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.

Khaw mun Gai

This dish is one of my favorite street foods.  Khaw mun Gai is a twin of Singapore chicken and rice.  The dish will come with boiled chicken, rice cooked in chicken stock, chicken soup, cucumber and special sauce.  In Thailand you can find this dish almost anywhere on the street which I call a comfort food to me.  Since I moved here I don’t really see Khaw mun Kai much, so I tried to make it myself. Fortunately my friend and sister in law “Benz” knows how to make it.  She told me the recipe and I made it for the first time when I was staying with my host parents.  I brought it to them to test the results…. they love it!!  Since then this dish became my favorite menu to cook for my friends and family.  My hubby and my little one love it.  Amm… since I cook this dish I never see anyone who doesn’t like this dish that is how good it is, so you should try it!!!

Note:  The recipe sounds complicated, but I will separate it to 3 easy steps to follow

1. Chicken and soup

2. Rice

3. Sauce 

Ingredients : serves 6 ; cooking time 2hrs 30 min

Step 1. Soup and chicken

4 quarts of water

4 -5 lb. whole chicken

1 branch cilantro

1 head garlic cut into a half

1 tsp. salt

6 tsp. soy sauce

Cooking instructions

1.       In a large pot (about 6 quarts) add water and turn the heat on to high heat and bring it to a boil

2.       Meanwhile add the garlic and cilantro into herb bag and close

Note: herb bag is the bag I sew it myself by using a thin white cloth made into a bag to keep the herbs together in the stock.

3.       When the water is boiling add chicken, salt, herb bag and soy sauce into it, bring it to a boil again then lower the heat into medium heat.  Let it cooked for 1 hr.

4.       After 1 hr. skim the fat, part of the stock is reserved for cooking the rice with the stock.

Rice

6 cups chicken stock with fat part

3 cups jasmine rice

3 gloves of garlic

Note: in the original recipe use 1 cup of sticky rice and 2 cups of jasmine rice it will take a longer time to cook it (about 1 hr.)will make the rice a little bit stickier.

Cooking instructions

1.       Bring the stock to a boil then add rice and garlic stir 1 time then turn the heat to low and let it simmer about 30- 45 minutes

   Sauce

¼ cup Soy bean paste

¼ cup chicken stock

3 tbsp. sugar

3 tbsp. fine mince ginger

3 tbsp. fine mince garlic

2 tbsp. lime juice

1 tbsp. chop chili (optional)

Cooking instructions

1.       in the blender add all of the ingredients  into it then blend it about  1-3 pause

2.       serving with rice chicken and soup with cucumber.

Rice pudding with corn

                Today I got beautiful fresh corn that’s in season from my supermarket.   I decided to make another Thai dessert called Khaw Neaw Pake Khaw pod which means sticky rice pudding with corn.  This is a very easy dessert that you can make from your home.  This dish is one dessert that you can find from street food venders in Thailand.  The combination between the sweetness of sugar and a bite of sweet corn and the saltiness from coconut cream topping that makes this dish interesting!!!

Ingredients : 4 servings

¼ cup uncooked sticky rice

1 ¾ cup water

6 tbsp. sugar

1 fresh corn about ½  cup

 1 tsp. corn starch

¾ cup coconut milk

½ tsp. salt

Cooking instructions

1.       Add water and sticky rice into a pot and cook in medium heat about 15 minutes then stir occasionally or until the rice is cooked.

2.       Add corn and sugar and stir it until mixed well then turn the heat off.

3.       In another sauce pan add coconut cream, 1 tsp. cornstarch and salt.  Stir it until mixed well. Turn the heat on and bring it to a boil then turn the heat off.

4.       Serve it by putting the sticky rice into a bowl first, then top with 3 tsp. coconut cream mixture. You can serve hot or at room temperature.

 

Shrimp fried rice : Khaw Pad Kung

            Yesterday I felt very lazy.  Around 4 pm my hubby asked me “Honey! What are we having  tonight?”. Oh my god !!! I forgot to go to the grocery store.  I opened the refrigerator and all I had left over was steamed rice and some eggs, checked in the freezer and got a bag of frozen shrimp (I always have frozen shrimp in my hand).  So the easy menu popped up in my head “fried rice shrimp” my family’s favorite.

            Fried rice is a very common Asian food that you can find in a lot of countries and one of America’s favorite.  In Thailand we have a lot of kinds of fried rice, the regular one with all kinds of meat like chicken, shrimp, pork, crab and seafood.  We also have a difference kind of ingredient in it, some of them have a shrimp paste and some of them have a lot of ingredients in it. (I think we can make everything fried rice almost) but I have to tell you all about those recipes in the future, because today we are going to start with basic fried rice.

            The key of fried rice is you need to use dry cooked rice meaning when you cook rice don’t put too much water in it (you can find how to cook rice in the rice blog), and it would be better if the rice is cold or sat overnight, so the left over rice is the best.  Also another important thing if you cook fried and you want egg in it, you need to cook the egg before you pour rice in with it. 

 That will make your rice look and taste good because if you put the egg after the rice has been fried, the rice will become fried cake rice or soggy rice.  For this recipe there is a little bit of difference from the original Thai food, because I put butter at the end to make the dish smell even better!!!  That’s why this recipe is a modern Thai food recipe.  Now get started cooking!!

Ingredients

½ pound shrimp

2 cups of fried rice

2 eggs

¼ cup diced onion (if you don’t like it leave it out)

1 tbsp.  minced garlic.

 ¼ cup frozen pea and carrot (you can put any kind of vegetable you like)

3 tbsp. vegetable oil

4 tbsp. soy sauce (it’s up to you)

1 tbsp. butter (but If you don’t want it leave it out)

Cooking Instructions

1.      Preheat the large pan at high heat, pour the oil, when the oil gets hot turn back to medium high heat.

2.      Add garlic cook it until golden, add shrimp stir until it cooks then set aside.

3.      Add egg stir it just until it scrambles egg, then add onion stir about a couple times add rice and keep stirring.

4.      Add soy sauce all over the rice, keep stirring it until mixed well (all rice turn into brown color) keep stirring.

5.      Add pea and carrot keep stirring them about 2-3 minute

6.      At the end add butter stir until butter melted all over the rice, Turn the heat off.

7.      For Thai traditional we serve with slice cucumber and lime fish sauce and chili dipping sauce (recipe in Thai Basil stir fried blog), or for my hubby I serve with siracha sauce.