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.