Stir-fried Cabbage with Fish Sauce (กะหล่ำปลีทอดน้ำปลา)

Stir-fried Cabbage with fish sauce or Ka Lam Plee Tod Nam Pla (กะหล่ำปลีทอดน้ำปลา) is a very popular vegetable dish in Thailand. I got this vegetable recipe from Pantip.com. Pantip.com is a popular Thai language internet forum. And also the recipe is widespread being shared on the Social Media.

Actually there are two versions of Stir-fried Cabbage with fish sauce or Ka Lam Plee Tod Nam Pla (กะหล่ำปลีทอดน้ำปลา).  The differences are the process – one: deep fry cabbage before stir frying it with fish sauce and the other one: use small amount of oil and use fish sauce to steam the cabbage on a hot steel wok. And this recipe is the second one.  

What is the secret turns this simple dish to be a popular dish? There are two factors – first one: (to have) a good fish sauce, and second: the steam and caramel from the fish sauce (see the instructions) that is created from a hot wok to produce a good result.

* Use a steel wok only!

For 2 servings

   

Ingredients 

400 g.                       Asian Cabbage

3 – 5 cloves              Garlic, crush and chop roughly

2 tbsp                       Fish sauce

3 tbsp                       Vegetable oil

Instructions

1. Separate each leaf and wash the cabbage in the cool tap water or if the cabbage is not fresh then soak the leaves in cool water for a few hours or until the leaves are crisp.
2. Drain the cabbage leaves and cut or break into big pieces or 2.5 x 3 inches.
3.  Heat the wok over high heat, and add oil and follow with garlic.
4. Leave the garlic in hot oil for a second and follow with the cabbage, and leave the cabbage in the hot wok for 20 – 30 seconds or count 1 – 10.
5. Stir and toss and mix the cabbage with oil and garlic well and pile the cabbage in the middle of the wok.
6. Pour fish sauce on the wok around the cabbage. Let the fish sauce creates steam on the hot wok so that fish sauce steam will cover and cook the cabbage. Leave it for 20 second or count 1 – 10.
7. Stir and toss and mix the cabbage with fish sauce caramel that burned on the wok totally for 20 second or count 1 – 10.
8. Remove from heat and transfer the cabbage to a serving plate. Serve hot with steamed Jasmine rice. 

Bird in A Nest (Chickened Panang with vermicelli rice noodles)

There is a recipe for Panang curry on my blog here (the link) that one is simply served the curry with steamed rice and for this one I want the same curry have a different look in a nice style and also the texture is different too because of noodles.

The process is pretty easy even people who don’t know how to cook Thai food or think that cooking Thai food is so complicated, and also I have a video to show you how to make this dish (please see the video link below). Hope that also help to see a whole process.

Ingredients

4                  Large chicken breasts, cut into chunks

1 can            Thick coconut milk (560ml.)

3 cloves       Garlic, finely chopped

1tsp             Sugar

1 tbsp          Vegetable oil

1 tsp            Soy sauce

1                 Cucumber, cut into small pieces (see video)

10                Kaffir lime leaves, cut into very thin and narrow strips

320-375g.    Vermicelli rice noodles

1 – 1 ¼ tbsp Salt

3 litre           Water

Instructions from video 

Instructions

1. Cut a chicken breast lengthwise into three pieces and from each piece cut diagonally into ½ inch thick, and continue until finish all. Add chicken with chopped garlic, soy sauce and sugar, and mix well.
2. Heat a pot on a little bit more than medium high heat, and add oil and curry paste. Stir and cook curry paste until you smell the aroma from curry paste, and add chicken. Stir and mix chicken well with curry paste, add coconut milk. Cook until the mixture is boiled and bubbling, and turn the heat down to medium and simmer for (about) 20 minutes or until chicken is tender. Remove from heat.

* Use the pot is just big enough to contain the amount of chicken and coconut milk and cook on the small stove top. A large pot on the large stove top with the heat mentioned above, the liquid in the curry will be dry out before the chicken becomes tender. If this happened you can simply add some water into the curry. 

3. Bring water to a rapid boil, and add salt. Add vermicelli rice noodles and cook for 2-3 minutes or until tender. Drain well. Roll noodles into a bundle with a fork for the size of a serving, until finish all about 35 – 40 bundles.
4. Garnish noodles with lemongrass and Kaffir lime leaves.
5. To serve, place a bundle of noodles on your own plate pour on chickened Panang curry and serve with cucumber cubes as a side dish.

Khua Kling Moo

Khua Kling, literally dry frying (“Khua” means the kind of cooking process with little water or no water at all and cook until the food is very dry, for “Kling” means tossing or rolling, and for “Moo” means pork), is one of  well known southern Thai dishes.

Southern Thai food is significantly different than the food from the other parts of Thailand as Southern Thai food got a lot influence from Indian, Arab and Persian cuisine. Turmeric is an important ingredient and plays a big part in Southern Thai food.

In general Southern Thai food is very spicy it can be burning hot so when you go to a restaurant in Southern Thailand, they always give you a basket or big plate of fresh vegetables covering with ice. These vegetables help to reduce feeling burning hot your tongue.

For this recipe it is not that spicy compares with Khua Kling in Southern Thailand but the flavor is still real Southern Thai food. You can use other kinds of meat like chicken, beef or fish but if you use fish then you should reduce ½ cup of water to be 1 – 2 tbsp of water and the cooking time should be reduced too so that fish will not be over cooked.

**** Very spicy

Ingredients

500g.              Minced pork loin

3 tbsp             Thai southern style curry paste (see recipe below)

½ cup             Water

2 tbsp             Fish sauce (adjustable, each brand of fish sauce has different level of sodium)

2 tbsp             Vegetable Oil

1 ½ tsp           Palm sugar

5                     Kaffir Lime leaves, cut into very thin stripes

Instructions on video

Instructions

1. Heat the wok over medium high heat, add vegetable oil and following with minced pork. Cook until pork turns prink and add curry paste, fish sauce, and palm sugar, and mix well.
2. Lower the heat to medium, add water and cook until pork is tender and dry.
3. Turn of the heat, add Kaffir lime leaves and mix well
4. Serve with lots of fresh vegetables like cucumber, lettuce, snake beans etc, and steamed Jasmine rice.

Thai Southern Style Curry Paste

Instructions on video

Ingredients

12                Dried Thai chilies or dried Prik Kee Noo

6                Fresh Thai chilies or fresh Prik Kee Noo, chopped

3 cloves       Garlic, chopped

2                  Shallots, chopped

1 ½ tbsp      Chopped turmeric (about 2 inches long of turmeric)

2 tbsp          Galangal, finely chopped

2 tbsp           Lemongrass, finely chopped

1 tbsp          Fresh ground pepper

1 ½ - 2 tsp    Shrimp paste

¼ tsp Salt

Instructions

1. Soak dried chilies in a bowl of boiling or hot water until soft 15 minutes to 30 minutes depends on the temperature of water – hotter water takes less time. Rinse and remove the seeds, and finely chop.
2. Wrap shrimp paste with a piece of tin foil and roast on the cook top of a stove until smelling the air with an aroma.
3. Put all the ingredients in the mortar, and pound and crush with the pestle until smooth. It can be done with a food processor also. (Store in the freezer if you don't use all at once). 

Asian Noodle Salad with Lemongrass Chicken

This noodle dish is considered a healthy food as more than half of the dish is fresh vegetables, basically it is a salad dish and we have a bundle of noodles and grilled chicken to complete a one dish meal food.

                                                                                                            

This dish can be lunch or supper and the process is pretty straight forward. You can find all the ingredients at Asian grocery stores.

For 3 servings

Ingredients

2                   Chicken breast

1                   Lemongrass, cut and crushed

2 tbsp           Vegetable oil

1¹⁄₂ tbsp           Soy sauce

1 tbsp           Oyster sauce

1 tbsp           Honey or sugar

½ tsp            Ground pepper

 ¹⁄₆ tsp           Salt

-------------

150 – 200 g.  Rice Vermicelli

1 cup             Bean sprouts

1 cup             Cucumber, shredded

¾ cup            Carrot, shredded

6 slices         Tomato

3 pieces        Lettuce

3 branches    Thai basil

¾ cup           Ground peanut

1 tsp             Salt

2 tbsp           Vegetable oil

Salad dressing

2 cakes       Palm sugar(see picture at Herbs page)

5 tbsp         Water

2                Fresh Thai chilies, chopped (adjustable)

2 ½ tbsp     Lime juice (adjustable)

2 ½ tbsp    Fish sauce (adjustable, each brand of fish sauce has different level of sodium)

You can also follow the instructions from the video.

Instructions 

1. Cut lemongrass into small pieces, and crush it with a mortar and pestle for 4-5 minutes or until soft and wet.
2. Marinate Chicken with crushed lemongrass, veg. oil, soy sauce, oyster sauce, honey or sugar, ground pepper and salt for a few hours or leave it in the fridge over night if you prepare it the night before.
3. Making salad dressing, place a small pot on medium heat, and add palm sugar and water. Cook palm sugar until it is melted and let it sit for a minute after bubbling, and remove from heat. Let it cold. Add chopped chilli, lime juice and fish sauce, and stir to mix.
4. Bring a medium saucepan of water or just enough to cover rice vermicelli to boil over medium heat. Add 1 tsp salt and rice vermicelli, and cook until noodles are tender, about 3 minutes. Drain in a colander or strainer and transfer to a bowl.

5. Grill the chicken; remove lemongrass from chicken with a spoon or folk. You can use oven grill or charcoal grill, grill two sides of chicken until it is cooked. Cut into pieces the size you wish.
6. For serving, place a bundle of noodles in an individual serving bowl and put a piece of lettuce beside or under the noodles, and add and arrange tomato slices, cucumber shredded, carrot shredded, bean sprouts and ground peanut nicely. Garnish with Thai basil. Pour in the salad dressing when you are ready to eat.