Thai Recipes From My Kitchen

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

* 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. 

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)

Instructions 

You can also follow the instructions from the video below!

Pad Thai is a well known and popular dish in Thailand and the world, from street vendors to high end restaurants food. Pad Thai in Thailand uses shrimp the most, for street vendors they use dry shrimp, and for more expensive and high end restaurants use fresh shrimp. Here my recipe is from real and original Pad Thai so there are some ingredients you might not be familiar with for example, garlic chives (Chinese chives) and salty radish. There are available at Asian grocery stores. Thai restaurants in North America use green onion instead of garlic chives and they skip the salty radish but if you would like to try the original favor then here it is.

For 4 - 5 servings for a single dish meal.

Ingredients

1 pkg. (450 g)              dry Rice stick noodles

300 g                           or 2 small skinless boneless chicken breasts  

½ pkg (250 g)              pressed Tofu – cubed

3                                  eggs

½ - 1 cup                     chopped Salty Radish (optional)

3 – 4 cloves                 chopped Garlic

2- 2 ½ cups                 or half batch of Tamarind sauce from recipe (see recipe below)

9 -10 tbsp                    Vegetable oil (if it’s too dry you can add more)

2 - 3 tbsp                      Fish sauce  (you can replace fish sauce with soy  sauce if there is a seafood allergy issue)

1 tsp.                            Soy sauce
¹⁄₆ tsp                           Salt

½  tsp                           Fresh ground pepper       

1 lb                               Bean sprouts

1 bunch                        Garlic chives (Chinese chives) (cut into 1 inch long) or green onion cut into ½ inch

           Ground chili pepper

1 - 2                                                            Limes (optional)

  Instructions

** Because of this recipe is pretty big it will take a while before everything is cooked, some ingredients need less time and some need longer time so I cook them separately and mix them later but if you make a small batch just for 1 or 2 servings you can stir-fry tofu and then add an egg and then add chicken and then add noodles and mix well with the sauces.

       

Garnish with

Sauce (makes 2 batches) you can make this sauce in advance, it can be kept in the fridge for 4 – 6 weeks.

200 g.            Tamarind (cake of dried fruit, see picture of Tamarind this blog)

4 ½  cakes     Palm Sugar ( 8 cakes in a pkg = 454 g) (see the picture of Palm Sugar this blog)

5 cups            Water

Instructions

1. Soak tamarind in water until soft, about 30 minutes (break apart the cake of fruit as it becomes possible to speed up the softening).
2. Discard the seeds and pods.
3. Dissolve palm sugar into tamarind mixture of heat.   Heat to boiling.
4. Set aside.

Goong Ob Woon Sen or proper name – Goong Ob Woon Sen Mo Din (literally, shrimp baked with mung bean vermicelli noodles in clay pot) is originally a Thai-Chinese dish (created by Chinese in Thailand). Goong Ob Woon Sen is well known and popular dish – it is a restaurant and food catering dish, you don’t see it at street vendors.

We have very famous and popular food catering businesses in Nakhon Pathom Province. Nakhon Pathom Province is one of the central provinces of Thailand, is about 58 km. away from Bangkok. When we talk about Nakhon Pathom we will think of 2 things from this province, one is Phra Pathom Chedi, a chedi commissioned by King Mongkut in 1870, it is one of the tourists’ destination and the other one is food catering, this style of catering is called “Dto Jiin” or Chinese Table means Chinese food with a set of 10 -12 dishes including dessert, are served at the round tables for 10 -12 people per table. I don’t know how many food caterers are in Nakhon Pathom exactly but it’s a lot. The caterers will carry pots, pans, chairs, tables and necessary utensils or kitchen wares with them in a big truck and they do it for any occasion across Thailand in a very reasonable price with fresh made food from scratch.

One of popular dishes on the food catering menus is Goong Ob Woon Sen. This dish normally we use the large size of Tiger shrimp or fresh water shrimp. The frozen tiger shrimp and fresh water shrimp from Thailand are available at Asian grocery stores.

*** If Chinese celery is not available, it can be replaced by coriander or cilantro.

For 4 servings

Ingredients

240 g                  (Dried) Mung Bean Vermicelli noodles

1 ½ lbs.               Shrimp (size 31 – 40 /lb or larger)

1 root                  Ginger 2 ½  inch long, slices

10 - 12 slices       Fat pork

1 cup                  Chinese Celery, cut into 1 inch long

1 tsp                   Ground peppercorn

6 roots                Coriander or cilantro

4 cloves              Garlic

2 tbsps               Soy Sauce

2 tbsps               Oyster Sauce

2 tbsps               Sesame Oil

½ cup                 Water

Instruction

Khao Pad Goong (literally, fried rice with shrimp) is one of the most popular kinds of fried rice. This style of fried rice is original from high-end Cantonese Chinese restaurants and nowadays you can see on the menu at higher end Thai restaurants as well. The style of this fried rice is simple and normally with more expensive meat like shrimp or crab.

There is another style of fried rice that is also popular and normally you can find this dish at street vendors and Raan Ah-Han Tam Sang (another kind of short order food shop beside Raan Khao Khaeng). This style of fried rice is a one dish food, in the dish contains with vegetable like Gai Lan or Chinese broccoli, tomato and onion and the meat will be pork or chicken, and serve with some slices of cucumber. People in Thailand eat fried rice as a breakfast, lunch or and dinner.

My recipe here is from the first style of fried rice but I make this recipe as a one dish food as it covers all category of food.

For 1 serving

Ingredients

1 cup                 (packed) Steamed Jasmine rice

1                        Egg

5                        Shrimp (31 – 40 PCS /lb) (Or any size you wish)

1 clove               Garlic, chopped fine 

1                        Small spring green onion, chopped into ¼ inch

¼ tsp                 Ground pepper corn

1 tsp                  Soy sauce

1 tsp                  Oyster sauce

1 tbsp and 1 tsp Vegetable oil (1tbsp would be enough, if you concern about your health)

3 slices              Tomato

3 slices               Cucumber

1 wedge              Lime

2                         Fresh Thai chilli, chopped

                           Fish sauce

Instruction

Chilli in Fish Sauce

            Cover chopped chilli with fish sauce (squeeze a wedge of lime juice if you wish)

***A whole process happens very fast and on high heat only so that it produces good fried rice.

***Jasmine rice is the best for making fried rice as fried rice suppose to be dried but soft

*** Some people prefer lime juice mix in fish sauce and chilli rather then squeezing it on the rice.

Sticky rice or glutinous rice is an important staple food of North and North-East Thais. In general people in other parts of Thailand consume ordinary rice or long grain rice. It is not only Northern and Northern-Eastern Thais who eat sticky rice as the daily staple food but Lao in Laos also eat sticky rice as their staple food, in history they were the same group of people in an ancient kingdom before forming Thailand - Laos.

Sticky rice is very popular at Thai restaurants. Everyone loves to eat sticky rice, even kids who don’t eat rice as the staple food at home they love eating sticky rice, for example every summer my whole family in laws will get together, we will share to do cooking for everyone and when I take the turn I will make Thai food and kids will ask for sticky rice!

How to cook sticky rice is a question for people who don’t eat rice or sticky rice as a staple food. I am going to show you how and if you have a sticky rice steamer it is pretty easy. You can get this sticky rice steamer at Asian grocery stores, they are from Thailand.

This traditional cone-shaped woven bamboo weaved basket(see the picture below) is, an incredible intelligent invention, produced excellent sticky rice as sticky rice can not absorb a lot of  water so cooked sticky rice will not be swollen much. The way to cook sticky rice is at least soak it in water for more than three hours or just leave it cover with water over night – sticky rice will be saturated with water so when you cook you have to drain all water before transfer sticky rice into the bamboo basket, and because this bamboo basket has a cone shape all the extra water that is still in the rice (as you can not drain it completely) will drain itself and the bottom completely dry out as it is not flat. If you use flat bottom streamer the sticky rice will come out wet and mash. This cone-shaped woven bamboo weaved basket always comes together with its pot but a lid. The reason they don’t have a lid is, that this bamboo basket can contain any amount of rice; more rice needs a bigger lid to fit the cone so you can just find the right lid from your kitchen.  

Ingredients

Thai Sticky Rice or Glutinous rice  any amount (remember that sticky rice will not be swollen much.)

Tap Water                                       enough to cover sticky rice   

Instruction

1.      Rise sticky rice one time with water.

2.      Cover sticky rice with water at least 3 hours or over night.

Sticky Rice Steamer

3.      Heat water with the sticky rice streamer pot on high until boiled with stream coming out.

4.      Drain water from sticky rice totally and then transfer it into the bamboo basket.

5.      Place the bamboo basket with sticky rice on the pot and cover the basket with a pot lid, lower the heat to medium high and steam for 35 -45 minutes or until rice is cooked.

6.      Remove from heat, served hot with yummy Thai food.

PS ** After the rice is cooking on the heat for about half way, rotate the rice by remove the basket from the heat (just use your two hands hold the top of basket, it’s not hot because it’s made from bamboo and also it doesn’t touch the heat directly) and shake to loosen the rice from basket and then toss to rotate the rice and then put the rice back to the pot until rice is cooked totally. 

Pad Kee Mao (literally, Drunkard's stir-fried noodles)

Pad Kee Mao Noodles supposed to be very spicy dish as its meaning of the name. “Kee Mao” means a drunkard in Thai, I wonder if Thai people are heavy drinkers or we are like many Asian people who have a low tolerance with alcohol, many people can not control doing things themselves after drinking, this dish is so hot so spicy because from a cook who is very drunk and uncontrollable.

We don’t know who created this dish but I think that person must be very creative and well-imagined.

The process of this dish is pretty much like Pad Si-Yiew which is another stir-fried noodle dish that needs high heat for cooking.

For 3 servings    ** Medium hot.

Ingredients

550 g                 Fresh Flat Rice Noodles
300 - 350 g.       Shrimp

1                        Medium size of Sweet Red or Green Pepper, cut into 2x5 cm.

1                        Small Carrot, cut lengthwise in half and slice into  1/2cm. thick and 5cm long. Cooked.

                          (or 6-7 Baby corn, cut lengthwise into half)     

1                        Onion (medium), cut lengthwise into 2cm thick.

4 -5                    Fingerroots or Chinese ginger, finely sliced (optional ,depending on availability)

50-60 g              Thai Sweet Basil, leaves. (this weight is including stems, use only leaves)

5                        Fresh Thai Chillis (Prik Kee Noo)

3 cloves             Garlic, roughly cut

1 – 2                  Shallot roughly cut

2  tsp                  Chilli sauce in oil

2  tsp                  Sweet Dark Soy Sauce

2  tbsp                Soy Sauce

4 – 5                  turns of Fresh Ground peppercorn from pepper mill.

5 – 6 tbsp           Vegetable oil (Need more oil for dry noodles)

Instruction

The full  name of this dish is Kway Teow Pad Si-Yiew ( literally, Noodles stir-fry with Soy Sauce)

This Thai-Chinese dish is common, well-known and popular noodle dish, and is one of the most popular street foods in Thailand. This dish is commonly with Pork as Pork is one of Chinese important staple foods so many basic dishes will have pork as an ingredient in Chinese cuisine. You can find this dish at a luxurious restaurant with more expensive ingredients, like shrimp or fancy fish for example.

Really the temperature of the wok is very important for stir-frying cooking, especially this Pad Si-ew noodles, the good favour of the noodles is from a hot steel wok. Actually we don’t use high heat for a whole process; we start with high heat to burn the steel wok, so that the food will not stick on the bottom of the wok, like a non-stick wok. Some people may be afraid to see the wok with smoke, I have a tip here – NEVER put oil in the very hot wok, it may cause a fire. The correct way is put oil when the wok is not really hot yet and after you put oil in the wok the smoke from the oil will tell you that the wok is hot and ready (for cooking).

* Fresh flat rice noodles are pretty much available at the Asian grocery stores and also dry flat rice noodles available at most major supermarkets.

For 4 servings

Ingredients

1                   Skinless Chicken Breast (medium to large size), cut into ¼ - ½ thick x 2 inches long

3  cloves       Garlic, chopped

1  tsp             Soy Sauce

½ - 1 tsp       Sugar

Pinch of Salt

(Chicken marinate with all the ingredients above)

 850 g            Fresh Flat Rice Noodles (with ½ inch wide)

1 lb.               Gai Lan or Chinese Broccoli, cut into 2 inches long and for the stems cut in half lengthwise first. (ordinary broccoli can be replaced if Gai Lan is not available)

3                     Eggs

½ - ¾ cup       Water (can be less or more, depending on the noodles, dry noodles need more water)

3 - 3 ½  tbsp   Soy Sauce

3  tsp               Sweet Dark Soy Sauce

1  tbsp            Sugar

Fresh Ground pepper, 7 – 8 turns from a pepper mill

6 - 7 tbsp         Vegetable oil (for fresh noodles)

You can also follow the instructions from this video.

Instructions

Jalapeno Chilli Pickle

Jalapeno Chilli, cut in 1/6 - ¼ inch thick rings

White Vinegar

Instruction

Cover Jalapeno chilli with white vinegar for ½ - 1 hour. And serve as a noodle dish condiment.

Khao Ob Subparod (literally, Pineapple perfumed rice)

Khao Ob Subparod dish has a tropical appearance and sense as it is served in a pineapple shell and also the pineapple is a part of ingredients.

There are two instructions here, one with a clay pot baking and the other one is a stir- fry style. In Thailand we have some dishes bake in a pot (we don’t use an oven for cooking) for example: Goong Ob Wun Sen, Khao Mook Kai and also when I was young my family had a chicken rice with coconut milk dish cooked on the charcoal with a metal pot. It was so good, as it got some charcoal smoke flavour.

Here I have two kinds of instructions; the first one is baking(cook)  in a clay pot and second one is using a stir-fried rice process.

Clay pot baking process

Ingredients

2  cups               Uncooked Jasmine Rice

1  cup                 Pineapple cut in ½ x ½ x ½ inch

1  cup                Carrot cut in ½ x ½ x ½ inch

1                         Medium Onion, chopped

½  cup                Red sweet pepper cut in ½ x ½ inch

200 g                  Ham cut in ½ x ½ x ½ inch

2 1/2 cups          Chicken broth (medium sodium)

1 cup                  Cashew nuts (optional)

2                        Green Onion, cut in a quarter inch

4  cloves            Garlic, chopped

4  tbsp                Oil (I used the fat from ham I got from a local ham and suacesage shop, I had not really ½   cup of fat from ham).

¼  tsp                  Salt (the amount of salt is really depending on how salty the chicken broth is)

¼  tsp                 Fresh Ground Peppercorn

Instruction (clay pot baking process)

     1. Rise the rice one time with water and drain all the water, put aside.

Ingredients (stir frying process)

3  cup               Cooked Jasmine Rice

1  cup               Pineapple cut in ½ x ½ x ½ inch

½ cup               Carrot cut in ½ x ½ x ½ inch, cooked

1                      Medium Onion, chopped

½ cup               Red sweet pepper cut in ½ x ½ inch

140 g or 1 cup  Ham cut in ½ x ½ x ½ inch

½ cup               Cashew nuts (optional)

2                      Green Onion, cut in a quarter inch

3 cloves           Garlic, chopped

3-4 tbsp           Oil

1-2 tbsp           Soy Sauce

¼ tsp               Fresh Ground Peppercorn

Instruction

Pad Thai is a well known and popular dish in Thailand and the world, from street vendors to high end restaurants food. Pad Thai in Thailand uses shrimp the most, for street vendors they use dry shrimp, and for more expensive and high end restaurants use fresh shrimp. Here my recipe is from real and original Pad Thai so there are some ingredients you might not be familiar with for example, garlic chives (Chinese chives) and salty radish. There are available at Asian grocery stores. Thai restaurants in North America use green onion instead of garlic chives and they skip the salty radish but if you would like to try the original favor then here it is.

35 cm. or almost 14 inch, and or family size of a wok is the maximum capacity for frying 1 pkg(450g) of Rice stick noodles which is one batch of this recipe. The noodles get enough heat properly will produce the better texture (try not to have the noodles stick on the bottom of the wok).

For the ingredients like Fish sauce, Soya sauce, Oil and Tamarind sauce are adjustable by your own taste. In my culture we learn to cook by estimating the amount of ingredients in mind not by measurement. Often it’s hard for me when I have to follow the recipes with measurements except for making the Western cakes.

(approx. 4 - 5 servings for a single dish meal)

Ingredients
1 pkg. (450 g)              dry Rice stick noodles

Tamarind becomes thick liquid