Thai Chillies - A Biological Weapon

Seems that on Monday in central London 3 streets were shut down and homes evacuated for 3 hours while police searched for a possible biological terror threat. The cause of this commotion? A Thai restaurant, the Thai Cottage in Soho, was burning chillies to make Nam Prik Pao.

Now if you’ve eaten Thai food before you know that the spiciness of some dishes is legendary. Lots of cold Singha or Chang is in order to cool the fiery heat of the Thai chillies. Nam Prik Pao is a dip made from chillies, garlic, shallot and shrimp paste. The chillies for Nam Prik Pao are deliberately burnt to release the oils and give the chillies a smoky flavor.

I’ve experienced this first hand when Golf makes Nam Prik Pao and can vouch for the fact that when you are first exposed to chillies being burnt it will make your throat, nose and eyes burn. The first time I cam home and she was making this a coughing fit immediately ensued and I thought my eyes would melt from their sockets. This was from a small handful of chili’s being burnt. The Thai Cottage was making 9 pounds of burnt chillies! No wonder the smell and smoke from these caused a bit of a commotion.

Maybe from now on I need to contact my neighbors and warn them before we make Nam Prik Pao. I certainly don’t want to be mistaken for a terrorist because of my spicy tastes

Popularity: 37% [?]

Peek Gai Todd Thai Style (Fried Chicken Wings)

Last time you’re already known the recipe for boil rice and this time I’m going to show you the recipe for everyone in your family. One of my favourite dish and it’s going to be one of your family favourite dish too. We call “Peek Gai todd” in Thai.

Peek Gai = chicken wing
Todd = fry

(2 servings)

10 chicken wings
1/3 cup coarsely chopped garlic
1/3 cup Thai Rice Flour
3 tbsps Thai fish sauce
1 tbsp coriander root, chopped finely
1 tsp ground black pepper
* 1/2 tsp Thai seasoning powder (Rod dee) - you may skip *
4-5 cups cooking oil, for deep-frying

Cut the wings into halves and put in the big bowl. Pound coriander roots, garlic and pepper finely to obtain a smooth paste, add into the bowl with wings. Follow with rice flour, fish sauce, seasoning powder and mix well. Marinate the wings with all ingredients for 1/2 day or over night in the refrigerator (I usually let it sits for over night because it will get a great taste).
When you’re ready to fry please take the wings out from the refrigerator and let them sit in the room temperature for about 10 minutes. Heat the oil over medium heat until hot, deep-fry the wings until brown and cooked through (8-10 minutes). Remove from the oil and drain. Serve with rice or boil rice.

Everything in this recipe not that difficult to find and really easy to prepare, but just the only thing that I couldn’t find in here or either from Thai grocery’s online is Thai seasoning powder. You can try to find it in an ethnic grocery store such as Thai, Vietnamese or Chinese, but if you can’t find it then it’s ok to skip it.

Please drop me a comment if you try this recipe…I would be glad to share.

And before I leave, next Wednesday I will present how to the make the spicy dish “Neua Naam Tok” or spicy grilled beef. If you love spicy food you won’t want to miss it…

Popularity: 8% [?]

Dancing Shrimp Video

So, I’m doing my usual nighttime blog reading and I come across this video of Goong Then or Thai Dancing Shrimp. Boy they look great! I’ve had crickets and grubs and cobra venom before, but never any dancing shrimp. Thanks to Vern from ThaiPulse! for the great video. I hope the dancing shrimp treated you better than the scorpions Vern Aroy mak mak!

Popularity: 20% [?]

Boiled Rice Recipe | Kao Tom

Boiled Rice - Kao Tom
Steve asked me 2 days ago to write the post for boiled rice because he wanted eveyone to try this delicious Thai menu that he likes. So finally I’ve just had some free time today to write the recipe.

Here we go the recipe for boil rice (2 servings)…

2 cups cooked jasmine rice
100-150 grams minced pork or chicken
1 cup of pork broth or chicken broth (depending on what kind of meat that you’re going to use)
1 TBS light soy sauce
1 TBS Golden Mountain Thai Seasoning Sauce
1/2 TBS salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 cup shallot,thinly sliced (you may use more because it will make your boil rice more tasty)
1/4 cup coriander,chopped
3 cups of water
3 TBS of cooking oil

You will be able to tell that not much for the recipe for this menu at all. Easy for your rushed morning even if you want to spend your nice time with nice meal. Or can cook in the evening and re-heat again in the morning it’s not going to take the good taste away at all.

Ok, first put the chicken broth and water in the pot over medium heat. Add soy sauce, Thai seasoning sauce, salt in the broth. During this time you can put 1 TBS oil in the wok and start to cook minced pork until it cooks. After the broth starts to boil remove the cooked pork from the wok and add it into the broth and wait until it starts to boil again and then decrease to low heat. Saute the shallot in 2 TBS of oil until fragrant and turn golden brown, remove and drain on absorbent paper.

And now it’s time to serve, put 1 cup of cooked rice into a serving bowl, add the broth with pork into the rice (just enough for abundance rice). Arrange on a serving bowl and sprinkle fried shallot, chopped coriander and pepper. Best when served hot and eat with another dish or by itself.

Next Wednesday I will present the recipe for everyone in your family “Peek Gai Todd” (fried chicken wings) and I guarantee everyone will love it. See you!

Popularity: 25% [?]

Kao Tom | Boiled Rice | Rice Soup

As much as I love Thai food there was one dish that, when I first heard about it, had no draw for me at all. It’s kao tom – literally “rice soup” and also known as boiled rice by some. Yeah I know you’re thinking the same thing, boiled rice sounds sooooo appetizing.

So, it was with some trepidation and the image of a gruel like bland substance in my mind that I first went out with Golf in search of boiled rice.

And you know what? kao tom is NOT anything like what I would have imagined. Yes it is a soup, generally from chicken or pork stock, and it is full of rice, but it is so much more too.

Boiled rice is a combination of soup stock, rice, ground chicken or pork, coriander and (my favorite part) fried shallots. It is warm and filling and savory and even though the the Thai’s eat it for breakfast, but I’ve found it’s good anytime - morning, noon or night.

Golf has promised to share her boiled rice recipe here soon and I highly recommend you give it a try, it is fantastic!

Popularity: 43% [?]

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