Isan Chicken 'Spaghetti' ( Ka Noom Jean Nam Ya Gai )

This is a Isan style of 'spaghetti' made using a thin rice noodle and a hash sauce made from shredded chicken, fish sauce and other Isan flavours. Isan is the North East province of Thailand and makes heavy use of spicy fish sauce recipes like this one.
This dish uses Krachai, a root vegetable grown widely in Thailand that creates a mild spicy flavour. You can sometimes find bottled Krachai in Asian supermarkets, but if you cannot find this, omit it.

Ingredients for 4 People
800 gms Thin Rice Noodle
500 gms Chicken Leg or Breast with Skin
7 Dried Chillies
4 Garlic Cloves
2 Red Onions
10 gms Chopped Krachai
4 Kaffir Lime Leaves
4 Tablespoons Old Fish Sauce
4 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
2 Tablespoons Red Curry Paste
1 Teaspoons Sugar
500 ml Water
500 ml Coconut Milk

Preparation of Sauce
1. Boil the water together with the old fish, whole garlic cloves, red onion cut into halves, krachai and whole dried chillies.
2. Once it's boiling add the chicken pieces and cook for 30 minutes.
3. Remove the chicken from the sauce and set aside.
4. Remove the garlic, red onion, chilli, krachai from the stock and pound them with the red curry paste.
5. Remove the meat of the chicken and shred it using two forks.
6. Add the pulped paste and shredded chicken back into the stock.
7. Add the coconut milk, sugar, fish sauce, kaffir leaves and spring onion, and boil for 10 more minutes.

Preparation for Noodles
1. Boil a pan of water, add the rice noodle and cooking for 3 minutes.
2. Drain and rinse with cold water.
3. Take a fork and twist the noodles into small bundles of noodle and pile the bundles onto a plate.

Serving
Stack the plate with the noodles, and vegetables and spoon the sauce with the chicken meat over the top.

Serve With
Soya Beansprouts
Chopped Green Beans
Chopped Cucumber
Chopped Lettuce

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[Source: Appon's Thai Food Recipes]

Sweet Chicken on a Fried Ginger Bed ( Gai Wan Noon Rung )

The point of sitting this chicken on a bed of fried ginger is the sharpness of the ginger cuts through the sweetness of the chicken source. As ever, serve this dish with rice, and eat mainly the rice using the expensive meat as a flavoring rather than the bulk of the meal.

Ingredients
200 gms Chicken Breast
1 Tablespoon Light Soy Sauce
1 Tablespoon Sugar
1/2 Teaspoon Ground Pepper
80 gms Sliced Ginger
Oil
Sesame Seeds

Preparation
1. Chop chicken to cubes, mix it with light soy sauce, sugar, and ground pepper and leave to marinade for 10 minutes.
2. Peel and thinly slice the ginger, fry until golden brown.
3. Coat the chicken in the sesame seeds, and fry (with it's marinade) until cooked, at the end, add the ginger and fry it in the pan to pick up any remaining juices from the pan, lay it on the place and the chicken on top.
4. Eat, as ever, with fragrant rice.


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[Source: Appon's Thai Food Recipes]

Crispy Chicken Mince Parcels ( Mang Gai Tod )

The crunchy mix you see in these leaves is fried chicken flavoured with fried baby shrimp. I've used lettuce in the photograph, but traditionally we'd use betel leaves. These leaves are an acquired taste but very popular in Asia. They are the same plant that betelnuts come from, the nuts they sell on the street in Taiwan. Unfortunately they are popular because they are a legal stimulant, and I avoid them because it makes my heart flutter as though I'm nervous.

Ingredients
100 gms Chicken Breast
Oil

Ingredients for Sauce
70 gms Sour Tamarind Pulp
250 ml Water
50 gms Sugar

Side Dish
Betel leaves
Dried Small Shrimps
Dried Chillies
Peanuts

Preparation
1. Slice the chicken breast thinly and grill or fry dry (without the oil!) until cooked. This is the first stage of cooking the chicken.
2. Blend the chicken in a food processor to small pieces.
3. Now fry the chicken fragments in the hot oil until browned. Because the chicken was pre-cooked, it will not stick together and you end up with separate grains of crunchy chicken.
4. Then fry the small shrimp, dried chillies and peanuts for 30 seconds and take it out.
5. To make the sauce, mix tamarind pulp and water, squeeze the tamarind to get the sour juice out, then sieve to remove the pulp leaving only the liquid.
6. Place this liquid in a pan and boil, add the sugar and stir till dissolved.
7. Serve it by, put all fried stuff on the leaves. When you eat, you roll it up and dip it in the sauce.


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[Source: Appon's Thai Food Recipes]