What to do with Dai Kon: the giant white carrot?

Make soup, I answered. Every time someone see me gather these white roots, they always wonder what I do with them. Dai kon soup is one of the simplest and most delicious soup you can imagine. It's light enough even for the hottest summer that the heat of the soup doesn't even bother you. It's also a perfect sit-in-front-of-the TV-kind of soup when it's cold outside. In Austin, you see Dai Kon at the farmers' market in the late fall through Spring. In Thai cuisine, we use Dai Kon to make soup, salad and stir fried dishes.



Fall is around the corner and so is cooler weather. I thought this recipe comes at a perfect time to get you ready to plan for the arrival of this vegetable. This soup base is great for many other vegetables and meat. You can even use silken tofu to replace pork. Even leafy greens are great substitution for Dai Kon.






Dai Kon Soup w/ Pork and Green Onions

1 large dai kon or two small ones
pinch of salt
6 oz minced pork
2 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tsp palm or white sugar
4-5 cups stock
2 more tbsp light soy sauce
1/2 tsp ground pepper
1 tbsp chopped cilantro
1/2 cup chopped green onions

pork seasoning
2 cilantro stems, minced
pinch of salt
3 garlic cloves, minced
10 peppercorn

Mix the pork seasoning with ground pork and season with palm sugar and 2 tbsp light soy sauce.

Bring stock to a boil, add pork and break it up with a ladle. Add cubed dai kon, 2 tbsp light soy sauce and pinch of salt, let simmer until dai kon is cooked about 20 minutes. Add more stock if needed. Check seasoning and add more soy sauce if needed. Turn off the heat and garnish with spring onions, cilantro and ground pepper.

the colors of the market

Thai Salad Wrap: Larb w/ Radicchio

Yesterday, I was participating in Farm to Plate, the annual fund raising for Sustainable Food Center at Barr Mansion.

First off, I have to congratulate Barr Mansion for their new and beautiful sustainable ballroom. It was stunning and it made the night so memorable.

The event is a zero waste event which means no disposable serving cups are allowed. I was serving Larb, a spicy minced pork salad w/ mint and cilantro on Radicchio lettuce leaves. You can make this dish with just mushrooms, a mix of mushroom and meat or just meat. I have done mixed wild mushroom in this dish before and it was amazing. Chicken, beef or turkey are good substitutions for this dish. Radicchio was from Tecolote Farm, pork was from Peach Creek Farm and the mushrooms were from Kitchen Pride. It was so beautiful I would love to share it with you. This make perfect party finger food that will sure bring some oohs and aahs.

Any hardy lettuce will do the job or bite size cabbage will work too. Try it at your next party.

Spring Wrap to wrap up Spring

As Spring is wrapping up, I thought I would share this version of spring rolls that I find much easier to make, less chance of breaking the wrapper and definitely much more attractive to look at. Spring in Texas is short lived. Now that it is getting hotter and we won't have our lettuce for very much longer, visit the farmers' markets, grab some lettuce and carrots before it's all gone. You can pretty much put anything in there, the more colors, the better. In the summer, bell peppers are great for these wrap.



In these ones that I made, I had fried tofu, cooked rice vermicelli noodles, bell peppers, carrots and arugula. They were a big hit at the party.

To make these, you need spring roll wrappers, drop the wrappers in hot tap water for 10 seconds and lay them on your counter and let it soften on its own. If you soak them until they are soft in hot water, your paper will be cooked and mushy. Lay your ingredients on the top half of the round paper. Fold the bottom to create a half moon, fold both side to finish the wrap.

You can serve them with either sweet fish sauce or peanut sauce.

Sweet Fish Sauce

1/2 cup Water
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup vinegar
3 tsp minced garlic
2 tbsp grated carrots
2 tbsp fish sauce
a pinch red pepper flakes

Put everything in a sauce pot, bring to a boil and make sure all sugar is dissolved. Let cool before serving.

Peanut Sauce

Peanut Sauce
3 tbsp. Vegetable oil
2 tbsp. Panang Curry paste or Red Curry paste
2 cups Coconut milk
3/4 cup Coarsely ground peanuts
2 tbsp. Sugar
2 tbsp. Tamarind juice or lime juice
1 tsp. Salt

Put the oil in a saucepan and heat up. Add the curry paste when the oil is hot and fry until fragrant, being careful not to burn the curry. (Use medium heat) After a minute or so add the dry spices and continue frying for another one or two minutes. Add coconut milk and the rest of the ingredients except the tamarind juice and salt. Bring the ingredients in the pot back to the boil for a few minutes or until the sauce thickens slightly. Adjust the seasoning with tamarind juice and salt. The sauce should taste slightly sweet followed by a touch of tartness and saltiness.

Kao Mok w/ rabbit

I am a Southern girl. I grew up in the south of Thailand where food is spicier and made with more dried spices. Growing up, this dish was a big part of my childhood. Kao Mok, or buried in rice, is a Thai version of Indian Biryani. In the south, the cuisine is influenced by Malaysian and Indonesian cooking. Many recipes use more dried spices than the central or the northern part of the country. Kao Mok is one of my favorite things to eat. I never attempt to make this dish at home. The street vendors make them so good and it's always around the corner from my house. Something is just perfect to have someone else cook for you.

Living here in the US, the dish is hard to come by. I can get all the biryani I want from many great Indian restaurants in town but no one makes Kao Mok around here. I came across the recipe in Thai Food book by David Thompson (this book never fail to deliver, once again.) The recipe is also in his newest Thai cookbook called Thai Street Food which is also an excellent Thai cookbook to have. I made it with goat meat I got from the farmers' market a while back and it turned out just perfect.

Simmons Family Farm gave me a whole rabbit when I visited them the end of last year (one of the perks of hanging out with farmers is you never know what will come your way, in this case, a whole rabbit.) I made Green Curry w/ rabbit before and I wanted to try something new and I thought this would be a perfect recipe. You can find whole rabbits at Austin Farmers' Market sold by Countryside Farm.

Kao Mok w/ Rabbit
adapted from Thai Food by David Thompson

1 whole rabbit, cut into 3 inch pieces (about the size of half chicken thigh)
oil for deep frying
5 red shallots, sliced
pinch of salt
4 cups jasmine rice
6 cups stock
2 bay leaves
1 piece cassia bark, roasted (you can use cinnamon stick if you can't find cassia bark)
2-3 Thai cardamom pods, roasted (Thai cardamon is sometimes hard to find. I used white Indian cardamom pods. The green cardamom pods are much stronger. You can find Indian cardamom pods at Indian grocery stores.)

paste
1 1/2 tbsp minced garlic
pinch of salt
2 tbsp chopped ginger
1 1/2 tbsp chopped turmeric (if you can't find fresh turmeric, dried turmeric will be fine. Only use 1/2 tbsp if using dried.)
1 tsp coriander seeds, roasted
2 tsp cumin seeds, roasted
seeds of 2 cardamom pods, roasted
2 cloves, roasted
3/4 inch cassia bark, roasted

First make the paste. Roast the dried spices separately in a dry pan on a stove until fragrant. Pound the ingredients together in pestle and mortar adding one by one. If you don't have pestle and mortar, grind you dried spices together in coffee grinder (dedicated for grinding spice unless you want spice flavored coffee later). Put fresh spices in small food chopper and blend until smooth. Add the dried spices and mix well. Marinade rabbit pieces in the paste for a few hours in the fridge.

Heat oil in the pot and deep fry shallots, remove shallots and deep fry the rabbit. Combine shallots, salt and chicken with rice and add stock, bring to a boil. Turn down the heat to very low and cover the pot. When the rice is cooked, the rabbit should also be done. Add cassia bark, cardamom pods and let infuse about 5 minutes before serving. The rice is served with sweet chili sauce.

Sweet Chili Sauce

2 long red chillies, deseeded and chopped
1-2 fresh Thai chillies
large pinch of salt
2 cilantro roots or end of the stems, about 5 stems cut one inch from the bottom
1 large garlic clove, peeled
1/3 cup white sugar
1/3 cup vinegar

Mince the chillies and cilantro stems. Combine everything in a pan and bring to simmer until it becomes thick syrup. Let cool before serving.

Stir Fried Pumpkin and Egg : Pad Fak Tong

I always forget how delicious this dish is until the end of each year when pumpkins are everywhere. Although a little late in the game since Halloween is long gone, you can still find pumpkin at grocery store and farmers' market until end of winter. This is a great side dish for Holiday Parties. If you haven't thought of what to cook for your Christmas dinner, this is definitely a winner.

My favorite winter squash to use for cooking is kombucha squash. The meat of kombucha squash is dense and it stands up to cooking very well. This is one of my mom's favorite dish. My brother who was a picky eater, and still is actually, loves this dish. I recently taught a Thai twist Thanksgiving class and this was one of the dishes on the menu. It was well loved by all. You can also use butternut squash in this dish too.





When preparing the squash for it, I don't even peel my squash at all. The skin cooks down pretty easily and I love the color of the skin in the dish. It is the most beautiful color combination in food. If you prefer, you can peel the skin off as well. Sometimes my mom would partially peel it so you won't lose the beautiful colors entirely. My trick is to cut them into small pieces first and then stand them up on the side and peel them. A very sharp peeler like OXO will also do the trick peeling it whole.



Stir Fried Pumpkin w/ pork and eggs

3 tbsp Vegetable oil
2 tablespoons minced garlic
1/2 cup ground pork
2 eggs
4 cup sliced pumpkin, bite size
6 tablespoons soup (or water)
2 tablespoons fish sauce
2 tablespoon oyster sauce
1/2 teaspoon sugar

Heat oil in a wok over medium heat. Add garlic and fry until fragrant. Add pork and stir fry until pork is done. Add eggs to the pan, break the yolks (don't scramble)and cook until eggs are firm. Mix the eggs in with pork. Add pumpkin and chicken stock and cook until pumpkin is soft. Season with oyster sauce, fish sauce and sugar. Check seasoning and turn off the heat.

Thai Style Stir Fried Broccoli Raab

Thanksgiving is just around the corner. Eating is the big part of this holiday and that's why it is my most favorite holiday of all. Everybody is talking and thinking about food and there are plentiful of good food everywhere. As everybody is thinking about what to make, I thought I would post this recipe again using wonderful Broccoli Raab or Rapini from Simmons Family Farm out in Neiderwald. I posted this same recipe using Morning Glory here. Rapini is a close family of turnip. The greens are very tender and takes seconds to stir fry. I love the mild flavor of it. You can use any dark greens in this recipe like collard greens, mustard greens, spinach or kale.



I picked these broccoli raab up last weekend. The Simmons are always at Austin Farmers' Market downtown every Saturday. They bring an assortment of vegetables including some hard-to-find Thai ingredients for your Thai dishes like kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass, holy basil or Thai apple eggplant. Right now, they are harvesting broccoli raab and Chinese broccoli.



Both of these vegetables are excellent for this recipe.





Above is a picture of the girls at the farm, from left, Apple, Penelope or Penel and Maew. They are always at the stand every Saturdays. The farm is having a bonfire this coming Saturday October 16th at their farm in the early evening. Call to rsvp at(512) 788 1468. They will be serving hot dogs and other goodies. Bring your drinks (no alcohol please) and your blankets and enjoy the night sky at the Simmons. The Simmons request that you leave your four legged friends at home.

Stir Fried Greens

1 tbsp vegetable oil
4 bruised chillies
4 cloves garlic, bruised
2 qt bite size (about 2 inch long) of any greens
1 tsp soy bean paste
2 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 cup water or stock

Heat up the oil in a pan, fry garlic and chilies until fragrant, add vegetables, soy bean paste, soy sauce and water and stir fry until vegetables are wilted. Check seasoning and serve immediately over rice.

Tofu Delight

It's summer in Texas and we have a lot of peppers to spare. I adapted this recipe from a chicken version that my mom made when she visited. I love the beautiful color combination of the darker firm tofu, onions and bell peppers so I named it Tofu Delight. You can substitute chicken or pork for tofu.

As for tofu, I use firm tofu for this dish. To fry, take the tofu out from the water. Sit the tofu pieces on kitchen towels and then cover those pieces with another towel and put something heavy on top to release water from tofu blocks. That way, when you fry, it will not splash the oil everywhere. To fry tofu, cut them to bite size, fill up a pot (a dutch over is best or any medium size pot will be fine) with vegetable oil. If you have a deep fryer, you know what to do. Heat up the oil until it reaches about 350 F. If you don't have fryer thermometer, try putting a piece of tofu in and see if it start bubbling. You can also test it with a few drops of water. When the oil is hot enough, add tofu to the oil. Make sure you don't add too much tofu in there, may be a couple of handfuls. Adding too much tofu in the oil will bring the temperature down too much. Fry for about 3 minutes and take them out when they start floating.

If you follow the steps above, you will get a perfectly fried food that is not so greasy. When you fry food, it is important that your oil is hot enough. When you add food to the hot oil, the temperature of the oil will boil the water in the food and that's why it starts to bubbles. Since water and oil don't mix, oil can't penetrate into the food because of steam barrier around the food. Another very important rule about frying is that you take your food out when it's done. Foods will start floating when it's done because it gets lighter from losing so much water. Take your food out before it stops bubbling to ensure crisp and non greasy fried food.



This is super easy dish that you can make often. Right now, bell peppers are in season until it freezes so you have no excuse to not make this dish. The combination of shallot, garlic and cilantro stems is so aromatic that you guests for dinner will ask "what are you cooking?" as soon as they enter the house. You can switch things up using bit size chicken or even pork or beef for this dish. Simmer pork or beef a little longer than tofu and chicken.

Tofu Delight

3 tbsp vegetable oil
2 tbsp chopped shallots
2 tbsp chopped garlic
1 tbsp chopped cilantro stem
1/4 tbsp chopped chilies
2 cups chicken/tofu
1 cup sliced onions
2 tbsp palm sugar
1 tbsp sugar
3-4 tbsp soy sauce
3-4 tbsp dark soy sauce
1 cup water/stock
3 cups chopped bell peppers
a pinch of chopped cilantro
a pinch of ground black pepper

Heat the oil in a pan, add shallot, chilies, cilantro stems and garlic and fry until fragrant. Add chicken/tofu and stir fry. Add water, sugar, palm sugar and both of soy sauces. Simmer for about 10 minutes until the meat or tofu is darkened with dark soy sauce. Add more water/stock if needed. Add onions and stir fry until translucent. Add bell pepper and stir fry about a minute. Taste and adjust. It should taste sweet and salty. Turn off the heat and sprinkle cilantro and black pepper. Serve with rice.

Vermicelli w/ Chili Jam

The best part of running Thai Fresh, apart from working with the best employees, chatting about nothing and everything with customers, receiving deliveries from farmers, is being able to change our menu everyday all day long. It's more challenging and fun to always have to think what to make for our small rotating menu of about 14 items. I spend a lot of my time reading old Thai cookbooks, and I mean old, 20 to 30 years old, that my parents brought from Thailand when they came visit.

Creating dishes from what's around us is part of our family tradition. My mom and I were always coming up with new recipes that we could use whatever we had in our garden, our fridge and our pantry. Many times, we would make a commitment not to leave the house and come up with a meal from what we have.





I saw this recipe and it sounds so simple and delicious. You can make your own chili jam from the recipe below or you can buy it in jars from Asian grocery stores. Homemade chili jam is hard to beat. They make perfect presents in little jars tied with ribbons. This recipe is the new comfort food for me.

To serve, I put some fresh beansprouts on top with Thai chili flakes and a little of pickled jalapenos (sliced jalapenos in white vinegar, pickle for at least one day.)To make Thai chili flakes, buy dry Thai chilies and dry roast them in a pan on the stove for 5 minutes, stirring constantly, or toast them in a 350 degree oven for 5 minutes. Put the chilies in a food processor and pulse until they become flakes.

Vermicelli w/ Chili Jam

Chili Jam Recipe
adapted from Thai Food by David Thomson

oil for deep frying
4 cups shallots, sliced lengthwise
2 cups garlic, sliced length wise
1/2 cup dried shrimp, rinsed
1 cu p dried long red chillies, deseeded and chopped (if you can't find the ones from Thailand, the dried ones from New Mexico will be a good substitute.)
10 slices galanga
1 tsp shrimp paste, roasted (I usually just take the amount and sit it over flame on a spoon or David Thomson suggested you can wrap it with foil or banana leaf and sit that in a pan over flame or in the oven)
1 cup palm sugar
1/2 cup thick tamarind water (to make thick tamarind water, take a ping pong ball size deseeded tamarind paste and soak in cold or slightly warm water, squeeze out the liquid and strain. Add more water to the leftover if it doesn't make 1/2 cup)
3 tbsp salt or 1/2 cup fish sauce

Heat oil in a wok or a large dutch oven, deep fry shallots, garlic, dried shrimp, chillies and galangal separately until golden. Blend them all in a food processor with shrimp paste, add a little bit of fry oil up to one cup to moisten the mixture.

In a pan, bring the mixture to the boil and season with palm sugar, tamarind water and salt or fish sauce. Simmer until quite thick, stirring regularly to prevent the paste from burning. The jam should be sweet, sour and salty with a little bit of heat. If you would like it to be hotter, you can add fried dried small Thai Chillies along with the dried big chillies.


Vermicelli w/ Chili Jam (Sen Mee Pad Nam Prik Pao)

4 oz soaked vermicelli (I prefer Wai Wai brand from Thailand. Soak the noodles in cold water for about 15 minutes)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 tbsp minced garlic
1 cup chicken breast, sliced into bite size, marinade with 1 tbsp soy sauce for 15 mintues)
6 tbsp Chili Jam of your choice
2-3 tbsp white vinegar
1-2 tbsp light soy sauce (make sure you use Thai soy sauce)
1-2 tbsp fish sauce to taste
1-2 tbsp sugar
2 cups beansprouts
1 cup chopped green onions


Heat the wok or a dutch oven up. Add oil, after 10 seconds, add garlic. Fry garlic until fragrant and golden, add chicken and fry until chicken is cooked. Add chili jam and stir fry until fragrant. Pour in the noodles and the rest of the ingredients except beansprouts and green onion. Stir fry until incorporated, taste and adjust. Add beansprouts and green onions, fold in the vegetable until wilted. Serve w/ pickled jalapenos, roasted dried chilies and some fresh beansprout.

Penne Pasta w/ Garden Tomatoes

There is nothing, and I mean nothing, is better than homegrown tomatoes. My favorite snack for the summer is garden tomatoes w/ sea salt. This year has certainly been the best year for everything I have in the garden. My tomato plants are about 6 feet tall and I am harvesting tomatoes EVERYDAY. I have many different kinds of tomatoes in the garden and to be honest, I have no idea what they are. Some were given to me to try and some were volunteers from our compost from last year.

These fresh tomatoes are the reward of all the hard work in the garden. Hours of weeding and pampering yield me the best tomatoes I could ask for. There are many Thai recipes that will make use of those scrumptious tomatoes. The famous papaya salad is one, Thai omelet is another. Although in the recipe for Thai omelet on my blog doesn't have tomatoes in it, feel free to add some and add a little more (just a little) fish sauce to compensate it. I always make my all time favorite, Bean Thread Noodle Salad w/ fresh garden tomatoes every year. This pasta dish is a little nostalgic. I grew up eating this dish as my mom always make them for us. This is a super kid friendly Thai dish that you can make all the time. Those penne pastas or elbow macaronis are perfect for kids to pick them up with their little fingers. I love eating them as a kid and I still love them now. Thanks to the abundance of gluten free pasta, I am able to enjoy this dish without the break out from my wheat allergy.



Penne Pasta w/ Garden Tomatoes

2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp minced garlic
3 oz chicken breast, cut into bite size
1/2 cup chopped yellow onion
4-5 cups cooked pasta
3-4 tbsp ketchup (yep, you read it right, it's ketchup. Or you can make you own)
1/2 cup chopped tomatoes
1-2 tsp fish sauce to taste
a pinch of sugar
1/2 cup chopped green onions

heat up the wok or a saute pan. Add the oil and wait for a minute, then add garlic. Fry garlic until fragrant and golden, add chicken and stir fry until chicken is cooked. Add yellow onions and stir fry for about a minute, add pasta, chopped tomatoes, ketchup, fish sauce and sugar and stir fry to mix well for 2 minutes until tomatoes are cooked. Taste and adjust seasoning, add chopped green onions, fold the onions in and turn the heat off.