Spicy Stir-fried Chicken with Long Beans

Judging by the letters we are receiving, people are eager to visit thai-blogs.com on Fridays to see what we are eating for lunch. It is sometimes a challenge for us when producing the Friday Lunchtime Thai Menu. We are restricted to not only street food, but also to a budget of about US$3 for all of us. Plus, we cannot repeat any of our favourites. Every Friday we are eating something new. So, for me it is sometimes hit and miss. But, this first one is one of my favourites. It is called "pat prik khing gai". It is basically pork fried in chili paste with long beans. A simple dish but tasty. The curry paste includes spur chillies, shallots, garlic, lemon grass, coriander root, kaffir lime, dried shrimp and shrimp paste. Strangely, no sign of ginger despite the name being in the title. To cook, marinate the sliced chicken (or pork) with a tea spoon of fish sauce. Blanch the yard long beans in boiling water until nearly cooked. Cut them into one inch lengths. In a hot pan, fry the chili paste until fragrant. Add the chicken and cook until done. Season with sugar and fish sauce and then stir in the beans. The version we had today is not as red looking as it should be. Maybe they watered it down a little. But, what can you expect for only 20 baht.

Hard Boiled Egg in Sweet and Sour Sauce

This is an interesting side-dish that I haven't had before. It is also strangely named in Thai as "kai luk kery". A literal translation is "son-in-law eggs". Basically, some eggs are hard-boiled and then shelled. These are then fried in hot oil until they turn yellow. For the sauce, grind together cilantro root, garlic and pepper. Stir fry them for a short while. Then add palm sugar, fish sauce and tamarind sauce. Add some water and then simmer until it becomes a thick sauce.

Clear Soup with Mixed Vegetables

This is a clear soup called "gaeng liang" in Thai. It is not really spicy so don't be misled into thinking that "gaeng" always means hot and spicy. The soup stock is mixed with shrimp paste, pepper, red shallots and dried shrimp which has been grounded until well combined. It is really up to you about the vegetables. This one has shrimp, pumpkin, wax gourd, baby sweetcorn, and sweet basil leaves. This is alright as a side dish and cost us only 20 baht. I wasn't thrilled about it.

Sticky Rice Grilled in Banana Leaves

The final one today is our dessert. It is called "khao niew ping". It is basically sticky rice with a mystery contents grilled in banana leaves over a charcoal fire. You need to ask what it contains unless you like to be surprised. To ask, just say "sai a-rai". The choices are: banana, taro, shredded coconut or mung beans. Not too bad if you are not expecting much. These cost 6 baht each.

Come back next Friday to see what we ate for lunch!

Fried Garlic with Chicken (pad khing gai)

We are now on week 10 of our Friday Lunchime Menu,. We are trying to keep below the budget of 100 baht for four people by buying street food. I am afraid I have to say that I didn't like this first dish. I am not really that keen on the strong taste of ginger and I think the cook went a bit overboard with ginger as you can see. I have had different versions where the chicken was more predominant. But, with this 20 baht dish I had trouble finding any chicken at all! It is easy to cook. Add garlic to hot oil until it is golden brown. Add the chicken and stir it well until it is nearly cooked. Now season with soy sauce, oyster sauce, sugar, fermented soy beans and lime juice. Then add the onion and shredded ginger and continue until everything is cooked.

Sour Orange Curry (kaeng som cha-om kai)

We have a similar dish to this at school and I always used to call it "orange curry" because of its colour and also because "som" means orange. It was only later that I found out that this word could also mean "sour" which is a good description of this curry. Most Thai curries use coconut milk. However, two notable ones don't. These are this sour curry and jungle curry. It is really a bit like a soup but it is often thick with vegetables. This 30 baht version was pretty plain, but you can also have ones with shrimp or fish. The sourness comes from the sour tamarind and lime juice. The main feature here is the "cha-om kai". This is a green vegetable called acacia which is then fried with eggs to make a kind of omlette. It is then cut into squares and added to the curry. I found this one a bit salty but I have tasted good ones in the past. Worth a try if you haven't tasted it before.

Grilled Pork with Peanut Sauce (moo sa-tay)

The grilled pork is more of a snack than a meal but we added it to today's menu because we were a bit low on meat. This dish is very popular down the market and you often see long queues at the most popular vendors. It is up to you how many skewers you buy with the pork. As you can imagine, the recipe does vary a bit with both the sauce you marinate the pork in and the peanut sauce that is the dip. This makes or breaks a vendor. One recipe I have says grind galangal, lemon grass, cilantro seed, cumin and kaffir skin until well combined. Next add the pork and then stir in sugar, salt, coconut milk, cumin powder and vegetable and leave to marinate. There are two side dishes. The first is the peanut sauce. Pound together the chili, garlic, lemon grass and turmeric to form a paste. Add this to hot oil. Stir in coconut milk and bring to the boil. Add tamarind water, sugar, salt and crushed peanuts. The second dip is another favourite of mine. Mix vinegar, sugar and salt and stir well over a heat until it boils. Set aside to let it cool. Then add sliced cucumber, red shallots and red-green chilies.

Steamed Banana Cake (khanom kluay)

Growing up in England I was never fond of banana, pineapple and even coconut. It wasn't until I went to Australia for the first time that I fell in love what what I can only describe as the real thing. Bananas in England are shipped from abroad when they are still green and then artificially ripened. My love affair with bananas has continued since I arrived in Thailand and there are quite a few desserts containing banana that I simply adore. This is one of them. A kind of mashed banana mixed with flour and coconut milk. This is placed into banana leaf cups and shredded coconut is put on top. This is then steamed for about 10 minutes. These only cost two baht each.

Tofu and Minced Pork (tao hoo song kreaung)

This is our weekly Thai menu where we try to buy lunch for four people with a budget of only 100 baht. The first one today is deep fried tofu with minced pork. It is not that difficult to cook. You just need to deep fry the tofu first until it turns yellow. Then stir-fry the minced pork with the pork. I am not always a fan of tofu, but I do quite like it in a number of different Thai recipes. This dish cost us 25 baht.

Spare Ribs Soup (tom soop gradook moo)

The second dish is a plain soup with pork spare ribs and mushroom. Not very exciting, but always nice to have such a dish to counterbalance anything else which is spicy. On the far left of the picture you can see bamboo "tissue" which is a soft substance from the inside of a bamboo. This dish was 35 baht.

Fishball with Green Curry

As you know, I don't always like seafood. But this is a good green curry that has fishballs. This is made by pounding the fish together with garlic and coriander roots and then they are shaped into balls. This is then placed into boiling water. Coconut milk is then poured into another pot and the green curry paste added. Next comes the fishballs. Season with fish sauce and sugar. Next you add the eggplants, sweet basil and kaffir lime leaves. This dish cost us 25 baht. You can eat with either rice or noodles called khanom jeen.

Deep Fried Pork (moo tod)

This is a snack but can also be eaten with a meal. You need to marinate it in the following mixture. First, pound together garlic and cilantro roots. Next, in a bowl, mix together flour and egg with fish sauce and soy sauce. Add to this the paste you prepared earlier. Then marinate the pork in this mixture for about half an hour. Then deep fry in oil. These cost 10 baht each.

Stuffed Crescents with Mung Bean

This is an interesting Thai dessert called khanom tua baep. As you can see there are two versions - black and green. The yellow are the mung beans. You have to soak these in warm water for about three hours. Wash them again and then steam for about 30 minutes. The outer layer is glutinous rice flour. This is mixed with coconut cream and pandanus juice. This forms the dough. The juice from the pandanus leaf gives you the natural green colouring. For black you have to use black glutinous rice flour. The filling is grated coconut which has been steamed and then is mixed with the mung beans and salt. Divide the dough and roll each part into round balls. Flatten it out and then place the filling in the center. Fold the dough over and pinch it closed at the edges. This is then cooked in boiling water until they float to the top. Arrange on a plate and garnish with some more mung beans. The dip you can see is a mixture of sugar, salt and roasted sesame seeds. Not a bad dessert which will set you back only 5 baht each.

Come back next week to thai-blogs.com to see what we ate for our Friday lunch. As always, you can contact us with your own suggestions for our meal. But it has to be food that is readily available on the street in Thailand.

White Noodles with Fish Curry Sauce

This is the continuation of our Friday Lunchtime Thai Menu. The main dishes today are not served with rice. Instead, we had them with what some people call Thai spaghetti. The Thai people themselves call them "khanom jeen" which makes you think that it is a kind of Chinese dessert. But really, it comes from a Mon word "kanom jin". When the Thais adopted this dish, they either misheard the name, or just couldn't spell very well. In English, we would call it fermented rice vermicelli. There are a number of different dishes that you can have with these noodles. The one today is called khanom jeen nam yaa. It is a fish curry with wild ginger. There are variations around the country. In the north, they use pork instead of fish. In the northeast, they use dried bird's eye chillies and no coconut milk. And in the south, they use turmeric and dried prawns. This cost us 20 baht for the curry, 5 baht for the noodles and 5 baht for the boiled egg. We added our own vegetables.

White Noodles with Chicken and Bamboo Shoot Curry

You can eat this chicken curry with either "khanom jeen" or rice. I personally prefer rice, but it did make a nice change today to have it with noodles. The actual curry is made in the normal way for green curry. You just add bamboo shoots which are very tasty. This was 30 baht including khanom jeen.

Khanom Piak Poon

The dessert today is "khanom piak poon" which is sometimes translated as rice flour custard. Though it is firmer than what we would normally call custard. You basically stir together rice flour, tubular flour, palm sugar and saturated red lime juice. It is cooked over a high heat until it turns sticky and thick. To make the green version you need to soak pandanus leaves in water. The black comes from burnt coconut skin. It is not a bad taste and I quite enjoyed eating it. These three only cost 10 baht.