Category: Thailand

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.

Deep fried pepper chicken wings with pandanus leafs

1. In a stone mortar and pestle grind black pepper into a fairly course grind (about the size of a plunger coffee grind)
2. ½ chicken wings at the joint by sliding a knife down the length of the wing and separating the joint at the bottom.
3. Remove the white of the pandanus leaves. Roughly chop the leaves into about 3cm lengths and place them in a bowl with the halved chicken wings, black pepper, and fish sauce. Cover and refrigerate overnight if possible (more than 30 minutes if you don’t have time)
4. Once the chicken is marinaded place the chicken and pandanus leaves carefully in very hot oil. Remove leaves if they are cooking too quickly and replace as necessary to brown. Once the chicken is browned remove it and place on kitchen paper to drain.
5. Serve with Thai chilli dipping sauce

So…… as I upload these pictures I and listening to the news on the TV… They are talking about gun shots and grenade attacks… I was around this area (there was also a bike shop I was looking for) for about 4 hours..  OH SHIT!!!!  Anyway.. Not shot or blown up, this whole thing was more or less a camp site with some (rather dodgy) security.  The camp was just a heap of this:

If it’s not clear (and I understand it’s not) sitting around doing very little.  keep in mind it’s about 38deg in the shade.  Everyone is sweating (not just me with 20kgs of camera).  Look at the gloss on the face of the guy below.

This guy is indicative of the people who were floating about.  Hot and here for support.  They are extremely organised with festival like TVs and sound systems.  They even have pharmacies and medical centres (with beds, lots of)

The locals are still conducting business.  This lady was telling people’s fortune with a standard pack of cards for a princely sum of 40b (about $1.2).

The biggest thing that happened while I was there was the arrival of this guy.  One can only assume that he was important, they were pushing me towards him and people were thrusting anything they had into his hand for his autograph.  He had 4 very serious security guards with him.

If anyone can help me with who he is, he appears to be wearing an Energy Australia hat ?????

OK… so as a manager safety is a pet project of mine.  I love these guys’ attitude towards safety.

They certainly talk the talk….. but.. Not the first guy I have seen leaning off a building to sort some work out.

I just had to laugh…. these are some of the properties that are next to the worlds’ most luxurious hotels.

Nice to see you’re place is falling into the river but you can keep your ‘apartment’ garden going.

Do you think when this one goes over they’ll lose reception on their Sky?

The old boy in this shot looks fairly happy.  I would be too, it is a great river, lots going on. Again thought…. how much time does this place have?  Given when the ferry docks the whole dock moves (it is not well anchored I would assume these are built with the same level of workman ship..

By far the fastest way to get up and down the Chao Phraya River (main river in Bangkok) is in one of these bad boys.  I have heard they are diesel engines but they don’t look big enough (to the computer guy) to be a diesel.  Anyway they look like they are a normal 4 cylinder engine they have ripped out of something and bolted to the end of a boat.  The reason why the boat is so long is they need the weight to cope with the weight of the motor and the output when these guys ‘put the peddle to the metal’.  I am going to give this a go, apparently they are about 1000b for 1 hour.  I’m guessing in 1 hour you can get to Burma.

It wasn’t until I had taken the photo and thought about what was going on that this clicked.  In this photo the silk worms are added to boiling water (heated from below in the same way the pots were cooking on the side of the street), they excrete the silk and then this is collected by the lady and wound up in the contraption.

If you click on this and get the full sized JPG you can just see the silk coming up from each of the poor little buggers.  Once they are finished/cooked they are discarded.  I guess silk is not vegan friendly.

If you’re only in Bangkok one day you MUST see this, it is so amazing, the photos don’t do it justice, I have tried.

Notes on getting in to the palace etc: You will be told this but I will repeat it, if anyone tells you it’s closed don’t believe them. The tour guides touting for business just inside the first entrance seem to be good (I didn’t use one, I wanted to take photos and that just tends to annoy them). The audio guide (just after the ticket office (ticket is 500b)) is quite OK although I just gave up and did my own thing. If you don’t want the guided tour then I would recommend the audio guide. There is one more scam I saw en route to home; some guy at the ferry pickup point (get the ferry from the sky train station to N9 and enter from there, about 30 minutes for 40b one way) anyway… the guy was telling some Americans they were not dress appropriately and he could help them. Me being me stopped and felt the need to explain to them they could borrow clothes at the palace and they would be OK (although I think the elephant print doesn’t suit anyone). The Thai guy didn’t look too happy, the American very politely thanked us both and departed away from the ferry and I held my tripod and marched off.

Photos……

This guy is apparently the father of Thai medicine.

I just love these blokes holding the tower up.  There was something on the audio guide about this but… I gave up (not because the guide was crap, it was actually very good) but I was always taking too long in the spots and fogetting which number was next.

You point the camera anywhere and there is something else to take a photo of.  All gold and all amazing.

The pillars around the main temple were all decorated to reflect the light through the day (I was listening to the guide for this).  I don’t use this word often, it was awesome .

These where around the middle of the temple .  Each would have been carved and decorated by hand.  In the temple is a jade Buddha which gets his clothes changed three times a year.  When you see all the decorations around the Buddha you will understand why that is amazing, no idea how they get the (i I think) king up there to change the little fella’s clothes.

Bright sunlight is not the best time to take photos but this just floated my boat.

Just had to show this.  This is a lily flower in the Grand Palace.  These guys were buzzing around and I figured… It’s 40 degrees, I’m in the sun, why not take 20 minutes out to try to get a critter’s eye in focus.  This is the outcome.  I have done a crop to show the focus too.

Day 5

Green curry paste (Nam Prik Gaeng Kheao Wan)
Green curry with chicken (Gaeng Kheao Wan Gai)
Sweet and sour vegetables with Prawns
Stir fried chicken with ginger (Gai pad khing)
Thai-style fried rice noodles (Pad Ma Keau Yaw)
Spicy glass noodle salad (Yam wun sen)

Green curry paste (Nam Prik Gaeng Kheao Wan)

1. In a stone mortar and pestle pound coriander, cumin and peppercorn seeds until they are a powder.
2. Add lemongrass, ginger, lime, garlic, turmeric, and shallots to mortar and pound until there isn’t any obvious sinew.
3. Add dried chillies and salt pound unit pieces of chilli cannot be made out from the rest of the matter (again not an easy task, right arm starting to feel it now. The finer you chop the easier this will be. There’s a story here but… wait 7 weeks).
4. Add shrimp paste and pound to mix in the paste.

NOTES:

The big question for us Anglo-Saxons…… Difference between red and green curry…. I REALLY hate to say it… essentially nothing. Just the red or the green chillies!!! A restaurant may choose to differentiate but strictly, no heat difference.

Only use the white bit of the lemon grass. The rest can be used for a kick arse tea

To keep stir fry for a couple of minutes, let cool and put in a container in the fridge. It will keep for a few months

The finer you chop stuff up the less pounding. Chop stuff fine, it takes less effort.

Green curry with chicken (Gaeng Kheao Wan Gai)

Extra coconut cream to wet chicken if required

1. Put oil in wok and add curry paste, cook until paste has started to integrate with oil
2. Add coconut cream. Stir until fat separates (oil on top around bubbles. You may need to stop stirring for this to show up)
3. Add chicken and stir until nearly cooked. If mix becomes too dry add more coconut cream
4. Add coconut milk, eggplants (both), fish sauce, and sugar, bring to the boil. Taste and season to taste.
5. Just before removing from heat add, basil, kaffir and red chilli. Quickly combine and remove from heat.
6. Serve with Jasmine rice

Sweet and sour vegetables with prawns

1. Combine all the sauce ingredients and put aside

The real work….

1. Put oil in wok heat and add garlic. Cook until ‘fragrent’ (please don’t burn)
2. Add chicken and cook until cooked (not over done)
3. Add chicken stock and boil
4. Add pineapple, cucumber, onion and mushrooms. Heat through whilst ensuring the mix is kept moving
5. Add remaining ingredients (including the sauce). Taste and season as required

Stir fried chicken with ginger (Gai pad khing)

OK… I have to come clean on this one…. I’m not a fan of ginger (I learned today ‘old ginger’) but this dish needs it and it’s not overly ‘gingerie’ [sic?]…

1. In a wok, heat oil and add garlic. Cook until fragrant (don’t burn)
2. Add chicken and cook until … well…. Cooked
3. Add chicken stock and bring to the boil
4. Add ginger, red onion, mushrooms and seasoning and taste. Adjust to taste
5. Add chilli and spring onion, toss, turn off heat and taste. Adjust if required

NOTES:

‘old ginger’ is that ‘rooty’ [sic? again] we get in Australia. The young ginger is just literally the young root, it is clean and white and doesn’t have the sharp taste of the ‘old’ ginger.  I don’t know if we can get it but it would be worth growing ginger just to get the real stuff, it’s light and fresh.

Thai-style fried rice noodles (Pad Ma Keau Yaw)

1. Mix seasoning and put aside.
2. In a hot wok heat oil and add shallots and dried shrimp. Cook while keeping moving the shallots until they have started to brown (tasty goodness)
3. Add radish and tofu stir in quickly and brown tofu
4. Add chicken stock and bring to the boil
5. Add noodles and flatten out so the mix comes in contact with the wok (don’t crush it just spread it out). Add more stock if it becomes too dry but don’t make it too wet.
6. Add seasoning, taste and adjust to taste.
7. Turn off heat and quickly add bean sprouts and Chinese chives. Mix to ensure the latter are heated through.
8. Taste and adjust. Serve

Spicy glass noodle salad (Yam wun sen)

1. In a mortar OR finely chopping (a lot easier but not traditional) combine seasoning garlic and chilli
2. Combine the remaining seasoning ingredients in the bowl, taste and season accordingly. Set aside.
3. Fry in wok pork mince and cook until it is done
4. Add prawns and cook briefly until the prawns start to show pink
5. Add chicken stock and bring to the boil
6. Add tomato and Chinese celery and quickly toss. If the mix has dried out too much add more stock
7. Add glass noodles and stir quickly until the noodles turn transparent. Take off the heat and combine in a bowl with the seasoning. Taste and adjust as required.