Penang curry is one of my favourite Thai dishes. It is simple to make as long as you can buy the ready-prepared chilli paste. In the ingredients below, you can see coriander, sliced beef (you can also use pork or chicken), sliced spur chilli, thinly sliced kaffir lime leaves, sweet basil, coconut milk and penang chili paste in the middle. If you don't have the chilli paste, you can use a carton like the one in the picture that already mixes coconut milk, chilli paste, fish sauce and palm sugar. The taste is good but not really authentic as it is for foreigners. The paste contains ingredients such as dried chillies, shallots, garlic, galangal, lemon grass, coriander root and shrimp paste.

Fry the chilli paste in a pan making sure it doesn't dry out or burn. Gradually keep adding more coconut to keep it moist. Keep going for about four minutes or so. Next, add the sliced beef. If you didn't use the pre-prepared sauce, season the curry with fish sauce and palm sugar. Make sure that you taste it to check the balance of flavours. If too sweet, add more salt. Adding more coconut milk can also help with the final taste but this shouldn't be a runny curry. Finish with the spur chilli, sliced kaffir lime leaves and coriander. Save the sweet basil and some kaffir lime leaves for decoration. Check out our websites at www.EnjoyThaiFood.com and www.ThaiStreetFood.com for more pictures of Thai food.

Hard-Boiled Egg in Tamarind Sauce (khai luk kery)
ไข่ลูกเขย

This is another one of those simple dishes that doesn't need much effot in making. In Thai, it is called "khai luk kery". Interestingly, this translates literally as "son-in-law eggs"! In the ingredients below, you can see tamarind juice at the top and soy sauce below that. You can use fish sauce instead if you don't mind the smell. At the bottom left we have dried hot chillies and garlic cloves. Or you could use red shallots instead. You also need two hard boiled eggs. On the right is the palm sugar - though obviously don't put it all in!

Heat some oil in a wok and when hot add your hardboiled eggs. When they are golden brown then set aside. Next you need to fry some crushed garlic or red shallots. Then set these aside. Stir fry the palm sugar next. Add the tamarind juice and soy sauce and continue to stir until it becomes like a syrup. The taste should be sour, salty and sweet. Adjust the balance if it is not right. Next, cut the eggs in half and place face up on a plate. Sprinkle the top with the fried garlic and fried dried chillies. Pour the sauce over the top. You will find it is a very delicious dish. I will share with you another dish to cook at www.thai-blogs.com next week.

Winged Bean Salad (yum thua pu)
ยำถั่วพู

Our Thai meal today didn't need, of course, any cooking as it is a salad. It is Winged Bean Salad or "yum thua pu" in Thai. We actually bought all the ingredients at the local market and all we had to do is mix everything together! In the ingredients below, you can see fresh shrimp, hard-boiled egg, boiled chicken slices, fried garlic, chilli, a mixture of peanut and dried coconut meat and winged bean that has been scalded and cut into horizontal slices. The sauce in themiddle does vary. This one looks like it has tamarind juice, chilli paste, fish sauce, palm sugar and coconut milk.

To make, all you have to do is mix all of the ingredients together in a large bowl and add the sauce. Very simple to do as long as someone else has prepared all the ingredients for you. You can view our archives of Thai Street Food which includes hundreds of pictures and many cooking videos which you can download for free.

Pad Thai (pad thai)
ผ้ดไทย

Today we are going to show you how to cook one of the most popular Thai dishes for foreigners. It is called "pad thai" or Thai Fried Noodles. It is not that difficult to cook but it involves a bit of an effort to prepare the ingredients. To be honest with you, we cheated a bit today. Our local pad thai food stall kindly gave us all the ingredients and also allowed us to make notes on her method of cooking. However, she wouldn't tell us the secret ingredients for the sauce. This is what makes her stall more popular than others around this area. She actually admitted that even she doesn't know the recipe as it is made by her mother in a back room. The ingredients you can see below are, from top and going clockwise, roasted peanuts, fresh rice noodles (sen jan), salted Chinese radish, fried tofu, red shallots, dried shrimp, fresh shrimp and two eggs in the middle. Normally it is one egg per dish. On the left, you can see Chinese chives, beansprouts and sliced lime. Some people use garlic instead of red shallots. I have also sometimes seen chicken instead of the more popular shrimp.

Heat the oil up in a wok. Add red shallots and cook until fragrant. Then add the fresh shrimp, salted radish, tofu and dried shrimp. Give a good stir all the time. Move the ingredients to one side and then break two eggs into the pan. Cook for about a minute and then mix in with the other ingredients. Move to one side again. Add the fresh rice noodles. If you are using dried noodles you must soak in water for about 10 minutes. Then add tamarind paste and the secret sauce. Adjust the taste to your liking by adding soy sauce or fish sauce and sugar. Stir slowly until the noodles become dry. Now mix all the ingredients together. Finally, add the Chinese chives and beansprouts. Stir this in but there is no need to cook it. Serve with fresh vegetables, ground roasted peanuts and a slice of lime. I think ours tasted just as good as the real thing! Looks good too.

You will find the archives for my Thai Street Food blogs over at our new site www.ThaiStreetFood.com. You will also find there cooking videos that I shot at our local food vendors. You can download these for free. Some of the more popular videos have already been download more than 25,000 times!

Stir-fried Morning Glory (pad pak bung fai daeng)
ผัดผักบุ้งไฟแดง

This vegetarian dish, using morning glory, is called "pad pak bung fai daeng" in Thai. The last part "fai daeng" refers to the red flame that leaps up when you throw in the vegetables. You can also do a version using minced pork. The ingredients for the vegetarian version are shown below. They are morning glory, garlic cloves and bird's eye chilies.

You can cook this dish in several different ways. If you want it to be spicier, you should pound the garlic and hot chilies together with your mortar and pestle. This is what they do in shops. But today, we added the crushed garlic first to the oil in the wok and fried until golden brown. Next came the morning glory. We then seasoned with oyster sauce and soy sauce. Chilies came last. Some shops also add fermented soy beans. This is a brown sauce which I find a bit salty.

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Visit our Thai Street Food archives at www.ThaiStreetFood.com for hundreds of pictures from these blogs.

Fried Noodles in Black Soy Sauce (pad si ew)
ผัดซีอิ๊ว

One of my favourite Thai dishes is this one which is basically rice noodles fried in black soy sauce. In Thai, this is called "pad si ew". The main ingredients are pictured below. Starting from the top and going clockwise, you can see "sen mee" noodles, sliced chicken, garlic cloves, kale and two eggs. You can also use beef or pork. And instead of kale, which is also known as Chinese broccoli, you could use Chinese cabbage. There are also two different versions of noodles for this dish. You can have either "sen mee" as seen here, or my favourite "sen yai" which is a wider noodle.

Today we used the dried version of "sen mee" which you need to soak in cold water first for about four minutes. In roadside food shops, they usually use fresh versions which are obviously much better. In the picture at the top, you can see that my noodles have broken up a bit. We also prepared the baby kale by blanching it in hot water for a short time. To start cooking, add the chopped garlic to hot oil. As soon as it is golden brown, add the bit-sized pieces of chicken. To be honest, I prefer pork for this dish. Give it a good stir for a couple of minutes. Remove from the pan and add more oil. Next comes the noodles. Toss it well so it heats through. Push it to one side and add two lightly beaten eggs. Let it fry for a short while before breaking it up and then mixing with the noodles. Now add the kale and chicken. Season with black soy sauce (you could use the sweet version if you like) and some sugar. If it is too sweet, then add a dash of fish sauce. It is now ready to serve. The condiments that are commonly served with this dish are dried crushed chilies, sugar and “nam som” which is white vinegar with sliced spur chili.

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Every Friday we have new food blogs at www.Thai-Blogs.com. Visit the archives at www.ThaiStreetFood.com and www.EnjoyThaiFood.com

Stirfried Babycorn with Mushrooms (pad khao pord aon gub hed)
ผัดข้าวโพดอ่อนกับเห็ด

Our Thai dish today is another vegetarian meal. It is a stir-fried with baby sweetcorn and mushrooms. We only have one kind of mushroom here but you could also add another kind. In the ingredients below you can see: red pepper and mushrooms on the left and Chinese celery, baby sweetcorn, garlic cloves and carrots on the right.

Cooking this dish is very simple. Start with the garlic and fry until golden brown. Add the mushrooms, babysweetcorn and carrots. When you are doing stirfry, it is usually a good idea to have some stock handy. Failing that, add a little water. Give it a good stir and then add the red pepper. You can add spur chili instead if you like. Season with light soy sauce and sugar. Sprinkle on the Chinese celery at the end.