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

My favorite Thai Salads

I love hot and spicy. However, if I cook curry everyday it would grain up more weight because of coconut milk. So today I will recommend to the menu that always for a skinny Thai ladies secret. Thai Salad.

Of cause, Thai foods is a little heat along the way, as you will see my Thai recipe I put on the blog later on. I love to put hot chillies pepper, which called in Thai " Prik Kee Noo", it is very small pepper but really hot especially the Red color ones. I slice its very thinly and try to mix with Green color pepper. For a person who never like the heat too much, I would prefer to use couple of green prik kee noo.

My boyfriend had not have any real hot or spicy foods before met me. So when I introduced him to Thai foods, he always asked about the ingredients in the dish which sometime I didn't tell him all the ingredient until he tasted it first. Once he tried the Spicy Salad that I will put on this blog, his face and ears turned red and looked for more drinks after that. Although, he is more willing to go a little farther when it becomes to spicy foods. My trick is put less in his first time, then add up more every time I cook the same dish. Now he can handle at least 5 greens prik kee noo thinly sliced in one of his favorite dish, which will put on this blog later on.

Yum Woonsen and Yum Moo Yor.

( Yum = Salad, Woonsen = Clear noodle, Moo Yor = Vietnamese Pork stick, or I called Thai Baloney)

My tips; I like to make dressing separately and pour into salad when ready to serve. So I will give the dressing recipe and salad itself separately.

Yum Dressing
(I use this dressing in almost any spicy salad with clear noodle or only Moo Yor itself)

Ingredient;  make about half of a cup, that could make 2 serving salad

1 tbsp hot water
2 tbsp brown sugar
3 tbsp fresh lime juice
3 tbsp fish sauce, *substitute with 1 tsp salt and 2 tsp fish sauce
2-3 green Thai hot chilies (Prik Kee Noo) for Mild taste, 7-9 red Prik Kee Noo for Hot, thinly sliced

In small bowl, add sugar in hot water just for it melts. Let it cool. Add fish sauce or salt, lime juice and chilies. Taste and set aside.

Clear noodle and Seafood with Thai Salad Dressing
(Yum Woonsen and Seafood)

Ingredient;

1 1/2 cup raw clear noodle

1/4 cup Moo Yor, thinly sliced and cut to bite size

1/4 cup mix seafood, cut into small bite size and cooked

1/4 cup thinly sliced red onion or white onion

3 tbsp thinly sliced or julienned

3 tbsp celery with leaves, chopped

2 cups

1/2 cup Yum dressing as recipe above

garnish with cilantro

Direction;

1. If you have raw seafood, wash and divined for shrimp. For crab meat, mostly already cooked, cut up small bite and put in the mixing bowl.

2. In the pot of boiling water, add clear noodle, Moo Yor, shrimp and carrot, cooked until the noodle soft and clear like glass, drained and add in mixing bowl with onion and celery only stalk part, mixing all the ingredient when it is still hot.

3. Just before serving, add the dressing and celery leaves, mix it all ingredient well. Garnish with cilantro.

Another recipe that I would love to make when I feel like to have more fresh summer vegetable that all grow in the garden is "Yum Moo Yor with cucumber tomato in Thai dressing salad"

Yum Moo Yor with Cucumber Tomato in Thai dressing Salad

My tip; use fresh cucumber and tomato as you can find. It is a nice for fresh summer afternoon lunch especially in Thailand. I suggest to have this dish with warm jasmine rice.

I choose to steam the ingredient this time because I want to keep the taste as much as i can and also let the meat sit longer in the dressing before add tomato and cucumber to prevent more juice come out to the salad.

Ingredient;

1/2 cup Moo Yor

1/4 cup sliced cucumber

3 tbsp thinly slice fresh carrot

1/4 cup sliced tomato

1 medium sweet onion, prefer white onion, thinly sliced

1/4 cup celery stalk, cut bite size included celery leaves roughly chopped

1/2 cup yum dressing

cilantro for garnish

Direction;

1. In a steamer, cook the Moo Yor, carrot for couple minute. Add to mixing bowl with have onion, celery stalks. Add the yum dressing, mix well.

2. Just before serve, add tomato, cucumber and celery leaves, gently mix altogether. Garnish with cilantro.

Leftover fix ; Seafood Fried Rice

Every time I have leftover from the day before I would like to create the menu with that leftover. I did create a menu that satisfied everyone in this family especially the boys. We actually have fish every Thursday since the father doesn't like fish, especially oily fish, and he will work until later that day, so that is perfect day for the rest of family who love fish. I experimented that the boys love fresh water fishes more than oily fish, however I do not want to make them choosing the meals that they are usually comfortable with, because I think when they are a grown up, they will be more picky.

Now I have tried to experiment and create new recipe about fish as much as I can to make them feel more interesting to try new dishes. Today I know they love Fried Rice and especially this dish will make a extra way for them to consume more vegetables too. I broke up the leftover, Grilled trout fillet to smaller flakes and diced all fresh vegetable we grew in the garden as small pieces as I can so they can not take it out. I suggest you can also use mix frozen vegetable.

Trout Fried Rice

Tip; Rice for making Fried rice; you would want to use less water than you used to prepare normally.

How to cook rice; 2 cups of Jasmine Rice + 3 Cups of water. In a pot of boiling water and rice, let it boiling for 3 minutes, reduce the heat to low and shimmer it about 5-8 minutes or until the top of the rice look clearer and no bubbling water. Turn heat off and cover the lid until use it. Fluffy with folk.

Ingredient;

2 cups cold cooked rice
1 cups mix vegetables; Diced carrot, corn, peas or sliced green beans
2 cups cooked Trout; flaked
2 eggs
2 ripe tomatoes, diced
1 cups diced crab meats
1/4 cup or 1 medium onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp black soy sauce

1 tbsp sugar

2 tbsp cooking oil

1 tbsp butter

salt and black pepper

garnish with cilantro, lime, cucumber

Direction;

1. Preheat wok to medium high, add oil, butter and onion, cook till translucent then add garlic cook till yellow brown add eggs, cook as scramble eggs and add cold rice, soy sauce, black soy sauce and sugar, stir until mix well.

2. Add, mix vegetables, salt and black pepper, cook for about 3 minutes or the vegetable start to get bright color. Add tomato, crab meats and trout, cook for about 3 minutes. Turn the heat off and serve with cucumber, lime and cilantro. 

Every day Thai Foods; Vol. 1

All About Thai

First, I am aThai woman who love to travel and cooking. I was born and grew up in Thailand. In 2006, I traveled 10,000 miles to work and study English in the United States for 2 years. I lived with American family and took care of lo little cute creature with blue eyes and curly blond hair. I fell in love with him right away, the family gave me many opportunities to learn their culture, language, foods and people. It was not easy at first couple of months. However, i got through every things mostly by myself and I really love to look back at the good time I had in Chicago,

Now, I am working for Canadian family, familiar to what I did in Chicago, plus I cook meals everyday for the family. I offered to cook every meals just because I found myself have passionate about foods and bakery. I am spontaneous when it comes to food and eating :p. I have been open up to learn more other culture too.

Most Canadian people are not like spicy foods. They like regular meal with big portion of meats, potato and some vegetable that easily grown here. I personally like to have a lot of vegetable and different type of them. I do like chicken, pork and seafood more than beef. Also I love really hot and spicy foods. My boyfriend can't handle the heat of the hot peppers, so if I have to cook him something it have to be very little hot. He loves other Thai foods that is not real hot or spicy. His favorite dish is Pad Thai and Pad See Eew.

If I have to pick one of these two dish, I love Pad See Eew better. It is easy to prepare and it is not as sweet as the Pad Thai. I do love Pad Thai but I like the way they do not cook it in North America.

Pad See Eew ( Pad = Stir fry, See Eew = Soy Sauce)

Tip; when it comes to stir fry, you need to have a good wok, that can heat up quickly, and especially high heat with high smoking point oil. In this case I used canola oil, but Peanut oil is popular in Thailand for Thai cooking. An important method of Thai cooking, especially Stir fry, you need to prepare all ingredients ahead of time before you turn the heat on. Let's get cooking!

Ingredient;

1 lbs Fresh Rice Noodle, separated and cut in to 2 inch

2 cups of Chinese broccoli, washed and sliced about 1 inch

2 eggs
2 tbsp soy sauce, preferred light soy sauce
3 tbsp dark and sweet soy sauce
1 tbsp oilster sauce, optional*
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp fish sauce, optional*

1 tsp garlic, minced

4 tbsp canola oil

4 oz of meat, thinly sliced, optional*
salt and black pepper




Direction;

Preheat the wok to high heat, add oil and garlic, cook until garlic get gold color but not brown. Add meat if need season with salt and black pepper, cook meat well.

Add eggs and cook until it almost firm add noodle right in the egg and stir quickly, if the noodle are not breaking up, add salt water to help it soft and break up the noodle. Add soy sauce, dark and sweet soy sauce, fish sauce, oilster sauce and sugar, stir it all well. Cook the noodle and the sauce until the noddle get all color of soy sauce evenly and softer. Add the Chinese broccoli, stir for a minute turn the heat off. Serve with Lime and hot pepper chili flakes.

Seafood Dinner

My Seafood dinner

When I was a little girl, my parents were very concerned about foods, so they wanted to make sure we consumed enough healthy and organic ingredients that why we would grow vegetable, herbs and even fed chicken for eggs and meat (I was sad when it time to murdered them !). However, we still got a health problem, my aunt and my brother had not gotten enough Iodine, that because we weren't consumed Seafood and sea salt at all. Well, we live North of Thailand where no connect to the ocean at all.

My dad was very worried about it but luckily it was fixable. They had been treating by the doctor. The doctor suggested to consume more sea foods and sea salt. Since then, we cooked more seafood and put more sea salt while we cook other dishes. I fell in love with seafood by then.

My favorite seafood dish is Stir fried Ocean Crabs in Curry sauce! I like Red Snapper in sour soup with spring vegetable. And since Japanese cuisine hits Thailand, my brother took me and my mom to Japanese Restaurant for my 20th birthday, We all tried new foods together, it was fun and interesting things I love to do! I fell in love with Sushi Maki Rolls since then. However, I decided to not like Raw fish, just because I didn't like the taste and smell. When I lived in Chicago, I always liked to go for sushi buffet all the time, it was fun going out with a lot of my Au Pair friends there, they were from all around the world, mostly I knew from Europe, some of them never heard about Sushi at all! So I just liked to introduce new menu for their life and they cooked their comfort foods they had at their hometown for me! It was a good trade!

This blog I will bring up the recipe I just cooked for the dinner. The boys I am taking care doesn't like Fish, I think because his dad doesn't like it and they got the idea that they should not like it. However, I don't agree with these kids, I think if I try to cook it right and add more favor to the fish dish, they will change their mind! I succeed with this menu because it actually taste good and easy to prepare. Let's check it out!!

Grill Herb-Topped Trout Fillet

Most trout has vivid color which depends on environment of their habitats. Trout is in the same species with Salmon but Mostly Salmon lives in salt water unlike trout that can find in the cool, clear stream or lake. 

Ingredient

1 boneless trout fillet with skin

2 tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 tbsp each finely chopped of fresh basil, thyme and parsley
1 tbsp lemon zest
1 clove garlic, minced
a pinch of salt and ground black pepper
cooking oil spray

Direction;

1. Preheat the barbecue to medium-high. In a small bowl, stir together extra virgin olive oil, basil, thyme, parsley, lemon zest, garlic, salt and black pepper.
2. Spray the flesh side of trout fillet with cooking spray. Grill trout, flesh side down, for 2 to 3 minutes or until browned. Turn trout over. Spread herb mixture evenly over the flesh side, grill it further about 2 to 4 minutes, until fillet are firm and flesh is opaque.
Serve garnished with fresh parsley and lemon slices.

My secret add on ingredient; I made Thai herbs oil earlier, so I used it instead of just plain Extra Virgin Olive oil. The lemon glass and kefir lime leaves gave the kick for the oil on the trout too!!