Sunday, March 2, 2008

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.

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