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]

Sweet and Sour Pork in Batter ( Mu Chup Bang Pad Peaw Wan )

The traditional Chinese favorite, that you see in many different countries, is in Thailand too. The pork is fried in batter to make it crunchy, but also because pork is expensive and batter is cheap! When I make this, I add Rosdee to the batter, this is a pork seasoning powder, similar to a stock cube in powder form. It helps bring out the pork flavours but is not essential.

Ingredients Sauce

2 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
2 Tablespoons Sugar
2 Tablespoons Ketchup
1 Tablespoon Vinegar
40 ml Pineapple Juice (or the liquid from a tin of pineapple slices)
1 Tablespoon Cornflour
Green & Red Peppers
Tinned Pineapple
Carrot

Ingredients Pork

100 gms Pork Loin
100 gms Flour
50 gms Cornflour
1 tsp Rosdee Powder
100 ml Water
1 tsp Baking Powder
1 Small Egg
1 Tablespoon Oil
Pinch of Salt
Oil for deep frying

Preparation
1. Make the batter by mixing all the batter ingredients together except for the pork. When adding the water add it slowly and mix it in. You want a thick sticky batter, so adjust the water to give you the correct texture.
2. Leave the batter to rest for 15 minutes, the baking powder needs time to make bubbles.
3. Slice the pork into small thin strips. Not too large, it needs to cook quickly.
4. Mix the pork into the batter.
5. Heat the oil to 180 degrees celcius (medium), drop the pork into the oil and fry until golden. Split one to make sure the pork inside is cooked.
6. For the sauce:
7. Clean and chop all vegetables and stirfry with tablespoon of oil. The vegetables should be crisp, they only need fried for a minute in a hot pan.
8. Add light soy sauce, sugar, vinegar, pineapple juice and bring the sauce and vegetables to the boil.
9. Mix the cornflour with a little water, and stir into the sauce, simmer and stir to thicken the sauce.
10. Pour over the fried pork pieces.



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[Source: Appon's Thai Food Recipes]

Rambutans ( Ngor )

Rambutans are very pretty Thai fruit, slightly sweet but with a fairly bland taste and jelly texture. Cut around the middle of the skin twist and the skin will come off. Eat the flesh, leave the stone.

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[Source: Appon's Thai Food Recipes]

Spicy Mince Tomato Salsa ( Num Prik Ong )

This dish looks like a salsa but is actually a meat accompaniment to rice. It is a thick course mince sauce with a strong tomato flavor and lots of spice. The measurements here are for a medium hot dish. Serve it in a shared dish together with Thai rice, your guests should take some of the sauce and mix it into the rice on their plate and eat the rice. This has the effect of diluting the hotness, so don't be too worried about making it spicy!

Ingredients for 2 people
100 gms Pork Mince
2 Medium Sized Tomatoes
5 Cherry Tomatoes
1 Onion head
30 gms Garlic
20 gms Coriander Leaves
1 Tablespoon Chilli Powder
1 Teaspoon Sugar
1 Teaspoon Kapi Paste
1 Teaspoon Sour Curry Paste
1 Teaspoon Chilli Paste
3 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
1 Teaspoon Salt
1 Tablespoon Tamarind Water
3 Tablespoons Oil

Serve With
Cucumber
Aubergine (Eggplant)
Baby Corn
Lettuce
Hot rice

Preparation
1. Put the garlic, onion, chilli powder, kapi paste, sour curry paste, chilli paste into a blender, blend it to a paste and set it aside.
2. Blend the medium tomatoes to pulp and set them aside.
3. Put the oil in a frying pan and turn heat on medium.
4. When the oil hot add the pork mince and cook until the mince is brown.
5. Add the paste of spices you blended earlier and continue frying the mix for a minute to release the flavours.
6. Add the tomato pulp you blended earlier and cook until the tomatoes are cooked into the sauce.
7. Add the fish sauce, sugar, salt, chilli paste, tamarind water, and cook it for 1 minute.
8. Switch the heat off, add the cherry tomatoes.
9. Serve in a bowl with a sprig of coriander leaves.

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[Source: Appon's Thai Food Recipes]

Spicy Frizzy Pork Cups ( Nam Prick Mu Yung Kratong )

These pastry cups are made using frizzy pork hair, the shredded dried pork meat fibre that looks like hair when you take it out of the packet. You will also need pastry cups, known as Kratongs for this, that recipe is here. This can also be eaten simply as a side dish with rice instead of in a pastry cup.

Ingredients
50 gms Frizzy Pork Hair
50 gms Chopped Onion
5 Garlic Cloves
20 gms Chopped Chillies
50 ml Oil
1 Teaspoon Salt
1/2 Teaspoon Sugar
5 Pastry Cups

Preparation
1. Chop the garlic finely, add to a frying pan together with the chopped onion and oil. Fry for a few moments to soften them.
2. Add the chopped chillies, fry over a medium heat for 30 seconds.
3. Drain the excess oil off.
4. Place all the ingredients into a blender and blend to form a paste.
5. Spoon into the pastry cup.

Serve With
Thai Fragrant Rice
Lettuce
Cucumber
Cabbage
Long Green Beans

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[Source: Appon's Thai Food Recipes]

Chicken & Seaweed Parcels ( Miang Sa Rai Gay Kome )

Christmas is coming, although we don't celebrate it as much as we celebrate the Thai new year. Everyone in the west is wrapping parcels and in the Appon household we're wrapping chicken and seaweed parcels instead.
These parcels are wrapped in rice paper with a filling of chicken, onion and seaweed. You can see one cut open in the front of the photograph. Either serve them with the sauce poured over the top, or use the sauce as a dip for the parcels.

Ingredients
200 gms Chicken Breast
600 ml Water
1 Tablespoon Salt
1 Teaspoons White Pepper
4 Medium Onions
100 ml Oil
Seawead Sheets
Rice Paper

Ingredients for Sauce
2 Tablespoons Chopped or Crushed Peanuts
2 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
1 Teaspoon Salt
4 Tablespoons Palm Sugar
100 ml Water
1 Tablespoons Dried Flaked Chillies
1 Tablespoon Chopped Coriander Leaves
1 Tablespoon Lemon Juice

Preparation
1. First the sauce: Put 100ml of water into a small saucepan, add the palm sugar and bring to the boil.
2. Add fish sauce, salt, flaked chillies and boil for 1 minute.
3. Remove from the heat and add the chopped peanuts, coriander and lemon juice and leave the sauce to cool.
4. Next we will cook the chicken, put a saucepan of water on to boil. Add the salt and pepper.
5. Add the chicken breast and boil for 10 minutes, until it is cooked. Dice the chicken finely.
6. Put oil in a frying pan, slice the onions finely and fry them until golden brown.
7. Cut the seaweed sheets into thin short strips.
8. Soak the rice paper in warm water until it is soft. This takes only a few minutes. When you add the rice paper into the water, drop it in sheet by sheet, to keep the sheets separated. Don't just throw the whole packet in, in one go!
9. Take a sheet of the softened rice paper, put a little chicken, a little onion and a little seaweed and place them in the centre of the rice paper. Fold over the edges to wrap up the filling.
10. Serve the parcels with green salad vegetables, and the sauce.

Serve With
Mint Leaves
Green Lettuce
Coriander Leaves

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[Source: Appon's Thai Food Recipes]

Isaan Rice Wine ( Sato )

Sato is a home made rice wine, made from fermenting sticky rice with water and yeast. You will need the dried yeast culture to make this. It's much more like a beer than a wine, and it need not be alcoholic, you can make a sweet Sato by fermenting for only a short period of time.
The golden rule is cleanliness! Any mould contamination will ruin the Sato, so you much clean everything in hot water and clean your hands carefully. The water should also be boiled and then cooled to make it sterile. If your water is chlorinated it can affect the yeast, so leave the water to stand for the chlorine to escape before using it.
When in Thailand, try the commercially made Sato, or one of the commercial Thai Beers.

Ingredients
100 gms. Sticky Rice
1 Call of Dried Yeast
Cold Boiled Water
1-2 ltr Jar

Preparation
1. Soak the sticky rice overnight.
2. Steam the rice until cooked (abount 15 minutes), rinse it with cool water until the rice is cool and no longer sticky.
3. Put the sticky rice in to clean jar add yeast in. Stir until mixed, fill the jar with the water to the top and stir.
4. Keep in a dark place at room temperature. After 1 week taste the sato and it should be sweet, at this point you can filter it through muslin, and drink it. You can also leave it longer, the longer you leave it, the less sweet and more alcoholic it gets.



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[Source: Appon's Thai Food Recipes]