Ka Poa Pla : Chinese style fish maw soup

                Last Sunday I had my daughters birthday party.  I wanted to make something special so I decided to make this dish.  For this food it is not actually Thai food but it is more like Chinese.  In Thailand we take culture from Chinese and food is one of them.  Chinese people in Thailand believe that soup will help the cycle of blood in your body to have a good circulation and keep you warm in winter.  This dish will be good to eat it when the weather changes from hot to cold. 

For this dish in Thailand we call it Ka Poa Pla meaning stomach of fish soup  (I know that sounds scary right!!!).  Actually they didn’t use the stomach but they used fish maw of fish (it is like the air bag of the fish) and the Ka Poa Pla maker will prepare it for easy storage and eat by taking the fish maw off from the fish then dry by air and deep fried until crunchy and sell it at this point.  So for me I will by the one that is already deep fried for making this soup.

                For the fish maw you can find it in a Chinese grocery or an Asian grocery.  It is a little bit pricy, but it is good for you so you might want to try one.

Ingredients

1 pack 2 oz. fish maw (already deep fried)

2 can of 14 oz. thin sliced bamboo shoot

10 hard boil quail eggs (optional)

 1 3-4 lb whole chicken

6 dry shitake mushrooms

3 cilantro roots

4 tbsp. Light soy sauce

4 tbsp. Oyster sauce

2 tbsp. Black soy sauce

3 tbsp. Sugar

Pepper

1/3 cup. Corn starch + 1/3 cup. water

¼ cup Chinese cooking wine (but If you cannot find it don’t worry about it.)

Cilantro

Cooking instructions

1.       In a large bowl add warm water then soak fish maw and let it sit for 1 hour, drain it out from water set aside

2.       Then wash it with water 2 times squeeze it very well each time.

Note : this process for cleaning fish maw is to take away the fishy smell of it.

3.       Large pot boiling 12 cups of water with chicken and cilantro root, pepper for about 1 hour. Meanwhile rehydrate mushroom by soak in the warm water for about 30 minutes

4.       After 1 hour take the chicken out and shred the chicken and set aside.

5.       In the soup pot add bamboo shoot, soy sauce, oyster sauce, black soy sauce, sugar, Chinese cooking wine when it boils again add the fish maw at last add corn starch mixture into the soup and keep stirring while adding the mixture (the soup will not be lumpy)

6.       When serving add hard boil quail eggs, shredded chicken in the bowl then add the soup and top with pepper, cilantro.

PS: I don't have too many picture because I've been busy with the party and this soup is gone so fast!!! 

Thai- Chinese noodle Stir fried : pad mee-suar

                2 weeks ago was the start of Thai-Chinese vegetarian festival call “Kin Jea” (I already talked about this in mung bean stir fried blog) that inspired me to make this menu.  This egg noodle stir fried is very popular in this festival, because it is tasty and fuels you up.  In Thailand we use this special kind of thin long egg noodle called Mee-Suar cooked in boiling water (you can also use angel hair pasta) then stir fried it with vegetables like cabbage, carrot and dried shitake mushroom.  In this case you can use ready to use coleslaw mix that will work too.  If you can’t find dried shitake mushroom you can use any kind of mushroom instead, but the best one is dried Shitake mushroom of course (Why dried not fresh shitake mushroom, because the dried one has more umami taste than the fresh one).  Now let’s get start cooking.

Ingredients

8 oz. thin long egg noodle or angel hair pasta

3 cup thin sliced cabbage and shredded carrot /or ready to use coleslaw

1 celery stock sliced thin

4-5 dried shitake mushrooms

3 tbsp. vegetable oil

3 tbsp. light soy sauce

1 tbsp. pepper

Cooking instructions

1.       Add noodle into boiling water and cook for about 3 minutes for egg noodles or follow directions to cook for angel hair pasta then drained and set aside.

2.       Rehydrate dried shitake mushroom by soaking them in warm water for about 4-5 minutes or until it becomes soft then cut it into strips.

3.       Preheat the large pan or wok in high heat add oil, when the oil is hot add shitake mushrooms and stir it about 30 seconds then add vegetables and stir it about 1 minute then add cooked egg noodle, soy sauce and pepper.  Keep stirring about 3-5 minutes, then turn the heat off.

4.       Serve as a main dish or as a side dish.

Supper Club

A lot of people ask me what’s my favorite Thai restaurant in GA.  I have to be honest with you I don’t really go to Thai restaurants much, because I cook Thai food for myself, but this particular question led me to think about the future for my next project which is Supper club.  What is Supper club?  In my terms Supper club is:  I will cook authentic Thai food that most of you cannot find in a regular Thai restaurant.  The menu will depend on the theme of each event which is just like you take a trip to try a food in Thailand.  So I talked to my boss Chef Richard at Bradford’s on bishop.  He loves this idea, so we decided to have Thai Supper club. Starting on friday November 4th, 2011.  We will start with Thai food in the chart of Top 50 CNNGO.com  World's 50 most delicious foods .  Because I just found out that Thai food has 4 dishes in the top 50^th and the menu will be

Salad : 46th Som tum : Papaya salad

Salad :19^th Num tok Moo : Spicy grilled pork salad

Soup : 8^th Tom yum kung : Spicy shrimp soup

Entrée : 1^st Massaman Curry

Dessert : Sticky rice with mango

The dessert is not in the top 50^th but I thought about what kind of meal that doesn’t have a dessert right!!!  So I picked one of the famous Thai desserts to put on the menu to complete the dinner.  I hope you don’t mind to have something extra.  Since this menu is very popular you might think all of this food you could find it in a lot of Thai restaurants, but trust me they do not make this food the authentic Thai style!!!  And this is just the beginning for this supper club you will see all of the authentic menus that you never knew about before.  If you want to join my club please visit http://sunisasthaisupperclub.eventbrite.com Hurry I have limited seating available!!!

Custard in the Pumpkin

                Finally my favorite season fall is here.  The weather and the atmosphere of it makes me feel like I’m in heaven.. also coming with fall are pumpkins.  Just in case you want to try something different from pumpkin pie.  You should try this recipe.

In Thailand we have not too many kinds of pumpkins like in America.  I found out later that Pumpkin in Thailand is more like squash in America.  So today I wanted to make a Thai dessert called “Custard pumpkin” by using 2 types of pumpkin or squash.  One is called Carnival squash and the pumpkin is called Jack Be Little.  Why I picked these 2 are because they are little, cute and also they come out tasting almost like Thai pumpkin, so I just decided to take the inside of it off and add Thai coconut custard into it and steam it.  We serve this dish cold, so let’s get started cooking!!

Ingredients

4 Carnival squash or Jack Be Little pumpkin

4 eggs

½ cup + 2tbsp. coconut cream

½ cup of brown sugar

1 tsp. vanilla or pandan extract

Note : Pandan is the plant that grows in Thailand and we use it in Thai food to flavor the food.  You can find the extract in a Thai grocery.

Cooking instructions

1.       Wash all of the pumpkins and take all of the inside out and wash well then let dry.

2.       In the mixing bowl beat coconut cream, brown sugar, egg and pandan extract together until the sugar dissolves.

3.       Strain the mixture with strainer then fill up the custard mixture into the pumpkin until it is full.  Then put the pumpkin into a bowl.

4.       The put the pumpkin with custard into the steamer and steam it about 20-30 minutes or until you can put the knife into the custard and it comes out clean.

5.       Let it cool, then put it in the refrigerator and sever it when it is cold.

Easy egg fried rice : for the side dish

                This is almost like a side dish that a lot of people ask me for the recipe, because sometimes if you don’t know the technique it doesn’t come out like you wanted!  I have 2 techniques for the perfect fried rice, first you have to use rice that is left overnight after it was cooked and it will come out better and another one is that you have to cook egg first before adding the rice into the pan.  All of this I already talked about in the shrimp fried blog, but this time it was just an egg fried rice for the side dish. Here is the recipe.

Ingredients : 1 serving

1 cup of rice

1 egg

1 globe of garlic

1 tbsp. oil

1 ½ tbsp. soy sauce

Cooking instructions

1.       Preheat the pan then add oil and garlic, cook garlic until golden

2.       Add egg stir it like scrambled egg, when the egg is cooked add rice and soy sauce then stir it until mixed well.  Turn the heat off.

3.       Serve as a side dish.

Chicken tamarind sauce: Gai tod sauce Ma kham

                 This dish I got the idea from the last time I visited Thailand.  They have one popular dish called shrimp tamarind sauce.  They use fried shrimp and then toss with tamarind sauce, it tastes sweet, sour and a little touch of spicy.  I guess the sauce is almost like pad Thai sauce which makes me want to try it in order to use my left over pad Thai sauce in refrigerator.  Today I decided to use chicken instead because that is the only meat I have in my kitchen anyways, but who doesn’t like chicken!!!  It came out very good (my hubby like it!!!) and also it was still good on the second day.  Now let’s get to the recipe.

Ingredients: serving for  1

1 chicken breast cut into bite size

½ cup. Corn starch

½ tsp. salt and ½ tsp. pepper

½ cup Pad Thai sauce (recipe in Pad Thai blog)

3 tbsp. water

1 tbsp. fried shallot

1 tsp. chili flake or fried chili (optional)

1 tbsp. chopped green onion

 Oil for deep frying chicken

Cooking instructions

1.       Add salt and pepper into chicken, mix well then add corn starch and mix until every piece of chicken is coated with corn starch, then set aside for 45 minutes

2.       Preheat the oil until 350 F or use bamboo stick to dip into oil and have a bubble come out from the stick

3.       Fry chicken in the hot oil about 5-6 minutes or until chicken become golden, then take the chicken off the oil and set aside

4.       Preheat the pan then add Pad- Thai sauce, water and chili (optional) stir until sauce bubbling then add fried chicken toss it until the sauce is coated all over the chicken.

5.       Pour it into serving bowl then garnish with fried onions and green onions

6.       Serve with steamed rice or egg fried rice (recipe next blog)

Eggplant Stir fried with Thai Basil

                It was one of my childhood recipes that my dad cooked for us.  Usually my dad did not cook much, but when he cooked he always surprised us and this recipe is one of them.  Because when I was a kid I didn’t really like eggplant much, but my dad made eggplant at another level of tastiness.   

This is a vegetarian recipe.  All of the ingredients are almost like Thai basil stir fried, but you have a little soy bean paste( I have the details on a sauce blog) in it.  This dish tastes salty sweet.  Try it and you might find yourself in love with this dish like me!!!

Ingredients: 1 serving

2 Chinese eggplants or ½ Italian eggplants (cut into bite size)

½ cup basil leave

1 sliced fresh Jalapeño (optional)

2 globes chop garlic

2 tbsp. soy bean paste

1 tbsp. sugar

1 tsp. soy sauce

2 tbsp. water

1 tbsp. vegetable oil.

Cooking instructions

1.       Chop garlic

1.       Heat the pan at medium heat, when it is hot add vegetable oil then fried garlic until golden pull garlic off on the side for garnish later.

2.       Add eggplant, sugar, soy bean paste stir it well then add water and turn the heat down to medium low and cover it about 2-3 minutes or until the eggplant softens then add Jalapeño.

3.       Turn the heat off and add basil leave stir until mixed, then pour into serving plate then put fried garlic on the top and serve with steamed rice.