Thai dinner... for beginners

As I talked about my Asian food shopping spree I mentioned that probably some Thai cooking was in the air. As you might have guessed that was indeed the case and finally I managed to find a bit of time to put it all together and write it down. This was my first "serious" go at Thai cooking. Previous attempts involved mainly store bought curry pastes and, to be honest, European ingredients. We also took the chance to invite two friends over, Claudia and Jan, who I know enjoy eating good food. Furthermore Claudia likes hot food, so which better guest for some Thai food? We were quite happy with the finished results. For those who are more familiar with this cuisine I hope I managed to do not too bad and to keep at least some of the authenticity.

I took most inspiration from David Thompson's Thai Food, although I did modify the recipes a bit. At the beginning I intended to include a relish to the dishes I made but while cooking the rest I completely forgot about it: probably not a too good start :-). Apart from this blunder I served the following, clearly accompanied by a nice amount of jasmine rice (the order is sort of casual, everything was served at more or less at once):

- yam dtaeng gwa or cucumber and dried prawns salad. I used a recipe very close to this one but reduced the chillies to one. I know: wimpy. But I thought that maybe having a slightly more "refreshing" dish to clear the heat of the other dishes from our weak European taste buds might be a good idea. The dried prawn "floss" was a very pleasant surprise. It worked well with the cucumber and herbs, more than I would have guessed. But maybe its just my slight prejudice about dried fish :-).

- dtom jiw gai, hot and sour soup of lemongrass and shredded chicken, a variation if you like, of the more famous dtom yam (gung). Here I followed Thompson's recipe. I first made a flavoured stock with 4 cups chicken stock, flavoured with a few slices galangal, 2 lemongrass stalks, 3 shallots and 2 keffir lime leaves. I let the stock simmer for about 5 minutes then added 2 chicken breasts and continued simmering till they were done (another 5 minutes). I removed the chicken and once cool I shredded it. The stock, strained, went back into the pot and brought to boil again. Meanwhile I mixed in a bowl 3 Tbs lime juice, 3 Tbs fish sauce and added the chicken. Once the stock boiled it went into the bowl followed by 3 Tbs finely sliced lemongrass, 2 Tbs finely slice shallots, 4 Thai chillies, bruised, and 5 shredded keffir lime leaves. I devided this bwtween individual bowls and sprinkled each with coriander. Having the whole chillies in the soup had an "interesting" effect. The soup was at first only slightly hot but each time we went back to the soup the heat had increased, till at the hand the heat was a bit too much for us.

-a variation of Thompson's (actually Jip Bunnark's) green curry of trout dumpling with apple eggplant. Instead of the trout dumpling I used some catfish filets which looked much better than the sad trouts on sale at our local grocery. I also omitted, from the finishing topping, the de-seeded long chillies. I couldn't find any and I was afraid the curry would be too hot. Actually this wasn't the case, the curry had a nice heat but a bit more wouldn't have gone amiss: maybe next time.
First of all I made the curry paste from scratch, pounding the following together: 1 tsp each white peppercorns and coriander seeds, 2 Tbs green chillies, a big pinch of salt, 1 TBS chopped galangal, 3 Tbs chopped lemongrass, 1 tsp lime zest, 1 Tbs chopped coriander root, 1 tsp turmeric, 1 tsp chopped grachai (also called wild ginger) 1 tsp shrimp paste and, to finish, 3 Tbs chopped shallots and 2 Tbs chopped garlic. Wow.. quite a lot of stuff. In the end the result looked like this:

for some reason a few chilli pieces refused to get nicely mashed up, as you can see. When I thought I had them they reappeared on the rim of the mortar... little devils. To make the curry I heated 2 cups of coconut cream till it started to separate, then added 3 Tbs of the curry paste and fried till the paste stopped smelling "raw". I seasoned with 3 Tbs fish sauce and then added 2 cups of coconut milk. Once the mixture boiled I added 9 quartered apple eggplants, cooked them for a few minutes then added the sliced catfish. After another two minutes I turned off: the fish finished cooking off the heat. Just before serving I topped the curry with 2 torn keffir lime leaves, a handful of Thai basil and 1 Tbs of shredded grachai.
I must admit that making this from scratch (especially the paste) took some effort but tasted better than the curries made with commercial pastes I tried before.

At the end we gave our ignited taste buds a bit of rest by eating a nice giant papaya (from Brasil, giant at least compared to what we get here). Flavourful and refreshing

I was quite happy with the outcome at the end. Everything tasted nice. No burned food or scorched tongues :-). On the other hand, if you're looking for the "real deal", you must take a look at this delicious Thai dinner Pim prepared, which makes my attempt disappears in a puff of jasmine scented rice steam.

Comments

[Niki]

Wow - that's so impressive! Not only that you went to the effort of doing it all yourself, but the idea of experimenting with a very foreign cuisine in an area where it is somewhat difficult to get authentic ingredients, and where the local cuisine is so different. Congratulations! It sounds like a fantastic dinner!
I find it kind of amusing that an Italian living in Germany just created a Thai meal described by an Australian living in Britain. :-) Truly a global world!

[Alberto]

Niki: thanks! I had not thought of the global "connection" but, hey! you're right... I guess "globalisation" can have its good sides too :-)

[pim]

Hi Alberto,

Thanks for your compliments, the Thai food you made looked great too. I love Yum Tang Gwa, cucumber salad. It's so refreshing and light, perfect for a summer lunch.

Your curry paste looked great too. You may have an easier time getting everything to be in a uniform paste if you pound each ingredient separately and mix them all in together at the end. That always helps me.

cheers,
Pim