Thai Crab Curry (Boo Paht Pong Karee)

This Thai recipe for stir-fried crab in curry sauce is unique in Thai cuisine, as it is prepared with dry curry powder and fresh milk. Usually Thai curries are cooked with a curry paste of fresh spices and coconut milk.

Almost every recipe for this classic dish adds oyster sauce, nam prik pao, white pepper, egg, fresh chilies, Chinese celery and spring onions.
Thai Crab Curry

Ingredients

* 1 large (Dungeness) crab (or 1 1/2 lbs. smaller crabs)
* 1 white onion
* 2 Chinese celery
* 3 spring onions (scallions)
* 2 fresh red 'spur' chilies (or Jalepeno peppers)
* 1/4 tsp. ground white pepper
* 2 tsp. Thai curry powder
* 1/2 cup milk
* 1 tbsp. roasted chili paste (nam prik pao)
* 1 egg
* 2 tbsp. oyster sauce, Mae Krua

Preparation

1. Wash the crab, remove the shell, chop into pieces, and crack the claws and legs (by hitting with the blunt edge of a heavy cleaver).
2. Heat 2 tbsp. oilk in a frying pan. When it is hot, put in the crab, fry until done and then add the curry powder.
3. Mix the milk and the chili paste and then beat in the egg. Pour this into the pan and add the oyster sauce.
4. Chop the onion, celery, spur chilies, and spring onion, add these to the mixture in the pan, sprinkle with pepper, and continue cooking until done; then dip onto a dish and serve.

Kao soi - Chiang Mai Curry noodles

Kao soi - Chiang Mai Curry noodles

This is a noodle dish, prepared in a creamy curry sauce, that is
traditional in Northern Thailand.

ba mee are a medium yellow egg noodle. If you are using dried noodles
then 2 ounces of dried noodles should be soaked for about 15 minutes in
room-temperature water before being drained for use. This dish can also
be prepared quite effectively using Italian spaghetti.

Phom kari is a yellowish orange curry powder, but if you can't get it
you could use a reasonable moderate Indian curry powder such as Madras.

ingredients

4 ounces of fresh ba mee
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
1 tablespoon red curry paste
half a cup of coconut milk
4 ounces of ground pork
one cup of stock
1 tablespoon phom kari
a pinch of turmeric powder
2 tablespoons of fish sauce
a pinch of sugar
a teaspoon lime juice

method

Bring a pan of water to a rolling boil, then place the ba mee in a wire
basket or strainer and dip the noodles in the water for a few seconds
(no more), and then drain them and transfer them to the serving plate.

In a wok, heat the coconut milk and then stir in the curry paste until
the aroma is brought out and a thin film of oil seperates out, then add
the garlic and stir fry for about 30 seconds. Add the remaining
ingredients except the pork, and stir until the sauce thickens slightly.
Add the pork and continue to stir until the meat is cooked through.

Pour the sauce over the noodles.

Garnish with spring onions, sliced shallots, pickled cabbage (phak kaat
dong) and lime wedges.

Special thanks to - Muoi Khuntilanont.

Yellow Curry Paste (Nam Prik Kaeng Kari)

Use this homemade yellow curry paste in the recipe for Yellow Chicken Curry. The recipe here combines fresh herbs like galangal and lemon grass with dried spices including coriander, cumin, and dried chilies. For best taste, pulverize in a mortar and pestle or if pressed for time use an electric blender (preferably fitted with a small glass jar container).

Ingredients

* 3 dried chilies, seeds removed, soaked in water
* 5 broiled shallots
* 10 broiled garlic cloves
* 1 tsp sliced galangal, fresh or dried galangal soaked to soften
* 1 tbsp lemon grass, fresh
* 1 tsp broiled ginger
* 1 tbsp roasted coriander seeds (dry roasted, see how to)
* 1 tsp roasted cumin seeds (dry roasted, see how to)
* 2 tsp curry powder
* 1 tsp sea salt
* 1 tsp Thai shrimp paste (kapee)

Preparation

1. Pound or blend all ingredients until ground smooth. (Note: use an electic blender with a small container or preferably a granite stone mortar and pestle).

Thai Green Curry with Chicken

Thai Green Curry with Chicken
Obviously a curry from Thailand. Thai curries have an Indian spice
blend, which makes them even more flavorsome. This happy Indian
and Thai marriage may have been the result of Hindu and Buddhist
religions spreading in to Thailand. The end result has been a
culmination of grand flavors and divine tastes. Green curry paste
can be used in the preparation of pork, chicken or seafood as well !

Preparation
You will require;

• 1.5 Kilo cleaned chicken breast or thigh fillets
• 1 tub of Curry Creations green curry paste
• 1 carrot, ½ red capsicum and ½ bamboo shoot
• 2 cans of coconut milk coconut cream
• 2 tblsp. peanut or vegetable oil
• 6 leaves of holy basil or sweet basil
• 1 dessert spoon sugar

Method
• Cut chicken in 1 inch pieces.
• Thinly slice carrot, capsicum and bamboo shoot.
• Heat oil in a pan or wok and fry the curry paste for about 3-5
minutes or until fragrant.
• Add coconut milk and bring to boil. Simmer on medium heat
for 5-7 minutes.
• Add chicken and vegetables. Cook until chicken is tender and
vegetables are crisp.
• Add basil leaves and sugar.
• Simmer for just 5 more minutes and remove.
• Enjoy this delicious green curry with Jasmine rice.

Ho Mok Pla (Steamed Curry Fish Custard)

Haw mok is a rarity: a dish intended as an appetizer or snack. It is essentially a custard made from curried steamed fish. A non curried set of ingredients is included as an "afterthought", though to avoid repetition I won't repeat the method - I leave that to the experience and imagination of the lovers of bland food. In Thailand this is steamed in little cups made from banana leaves, pinned together with tooth picks, but you could just as well use ramekin bowls.

2 eggs
1 pound white fish (cod), cut into small bite sized chunks
5 tablespoon finely chopped phak bung (swamp cabbage)
6 tablespoon red curry paste
6 tablespoon finely chopped, freshly toasted peanuts
3 tablespoon finely chopped bai makrut (kaffir lime leaves)
6 tablespoon thick coconut milk
2 tablespoon fish sauce
2 tablespoon corn starch
2 tablespoon prik ki nu daeng (red birdseye chilis) julienned

Mix all the ingredients but the peanuts, julienned chilis, phak bung and fish in a food processor. Line the bowls with the phak bung, then put the fish in the bowls. Stir the peanuts and chilis into the sauce mixture and pour over the fish. Leave a little expansion space at the top of the dish. Place the filled bowls in a steamer, and steam for 15 to 20 minutes (until the fish is cooked and the sauce has set into a custard like consistency).

Either serve the dishes 'as is' with the usual Thai table condiments, or for a more formal occasion, whip some thick coconut milk, and garnish each bowl with a couple of teaspoons of the whipped coconut milk and a slivered red chili.

Haw Mok (Fish Custard, Non-Chile Version)

4 egg yolks
2 cups coconut milk
2 tablespoon fish sauce
2 tablespoon corn starch

Follow the instructions for haw mok, the normal version.

Beef Panang Curry[Panang Neur]

Beef Panang Ingredients

1. 400 grams beef tenderloin, sliced

2. 2 tablespoons panang curry paste

3. 2 tablespoons vegetable cooking oil

4. 150 gms coconut milk

5. 2 tablespoons palm sugar

6. 2 tablespoons fish sauce

7. 10 basil leaves

8. 1 red chilli, sliced

9. 3 kaffir lime leaves

Beef Panang Preparations

1. Heat the oil in a wok and fry the curry paste for one minute, then pour in the coconut milk and boil.

2. Add beef and season with palm sugar and fish sauce.

3. Once the beefs are cooked, then add basil, chilli and kaffir lime leaves. Transfer to a serving bowl. Serve with steamed rice is also a good way to enjoy this recipe.

My Thai favourite Recipe

This is one of a a pair of recipes that I'll post today that cause some
confusion because of their similar names.

gai = chicken
pad = stir-fried
khing = ginger

so this dish is chicken stir-fried in ginger. This is a simple, quick
meal that could equally be made with pork or beef, or even shrimp, or
for the vegetarians, tofu marinated in a mixture of dark soy and fish
sauce for flavor.

It is cooked in a hot wok - the peanut oil used for cooking should be at
the smoking point. However if this makes you a little nervous it doesn't
suffer from being cooked a little cooler. If you do use a lower
temperature, then the garlic should be sauteed in the oil before the
chicken is added, to bring out the flavour. At high temperature this
would result in burnt (and very unpalatable) garlic flakes in the food,
so you add the garlic with the chicken, not before it.

Because of the high temperatures you will need to move swiftly from step
to step. Therefore I strongly recomend that you put the ingredients on
plates ready to add them - you won't have time to measure ingredients
once things start to move.

--Ingredients
--

3 tablespoons of peanut oil

1 tablespoon chopped garlic

1 cup of chicken, cut into bite sized pieces
1 cup of mushroom, sliced

3 tablespoons of grated ginger

2 tablespoons of fish sauce
2 tablespoons of dark soy sauce
2 tablespoons of oyster sauce

a pinch of sugar
3 tablespoons of chopped onion
2-3 red chillis (prik ki nu) slivered
3 tablespoons of scallion/green onion, cut into 1" pieces

ground prik thai (black pepper)

optionally you can add a cup of sweet chillis (prik chi fa in Thai - a
variety of jalapeno)

The bulbs of 3/4 scallions, and some cilantro/coriander leaves for
garnish

method

Mix the fish sauce, soy and oyster sauce ready for use,

Bring the oil to the smoking point in an adequately large wok, and add
the chicken and garlic, and stir fry until the chicken begins to change
colour (this is quite quick, so don't overcook).

Add the sauce and stir until it returns to a bubbling consistency, then
add the remaining ingredients, and stir until the chicken is cooked.

Serve with steamed rice, and garnish.

The recipe for pork is identical, beef if it is used should be marinated
in a mixture of 2 tablespoons of whiskey and the fish suace, soy sauce
and oyster suace, which should be retained after marination to be added
to the cooking.

Green Papaya Salad - Som Tum

Green papaya salad is the most popular dish among women in Thailand according to a survey I heard on TV there. It is a Northeastern food that is eaten with sticky rice and other Northeastern dishes such as laab, beef salad and bamboo shoot salad.

The two most popular types of green papaya salad have either dried shrimp or salted crab. Green papaya salad with dried shrimp and peanuts is called som tum thai. The green papaya salad with salted crab is called som tum pbooh. The majority of the ingredients are the same. My mother likes it with both dried shrimp and salted crab.

2 Servings

---

1 1/2	tablespoons	palm sugar
3/4		lime
2	cups	green papaya, shredded
6		green beans
1	clove	garlic
1 1/2	tablespoons	fish sauce
1	tablespoon	dried shrimp
2		chili peppers
5		cherry tomatoes
2	tablespoons	peanuts, toasted	Optional

Tips and substitutions
For a vegetarian som tum, omit the dried shrimp and substitute soy sauce for fish sauce.

Some people use tamarind in place of lime. Regular sugar can be substituted for palm sugar. I normally omit the peanuts because I prefer it without.

The balance of fish sauce, lime juice, palm sugar and peppers listed here are guidelines. Som tum is an individual dish that you will find you might like your with more, say, lime juice than what the recipe calls for.

Many Asian supermarkets have shredded green papaya and that is what I use. However, if you can only find whole green papaya, the papaya can be peeled and shreded using a regular cheese grater with medium to large sized holes. When you get closer to the center, you will see the white immature seeds inside. Stop and move onto another part of the papaya. Discard any seeds that got into your bowl.

In Thailand, green papaya salad is made using a clay mortar, wooden pestle and a spatula. Smash a clove of garlic first. Then add green beans and halved cherry tomatoes. Pound a few times just to bruise the beans and get the juice out of the tomatoes. Add chili peppers and crush them just enough to release the hotness, unless you like your salad really hot. Add the green papaya, dried shrimp, toasted peanuts, fish sauce, lime juice and palm sugar. Use the pestle to push the mixture up in the mortar and the spatula to push it down so that the mixture is mixed well.

However, if you do not have a big enough mortar you can crush garlic, tomatoes, green beans. Set them aside in a large bowl. Add dried shrimp, fish sauce, lime juice and palm sugar to the bowl. Add green papaya and mix well. Serve with sticky rice and a sliver of cabbage, green beans and Thai basil.

For som tum pbooh, omit the dried shrimp and toasted peanuts and add salted crabs instead. I microwave the salted crabs for 30 seconds before adding them to the papaya salad to kill any residual bacteria. Add only half of the fish sauce called for because the salted crab can be quite salty.

Learn more about this and other similarly prepared Category Defying Recipes (Other) recipes

Tom Yum Goong" - Spicy Shrimp Soup

This is a hot and sour Thai soup that is great as an appetizer or as a main dish when served with rice. Its robust fragrance is sure to tempt your tastebuds.
Serves 6

Ingredients:
1/2 pound peeled shrimp
4 cups chicken stock
1 tablespoon chili oil
10 lime leaves (kaffir leaf)
3 tablespoons lime juice
4 stalks green onion
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1 cup whole straw mushrooms
3 stalks fresh lemongrass
6 fresh Thai chilies (prik kee noo)

Directions:
1. Prepare the chicken stock in a medium to large sized pot, and then bring to a boil.
2. Add the lime leaves and lemongrass stalks to the pot, and reduce the heat to simmering. Cook for five minutes.
3. Remove only the lemongrass, and turn the heat to high. Add in the shrimp, mushrooms, chili oil, and the Thai chilies. Boil until the shrimp are done (about 2 minutes)
4. Remove from stove, you're almost done!
5. Add in the fish sauce and limejuice, and stir. Some like it more sour, others more salty. You decide on what makes you happy.
6. The most important step!!! Enjoy.

Tom Kah Gai" (Coconut milk soup)

Ingredients:
16 oz chicken broth
4 lime leaves
2 inch piece lemon grass
1-inch piece galangal ("kah") sliced thinly.
4 tablespoons fish sauce
2 tablespoons lime juice
4 oz chicken breast, cut into small bite sized pieces
5 fl ounces coconut milk
X pinch of red chili powder
X cilantro leaves (as a garnish)
Directions:
After you have heated the chicken broth, add in all of the ingredients except for the chicken and coconut milk. Bring to a boil, then add the remaining two ingredients. Let it boil for 2 minutes, until the chicken is done, then bring it down to a simmer for a few minutes.

Chicken Yellow Curry

You may remember me sharing you pictures last week of the Massaman Curry that I ate for lunch. I bought this at Seri Center where I quite often go at the weekend. This week I bought gang gari gai otherwise known as Chicken Yellow Curry.You might be interested to note that "gari" is actually a Tamil word which gave us the English word "curry". Like before, I ordered this meal with a roti. A few readers pointed out that I should really call it a "Parantha" as roti is a single layer and is cooked without oil. That might be true, but Thai people still call it "roti"!

The main ingredients include: coconut milk, potatoes, onion, palm sugar, fish sauce and deep-fried shallots. You could also add cherry tomatoes which I quite like to do in my curries. The meat here can either be chicken or beef. The ingredients for the yellow curry paste include: red spur chilies, roasted shallots, roasted garlic, galangal, ginger, lemon grass, coriander seeds, roasted cumin, curry powder, salt and shrimp paste. This curry has a sidedish of cucumber relish which I told you about last time.

Massaman Curry

In Thailand we are blessed with a variety of curries such as green curry, red curry,yellow curry, massaman curry and panaeng curry. The two former curries are probably the most popular and what most people would label as genuine Thai food. The other curries are more influenced by Indian and Muslim food as they contain spices such as cassia, cumin and cardamon.

I usually eat these mulsim curries at the weekend when I go to watch a movie or do some computer shopping at Seri Center on Srinakarin Road. In the food market in the basement, there is a food stall run by some muslim ladies. They have four or five different curries for sale. You can choose to eat the curry with either rice or a fresh roti. I usually go for the latter just to make a change from the rice I normally eat during the week. This meal is relatively expensive at 40 baht (about US$1). I don't usually spend so much money on meals but these curries are really filling. And of course they are all really delicious.

Normally I would eat this meal at Seri but today I thought I would do it as a take-away so I could share it with you. I don't mean I am going to let you taste any. I just wanted to share with you the pictures of my lunch today! By the way, to take food home, you just tell them to "sai toong" which means put in a bag. So, they poured the massaman curry into a plastic bag and tied it up with a rubber band. The cucumber relish was put in another and then the roti in a third bag.

Thai Muslims of course usually eat this dish with beef. But today, I decided to eat gang masaman gai which is with chicken. There are different recipes for this dish, but some of the main ingredients include: coconut milk, potatoes, roasted peanuts and onions. It is seasoned with cardamon pods, cinnamon sticks, palm sugar, tamarind juice and lemon juice.

Of course, it is the massaman curry paste which gives it is distinctive taste. The ingredients for this include: red chilies, roasted shallots, roasted garlic, sliced galangal, sliced lemon grass, roasted coriander seeds, roasted cumin, roasted cloves, white pepper, salt and shrimp paste. This is all then pounded together to make the paste. Of course, you have a choice to do all this yourself or just buy a packet of massaman paste for about 5 baht! I bought some today at Foodland and will try to cook some massaman curry later this week.

This curry has a side dish of cucumber relish. You may remember me talking about this a few months back in my blog about satay pork as they both use the same relish. As you can see, this is made up with red chili, sliced cucumbers and sliced shallots. it is then mixed in a sauce of vinegar, salt and sugar.

If you like, when I go to Seri Center next weekend, I will buy you a different curry. Hope I am not making you too hungry!

Thai food is delicious