Author: admin

I’m guessing the crane comes from the US or Europe where the safety message is printed on it by default because what I have seen, they’re not that keen on safety.

Sun’s going down, I have some reinforcing I need to hit with a hammer, I know just lean out there and do it.

Start the day with a touch of welding. Only 4 floors, probably won’t kill me.

First things first…. They work on Saturday….. That surprised me as, from what I had read etc, the last things the Thai’s would do is extend themselves to the weekend.  When you get here the first thing that grabs you is the mess of wires (literally) hanging from the poles.  I couldn’t imagine how this happens except for some dodgy DIY structured cabling methodology.  As it turns out….

Check this out.  This  guy is running in a new (I assume) telephone cable.  It is a broom stick with a bent coat hanger to guide the cable as the other guy rolls it out.

The traffic is traveling under his new cable that’s only been held up by his stick and the tension the guy with the roll is adding.  When it bounced out of the stick and fell in front of a motorcycle everyone had a heart attack.  You could see the cabling guys thinking “shit, we’ll have to run a new one” and the motor cyclist thinking “WTF is that and why am I getting tangled up and… oops nearly came off”

First things first.  I’m sorry about quality of the photos and the video.  I used the Olympus point and shoot instead of the Hasselblad rather than fully exposing myself to ridicule through poor artistic ability.

Due to my really poor showing here I have been avoiding putting something up.  To pass your’ ‘real’ chef’s course in Thailand you have to do a fruit/vegetable carving exam that  takes 4 hours to complete and you end up with a stack of carved fruit and vegetables that would make up the pride of place in a hotel buffet that all the tourists (including me in the past) would duly ignore.  No longer will I ignore this, this carving is such an art and takes so long (around 1 hour for a water melon) that I will stand in wonder and appreciation of the artist’s work before pigging out on all the standard wishy washy food of the hotel buffet.

With a very hard mango you basically just cut ‘v’s into the skin slightly higher than the previous ‘v’ but at the same angle to look like the cone is tucked under the previous piece and cut away some flesh to leave a little green.  Here is a quick look at the chef doing it.

This is fairly simple once you understand you want the ‘v’s to be up a little.  you can do the same thing on a carrot (no dodgy comments Jono!!)

You may ask, “how many leaves does one person need”… Apparently in Thailand, quite a few.  Here is the Thai eggplant leaf.  The most difficult part of this was getting the leaf shape right.  The rest was the 90deg and 45deg knife work with fluid motions.

This is the second easiest thing to do. With a sharp knife you skin the tomato taking care to have roughly the same width all the way through. once you have the skin off you roll it (starting with a tight roll, to become the centre of the flower) and then finish off by having the circle at the end of the roll under the flower. Done.

By far the most laborious task was carving this melon. You carve the pine cone shape into the top (which I majorly stuffed up) and then leaves around the bottom with the pine cone between them. I have put some videos up of the chef doing it (no one has the time to watch me do it).

(links below open new windows. turn down the sound as there is a lot of background noise.)

Here is a link on youtube (the blog software won’t allow me to put up wmv files)
Here is the chef once he had marked out the leaves and was starting on the pine ‘leaves’.

My dodgy one on the right, chef’s on the left

By far the easiest and actually looks ok for a salad or similar.  You find a spring onion with a bit of a flat look (the leaves are next to each other) and you basically split the leaves into as many curls as you want (at different levels) and you split the leaves.  You then run the back of the knife down the leaf in more or less (with a lot less pressure) the same way you do for curling ribbon.  Put them in cold water and they curl up in tight little curls.  Done.

I’ve just split the leaves in two here

The carrots were the simplest.  Cutting the carrot into a long piece about 2mm thick you cut out the leaf shape and then using the knife at a 90degree angle to the carrot (straight down) you cut part way through the carrot the two lines of the spine. Then cut a line parallel (1/2 – 1 mm away) to one of the spines at a 45deg angle to the carrot, pull out the piece of carrot that should now just pull out.  Cut the other spine in the same way and pull out the carrot.    Now cut the tear drops into the carrot with a straight knife (90 deg to the carrot).  Complete with the little serrations along the edges and you’re done.

Thai omelette soup
Deep fried cat fish
Deep fried pork with sesame
Custard pumpkin

Thai omelette soup

1. Stock, garlic, onion, shallots and spring onion in a pot and simmer (about 30 minutes)
2. Beat eggs and add sesbania, sweet vegetable, basil, garlic and chillies.
3. Heat oil in a wok on a high heat until hot.
4. Pour egg mixture into oil quickly heat until bottom is brown and then turn over
5. When both sides are brown drain and put to one side
6. Strain soup into a bowl add soy (taste and adjust), cut omelette into 5cm strips and add to soup

Deep fried cat fish

1. Strip the fish of the white meat carefully to avoid including bones
2. Put meat in a mortar
3. Pound until it is a course paste and put to one side
4. To make the dipping source pound the garlic and chilli in a mortar until rough consistency
5. Mix in shallots, spring onion, lime and fish sauce
6. In a deep frier put the fish meat in stir to ensure it’s not clumped.  Fry until it is golden then bunch into a ‘clump’ and take out of the fryer.
7. Put on a bed of lettuce with dipping sauce, place the remainder for the mango and carrot on top with cashews .  If you are hilarious and the chef you could try the presentation below.  The head and tail are included on the plate. If you click on the image and get the full sized you can see the teeth of the fish.

This is how we got the fish:

Deep fried pork with sesame

1. Place coriander, garlic and pepper in a mortar and pound to a paste (lots of the wrong sort of pounding done on this holiday)
2. Mix all ingredients (except pork) in a bowl and combine. Place pork in bowl and ensure covered with marinade. Leave pork covered to one side for at least 1 hour. If overnight refrigerate.
3. Deep fry in very hot oil until deep brown. Take care as it will spit.

Custard pumpkin

1. Cut the steam out of the pumpkin but cutting around the steam at about 5 cm with a sharp knife at about an 45 degree angle (photo below)
2. Remove all pips and surplus meat.
3. Mix together eggs, shallots, padanas leaves and sugar.
4. Using your hands (we had gloves on) massage the padanas leaves and sugar to dissolve the sugar.
5. Once the sugar is dissolved strain the mix into another bowl. Add mix to empty pumpkins (up to about the bottom of the meat in the top (if that makes sense)
6. Put pumpkins in a steamer and cook until the custard is cooked. (about 45 minutes for the 20cm pumpkins we used). Test with a skewer, the skewer should be clean when removed.
7. The recipe is good, it’s very unusual but I am definitely going to play around with this.

Day 11 – Menu

These are all delicious. the diet was set back again today…..
Savoury herbs with sweet fish sauce
Deep fried rice rolls
Deep fried prawn cakes
Steamed fish with seafood sauce

Steamed fish with seafood sauce

1. Place cabbage on a plate small enough to fit in your steamer
2. Cut fish into reasonable sized (5 – 10 cm) chunks and place on cabbage
3. Place galangal ginger on fish. Put to one side
4. Prepare the steamer to ensure the steamer is hot for the completion of the dressing.
5. To make the dressing finely chop the coriander root, garlic and chillies together
6. Place in a small pan and combine with yesterday’s seafood sauce, chicken stock and lime juice. Stir and place on a very low heat.
7. Once the dressing is on put the fish in a steamer (on the plate) and steam covered for 10 -1 5 minutes
8. Remove and take fish off cabbage and plate up. Pour over dressing.

Deep fried prawn cakes

1. Coat prawns in tapioca flour (well). Then wash the flour off (makes the fish cakes less ‘fishy’.
2. Ensure the prawns are as dry as you can get them by blotting with paper towel and squashing the water out.
3. In a blender add pork fat and pepper and salt. Blend to a paste
4. Add prawns, and sesame oil and blend to a sticky paste
5. Transfer to a bowl and ‘kneed’ by balling in a spoon and throwing back into the bowl (about 10 times).
6. Cover and refrigerate from approximately 10 minutes
7. Once refrigerated make balls of about 50g (approx. 1/4 cup), coat with corn flour, cover in egg and roll in bread crumbs.
8. Fry until golden brown (a few minutes)

Deep Fried Rice Rolls

1. Combine water chestnuts, coriander and shrimp cake mix.
2. Place about 2/3 tab of mix along 1 side of the casing and roll like a cigar; not too tight not too loose (vague I know. Too tight they can explode out the ends, too loose and they go out the sides or dribble. Practice is needed)
3. Once you reach the end use a little egg to wet the edge and close the roll
4. Fry in oil that is not too hot as this will make them explode
5. Remove when golden brown

Savoury herbs with sweet fish sauce

1. Peel fresh coconut using a vegetable peeler into strips. Finely chop the peeled coconut to make little 5mm x 1mm strips
2. Roast garlic, shallots and ginger in oven
3. While above is roasting put ground coconut in one dry wok and roast over a medium heat until quite brown. Keep the coconut moving
4. Do as above to chopped coconut. If you are quick you could do them both at once but they really should be kept moving to stop sticking
5. Once chopped coconut is browned add sugar syrup and mix
6. Take garlic, shallots and ginger from oven, peel garlic, shallots and trim galangal ginger to 10 grams if required
7. Put garlic, shallots and galangal ginger into a mortar and pound into paste
8. Add shrimp paste to mortar and mix
9. Add water to mortar and mix. Pour mortar contents into a pot
10. Add palm sugar and fish sauce to pot and heat on medium heat
11. Once sugar is dissolved and has started to thicken up taste and adjust if required
12. Add ground coconut and dried shrimps
13. To serve; in a lettuce leaf put some roasted chopped coconut, ginger, dried shrimp, garlic and lime. Cover with the sauce we made previously and put in mouth (DELICIOUS!!!)

Grilled pork neck with eastern dipping
Deep fried crackers with kick arse dipping
Grilled prawns with seafood dipping sauce

Grilled pork neck with eastern dipping sauce

1. In an oven bake garlic, shallots and ginger until the garlic and shallots are soft
2. Place garlic, shallots, and ginger in a mortar and pound into a paste
3. Combine the mortar paste with the Pad Thai sauce. Taste and adjust. Put to one side
4. Put the pork in a hot pan and cook until the outside is caramelised
5. Take the pork out of the pan and cut into 5mm strips
6. Put strips back into pan and complete cooking. Place the pork on the plate with the dipping sauce. Sprinkle a little sticky rice four on the sauce for taste.

Sticky Rice flour

You can buy sticky rice flour or you can make it yourself

1. Combine Kaffir, galangal and sticky rice in a wok
2. Cook until the rice is nearly black
3. Pour into a mortar and grind until it is mostly powder. Rice flour done.

Deep fried crackers with kick arse dipping sauce

1. In a mortar pound garlic, pepper and coriander root until it makes a fine paste
2. In a wok heat oil. Place mortar contents, shallots and chilli paste. Cook until fragrant
3. Over a medium heat dad coconut cream stir briefly to combine and then let sit. When oil forms around the bubbles
4. Add pork and stir until the oil comes to the top again.
5. Add peanuts, fish sauce, sugar, tamarind paste and coconut milk.
6. Taste and modify as required. Put aside
7. Fry the crackers in hot oil and drain. Serve with the sauce from above. This sauce can be great with corn chips. My new Saturday night:-)

Grilled prawns with seafood dipping sauce

1. In boiling water add sugar and dissolve. Put to one side to cool.
2. Add all dipping sauce ingredients from above to a blender. Blend until well combined (about 60 seconds).
3. Remove ‘muck’ from prawns by taking a sharp knife and cut from the base of the head to the base of the tail. Pull the much out, leaving the shell on.
4. Grill until cooked. Server with seafood dipping sauce.

OMG sesame dumpling balls
Thai chilli paste
Son-in-law eggs (direct translation)
Grilled Thai eggplant salad (Yam Ma-Kua Yaw)
Fried noodle Thai style (Pad Thai)

OMG sesame dumpling balls

1. Place water, sugar, ginger and pandanus leaves in a pot and cover to simmer (a good few hours is nice)
2. Make the dough by combining sticky rice flour and water together in a bowl. Mix until it is combined and then kneed. The mixture should be the consistency of bread dough and quite light. Water/flour may be added to improve the consistency. Kneed for about 8 minutes. Cover and put to one side.
3. In a wok roast the black sesame seeds until they are popping quite a lot
4. Grind peanuts and sesame in a mortar until a paste
5. Over a medium heat boil together palm sugar and water until the palm sugar has dissolved
6. Combine with sesame seed & peanut while still on the heat. Once combined take off the heat and put in a bowl that it fills (to ensure the heat is maintained)
7. Carefully take out balls of the sesame mix and roll so they hold themselves together and place on a plate. You will need about 25 balls, each about 1cm diameter.
8. Take the dough and pull balls from this (about the same size as the sesame balls). Flatten the ball and place a sesame ball in the centre. Fold the dough around the ball. Careful not to allow any holes to appear. If there are any holes just patch with dough.
9. Once they are all prepared place balls in boiling water until they float. Once floating serve in a bowl of the ginger sauce and add sugar to taste.

Thai chilli paste (for Pad Thai)

1. In a mortar grind up the dried chillies, once they are more or less done add the garlic and the shallots, when there is no sinew left add the dried shrimp and pound into the paste. Put aside

NOTES…

Note the lack of salt to help grind the dried chillies. Good thing… less salt…. Bad thing… OMG it took so long to get the chillies to a sufficient state.

‘Son-in-law eggs’
Fried eggs in sweet and sour sauce

1. Put eggs into warm water that is just deep enough for the top 2mm of the egg to be showing out of the water
2. Turn the eggs for the first few minutes to get the egg yolk in the middle of the egg
3. Cook for 10 minutes. Shell when completed
4. Combine tamarind sauce, palm sugar and fish sauce over a medium heat and cook until palm sugar is dissolved and the sauce has started to thicken up
5. Deep fry shallots and chilli until they start to become crispy. Place on kitchen paper to drain
6. Place cooked eggs in deep fryer and fry until they are golden brown
7. Plate up with eggs cut in ½ and sauce over the top then the crispy shallots/chilli

Grilled Thai eggplant salad (Yam Ma-Kua Yaw)

1. Put eggs into warm water that is just deep enough for the top 2mm of the egg to be showing out of the water
2. Turn the eggs for the first few minutes to get the egg yolk in the middle of the egg
3. Cook for 10 minutes. Shell when completed
4. While the eggs are cooking, over an open flame, roast the eggplant until the skin is black and burned
5. Under cold running water removed the burned skin and put to one side
6. Roughly pound garlic and chillies in a mortar to combine. Put to one side
7. In a mixing bowl and combine fish sauce, lime juice, and sugar syrup and mix well.
8. Add drained pork and ½ the dried shrimp, shallots, red chilli, spring onion and chilli/garlic mix and combine
9. Cut eggplant into ½ and then each ½ into thirds. Arrange on a plate.
10. Place egg on top and pour salad mix over the top, garnish with coriander and shrimp.

Fried noodle Thai style (Pad Thai)

1. Mix Fish sauce, palm sugar and tamarind sauce and put aside as the seasoning
2. This dish is made quickly. To start….. Boil a little water (about 300ml) and through noodles in (this is the start now. No stopping)
3. In a wok put in the vegetable oil on a high heat
4. Add garlic, tofu and shallots cook until fragrant
5. Add egg, cook until the white is a little cooked and then stir. Quickly move to next step
6. Take the noodles out of the boiling water and add to the wok. Continue stirring
7. Add shrimp to the wok also.
8. While stirring add the seasoning and chilli paste. Taste and adjust as required
9. Add bean sprouts, Chinese chives and (the portion) of peanuts and take off heat. Taste and adjust if necessary
10. To serve in the ‘posh’ way you put the pad Thai in what is effectively an omelette. Oil a non-stick fry pan. Put an egg in a small container and stir.
11. Throw the egg into the fry pay and spread as an omelette.
12. Once the omelette has shown dried edges put the Pad Thai in the ‘bottom’ half of the omelette
13. Ensure the omelette is not sticking and then take the pan off the heat and fold the omelette over the Pad Thai as you place it on the plate.