoong, fish sauce and coconut sugar in a small mortar and pound with the matching pestle until it is pasty and liquidy.  Add half of the peanuts and pound again.  Then toss the "dressing" with the papaya, carrot, tomatoes and peanuts.

Chill before serving.

A final note about the dressing... the truth is, the mix is largely personal.  I like mine rather sourish and salty, which is the reason for more calamansi juice and fish sauce.  Adjust accordingly as preferred!