Welcome to my Traditional Thai Food Recipes

They say the Chinese eat every part of the pig except for the squeek. The Thai's are the same, we eat almost everything from almost every animal! Lets start with the head, it's steamed and cooked with spices like cinnamon and star anise to make soft fatty pork in soup.

The blood is left to congeal in a pot (above is chunks of congealed pigs blood), then sliced and added to glass noodle soup, and other forms of soup.

These lungs are cooked until almost dissolved into the water, and again used for soups and noodles.

Pigs intestines are cleaned carefully, boiled until soft, then sliced and made into a salad, or fried, or sliced thin for dipping into chilli sauce.

Liver is used in lap-mu, or sliced and fried, or used as in suki yaki, or even barbecued.

These tongues are nice barbecued (grilled), till browned on the outside, then sliced thinly and eaten with a spicy sauce as a gop-gam dish (a snack to eat with alcoholic drinks).

Nam Prik is the name given to chilli pastes that we eat with rice and other dishes. There are many brands and many flavours, in this entry I'm going to take you through some of the more common ones.

Firstly the above one is Nam Prik Mang-da. Mang-da is a large winged insect about 8 cms long that lives in rice fields and is eaten in the East of Thailand. At night it flies around bright lights, making it easy to catch. The authentic paste contains that insect ground up, and more common supermarket brands have an artificial flavour instead.
Like many things mang-da started out as food for poor farmers, but became a more expensive almost luxury food. The 5 Mang-da I photographed in the ingredients section, were more expensive than a full rack of pork ribs.

This one is grilled fish flavoured nam prik. It has a fishing slightly smokey flavour to it with a very dry texture. This one is a personal favorite.

This one is grilled shrimp nam prik, this one is more soft and smooth than the grilled fish one. (It's in a little plastic bag inside the pot.)

This one is hell shrimp, called because it is very very spicy and the spicy hits you immediately and all in one go.

Nam prik red eye, the heat from the spice comes later, giving you red eyes. It doesn't taste so spicy at first.

There is an Indonesian season chilli sauce, known as Sambal Oelek (the Oelek type is the spicy one). We use it in Thailand too, and here I've used it to make spicy sweet ribs. The sauce is used as a marinade but you should also keep a tablespoon of it back to add at the end. The heat from the spices is reduce by the cooking process and adding a spoonful at the end peps it up. Since this is a ready made sauce it is about as simple as it gets!

Ingredients
1 Rack of Ribs
6 Tablespoons of Sambal Oelek

Preparation
1. Cut the ribs into individual ribs.
2. Cover with 4 tablespoons of the sauce and marinade for at least an hour.
3. Fry in a covered shallow frying pan with little oil until well browned on all sides.
4. Add two more tablespoons of sauce.
5. Cook a little longer just to warm and coat the ribs.

Sala has a fibrous center with a complex flavour, I'm told it tastes of sherry trifle with slightly bitters notes next to the sweetness. If you want to try one Thai fruit this is the one I'd go for.
Sala also forms the basis for many cream soda drinks including Hales Blu Boy.

Mangda are large insects about 8 cms long, that live in rice fields in Northern Thailand. During the evening they fly around lights and are easily netted and eaten. Mang-da is also the name given to boyfriends who live off their girlfriends. They get the name because they flit from light to light. Similar to the English phrase 'bar-fly'. Someone is said to be a mang-da if their girlfriends work and they don't.
They're really difficult to photograph, I had to include some leaves in the photo to get them to calm down, so forgive the rather badly composed photograph.

Uses
They're are pounded and used as a popular flavouring in many dishes, a very common Thai ingredient is Mang-da flavour Nam Prik (spicy chilli paste used to add flavour and spice to dishes). You can even get this is from Asian grocers, look for Mang-da flavoured chilli pastes.
They are also dry fried or grilled and eaten as is, removing the shell and legs.

You can see the ingredients for these shrimp and mushroom parcels in the photo below. Their flavour is very mild, but they are served with nuts and chillis, lime and raw ginger pieces, garlic and coriander leaves, all wrapped up in lettuce leaves. The flavours as a whole are anything but mild! To eat, take a lettuce leaf, a piece of the breaded parcel, a few cubes of limes, ginger, garlic, piece of chilli and a few other leaves, fold them into a parcel and eat.

Ingredients for Filling
50 White Mushrooms
50 Brown Mushrooms
100 gms Shrimp
2-3 Coriander Roots
1/2 Pepper
3 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
1 Tablespoon Corn Flour
2 Tablespoons Flour

Ingredients for Batter
2 Eggs
Bread Crumbs
Oil

Preparation
1. Chop the mushrooms, coriander root and shrimp finely.
2. Mix all the filling ingredients together and make into a small (kiwi fruit) sized ball.
3. Steam for 5-10 minutes, to cook.
4. Whip the egg, dip the balls in the egg, then in the breadcrumbs and fry until golden brown.

Serve With
Roasted Peanuts
Shredded Ginger Root
Sliced Peeled Garlic
Chopped Chillies
Coriander Leaves
Mint Leaves
Lettuce
Chopped Lime Pieces

I was first introduced to ant larvae when I was a child by my dad. In those days we would go and get them fresh from an ants nest. Now that I'm grown we buy them at the market and they're a premium priced product rather than the peasant food from my childhood.
These need to be eaten fresh, and I don't think they freeze well, so you will only likely find them in a provincial market in Thailand, but don't be afraid, they taste nice! Below you can see the ant larvae as you buy them, with some stray ants in there, remove any stray ants before making the salad. Some ants are sour already so be sure to taste before adding the lime juice.

Ingredients
200 gms Fresh Ant Larvae
1 Teaspoon Flaked Chillies
1 Teaspoon Lime Juice ( To Taste )
1 Teaspoon Fish Sauce
1 Teaspoon Toasted Rice Powder
1 Tablespoon Chopped Coriander Leaves
1 Tablespoon Chopped Mint
1 Tablespoon Chopped Spring Onion

Preparation
1. Mix all ingredients together and serve it with vegetables.

To My Great Father

After you died I can see how people loved you dad, young and old, children and adults, all were crying like crazy at your funeral.
In my memory you are very great man, you worked hard, sacrificed your life to make money to support your family, your three kids and wife. I remember we were so poor, but it never took away the happy life we had because of you. You never beat your children and never said any words of hurt, always loved mum, and I never saw mum hurt you too.

All my life, I lived far away from him because we were poor and I had school in country while he worked in city. Well until he was 43, when I worked in the city and he relaxed in the country!, That was our life!!.

And I only visited him once a year for 2-3 weeks at a time before going back to work. What a stupid child I was, I thought that when I earned enough money we would all live together in town, doing what we want, eating what we wanted and spending time together. Now that's too late, he died at 47 of blood Leukemia. 47. So,spend time with your parents, when you want to be, you'll miss them when they're gone, do it before to late.

You know when you're born, but you won't know when you'll die.
When you live you make they love, When you die that's why they cry.

Love you forever Dad

Your Daughter Appon

This is a classic gop-gam dish (side snacks served with beer), the pork is covered in sesame seeds, seasoned and dried in the sun for 1 day to cure it a little, then fried and served with spicy chilli sauce. In the photo below you can see it drying in the sun.

Ingredients
400 gms Pork Meat
5-6 Garlic Cloves
2-3 Coriander Root
1 Teaspoon Peppercorns
2 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
1 Teaspoon Salt
1/2 Teaspoon Pepper
1 Tablespoon Dark Soy Sauce
1-2 Tablespoons Sesame Seed

Preparation
1. Pound the coriander roots, garlic and peppercorns together.
2. Slice the pork meat into strips, add all the ingredients, including the pounded mixture and lay out in the strong sun for a day. I keep it behind a window to avoid flies, but you can also just use a wire net or just tolerate them.
3. Fry in hot oil until cooked, serve with chillie sauce.

Soda making has gone out of fashion, but the ingredients are still there in Asian supermarkets if you look for them. For this you'll need Helbruboy (Hales Blu Boy). A range of syrups that has been available since my mother was a child!

Ingredients
4 Tablespoons Soya Milk.
3 Tablespoons Green Soda Syrup
2 Tablespoons Lemon
40 ml Soda Water (or Fizzy Mineral Water)
40 gms Crushed Ice

Preparation
1. Mix all ingredients together except the soda in a cocktail mixer and shake.
2. Pour into the glass and pour the soda in.