From: Aruna Viswadoss (av9y at virginia.edu)

PHAT - THAI

Fried Rice Fettucine Thai Style

This is a 'peasant food' dish that is sold by street vendors around Bangkok. It is very tasty!

150 g bean shoots
1/2 packet clear rice noodles, pre-soaked in cold water for 1.5 to 2 hours
3 tbsp vegetable oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 eggs
1/2 cup hard beancurd, pre-fried (cut the beancurd into pieces about 5cm long by .5cm by .5cm - sort of 'fat' julienned, and deep fry in a wok.)
1/4 cup chai poh, pickled Chinese radish ("preserved turnip" on bag)
1/2 cup roasted peanuts
6 spring onions cut to 2.5cm lengths (garlic chives better)
1 tsp dried chilli flakes
1 cup tamarind juice
3/4 cup white palm sugar
3 tbsp fish sauce
1/3 cup dried shrimps, pre-soaked and washed

This dish is best prepared in a large wok.

1. Heat palm sugar and tamarind juice on medium heat until dissolved, then add fish sauce and thicken a little.

2. Heat oil. Saute the garlic until fragrant.

3. Add chai poh and fry for 1 minute then add dried shrimps.

4. Add noodles, fry and mix well then add the remainder of the ingredients except egg, chilli flakes and bean shoots. Mix well.

5. Make a well in the middle of the wok and add the eggs. Break and incorporate into the noodles. (Wizz them around a bit.)

6. Add chilli flakes and bean shoots.

To make the tamarind juice, use a block of pressed tamarind available from most Asian groceries. Soak for .5 to 1 hour in cold water, then pulp and filter using a fine sieve. Add more water to the pulp, filter and sieve for a second batch of juice. Pulp can only be reused once. This will keep in the fridge for months.

Alternatives are to use Italian style fettucine or Chinese noodles instead of the rice noodles.

Hope this is what you are looking for.

The Thai name of this dish literally means "hot chicken curry". There is a very similar recipe for a green curry (Gaeng Khiao Wan Kai) which I shall also post.

As always, the quantities are up to you.

---

Red curry (Gaeng phed kai) OR Green Curry Paste

5-10 dried red chiles, OR
15-30 fresh phrik ki nu (birdseye chilies)
10 cloves garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon chopped galangal
1 tablespoon thinly sliced lemon grass
half teaspoon zest of "kaffir" lime (ordinary lime will do)
1 teaspoon chopped coriander (cilantro) root
5 black pepper corns (when dried red chiles) OR
5 white pepper corns (when using birdseye chilies)
1 tablespoon roasted coriander seeds
1 teaspoon roasted cumin seeds
a dash fish sauce
1-2 teaspoon fermented shrimp paste (kapi)

Mix in a mortar and pestle or food processor. Will keep about a month in a fridge. You can buy commercial red curry paste (Mae Ploy brand is quite good), but as far as I am aware all commercial pastes contain MSG and preservatives.

The Curry

6 ounces chicken (in smallish bite sized pieces)
half a cup of coconut milk
4 ounces Thai eggplant (these are small round eggplants)
2 kaffir lime leaves (or a little lime zest)
1 tablespoon sweet basil
2 tablespoon fish sauce
1 tablespoon palm sugar

oil for cooking
1-3 tablespoons of the red or green curry paste

Cut the chicken up, then briefly fry the curry paste until fragrant, reduce the heat, add the coconut milk slowly, and continue to stir whilst cooking until a thin film of oil appears on the surface.

Add the chicken and other ingredients except the eggplant. Bring to a boil and cook until the chicken begins to change colour. Adjust the flavors to suit yourself. When it is at a boil again add the eggplant and continue till the chicken is cooked through.

Serve over rice, or in a serving bowl with other Thai dishes.

---

Pad Thai

Pad Thai is often called the signature dish of Thai cuisine. There are several regional variations, indeed it has been said that Thailand has a different curry for every day of the year, but a different pad thai for every cook in Thailand! This is my wife's variation.

This variation uses a small amount of khao koor (powdered fried rice), which occurs as an ingredient in several other Thai recipes. You can make a small amount and keep it almost indefinitely in a well stoppered jar.

Khao Koor: get a medium sized wok fairly hot, and add a couple of tablespoons of uncooked rice, and keep in movement until the rice starts to turn golden brown. Remove from the heat and allow to cool. Grind to a fairly coarse powder in a spice mill (a pepper mill works quite well), or a mortar and pestle. (I find that a coffee grinder doesn't really do the job as it tends to grind too fine - the powder should retain some "texture").

You also need a cup of dry roasted, unsalted peanuts. We roast them in their shells on a charcoal brazier, but you can do it just as well in an oven, or even in a skillet... However they should be freshly roasted to bring out the full flavour for this dish.

Thai Pad Thai (Stir Fried Noodles)

8 ounces rice vermicelli (either the sen mee or the sen lek style of Thai noodles or indeed any rice noodles will do). These should be soaked for a short while (perhaps 30 minutes to an hour, depending on the brand of noodles) until soft.
5-6 cloves of garlic, finely chopped.
2 tablespoon chopped shallots
quarter cup dried shrimp (these should be rolled, or roughly pounded in a mortar and pestle to break them up)
quarter cup fish sauce
quarter cup palm sugar
2-3 tablespoon tamarind juice
2-3 tablespoon chopped, pickled radish (mooli)
1 medium egg, beaten
quarter cup chopped chives
half cup roasted peanuts, very coarsely broken up.
one cup bean sprouts

protein ingredient - this can be half a cup of fried tofu that has been marinated in dark sweet soy, or an equivalent amount of coarsely chopped pork or chicken.

Heat a little cooking oil in a wok and add the garlic and shallots, and briefly stir fry until they just shows signs of changing colour. Add the remaining ingredients except the egg and the bean sprouts, and stir fry until the protein ingredient is nearly cooked. Continuing to stir with one hand, slowly "drizzle" in the beaten egg to form a fine ribbon of cooked egg (if you can't feel confident with this make an egg crepe separately, and then roll it up and slice it into quarter inch wide pieces, which you add to the mix at this point). Finely add the bean sprouts and cook for no more than another 30 seconds. Remove from the pan to a serving platter.

Garnish

Mix a tablespoon of lime juice with a tablespoon of tamarind juice and a tablespoon of fish sauce, and use this to marinade half a cup of uncooked bean sprouts, half a cup of chopped chives, and half a cup of very coarsely ground roasted peanuts. Sprinkle this mixture on the cooked pad thai. Cut several limes into segments and also slice up some cucumber into rounds then halve the rounds. Put the lime segments and cuke segments around the serving platter.

You can also sprinkle a quarter of a sliced up banana flower and some Indian Pennywort leaves over the top as edible decoration.

Pad thai is served as above, but Thais add copious amounts of the four basic condiments (chilis in fish sauce, ground dried red chili, sugar and crushed peanuts) at the table, to suit their individual predilections.

---

Thai Nua Yang Nam Tok (Waterfall Beef)

If you've got a broiler/grill you can cook this one anytime, otherwise wait for the barbeque season.

In Thai nua is beef, yang means broiled (over a charcoal burner), and nam tok is a waterfall. The name comes from the sound the juices dripping from the beef onto the open charcoal brazier make.

You need a 1 pound steak, cut fairly thick.

marinade

1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 tablespoon tamarind juice
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 tablespoon chopped red birdseye chilis (prik ki nu)

Mix the marinade, coat the steak with it and marinade it for at least 3 hours.

The steak is then barbequed, broiled or grilled until on the rare side of medium rare, cut into half inch thick strips and the strips cut into bite sized pieces. The meat can be kept cool until just before you want to eat.

remaining ingredients

third cup fish sauce
third cup lime juice
2-3 tablespoons chopped shallots
2-3 tablespoons chopped coriander/cilantro (including the roots if poss)
2-3 tablespoons chopped mint leaves
2 tablespoons khao noor (see the pad thai recipe for this)
1 tablespoon freshly roasted/fried sesame seeds
1-3 teaspoons freshly ground dried red chilis.

In a wok, bring a little oil to medium high heat, and add the strips of beef, immediately followed by all the remaining ingredients, stir fry until heated through (about a minute).

Serve with Thai sticky rice. (Alternatively I rather like it as part of a meal with pad thai and a soup such as tom yum ghoong (hot and sour shrimp soup)).

---

Thai noodles (all types) should be soaked in water at room temperature for about 10 to 15 minutes then dropped in boiling water for no more than 1 minute, then removed from the water and drained thoroughly (If you aren't going to serve them *immediately* then you can stop the ongoing cooking process and further absorption of water by dropping them in *cold* water, then draining them thoroughly).