RECIPE: THAI STYLE STIR FRIED CHICKEN WITH CASHEW NUTS (KAI PHAD MET MA MUANG)

A good accompaniment to TOM YAM SOUP.

Ingredients
500 g chicken breast – sliced thinly
Plain flour for coating
1 cup veg oil
8 large dried chillies, torn into two
4 cloves garlic – minced
3 to 4 tbsp heaped oyster sauce
2 tbsp chinese light soy sauce
1 scant tsp chinese dark soy sauce (you want it for colour, but not too much colour)
1 scant tbsp sugar
3 spring onions – cut into 2 cm lengths
1 cup cashew nuts
1 onion – sliced thickly

Method
Lightly coat chicken with flour and fry in oil until light brown. Lift and set aside.

Leave around 2 tbsp of oil in the wok and fry the garlic and the dried chillies. Cook till the garlic is golden and the chillies turn dark. Return the chicken to the wok, add all the sauces and sugar and mix well.

Add in spring onions, onions and cashew nuts. Fry for 1 min. Lift and serve with rice.

Thai Style Stir Fried Chicken with Cashewnuts and Hot and Sour Soup

RECIPE: THAI STYLE HOT AND SOUR PRAWN/CHICKEN SOUP (TOM YAM)

Because I go to work and don’t always have the time to cook things from scratch, I compromise and utilise lots of ready made sauces. One example is Tom Yam paste. There are plenty of pre made tom yam paste in the market that tastes really nice. All you need to make a pre mix into a ‘super’ dish from an ‘okay’ dish is to improvise. To make it tastier, just add extra ingredients to the paste, in addition to the ingredients stipulated on the jar to concoct the dish.

As I have been eating out for the past few days and haven’t received my weekly quota of rice, I was going through ‘rice’ withdrawal and by hook or by crook, I was going to get some today (rice, I mean). Also I have been wanting to make tom yam for the past week or so and I thought today is as good a day as any.

So, to make around 6 cups of Tom Yam, I used:
6 cups of water
2/3 jar of pre mix Tom Yam Paste (Mae Ploy, Valcom or any Thailand made tom yam paste)
8 bird’s eye chillies - mixture of red or green chillies – halved lengthways (you may use large red chillies if you don’t want this hot. Slice each chilli into 4)
1 tsp chicken stock powder (optional)
2 lemon grass – bruised
1 large onion – sliced thickly
2 to 3 coriander plants – cut into 2 cm lengths
1 tin of whole champignon or straw mushrooms.
4 kaffir lime leaves – torn into pieces
1 tbsp fish sauce
Lime juice to taste (around 1 to 2 tbsp) HINT: I always keep a bottle of Berri Fresh Lime Squeeze in the fridge. It comes in handy if you don’t have fresh limes or when they are too expensive in the market!
Prawns and Chicken (you can also add in squid, fish, fish balls etc).
Salt to taste (I did not add any)

Method
Bring water to the boil in a pot. Add in paste, chicken stock powder, fish sauce, chillies and lemon grass. Bring to a boil again and simmer for a minute or two to blend all the ingredients.

Add in chicken and simmer till chicken is nearly done. Then add in prawns and cook for around 2 to 3 mins (you don’t want to over cook the prawns – it will be tough if you do).

Now add in mushrooms, onions and coriander. Lift, add in lime juice, check taste and season with salt if required.

Serve in individual soup bowls, accompanied by rice and side dishes.

FYI: Soups in Asian meals are used to moisten the rice or as a rice ‘chaser’ (instead of drinking water or wine with a meal, you drink soup!), not as a starter to a meal. It is eaten in conjunction with rice and an array of side dishes. We had ours with THAI STYLE CHICKEN FRIED WITH CASHEW NUTS (KAI PHAD MET MA MUANG).

RECIPE: NYONYA STYLE PORK IN COCONUT MILK (BABI LEMAK)

Apologies to my Muslim friends and readers, today’s meal is taboo for you. But you can substitute the pork with beef. This dish is really nice and even though there are lots of chillies in it, the sweetness of the coconut milk compensates for the heat and it is actually quite mild.

You have to use large red dried chillies when making these dishes. You can get these at any Asian grocer but make sure that you ask for the large variety. Happy trying.

PS: I am away (for work in Melbourne) so I won’t be blogging until the weekend.

Ingredients
10 to 15 small shallots or 3 large red/brown onions*
20 dried large red chillies* – deseeded and soaked in boiling water for at least 15 mins
4 candle nuts (Buah Keras)* – available at Oriental grocers*
½ head of garlic* – pealed
1 cm thick dried shrimp paste* (belacan)
2 tbsp veg oil
500 g lean diced pork
1 cup water
Salt to taste
½ to ¾ can coconut milk
1 tsp sugar
2 tbsp fresh lime juice or Berri lime squeeze

Method
Grind together * with some water until fine.

Heat a pot with the oil and gently fry the ground ingredients, stirring frequently, for 4 to 5 mins. Add the meat, cover well with the spices and continue frying until the meat changes colour (may take between 5 and 10 mins).

Add the water and salt, cover the pot and simmer gently until the meat is cooked. Make sure that you stir the meat occasionally.

Remove lid and add coconut milk. Simmer uncovered, for 10 mins. Just before lifting, add in sugar and lime. Check and adjust seasonings to taste. Serve with rice or crusty bread.

RECIPE: STIR FRIED CHICKEN AND BASIL THAI STYLE (GAI PAD GRA POW)

Today we decided to have Thai. I was going to make some Tom Yam as well with the dish but as I came home a bit late from work and the kids were complaining from hunger pains, I just made some wombok soup and stir fried bean sprouts with tofu (there was some left over fresh tofu in the fridge). This is how I make the chicken.

Ingredients
750g chicken meat or mince – I used chicken thigh meat today
7-8 bird’s eye chillies – halved
1 tbsp sugar
4 tbsp fish sauce (I used Squid Brand Thai Fish sauce)
4 cloves garlic – minced
1 bunch/packet Thai holy basil or normal basil (the taste will differ according to the type of basil used – today I used normal basil which I purchased from Coles) – leaves picked and stems discarded.
2 tbsp veg oil

Method
Heat oil in wok and fry garlic and chillies until garlic turns golden. Add in chicken.

Fry until the chicken is cooked. If the chicken releases plenty of juices, cook until the liquid evaporates.

Add in sugar and fish sauce. Mix well. Now add in the basil leaves. Stir until the leaves have wilted. Lift and serve hot with rice and a side dish of Chilli Fish Sauce.

CHILLI FISH SAUCE (NAM PLA PRIG)

In a bowl, mix together:
· 2-3 bird’s eye chilli – chopped
· 1 shallot (not spring onion) – sliced thinly (substitute with half a brown onion)
· Enough fish sauce to cover the onion
· 1 tsp lime juice

Below: Fried Bean Sprouts with Tofu