Yesterday I made tofu using lemon juice and soy (see Easy Home Made Tofu Recipe). This creates a byproduct, known as Okara, its the insoluble fiber, carbs and proteins in the yellow mung beans. You filter these out as you make Soy milk, and tofu.

It's a pity to throw this away because there's plenty of nutrition in it, and there's a number of things you can do with it. Like soy, it's a useful vegetarian ingredient and can be used in place of a high protein course pastes. One of these is the classic recipes its suitable for is Thai fish cakes.

Replacing the fish protein with mung bean protein from the Okara is a great way to use it up.

Continue reading "Red Curry Okara Cakes (Soy Pulp)" »

I've made Tofu before, using the Nigari Salts to make Homemade Tofu. This method uses a much easier coagulant, lemon!
Nigari salts can be made from sea-salt. They're difficult to find, and in shops, and so you might end up having to make them yourself.

Lemon on the other hand, is trivial to get. I didn't realize it could be made from lemon, but now I know, I'll be making it myself more often!

Continue reading "Easy Make Tofu At Home" »

I'm camping out at at a National Park near Krabi, and for dinner, I'm planning a sweet sour pork stew. With a barbecue as your heat source, you can't really arrange to have a slow simmer. You can't regulate the temperature of charcoal, and you'd need to raise the pot high above the flame and adjust it every few minutes. That would be a lot of work, which the underwater method fixes.

I had my new camping tool with me, the fan made lighting the barbecue very very easy! The night light was great to cook by, but being bright white attracted some bugs.

Thanbok Khoranee National Park has sea caves to visit, and waterfalls, I'm doing those tomorrow. So I'll need a good meal tonight for energy.

This is where the underwater cooking method comes in! I used it last week to cook a chicken on a barbecue, today I'm using it to simmer a pork stew.

The cold water pan on the top, regulates the temperature below, as long as the top water is cold, then the pan inside will stay at simmer. Juices in the meat and pineapple condense on the cold pan and fall back into the stew keeping it juicy, with all the flavor in.

The underwater tower of pans is: charcoal burner at the bottom, a pan with the stew ingredients in it in the middle, and a cold water pan on the top. I chose my wok because it fits my steamer pan with a good seal. The seal is important, it keeps the juices and steam inside.

Since I was camping, I used the local market and couldn't find ketchup, but the stew was fine without it, if a little anemic in color! I also added my garnish into the stew and blanched it just before serving. I couldn't be sure it had been washed in drinking water, and so it was safer to give it a quick blanch.

With the last batch of cold water in the top pan, you can add a little rice and make this into a full meal.

Continue reading "Camping Pork Stew (Underwater Method)" »

They call this 'underwater chicken', quite literally the chicken is cooked dry in its own juices under a pan or pot of cold water. It sounds very weird, but it's an excellent way of making tough house chicken into tender juicy chicken. The chicken is cooked in a pot on a barbecue, and its cooked dry, or nearly dry. There are some juices from the marinade but not much. Yet after cooking it comes out soaking in juice.

It's like magic, it's almost as if the water magically makes its way from the top pot into the chicken pot!

You've lost none of the flavors, and all the juice is from the chicken and seasoning. Understanding how it works is the key to this. At the bottom, a regular barbecue heat source, I use charcoal, it can be gas or even electric. Above that a metal pot, in Thailand we usually use the rice steamer pot. Finally on top a tight fitting metal pan or pot filled with cold water.

The top pot must be metal, and it must have a decent seal to the pot the chicken is cooking in. If it doesn't, well I've seen banana stalks used to seal it, grease proof paper and all sorts of things, but ideally getting a good seal is essential.

Continue reading "Underwater Chicken (Magic Cooking Method)" »

I did a BBQ Salt Crusted fish recipe a couple of weeks ago at the Thai Muang campsite. Well I'm back at the campsite for the Save Turtle Festival, a festival where they release turtles into the sea to restock turtle numbers. It's covered on my Appon's Thai Life Blog.

Naturally if I'm having a barbecue at the beach, it's got to be seafood, but this time I want to prep all my food during the day and eat later. Fish parcels are perfect for that, prep the fish, wrap them, into a cool-box with some ice and off to the festival you go. The parcels are all ready for when you come back. They taste better with a little time to marinade, too.

Continue reading "BBQ Curried Fish Parcels In Banana Leaves (Aeb Pla)" »

I went camping at the beach last weekend at Thai Muang which is up the coast from Phuket. It's part of the enjoyment to head to the market, buy a fresh fish, stuff it, encrust it with sea-salt and barbecue it next to the sea!

Really stuffing, salting and barbecuing a fish is about as simple as cooking gets. You can prepare the fish then get the barbecue lit, which took quite a while with so little sea breeze. The salt has time to draw out some of the moisture in the skin and the herbs get time to infuse.

Continue reading "Salted Crust Fish BBQ" »