Day 22 – 24.10.2016
Today was all about cooking. We got to join Noi on her way through the market where she bought some of the ingredients used at our cooking extravaganza.
This is the view of the river from the restaurant in which we had our cooking class.
Off to the market we were, and I was ever so glad that I had not had any breakfast, since we were trying out so many different things. For example this fried tofu covered with a sugary and spicy mixture that was just devine! All of the things that we tried at the different stalls was home made my by traditional Thai Mamas. Lovely!
Here we are trying some sticky rice peanuts and palm sugar.
Sticky rice topped with black sesame and sugar. To die for!
Different condiments and types of palm sugar, lentils and beans. (All used in the desert cooking too!)
The lotus flower!
Stickyrice flour with coconut and a sweet plum like filling.
Galgant and lemongrass.
Little eggplants and Thai peas.
Long beans and the red is the stem shoot of the lotus flower.
Pumpkins and Chili!
Radish, mini cucumbers, little corncobs, all found in the Thai cuisine.
The „live animal“ section, with eals toads, little fish, turtles and crabs.
The Thai believe that they eat so much meat by hunting, and eat so much fish through fishing, that sometimes they need to do good and give back to the rivers. (That is why along the roads close to rivers you see live fish being sold and fish food.) The Thai release these fish and in the below case the turtles into the rivers to do good.
Chilled ice tea – using green tea and condensed milk. (It’s everywhere!)
Let the cooking class begin!
Here the recipes of what we cooked:
Wing Beans Thai-Style-Salad (Yum Tua Pou)
1 – 2 servings
Ingredients:
Sliced Wing Beans – 1 cup
3-4 prawns, peeled (or minced meat)
Roasted grated coconut – ¼ cup
1 Boiled Egg (cut into 4 pieces)
Fried Sliced Shallots (Golden Brown) – ¼ cup
5 fried dry chillies
Thick coconut milk (cooked) – ¼ cup
Fish sauce – 1-2 Tablespoon
Sugar – 1 Tablespoon
Lime Juice – 1 – 2 tablespoon
Sweet Chili Paste – 1 tablespoon
Preparation:
Boil water in a pot and blanch the wing beans. Then quickly transfer it to the very cold water and drain the water out.
Cook the prawns in the boiling water with a little salt and sugar. (Or make a pancake out of the minced meat – chicken, pork, beef whatever to slightly cook it)
In a mixing bowl, add fish sauce, sugar, lime juice and sweet chili paste and mix it well. Add vegetable fern or wing beans, roasted coconut, prawns and mix.
Add the palm sugar
2 TS fish sauce
1 TS Tarmarind paste
1,5 TS Chilipaste
Peanuts
Lime – taste if more chili needs tob e added
Add the green beans
Add the fried shallots and coconut
Transfer to a serving plate and garnish with eggs, fried shallots, fried chillies and put coconut milk on top. (Add the prawns in the end so that they do not overcook - when cooking with the prawns)
Instead of Wing beans: Use long bean, Zucchini with the skin (make sure you drain the water though!), asparagus, cabbage and brokkoli.
Banana Flower Cake (Tord Mun Hua Plee)
1 – 2 servings
Ingredients:
Sliced Banana Flower – 100g (or pumpkin or green papaya)
Red Curry Paste – 1 tablespoon
Fish Sauce – 1 tablespoon
Tempura Flour – ½ cup
Cold Water – ¼ cup
4-5 Kaffir Lie leaves, finely cut
Vegetable Oil
1 Egg Yolk
Sweet Chili dipping sauce
Preparation:
Mix the tempura flour with cold water and red curry paste by an egg whisk. Then add fish sauce and egg yolk and mix. Then add the sliced banana flower and the kaffir lime leaves tot he mixture and mix thoroughly.
Heat oil in a wok over medium heat and wait.
Test the heated oil by dripping the flour mixture into it. If the oil is hot enough, the flour will float up straight away.
Add the mixture in to the oil, make it a bite-size and fry until golden and crispy (use medium heat). Remove and drain and put on the prepared plate.
Arrange the banana cake in a serving plate. Serve with dipping sauce (sweet chili dipping sauce)
Instead of Banana flowers: Use pumpkin, green apple, papaya, radish, mango, sweet potato or brokkoli.
Morning Glory Red Curry (Gaeng Te Po)
1 – 2 servings
Ingredients:
Meat – 100g (Chicken or pork)
Morning Glory – 100 – 150g
Kaffir Lime leaves
Vegetable oil – 1 tablespoon
Coconut Milk – 250 – 300 ml or 2 – 3 cups
Palm sugar – 1-2 tablespoon
Fish Sauce – 1 – 2 tablespoon
Tamarind Paste – 1 ½ - 2 tablespoon
Curry paste INgredients:
3 – 5 dried big chilies (seeds removed and soaked in water)
coriander seeds (roasted) – ½ teaspoon
Cumin seeds (roasted) – ¼ teaspoon
Kaffir lime skin (finely sliced) – 1 teaspoon
Lemongrass (finely sliced) – 2 tablespoons
Galangal (finely sliced) – 1 teaspoon
Coriander Root – 1 tablespoon
Shallots (sliced) - 2 tablespoons
Garlic (sliced) – 3 tablespoon
Shrimp Paste – 1 teaspoon
Salt – 1 teaspoon
Preparation:
Start preparing the curry paste: Pound chilies with salt. Then add the lemongrass, galangal and kaffir lime skin. Then add the coriander root. Then the coriander seeds and cumin seeds. Then pound the mixture thoroughly until fine. Then add shallots, garlic. Then add the shrimp paste and continue pounding until the mixture is fine.
Rinse and clean the meat and cut into bite-size pieces.
Set a pan over a low heat, add vegetable oil in. Then add curry paste (as you want 1 – 2 tablespoons) and fry until fragrant and some oil has surfaced.
Add coconut milk ½ cup and bring it to a boil while keeping stirring until some oil has surfaced then add another ½ cup of coconut milk.
Add meat in, followed by palm sugar, fish sauce and tamarind paste. Let the meat cooked then add the rest of coconut milk and kaffir lime leaves.
Cook until boiling then add morning glory and let it cooked. Transfer to a serving bowl and garnish with the slices of kaffir lime. (Add water i fit starts to burn – always „clean“ the pan)
Instead of Morning Glory: Use aparagus, longbeans, spinach, or mangetout.
Steamed Fish Curry Mousse in Banana leaves (Hor Mok Pla)
For 2 – 3 Servings
Ingredients:
Red Curry Paste – 2 – 3 tablespoons
Scraped fish meat – 200 – 500g
Thick coconut milk – ¾ cup
Coconut Milk – 1 /2 cup
1 Egg
Chinese Cabbage – ½ cup (if wanted!)
Sweet Basil Leaves – ½ cup
3-4 kaffir lime leaves, finely cut
½ red spur pepper, cut into stripes
Rice flour – 1 ½ teaspoon
Fish Sauce – 1-2 tablespoons
Banana Leaves, Cut into circles.
Preparation:
Make the banana leaves into bowls.
Blanch the chinese cabbage in the boiling water, then transfer it tot he very cold water and drain the water out. Set into the banana leaf bowls together with the basil leaves.
Mix the ½ cup of coconut milk with the curry paste. (Add the coconut milk very slowly and mix well!) Then add the scraped fish meat and mix it well until coconut milk dries out. Add egg, fish sauce and kaffir lime leaves. Fill the combination into the prepared banana leaf bowls.
Mix the rice flour in thick coconut milk, then put onto heat for 2 minutes. (This will serve as the garnish)
Set the bowls into the steamer and steam it for 10 – 15 minutes. Then add the coconut mixture, kaffir lime leaves and red spur pepper on top of the fish mousse and continue steaming for another few minutes.
Transfer the bowls onto the serving plate.
First we started making the Curry Paste.
Grinding hard until all elements had broken down into one paste.
Next up was the fish curry mousse.
Mix everything well and make sure the coconut milk has been absorbed before continuing.
Add the results to the steamer:
Our work stations – ready for the morning glory red curry:
Fry the curry paste:
Add the coconut milk and the meat.
Finished product:
The result of the steaming:
Banana flower cake was next:
Mix the ingredients together:
Fry them in the wok and make sure you make them into thin pancakes so that they can fry all the way through.
Done!
Next up – Wing Beans Thai-style-salad:
Cutting up the wing beans:
Finished product:
The end result of our hard labour:
(My favourite – the morning glory red curry!)
A most delicious fruit called Sala (Similar to the snake fruit). By the way – here a great page for the different Thai fruit.
After our cooking course I visited the Death Railway Museum and Research centre with another group member of mine. It really is a great museum – very informative, well represented, neutral and so many reliques. No photos could be taken, but the musuem did leave a lasting impression on me.
The history of the construction of the railway and the death of so many prisoners of war was very moving, seeing as I hadn’t really heard anything beforehand.
I am sorry for not going thoroughly in to what I saw, but here is some more information on the matter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burma_Railway
As well as the film the railway man: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2058107/
(Which touches on the matter)
Just around the corner is the war cemetery – the largest along the line with 6,982 POWs buried here – mostly Australian, British and Dutch.
It is a very beautiful cemetery and the little plants on either side of each grave make it a more pleasant sight. Still – solely the ages of the passed away soldiers are shocking, starting from as early as 21 as far as I could tell. So many lives lost to a railway that was in propper operation for only 2 years.
We returned to the hotel and headed out later that day for dinner. Here we had several things to try again, and after trying a dish that our tour guide Soon had ordered, where she had added the spice as she liked, I think my mouth literally burned up. Only plenty scoops of rice could help. To cool off and to relax my mouth a little I had some really good Tom Kha Gai.
Of to bed we went – since we were off to Ayutthaya the next day.
