Tod Man Kai: fried chicken cakes

I must post this right now because they look and taste so good. I have been making these instead of the fish cakes or Tod Man Pla because it's easier and the kind of fish we get in Thailand is not available here. Well, it is but it comes frozen and once thawed, they don't taste as good and the texture is far from delicious. Although, David Thomson suggested you can use cod to make these cakes in his Thai Food book. A friend told me about making these with chicken and I tried and it turned out so good. It's so tender, light and fluffy it doesn't taste like chicken. If no one told me, I would have thought these were fish cakes. You serve these with cucumber salad that is oh so refreshing. It's so easy to make, a little messy I must say. Here is the recipe.

Chicken Cakes (adapted from Fish Cakes)

8 oz ground chicken
2 tbsp red curry paste
1 egg
3 tbsp fish sauce
1 tsp sugar
5 kaffir lime leaves, slice thinly
2 tbsp finely chopped green beans
oil for deep frying



combine chicken, curry paste, fish sauce, sugar and egg in a bowl and mix really well. I find that mixing the eggs, curry paste, fish sauce, sugar and chicken in food processor speeds up the process of throwing/slapping the mixture to the bowl. Gather the mixture into a ball and throw back to the side of the bowl (just pick up the mixture, slap the mixture back to the bowl). Big stainless steel bowl works best in this case. Continue slapping until the mixture is thicken and sticky. Mix in lime leaves and green beans. Make the mixture into small discs and deep fry. Serve with cucumber relish.

Cucumber relish

½ cup Cucumber slice (quartered lengthwise and slice)
1 whole Serrano pepper
1 Shallots
3 tbs White vinegar
3 tbs Sugar
4 tbs Water
Pinch of salt
1 tbs chopped cilantro

In a mixing bowl, combine all the ingredients and mix well. Let the salad rest for 20 minutes.

Nam Pla Prik: Thai chillies and fish sauce

Many times people would ask me for a "recipe" of the sauce they see on the table at our restaurant. Some people are addicted to this sauce and put it on pretty much all foods they eat. Our Nam Pla Prik or Prik Nam Pla is just simply a combination of first fish sauce or Nam Pla and Thai Chillies or Prik.







Just chop the chillies into small rings. To handle the chillies, hold the stem and then cut towards the stem. Put those in a bowl and cover with fish sauce. You can also add some thinly sliced shallots and lime juice in there. A splash of lime juice will be plenty for a 1/2 cup sauce. This sauce is great with curry, fried rice, vegetables and noodle dishes. It's just like salt with spice. Chillies get less spicy after sitting in fish sauce for a while so you can actually eat those chillies without numbing your lips. Also, this chili fish sauce mix is great to tone down anything that is too spicy for you to eat, just sprinkle the fish sauce over the rice and the spicy dish, the sauce will bring the spice down a notch and you can eat some more. Salt is the best cure for spicy or hot food. In Thailand, people just take a pinch of salt whenever we eat anything that is super spicy. Salt will cut the oil on your tongue and the heat will disappear so you can eat some more. Try that next time, it works better than milk.

Texas Monthly Burger Trail : the kickoff

I was thrilled when Texas Monthly came out with their top 50 best burgers in Texas. Burgers are not something I have much authority in since I was born and raised in Thailand where burgers is a synonym for McDonald's. But I know when it's a good burger. I love burgers, good burgers that is. So, my quest is to try all those burgers, all of them. I started my journey of burger at Mighty Fine here in Austin and then the Roadhouse in Bastrop but I didn't have my camera with me at neither of those places. I will have to go back because I do believe that pictures speak louder than words although in this case, tasting the actual burgers will speak louder than anything.

Before I begin my journey, I just want to clarify that this is not a burger or restaurant review. It's a burger tasting mission. I will tell you what I think and I will try to write it as soon as I can after eating it so I remember exactly what I think of it.


My true journey begins when I got my new camera. We went to Parkside on a Wednesday night for their happy night half off oyster and bubbles. I have been wanting to go for a while and finally got a chance. Bubbles and oyster, bring those on. Chef Shawn was working and we got to chat a little. I was even more excited to be there also because Parkside has one of the top 50 burgers. We ordered it. We loved it.



It was unlike any burgers I have tried. It was so juicy, almost too tasty to be a burger. I ran into Pat Sharpe at Thai Fresh the other day and was super excited to tell Pat about my journey and I couldn't figure out the word to describe the burger I had and then I said, "the burger was sophisticated!" The burger at Parkside was smooth and refined. The fries, oh those fries, were unbelievable. You have got to try those fries. I enjoyed my evening and I encourage all to try their burgers and of course their oysters and everything else.

My journey will continue. I just got back from Port Aransas and tried another of the best on the list. Stay tuned.

cooking from a local box with greenling

A couple of weeks ago, I taught a cooking class using ingredients from Greenling Local Box. It was so much fun and I had a fantastic time. Cooking from local ingredients is the best way of cooking. Your ingredients are fresh because they don't have to travel so far away and you get to support local farmers.


Greenling provided the ingredients from their local box that they deliver to Austin area. Their local boxes consist of ingredients from local farmers. In this box we had okra, baby leeks, purple potatoes, eggplants, figs, blueberries, peaches and some mushrooms. We did three dishes with those ingredients.




The first dish we made was Spicy mixed fruit salad that we tossed those delicious fresh fruits in spicy dressing that we use in our papaya salad. Those figs were gorgeous. The green skin and the red seeds made the dish so vibrant.


When people first heard of the dressing that has fish sauce and dried shrimp as ingredients with fruits, they were suspicious. The salad was a hit and I couldn't get enough of it. The different flavors of the fruits and the spicy, sour, salty and sweet dressing couldn't be more perfect. The recipe for the dressing is in this post about papaya salad. You can use pretty much any kind of fruits that won't fall apart once cut. Fruits that are not super juicy and summer time is the perfect time to make it in Central Texas because it's the time of abundance for fruits.


Then we use our baby leeks to make Pad Thai. We substitute Chinese chives with those and they turn out great. You can also use green onions instead of the chives too. The last dish we made was a yellow curry with bone-in chicken, potatoes and onions. We used up all the purple potatoes in that curry. You can adapt the recipe from this green curry recipe. Use bone-in chicken instead of rabbit. Make sure to simmer it for 40 minutes before adding potatoes and onions and skip the Thai basil.

Another ingredient that is not used very often in Thai food but in this recipe is okra. Use okra in place on watermelon rind in Gang Som or sour curry. I love the texture of okra in that curry. Whenever I made it, I just couldn't stop eating it until it's all gone.

You can use mushrooms in coconut soup, green curry or red curry. You can use purple eggplants in curries too but make sure to simmer it for a while because those big eggplants take longer than skinny Asian eggplants that we normally use in Thai curries.

Everybody had a blast, I had a blast. We will do it again soon.

how to boil the perfect whole chicken

When my dad visited 8 months ago, he brought me a book, "the secrets that chef won't tell". I didn't read it until he went home and found some really good tips in cooking. One great tip that I got from the book is how to boil a whole chicken. I used to just boil the heck out of it, you know, until the outside falls apart and the inside is cooked. I ended up with chicken that is perfectly cooked inside but fallen apart on the outside. This was an eye opening tip because I make Chicken Rice or Kao Man Kai all the time. It is my most favorite dish in the whole world and I am making the people of Austin falling in love with it as well.

So here's the trick. Wash you chicken(s) and place in a big enough pot. I get my whole chickens from Dewberry Hills Farm because they have the best pastured chickens you can find. Terry and Jane raise their chickens with love. They deliver all over town to restaurants and they are also at Sunset Valley Farmers' Market too. Fill up your pot with water just to cover the chicken. Add fresh herbs, in my case bruised ginger, smashed garlic and a bunch of cilantro. You can also add green onions, onions, celery or some cabbage to it. Add 2 tablespoon of salt and a tablespoon of fish sauce or soy sauce or you can just use salt. Bring the water to a boil and then turn it down to simmer. Put the lid on and set a timer for 20 minutes ( a few more minutes if you are boiling more than one chicken) and when the time is up, it's done.



When I did it the first time, I couldn't believe how tender and moist the chicken was. The breast meat was not dry. The inside was completely cooked to the bones but the outside was in a perfect shape. There was no blood next to the bones, perfect. Let sit, the best way is to let it drip in a colander over a big pot and cool it down completely before handling it. You can use the meat to make Chicken Rice (the recipe will be posted soon, stay tuned) or casserole, salad or whatever you wish. Save the homemade stock for future use. My dad likes to freeze the stock in ice cube trays and save those cubes to put in stir fried dishes. If you plan to use it for a big dish, you can freeze it in a jar and make sure you don't fill it up all the way.

spicy tempeh salad

recently, I discovered another meat substitute, Tempeh. Tempeh is a soybean product that was cultured and fermented resulting in a soybean "cake". I absolutely love the texture of tempeh especially fried tempeh. I was dipping little cubes of fried tempeh in soy sauce for my snack.

I bought some for our vegetarian cooking class and had some leftover. As I always try to use up leftovers before they go bad, I thought of this perfect summer salad that is light and vegan. Thai salads are evolved around the main five flavors: spicy, salty, sweet, sour and bitter. This dressing is just another common one we use for most salads except that I substitute soy sauce for fish sauce to make it completely vegetarian.

ingredients
1 block tempeh cut into 1 inch cubes, deep fried
a handful of chopped cilantro
1/2 yellow onion, sliced or green onion, chopped
1 pickling cucumber, quartered lengthwise and sliced
1-2 tomatoes chopped into chunks

dressing
3 Thai chillies, minced finely
3 tbsp soy sauce or you can put 2 tbsp soy sauce and 1/2 tbsp soy bean paste to add the "fishy" taste that will resemble fish sauce
4 tbsp lime juice
1 tbsp sugar

Make the dressing by combining all ingredients and season to taste. Combine all ingredients for the salad and tossed in spicy dressing.

This salad is so refreshing I can munch on it all day.