Pad Thai ( Emergency)

This blog will present the most famous dish of most people in the would have know about Thai cuisine, Pad Thai. I think the number one that people know it is Thai dish because of the name " Pad = Stir fry, Thai = our nation "

Pad Thai was introduced to Thai nation as 19th century campaign to reduce rice consumption in Thailand. Thai economy in that time was depending on rice exports, the campaign spread very quickly and gave the poor more opportunity to start small business such as produce rice noodles and prepare ingredients for selling in small restaurants as well as street food vendors. From the effort, rice noodles became firmly rooted in the country and have widespread into staple other foods.

Pad Thai in Thailand is dry and light than Pad Thai you found in western countries, which add tomato paste or sometime ketchup that make it less dry and saucy Pad Thai, also turn the noodle red color.

When I was asked to cook Pad Thai to American family, I didn't know that the way my noodle turn out was different than what they had tasted in the Thai restaurant there, so I went to buy the American pad thai in fusion Thai restaurant and tried it out. I could taste the different that they used peanut butter instead of ground peanuts and add hot sauce instead of ground dried chili. Poor Pad Thai, that was my impression to the American pad thai.

So when I moved to Canada, I introduced the Canadian family to original pad thai, they loved it and have been asking for more. So I'm going to write how that I make my Pad Thai as close as original Pad Thai you will find in Thailand.

Pad Thai with Chinese Sausage

 ( I used sausage this time because that what I had in my fridge, but you can substitute with shrimp or chicken )

Ingredient;

1/2 lbs of dry rice noodle, soak in hot water until soft
4 Chinese sausages, cut into small pieces
1/2 cup of diced bean curd ( hard tofu )
1 cup of bean sprout, cleaned
3 eggs, scrambled
15 g of tamarind
1 1/2 cup of hot water
1/2 cup of Palm sugar or 3/4 cup of brown sugar
1/2 cup of fish sauce
1 tbsp of soy sauce
2 Tbsp of minced shallot
1 clove of garlic, minced
1/2 - 1 cup of chicken stock
3 tbsp Vegetable oil
Ground peanuts, sliced green onion, hot chili pepper flakes, limes

Direction;

1. Preparation, cooked sausage and drain access oil, cooked bean curd just for crispy outside but still soft inside and scramble eggs, set these aside
2. In a wok, with medium heat, add 1 tbsp of oil, garlic and shallot, stir until smell aroma, pour in tamarind juice, fish sauce and add sugar, stir until the the sugar melt and let it shimmer, about 3 minute or the sauce have thicken up.

3. Turn up the heat to medium high heat, stir in the noodle and coating with the sauce, slowly add more oil from outside of the wok, when the noodle become stick together, slowly add chicken stock, stir until the noodle soft and tender,
4. Add scrambled eggs, sausages, bean curds, Optional, ground peanuts, hot chili pepper flakes and lime juice. Stir in bean sprout for 30 second and turn off the heat, spring with chopped green onion and serve with fresh bean sprout, ground peanut, hot pepper flakes and lime wedge.

Extra meats that will go good with Pad Thai : you can substitute sausage with cooked shrimps or chicken.

Larb Gai (Thai Spicy Chicken Salad)

Larb, in Thai word means 'ground (adj.)', when we have this meal in Thai, we like to ground the chicken with big knife or bone knife here, grounding it until the meat becomes smaller. There is some people love to eat Larb without cooking with temperature heat, but they use spice heats to cook the meat out of raw. I personally never ever eat raw meat, accept some raw fish.

Gai, in Thai word means 'chicken', for this recipe I use ground chicken but you can always use different kind of ground meat but the recipe will may need to add up more seasoning or other ingredient which I will put up more later on.

I have cooked this meals so many times, I love it so much because it feels lean and fresh. No need oil which is great for who are going to cut fatty meal out of their diet. Having this salad with lettuce will put you to consume more vegetable and eating healthier meal. However if you would like to have with rice is perfectly fine too.

Larb Gai (Spicy chicken salad)

Tip; for who that doesn't like smell of fish sauce, try to add fish sauce while still cooking, just because you want to cook the smell fishy in fish sauce out and get aromatic smell of fish sauce instead. I found out when I first cook this meal for my Thai friends but Rob couldn't even eat it because of the strong smell of raw fish sauce, so i just cook it in the end of cooking meat, most likely when you cook anchovy in some Italian cooking. And if they still couldn't like the the smell of it, try to substitute with salt that would be a good compromise too.

Ingredient;

1        lbs ground chicken
1/2     cup  sliced shallot
1/4     cup  roasted sticky rice, grounded but not powdery fine*
1        cup  fresh mint leaves
1        spring of green  onion, chopped
3-4    tbsp  fish sauce or substitute 2 tbsp fish sauce with 1 tsp salt
1       pints each of salt and black pepper
2       tbsp  dried hot chili pepper, grounded
1       tsp sugar
4-5   tbsp  fresh lime juice

Direction;

1. Over hot pan, add ground chicken, salt and black pepper, break up the chicken into pieces, cook for about 8-10 minutes or until the chicken perfectly cooked. Add fish sauce cook until aromatic then turn the heat off.
2. Add ground roasted sticky rice, sugar, grounded hot chili, shallot and lime juice, give it a taste as you like. Then, add green onion and mint leaves combined well. Serve over green leave lettuce or steam rice.

Mango Salad

Mango salad, this is the menu that I just found only in Canada. I had never seen in Thai restaurants in Chicago either. Well, in Thailand we have mango salad but nothing like this at all, we use small green(very green) and sour than South America's mango. As soon as I arrived in Canada, my Canadian family that I am living with is curious about my Thai cooking. They asked me to make mango salad, and I wasn't sure about it so I did some searching online and went to Thai restaurant in Toronto and ordered it to try out. The owner in Thai restaurant told me that it's very popular dish in Canada, so I tasted it and created my own recipe and tested out with my Canadian family and friends here. It's not complicated to prepare and less ingredients.

Photo; It no showed of completed ingredients

Mango Salad

Tip ; Pick up green mango that most likely firm than soft, smell good and no any spot outside on the skin. Color should be slice yellow and easy to cut, not messy to your hands or  too slippery. Taste the mango and if it not as sweet, spring a pints of table salt and keep it chill just to bring up sweetness of mango before you serve with the dressing. I like to cut up every things and chill then in refrigerator before serve.

Ingredients

2     Green mango, 1 cm thickly sliced

1     Red bell pepper, stemmed, cored, seeded and 1 cm thickly sliced

1/2  Red onion, thinly sliced

2     stalks celery, cleaned and thinly sliced

1/2  cup roasted peanut, rough chopped

2     cloves garlic, thinly sliced

1 tsp lime zest

4 tbsp  fresh lime juice
2 tbsp  fish sauce
2 tbsp honey or sugar
3 tbsp  canola oil
1 spring green onion and 4 springs cilantro, chopped roughly.

Direction;

1. In salad bowl, mixed mango with couple teaspoon of salt if it need to, add red pepper, onion celery and chill in refrigerator until serve.
2. Dressing; in small pan, add oil and garlic, cook in low heat until it aromatic, take the garlic off and let it cool down. In small mixing bowl, whisk lime zest, lime juice, fish sauce and honey or sugar together or until sugar have dissolved, add garlic oil and whisk well. Pour the dressing over the mango salad, add peanut, green onion and cilantro. Note; dressing before serve will give fresh taste of ingredients.

Spicy Mint Beef

Most Canadians love to have a meal with meat and potato. Personally, I don't really like to consume meat or potato as much. I love to consume a lot of vegetable, chicken and fish. However, my boyfriend loves every meals that cook with more meats than vegetable, plus he doesn't like any kind of selfish so I need to cook a meal at least one dish he would love to eat also.

He is just a simple guy who love steak, so I look up for all the Thai recipe that I can get an idea to cook for him. One evening I saw my favorite cooking show, Giada at Home, Giada is my favorite chef that I have tried so many of her recipes, so that episode she was cooking Thai foods in her California style. One of her recipes is a Spicy Mint Beef. I thought about Rob because he loves beef  so much. The weekend after, I tried the recipe out with a little mix and twist with my Thai cooking style. It came out just perfect after since Rob never forgets this meal and always asks for more. Finally I cooked this meal again for his dinner last night. As usual, he ate them all and have no leftover :)

Spicy Mint Beef

Tip ; try to find a beef tenderloin or frank steak to use for this meal, it will give a nice and tender tastes. Using green Thai hot chili for this recipe to prevent strong heat of chili, and if you doesn't like too much fish sauce, substitute it with salt or soy sauce.

Ingredient;

1  lbs Frank steak or tenderloin, thinly slice

1  Red bell pepper, stemmed, seeded cored and 1/8 inch thick sliced

4  cloves garlic minced

3 - 5 Thai green hot chili " prik kee noo"*, sliced
3  shallot, sliced
1/4  cup fish sauce* or substitute with 1 tsp salt + 2 tbsp fish sauce
4  tablespoon sweet black soy sauce*
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp chili paste in soy bean oil*
1 1/4 cup rough chopped fresh Thai basil leaves*
1 cup whole mint leaves
3 tbsp cooking oil

note; * can be found in Asian grocery store


Direction;

1. In medium high heat hot wok, add cooking oil, garlic and Thai chili, cooked until aromatic but not burn. Add steak and cook, stirring frequently but not over stirring because the meat will release the juice out and you will end up boiling them.

2. Add fish sauce, black sweet soy sauce, chili paste in soy bean oil and sugar and let it cooked until the sauce almost evaporate. Add shallot and bell pepper and cook for about a minute then turn the heat off and add the green leaves, stirred well. Serve over steam rice.

My hometown favorite food

I'm from Northern part of Thailand, the city call 'Lamphun', where is located nearby Chiang Mai Province. During my life in Thailand, I pretty much lived and go to college around the city, never had a chance to travel so far. I personally don't like Bangkok, it is too tight and crazy busy with many people, cars and noisy.

When I was at home and I would like to have some foods that easier to just go out and buy on the street a la cart or at the fresh market. One of my favorite dish that had to drive about 45 minutes to get it is "Kao Soy", actually there are so many place selling it but I only like this restaurant because it tasted so good and always busy.

Kao Soy or Thai northern curry noodle, is prepared from homemade noodle and pour over top with thick and rich flavor curry sauce, before serving they garnish with crispy noodle, cabbage pickled, sliced shallots and slice of lime. If you like more spicy, they also have toasted hot pepper paste for you to add on. When you mix all these ingredient together, it gives an incredible aroma smell of curry and lime and when it goes to your mouth it gives crispy texture of fried noodle and spicy of curry but there is balancing taste of coconut milk in the curry sauce that would not make this dish too powerful taste.

I never cooked this dish before when I lived in Thailand. One day I were talking with my friend in Thailand and she told me that she was going to have Kao Soy, that moment made me want to try to make it on my own here and share to someone here that has been far away from home. So I emailed her to ask if she could give me an idea how can I start. What she actually did, she called her mom and cooked this dish to try out before send the recipe to me. Right after I got the recipe, I went to the Asian store and got every ingredient to prepare this dish. I used beef in curry sauce because it go well together with the curry sauce however, you can substitute with chicken, I would prefer to use dark meat with bone in would give the sauce a good flavor.

Let's see how I prepared this dish;

Thai Northern Beef Curry Noodle (Kao Soy Nuer)

Tip;  I used beef in curry sauce because it go well together with the curry sauce however, you can substitute with chicken, I would prefer to use dark meat with bone in would give the sauce a good flavor.

Ingredient; make 4 serving

1/2 lbs of beef, thinly sliced
200 ml Coconut milk
150 ml water or unsalted chicken stock
2  tbsp yellow curry paste
1 tbsp red curry paste
1 tsp curry powder
3 tbsp cooking oil
2 tbsp fish sauce
3 tbsp sugar + 2 tbsp for cabbage pickle
1/4 cup/person egg or flat noodle * plus extra for deep fried noodle*
cabbage pickle
Hot pepper flake stir in oil white sesame seed
sliced shallot and lime for side dish

Direction; 

1. marinated beef with 1/4 cup of coconut milk and 1 tbsp each yellow and red curry paste, at least 4-8 hours

2. Prepare side dish, wash cabbage pickle under running water, squeeze the juice out as much and dry the water access with paper towel, cut into small pieces, in the bowl, add 2 tbsp sugar and mix well, set aside.

3. Separate the noodle from each other and shake off the flour access, deep fried in hot oil for 30 second for each side. Be careful not put too much noodle at once, make sure it separate and golden color all sides, scoop it out and place in paper towel, and let cool completely.

4. In deep pot with medium low heat, add cooking oil and 1 tbsp yellow curry and curry powder, cook until get the aroma smell or the paste get yellow brown color then add marinated beef and cook in the medium high heat, alternately add coconut milk and stir well. let it boil for about 5 minutes then add water or chicken stock, cook for about 20 minutes.

5. Give it a taste with adding sugar and fish sauce. Check if the beef is tender then turn the heat off.

6. In hot boiling water, shake off access flour in fresh noodle and cook in the hot water until the noodle cook through, about 2 minutes, then drained the water and place the noodle in deep bowl. Pour over Beef curry sauce and crispy noodle. Placing side dish with Cabbage pickle and slice shallot

Side dish; Cabbage pickle, lime, shallot and hot pepper in oil

Oktoberfest

Falls is pretty much everyone favorite season. I love Falls personally since we don't have this season in Thailand. It's kind of beautiful tree changing their color and the orangy color make me feel warm and missing my family. What would you want to do most in Fall? Umhh I would say, apple picking, go hiking and camping. We probably skip camping this year because there is no spot left in the camp site we want to go to. However, I went to apple picking and learn a lot of cooking with fruit and veggetable in this time of the year!

You could find apple in the grocery store all year long, but why people like to make apple pie or cooking with apple product this time of the year. First of all, I think it's because you can find it fresh right in the farm and the apple this time of the year tend to be more juicier which is good to produce apply cider, one of my favorite drink now. And, I love Apple cider vinergar. It is go good with my quicky salad dressing with cucumber and spring mix lectuce.

This blog I will bring the menu I love to have at least once a month and this family love to have when it is getting cold outside. They want to get home, fire up the fireplace and have a good stew which will lead to have hot apple cider with cinnamon stick.

Apple Cider Beef Stew with Veggetable

Ingredient;

1 lbs Stew Beef, cubed
3 1/2 cups of Apple Cider
3 tsp of Apple cider vinegar
2 Carrots, chopped 1 inch size
2 stalks celery,chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
3 potatoes, chopped 1 inch size
1/4 tsp dried thyme
1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup water
3 tbsp cooking oil
salt and black pepper
* Option; Cauliflower, Green beans, cut in big size *

Direction;

1. In Dutch oven pot (if don't have one just use regular pot but careful of the heat), heat up the pot to medium heat, add oil and brown the beef, when it's browned, put it aside. If there is too much oil in the pot, spoon off and leave some for cooking onion, celery and carrot just for tender, add the cook beef back with thyme, apple cider, vinegar, salt and pepper, bring it to boil and low the heat to shimmer, cover the lid and let it cook for about 1 and an half hour.
2. Mix flour in water and check the beef  in the stew just for tender then add potato and optional vegetables if needed then let it cook for about 30 minutes or the potato is cooked, high the heat to medium high, stir in flour mixture to thicken it up. Serve with biscuit or corn bread would be very good too.

Baking Vol.1

Apple Pie

When I was in Thailand, there was only one pie I love about, Blueberry pie. When I lived in the state, I wasn't crazy much about pie, I remembered. It was more about Chocolate, cookies, cake and brownie. I was totally forgetting about pie for a period of time.

When I am here in Canada, a lot of people around me love baking, well I would say they can Baked! How about me?? I want to know how to bake from scratch not from the premixed box in grocery store. As soon as I got the cookbook and baking book back from Chicago. I started to read and learn how to bake simple recipe, such as; cookies, cupcakes, icing, biscuits and cheesecakes. My favorite and everyone favorite is Non-baked Cheesecake. It's so simple and easy. All of my friends, family here love it so much! We have to carry the ingredient almost all the time, until I learned to bake other stuff beside the cheesecake.

I got to bake so many baked good, I experiment my own recipe and all the ingredient they put in the recipe. I love this part I felt like I am using what I have studied in my college degree, Biotechnology! I did at least 3 batch with different key ingredient or sometime temperature. It was fun actually and I got to know my ingredient and technique on my own.

Baking is more about Science acknowledge and practical also. It can be really complicate for someone especially all my Thai friends here, they don't really know how to bake from scratch much. I have been teaching them once in a while, we got together on weekend at someones condo or their employer's home. Everyone said I should open a restaurant or bake shop!! I would love too, that could be another dream to accomplish, however, I want to focus what I love doing right now everyday.

This Fall season arrived with a lot of good things, it is beautiful and colorful. I am fall in love with Fall Season here very much. I was laying down under different shade of red, yellow, orange color of trees! I personally love Maple leaves since I was in Chicago. Beside the color of Fall, there is upcoming event that is all about cooking and baking, Thanksgiving. I have invited to celebrate Thanksgiving with Hume's Family. I know it's not as nervous since I have known them well enough, however they are expecting me to bring some of my baking. So to honor their festival and traditional, I'm going to bake Pies, not one Pie though. It's gonna be a lot of his family and relatives because they are going to have a Wedding in couple days after Thanksgiving also.

What am I doing now is experiment how to make my own recipe of Pastry, that I believe can make it different than other store bought! I did bake 4 apple pies in 2 days, my family I lived with and my bf are overwhelming about it! The boys love apple pie, so does Robert. He asked me many times to bake him apple pie because he know I will make it differently than what he used to have from his store. So I asked the boys' grandmother to teach me how she make her own pastry. She gave me all she has and it actually taste so good! I love crispy pie an outside and softy chunk of apple inside.

In this Blog, I am not going to put the recipe in yet just because I am still experiment how to make the pastry for the one that I love. I will just show the picture that I did make my very first Apple pie and pastry.

my first pastry that I did from scratch and rolled up

My apple pie is ready to sit in the hot oven

I love cinnamon so I put more than I supposed to but it's great for me :p