Thai Food

I visited Thailand early 2020, right before the pandemic hit. Food there was amazing, super affordable too. I've tried Thai cooking before visiting there, and it's easy with the curry pastes, but I picked up a few tips from trying it authentic. Most importantly, putting in the veggies last and uncooked. When I ate green curry in Thailand the vegetables were always crispy and fresh, so I've been trying that recently and it's allot better then soggy and overcooked!

So I've been trying some fusion dishes, because I like to experiment in the kitchen. I bought a whole bunch of Mae Ploy curry pastes to cook with. Been mixing Aroy-D coconut cream with crushed tomatoes and the result is similar to volkda sauce. I put that in with rotini or penne add some kind of protein and veggies like kale, onions and roasted garlic. *chef kiss*

(OT, sorry, was originally going to post in "what're you eating" and saw this thread) Also fried herring.. I buy the salted kind and let it soak overnight, then bread it with a mix of flour and corn starch, making it extra crispy. I usually do the flour, then dip in egg batter, then flour again and into the oil bath. Could beer batter this too, often I don't feel like wasting an IPA. Kewpie mayo is the best for fried fish, it's all yolk. I was going to take some pictures, but I ate it too quick.

I live in Thailand actually and this is still my favourite dish that is not so popular in Thailand.
Worldwide it is simply called "Chicken with cashew nuts" but most of the thai people don't understand that.

The orginal name of the dish is "Kai Pad Med Mamuang".


 

I wish I lived in Chiang Mai. Love that city. Been to Thailand years ago with my girlfriend and I can clearly see why you would move there. I'm a bit jealous

A new Eastern/Asian food market has *JUST* opened close to where I live and it's the best! A big bundle of coriander or mint for around $1.5. YES!

  On 3/8/2021 at 5:05 PM, dingformung said:

I wish I lived in Chiang Mai. Love that city. Been to Thailand years ago with my girlfriend and I can clearly see why you would move there. I'm a bit jealous

Yes both Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai is very beautiful places. If you having the benefit of working from home it is very easy to live in Thailand and everything is cheap and people are so friendly.

Me and my gf walks around in the jungle and the mountains alot to come down and eat alot of fresh food or buy from fresh markets!
The exotic smoothies are top notch also! 

"Steak & Coffee" hahaaha

My partner and I have tentative plans to have our honeymoon at least partially in Thailand and Vietnam since we love that food so much

  On 3/8/2021 at 5:05 PM, dingformung said:

I wish I lived in Chiang Mai. Love that city. Been to Thailand years ago with my girlfriend and I can clearly see why you would move there. I'm a bit jealous

like you've ever had a girlfriend

please

I was in Chiang Mai first time in 2007 and then second time in 2019. Goddamn that city changed in 12 years once the tourists and remote workers started to flood in.

I  Pai

That is all.

If you like noodles you should try the thai noodle soups! Just google it and see what I mean..

When talking about noodles everyone always talking about ramen but a good thai noodle soup is way more delicious than boring ramen.




 

  On 3/9/2021 at 11:19 AM, zkom said:

once the tourists and remote workers started to flood in

To the best of my knowledge Thailand has always been full of tourists.

Source: visited Thailand in the 1980s.

After Covid-19 one year ago it is very empty so this "Thailand is full of tourism" is not true. 

Also there is many places to visit and see that are not full of tourists. 

  On 3/9/2021 at 1:36 PM, rhmilo said:

To the best of my knowledge Thailand has always been full of tourists.

Source: visited Thailand in the 1980s.

Sure. The fucking Emmanuelle movie (1974) was set in Thailand already with French tourists going around having sex and there was some early James Bond film set in there also. But the change in Chiang Mai in a few years is the biggest I've seen with my own eyes. Most tourists used to go to the coast and Bangkok but to my knowledge Chiang Mai was turned into a tourist destination post-2000.

What I can remember from 2007 it was pretty quiet and even the area inside the moats was pretty much just a typical northern Thai town. There were maybe one or two big hotels within the moats? Now it's endless restaurants, hotels, massage parlors, cafes, bars, etc catering for tourists.

Chiang Rai was barely mentioned in the guide book in 2007. I can't even remember if I visited there towards the Lao border. But it has also become quite a tourist spot with the White Temple attracting a lot of people.

I guess if you want to escape the tourist spots in Thailand (and travel very very cheaply) you can still go to Isaan. Haven't been there since 2007 though. Back then I got a lot of stares from locals wondering around as the sole westerner. My friend has a house close to the Lao border in Isaan and people call it the "farang house" because it's the only western style building in the whole town.

Phuket, Phi Phi Islands, Krabi, Pattaya and Bangkok have always been the most popular places for tourists in Thailand.

However after many years people did discover North Thailand more: Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai and pearl Pai so it became more and more attractive last 10 years.

Phuket is way south, Chiang Mai is north but what happened to central Thailand? I live in Chumpon. This place is between Bangkok and Phuket. 
If you live here you will not see much of tourism.. It is very quiet and specially around the beach because most of all thai people don't like the to be in the sun!



 

I was planning to go to work remotely from Thailand just before the pandemic hit

Currently I think I might be eligible for the tourist visa if I got it here from Helsinki but the quarantine rules would be a bummer so I think I'll wait a few months and see if the rules change so that I can skip the quarantine with a proof of vaccination and a negative PCR test or something similar.

  On 1/3/2021 at 2:41 AM, Squee said:

Thai food is the fucking best.

Pretty much. Solid Tex-Mex is up there for me as well. 

  On 3/9/2021 at 1:55 PM, zkom said:

there was some early James Bond film set in there also.

The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

Ok, since people are talking about Chiang Mai, here's a classic dish from there, though it's popular across the whole of northern (& central) Thailand with numerous variations.  In one of my books I even have a recipe that eschews the curry paste for sriracha straight from the squeezy bottle.  This version is closer to a classic Chiang Mai style.

Gaeng Hung Lay, a northern pork curry.

Gaeng is Thai for curry, Hung is Burmese for curry.  So it's basically a Thai curry with strong Burmese influences.  It's a pretty forgiving curry to make, with relatively easy to find ingredients, with one exception which I will talk about below.  As long as you cook it low and slow there's not a lot to go wrong.  It's an analogue of the Massaman from the south, being a 'foreign' curry with a flavour profile of relatively mild, salty, sweet and sour, but the richness comes from fatty pork, not from coconut milk  The recipe that follows is how I would cook it as a mid week supper, not to show off any cooking skills or as a demonstration of authenticity.  Having said that it's still a crowd pleaser in any form.

This is enough for 2-3 people.  Just scale up if cooking for more.

• 500 gr pork belly.  You can use half pork, half shoulder if you want to, but don't completely miss out the belly, its what makes the curry.
• Chopped onion.
• 2 Tbsp Red curry paste, homemade, thai brand in plastic jar, supermarket own brand, doesn't matter, just makes sure it's a paste and not some generic red curry sauce as there is no coconut in this curry.  
• 1 tsp-1 Tbsp of either dark soy sauce or oyster sauce.
• 1/4 cup of freshly roasted peanuts (unsalted obvs)
• 1-2 Tbsp of tamarind paste.  If you can't get this use lime juice, but only add it at the end of cooking
• 2 Tbsp fish sauce
• 1-2 Tbsp palm sugar
• 1 cup of julienned ginger (yes that seems a lot, but it's right)
• 1 cup of water
• Pickled thai garlic.  This is the one ingredient you might struggle to find, but a decent asian supermarket should have it.  Thai garlic is smaller than the usual stuff and you can find jars of whole bulbs in pickling brine.  You need 2-3 bulbs whole and 1/2 cup of the pickling liquid.  If you can't find this I have in the past substituted in generic asian white vinegar.  Do this towards the end of cooking, and go a tbsp at a time, you won't need to add in 1/2 cup.  You're looking for the vinegar to just cut through the fatty richness of the curry and should be in balance with the sweetness of the palm sugar and the sourness of the tamarind.  You might need to re-balance with some extra fish or soy sauce also.  Some people add individual cloves of pickled garlic in, I leave them whole.
• Gaeng Hung Lay spice mixture.  Every vendor has their own recipe.  Some contain dozens of spices, some are very simple.  A good basic mix that will get you most of the way there is 1tsp ground coriander(ideally freshly roasted and ground) 1tsp garam masala, and 1tsp turmeric. 
• Optional is to add in some green beans but I like to serve the veggies on the side.
• No need for any fresh herbs or garnishes.     

Get a decent sized pot, couple of tbsp of oil, medium heat, add in the onion and soften a bit.  Chop up the pork belly, I usually go for 1-2" sized bits, and brown off with the onions, a bit off fat will come out of the meat, this is fine.  Add in the curry paste and cook it out in the oil and pork fat for about 5 mins, don't let it burn, turn heat down if necessary.  Turn the pot down to lowest setting.  Then add in palm sugar, fish sauce, soy or oyster sauce, give it a stir let it combine and coat the pork.  Add in the dried spices.  Add in the pickling brine and garlic bulbs.  Add in the water.  Add in the tamarind.  Add in the peanuts and ginger.  Bring it up to a simmer.  If you were cooking this in Thailand you would give it about an hour, Thai's like a bit of bite to their meat.  However, I prefer to leave it another hour so that the pork belly is melting and tender.  You might have to top up with water to stop it drying out after the first hour.  Check for seasoning and adjust accordingly.  I prefer a fairly thick gravy, some argue that it should be a looser more soup like curry.  It's down to preference.  Similarly serve with either jasmine or sticky rice, there are advocates for both.  Serve at room temperature.  One of the few Thai curries to improve when reheated the next day.  

  On 3/12/2021 at 4:47 PM, kakapo said:

julienned ginger

Is it okay to use finely diced ginger at a push?

  On 3/12/2021 at 5:25 PM, dingformung said:

Is it okay to use finely diced ginger at a push?

As long as its freshly diced and not preserved in any way I don't see why not, but I would drastically cut down the amount as a cup of diced ginger is going to be a lot more by weight than julienned.  The ginger in a Gaeng Hang Lay isn't so much a part of the usual (Indian/Burmese) curry triumvirate as onion, garlic ginger, as there's galangal in the paste, it is its own thing, somewhere between a garnish and a vegetable.  The strips in the picture below is all ginger.  The round little onions are presumably thai shallots, which is probably a more authentic substitute for the chopped onion in my recipe.  Some recipes will use the chopped ginger purely as a garnish at the end, but I like to make an integral part of the curry like below.  That's also a pretty thick sauce by most standards.

Here's a more refined image.  This deep mahogany red is what I usually try to aim for.  It will always be darker than a red curry due to soy/oyster and the dried spices, but it shouldn't be a uniform murky brown either.

I should also add, if you're not keen on that amount of ginger, leave it out, but you might want to re-balance the curry as it is one of the things that helps to cut through the richness. 

I'm thinking of starting a YouTube cooking channel.  I'm going to call it Cooking with Kaka.

  On 3/12/2021 at 7:48 PM, kakapo said:

I should also add, if you're not keen on that amount of ginger, leave it out, but you might want to re-balance the curry as it is one of the things that helps to cut through the richness. 

Here in Thailand there are ginger that is not so strong in the taste same as those small garlics and onions.
The best is to taste it like with chili.. Some can be extremly powerful. 

Kaka means shit in spanish by the way. "Cooking with shit" 

  On 3/12/2021 at 4:47 PM, kakapo said:

Pickled thai garlic.  This is the one ingredient you might struggle to find, but a decent asian supermarket should have it.  Thai garlic is smaller than the usual stuff and you can find jars of whole bulbs in pickling brine.  You need 2-3 bulbs whole and 1/2 cup of the pickling liquid.  If you can't find this I have in the past substituted in generic asian white vinegar. 

It should be pretty easy to pickle your own. Just bring asian white vinegar, salt and sugar to a boil, fill peeled garlic gloves into a jar and pour the liquid over it. Seal. Et voilà, pickled garlic. Halve the gloves before pickling them so the size is more similar to that of actual Thai garlic. Not sure how different our garlic is from Thai garlic, I guess it's just bigger but tastes the same