Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Rice Snack



My daughter with Thai mango

Finally I arrived to Thailand after 24 hours of travel.  At first I almost changed my flight because of a Tsunami and an earthquake in Japan making me nervous, but in the last minute I decided to take a chance and it worked.  I’m here!!! Bangkok Thailand.  The first day me and my 18 month old daughter had jetlag, but my parents bought us sticky rice and Thai mango that tasted nothing thing like it.  It was sooooo good even my daughter ate it like crazy.  (Just like I said in Sticky rice and the mango blog that’s how good Thai mango are sweet and have a fragrance of it’s own)

Khaw Mak and Khaw Hram Tad

after the midnight snack we both slept like babies… Next day I woke up and decided to buy a snack from a vender that I haven’t had it for a long long time called Khaw Mak.  It is a fermented rice with yeast and it takes a certain time to make rice become very sweet and have a little bit of liquid that tastes almost like sweet alcohol; (if you let it ferment a longer time it will make it become alcohol).  Usually we eat Khaw Mak as a snack with Khaw Hram Tad.  Khaw Hram Tad is sticky rice cooked with coconut milk cut into a diamond shapealmost like sticky rice that pairs with mango, but it is not sweet.  Thai folk eat them together because Khaw Hram Tad will balance the sweet taste of Khaw Mak (How neat Thai people think about food). 
 After finishing my snack we went to the grocery store and I found one machine that makes an old fashion Thai snack is called Khaw Mao.  Actually Khaw Mao is another snack food that is made from young rice that has not matured yet.  It is still in the ear of the paddy, soft and green.  Then use mortar and pastel to pound it and take the soft grain out and mix it with shredded coconut and sugar.  It will become Thai rice treat that you cannot find it anywhere besides Thailand. Because Thai people grow our own rice we use rice in almost anything as an appetizer, dessert, snack, entrĂ©e, or treat.  Today it is just the beginning of an amazing Thai food, so stay tuned.  I will tell you more about Thai food that you have never heard before.
Khaw Mao