Pat Thai

Pad Thai is one of the most popular dishes in Thai cuisine, especially in the States. Whenever I eat at Thai restaurant, I always see people order it. Pad Thai is a dish of stir fried rice noodles with dried shrimp, fried tofu, shallot, salted radish, chive, bean sprout, peanut, chili, lime, fish sauce, palm sugar, ketchup, tamarind juice and fresh prawn. If you are allergic to seafood, chicken or pork can be substitute.

Ingredients:

for stir fried noodles
- 1/2 lb. rice noodles, soak in water until soften
- 1/2 lb. fresh prawn
- 4 cloves garlic, chopped
- 1/4 cup shallot, chopped
- 1/4 cup salted radish, chopped
- 1/4 cup dried shrimp
- 1/2 cup fried firm tofu, chopped
- 1/2 cup chive, cut into 2" long
- 1/2 cup bean sprout
- 1/2 cup unsalted roasted peanut
- 2-4 tb. red chili pepper
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 2-4 tb. lime juice

1

for the sauce
- 1/4 cup fish sauce
- 1/4 cup palm sugar
- 1/4 cup ketchup
- 1/2 cup tamarind juice

Procedure:

1. Prepare the sauce by mixing all ingredients together, set aside.
2. Heat the oil, add garlic and shallot.
3. Add prawn, cook until done and take the prawn out.
4. Add radish, dried shrimp, tofu, noodles and the sauce. Stir until the noodles are soften.
5. Add egg, then bean sprout, chive, peanut and chili. Cook until combine.

Tom Yum Kung (Thai spicy prawn soup)

Tom-Yum-Kung

Tom Yum is the most popular Thai soup and is commonly referred to as Thai spicy soup in the Western world. It is renowned for having numerous health benefits as well as being very tasty! It is meant to help those with a cold or flu due to it's mixture of herbs and spices.

Ingredients for Tom Yum (for four people):

* 20 prawns (shrimp)
* 4 tablespoons lime juice
* 4-5 cups tom yum broth (soup stock)
* 2 stalks fresh lemongrass, lightly pounded, cut into 1 inch long segments
* 4 table spoons fish sauce
* 1/3 cup sliced galangal
* 1/2 cup straw mushroom, halved or whole
* 6-8 kaffir lime leaves, shredded
* 6 crushed fresh Thai chillies
* 2 tablespoons Thai chilli paste
* Fresh cilantro (Thai coriander) for garnish

Note: These are the recommended amounts required for a meal for four people. Please adjust the amounts accordingly for more or less people. Also you might already have some of these Thai food ingredients in your larder, so please set the quantity to zero for any ingredients that you already have.

Cooking Time: 15 to 20 minutes.

Method:

1. Wash the prawns and shell them without removing the tails. Bring the Tom Yum broth to a boil.
2. Add lemongrass, galangal and lime leaves.
3. Bring back to a boil then add mushrooms, fish sauce, chilli paste and lime juice.
4. Add prawns and fresh chillies.
5. As soon as prawns turn pink (cooked through) serve garnished with cilantro (coriander).

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Thai Ingredients

Thai Ingredients

Thai Ingredients

Shallots

This small red onion is a very important ingredient in most Thai dishes but the quantity may be reduced if you find you do not like it.

Spring onions

These green onions are used for garnishing soups and salads and as vegetables.

Lemon grass

The plant looks like a tuft of coarse grey-green grass. The lower part of the stalk is used fresh for flavouring and as an ingredient in certain dishes. It is indispensable for torn yam but a piece of lemon peel might make a good substitute.

Gingers

Gingers are herbaceous plants indigenous to the tropics. We have many kinds of native gingers whose roots are used to flavour food and as vegetables.

Common ginger

Fresh roots or "hands" are young and plentiful in the rainy season. While these roots are plump, pale yellow and pink we pickle them, crystalize them and make a drink out of them. Young ginger pounded with a little salt, pepper and garlic is good too as a marinade for chicken or beef. For the rest of the year we make do with old ginger which is more fibrous and much spicier. Ginger keeps well and is therefore obtainable in Chinese stores abroad. There it is called green ginger.

Siamese ginger

The roots are larger and whiter than common ginger. It is always used in making curry pastes and a few slices are usually added to fish or chicken stock. The flowers are edible, dipped in batter and fried, served with nam phrik.

Turmeric

These small bright orange roots provide the yellow colouring for curries or vegetables. Turmeric powder is easier to use. White turmeric: khamin khao; Curcuma sp. These roots are white and about the same size as the common ginger. Used as a raw vegetable it tastes only slightly peppery and has a pleasant tang. The flowers are used boiled as a vegetable with nam phrik.

Cumin or cummin

This annual is native to Egypt and the name is pronounced kumm-in. The small ridged, light brown seeds, so similar to caraway and fennel, taste and smell quite different and have to be heated to release their aroma. The Thai word yira is given both to caraway and to fennel seeds, presumably because of the similarity of appearance, though in actual fact only cumin is used in Thai cooking, mainly in the making of curry pastes.

Thai Cuisine

Thai-Cuisine

Thai food is unique and delicious. Most Thai dishes are a combination of sweet and salty, and sour and spicy. Each dish has its balance; for example, Phad Thai noodle has a sour and sweet taste; a trace of salty and spicy is optional. Curry is spicy, but you will find sweetness and a trace of salty as well. Thai food is healthy because it contains fresh vegetables, herbs, and relatively small portions of bite-sized meat. (Thais do not use a knife at the table).

Thai culinary is an art. A Thai dish contains at least a dozen ingredients. Thai cuisine uses a variety of sauces, such as fish, soy, chili, and oyster. Other ingredients include lime and lemon juices, tamarind juice, coconut milk, garlic, lemon grass, galangal, basil, cilantro, cayenne, and black peppers, bean sprouts, etc. Traditionally, Thais use only fresh ingredients, such as fresh-made coconut milk (Ga Ti) and curry paste (Krung gang) for use in curry dishes. It takes almost a day to make a curry dish. Thai cooking is labor and time consuming.

The heart of a Thai meal is rice (Kaow). Thais eat rice as Westerners eat bread (Ka Nhom Phun). There are several varieties of rice grown in Thailand. The most famous is Jasmine, or fragrant rice. To add flavor and more nutrition to a Thai meal, a stir-fry dish, soup and/or curry are added, which is then known as Gup Kaow.

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