Med-Ka-noon: sweet mung bean coated with sweet egg

      

               I don’t know what happened to me this week.  I’ve been obsessed about cooking (I mean more than normal).  I want to cook or make something that is complicated, so I go through a lot of Thai difficult desserts and food recipes that I’ve never made and this recipe is one of my experiments that I made this week.

                Actually I talked about this dessert in a couple blogs before (in Thai tea cream buree and 9 good luck Thai desserts).  This is just a one of a kind dessert that you never have had it anywhere else before. It tastes really sweet and has a bean with coconut milk inside it.  I made this dessert to offer to the monks at the Thai temple.  This recipe is a little bit more complicated but if you want to know what real Thai desserts are then try it and you might like it or not you will see.

Ingredients

½ cup split mung bean

1 cup Coconut milk

 6 tbsp. sugar

4 eggs

For Syrup to cook

3 cup sugar

3 cup water

2 tsp. jasmine flavor

Cooking instructions

1.       Wash split mung bean then let it sit in the water at least 3 hours

2.       Steam mung bean in a steamer about 15 minutes then pour into a blender with coconut milk and blend it about 30 seconds or until it is mashed.

3.       Pour mung bean mixture into a non-stick pot turn to medium heat while stirring it often until it gets thick about 10 minutes add sugar, then keep stirring more until the mixture from into a ball and you put the finger don’t have the mixture stick on it.  Turn the heat off and let it cool.

4.       Wash whole eggs really good then separate egg york and egg white and reserve egg shell

5.       In the pot add 3 cups of sugar and egg shells, use hand mashed egg shells into sugar then add water turn on the heat and let it boil about 20-25 minutes.  Then pour over a sheet cloth in order to take all of the shells out.  Clean the pot and add syrup back into the pot reheat at medium heat.  Reserve 1 /2 cup syrup into bowl.    

6.       Brake the egg yolk until mixed well

7.       Take the bean mixture about 1 tbsp. and make into an oval shape. (All mixture is made into about 50-60 pieces)

8.       When the syrup boils again turn the heat off then dip the bean ball into the egg yolk and drop into syrup. (make about 8-10 balls per batch)

9.       Let it cook about 3-4 minutes.  Take them off and put it into the syrup that deserves in the bowl. keep doing it until the bean mixture is gone.

10.   Serve at room temperature or cold.

Just like I told you before this dessert is complicated!!!

Utensil

People always ask me “Do I need a wok to make Thai food?” my answer is …. No, because in my theory if you want to make Thai food taste authentic you just need to know the techniques and what it does to your food.  That is the key to it.  That’s why I have this blog to share my experiments and recipes that have authentic taste but not too much trouble to cooking it, so in this blog I will tell you all about Thai utensils and what you can substitute that is easy to find around your house. Starting with

This is my American wok

1.       Wok (Ka-Ta-Bai-Bau) : just like I said at the start people think if I want to cook Asian food I need a wok and if I don’t have one I cannot cook it!!!  The fact is that a wok is good for cooking Asian food because it has a big surface to get the heat into the food fast that makes the food cook faster and makes it easier to stir.  So the key is a big surface and to get a lot of heat the substitute would be a big pan and using high heat when you stir fried.

2.       Spatula: It is used for stirring, so anything that can stir firmly like wooden spatula or anything that won’t ruin your pan you can use it!!!

3.       Cleaver: This large knife is used to chop, slice and dice the meats and the vast array of vegetables and herbs in Thai cooking or you can use a big knife.

steamer

Chinese bamboo steamer

4.       Steamer:  It is used in steamed foods meaning cooking food by the steam of water.  In Thailand we have a big steamer in this case any kind of steamer will do like Chinese bamboo steamers but it is a little bit of a small substitution also you can use the oven by putting a tray of water under the baking bowl and cover the bowl with foil that will do.

5.       Mortar and Pestle: we have 2 kinds of this in Thailand

stone motar and pastle from my Thailand house

a.       Mortar and pestle is made from stone:  This kind is heavy in order to grind the object better to make a paste and when the food that we need is very small in texture like ground pepper. Substitution is a blender

b.      Mortar is made from clay and pestle is made from  wood: This kind is a little bit lighter weight mostly used for Som tum to mix and pound the food that we don’t need to be turned into paste texture. Substitution is a ziplock bag and a tenderizer(how to use, I showed you in modern style-son tum blog)

6.       Sticky rice steamer: This utensil came from northeast Thailand.  It is used for cooking sticky rice.  Personally I don’t really know how to use it (My family is from the east) so my substitution is a microwave (How to use it is in my rice blog). 

Skewer

7.       Skewer: Usually made of bamboo. One end of the skewer is sharp and pointed, mostly used in grilling or picking up fried food in a hot pan.

8.       Vegetable shredded: It is used to shred fruit and vegetables like green papaya, carrot, green mango and cucumber.  The traditional way to make them is by bashing them with a knife to make length wise cuts, and then trim off the julienne strips of fruit or vegetable with the knife.