For those who like squid, this is an easy Thai dish with only a few ingredients. The main flavour is garlic and the squid is very easy to prepare.

Ingredients for 2 People
100 gms Squid
4 Garlic Cloves
1 Teaspoon White Pepper
2 Tablespoons Light Soy sauce
1 Tablespoon Fish Sauce
100 ml Oil

Preparation
1. Cut the squid like squares clean the inside of the squid carefully, remove the beak if it is still present.
2. Score the squid with diagonal criss-cross scoring, this will make it more tender and less chewy once cooked.
3. Pound the garlic in a Thai mortar and mix with squid, light soy sauce and fish sauce.
4. Put oil into a frying pan over a medium heat.
5. Add the squid mixture into the pan and cook for 3 minutes.
6. If you overcook squid it becomes chewy, so only light, short cooking is necessary.

Serve With
Fragrant Rice
Salad Vegetables
Tomato
Lettuce
Cucumber

For this dish, I used fried hake, although cod or similar white flesh fish would work equally as well. The 3 tastes of this dish are spicy, sweet and sour. It is served on a bed of coriander leaves, peanuts and deep fried kaffir lime leaves. The fried kaffir provides a crispy citrus taste when you eat them.

Ingredients
400 gms Fish (Hake, Cod Haddock or Similar)
50 ml Tamarind Water
2 Tablespoons Sugar
5 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
2 Tablespoons Chopped Chillies
2 Tablespoons Chopped Spring Onions
1 Tablespoons Peanuts
1 Tablespoon Chopped Coriander leaves
4 Kaffir Citrus Leaves
Oil For Deep Frying

Preparation
1. Slice the fish across ways, into 3cm fish steaks. Deep fry in pre-heated oil, until the fish is golden brown.
2. Boil the tamarind water with the sugar and fish sauce together for 2 minutes to create a sauce.
3. Deep fry the peanuts and kaffir leaves for a few seconds. The kaffir leaves will become crisp.
4. Onto a serving plate, place the coriander leaves, the chopped chillies and chopped spring onions to make a bed to sit your fish on.
5. Place the fried fish on top.
6. Pour sauce over the fish, and top off with the peanuts and kaffir leaves.

Serve With
Hot Fragrant Rice

This is an omelette stuffed with soya beansprout and prawn filling. In Thailand we make these in an envelope shape for a little more fun. Normally served as a side dish with rice.

Ingredients
2 Eggs
100 gms Soya Beansprouts
5 Prawns
3 Garlic Cloves
2 Tablespoons Maggi Sauce
Oil for frying

Preparation
1. Clean the shrimp slice down the back and remove the black thread gut, then chop into small pieces. Keep the heads for a garnish.
2. Peel and chop the garlic.
3. Add 2 tablespoons oil to the frying pan turn heat on high until the oil is hot.
4. To the frying pan, add the chopped garlic and prawns and fry for a few seconds, add the soya beansprouts and Maggi sauce and fry for a further 30 seconds. You should also fry the prawn-head garnish at the same time. Set aside on a plate.
5. Clean the pan, add 2 tablespoons of oil and put onto the heat.
7. Whip the eggs to break up the yolks, pour into the pan and swirl the eggs around to make a large thin omelette.
8. Once cook, place the filling in the middle and fold the edges over to form a letter.
9. Garnish with the fried prawn heads and some beansprouts.

Serve With
Thai Fragrant Rice
Kapi Sauce

These fried shrimp cakes have plenty of flavour. We make many variations of these cakes in Thailand, fish, pork and these shrimp ones. I like to deep fry the heads of the larger prawns aswell, once they're crunchy you can eat them as a snack too.

Ingredients
100 gms Shrimp or Prawns
50 gms Pork Fat or Pork Mince
1 Teaspoon White Pepper
1 1/2 Teaspoon Salt
100 gms Breadcrumbs
Oil For Deep Frying

Preparation
1. Clean the shrimp and remove the black thread (the gut). Mix with the pork fat, salt, white pepper and blend together in a food processor, to form a course mince.
2. Cover a plate with the breadcrumbs.
3. Take a tablespoon of the mixture out and drop it on the breacrumbs, flatten it and flip it over to form the flat round cake shape.
4. Heat the oil to 170 degrees Celsius (a medium heat), and fry them until golden brown and cooked through.
5. Serve with either plumb sauce or sweet chicken chilli sauce.

Serve With
Sliced Cucumber
Sliced Tomato

This is one of the ways we eat small crabs in Thailand - deep fried in batter as a crunchy snack served with chilli sauce. The shell of small crabs is very thin and easily eaten, and not suprisingly it has plenty of calcium.

Ingredients
200 gms Small Sea Crab
2 Tablespoons Corn Flour
1 Egg
2 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
1 Teaspoon Salt
1/4 Teaspoon Black Pepper
Oil for Deep Frying

Preparation
1. Mix the corn flour with the egg, salt, light soy sauce and black pepper.
2. Clean the crabs and put into the flour batter.
3. Heat oil to 190 degrees Celsius, add the crabs and fry for 5-7 minutes until golden brown.
4. Remove and drain on kitchen paper.

Serve With
Sweet Chilli Sauce
Tomato
Cucumber

This is another excellent fish dish with a slight sour taste that comes from the tamarind. Any white meat sea fish can be used.

Ingredients
1 kg Fish
Oil for Deep Frying
50 gms Chinese Cabbage
50 gms Long Green Beans
2-3 Tablespoons Red Curry Paste
300 ml Water
3 Tablespoons Sugar
5 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
1 Teaspoons Salt
10 gms Tamarind Pulp

Preparation
1. Clean the fish and score it deeply with diagonal cuts. Dry the cuts with kitchen paper.
2. Clean the green beans and Chinese cabbage then chop into 4 cm pieces.
3. Deep fry the fish in 190 degrees Celsius oil. The fish is cooked when it is crunchy and golden. Once that happens, remove it and drain any excess oil from the fish using kitchen paper.
4. Make the sour soup by putting water into a saucepan, add the tamarind and squeeze the pulp with your hand to get the juice from it. Taste the water to see if it's sour enough for your tastes, if not keep mixing and squeezing the tamarind in the water until it is. You can remove the tamarind pulp once you have the flavour.
5. Bring the water to a boil, add the curry paste and mix it into the water.
6. Add the fish sauce, sugar and salt and boil for 4 minutes, then remove from the heat.
7. To serve place the fish in the bowl, place the vegetables around it and pour the sauce over the whole lot.

Serve With
Thai Fragrant Rice

For this dish use a firm white fish that doesn't break apart when it's fried. Haddock is perfect for this, but not so common now. The bigger the chunks of curry white fish the better the recipe works.

Ingredients
100 gms Filleted Sea Fish
2 Tablespoon Flour for Frying
1 Ladle Water
2 Tablespoons Red Curry Paste
1 Tablespoon Chopped Kaffir Leaves
1 Tablespoon Chopped Onion
1 Tablespoon Sliced Chilli
1 Tablespoon Fish Sauce
3 Tablespoons Oil

Preparation
1. Clean and chop the fish into bite sized pieces.
2. Mix the flour with enough water to just form a batter.
3. Dip the fish into the flour batter and deep fry until golden brown and crunchy. Remove and drain on paper.
4. Into a different frying pan, fry the curry paste, add the fried fish chunks and all the other ingredients and stirfry for 1 minute.
5. Serve immediately.

Serve With
Thai Fragrant Rice

These are fish cakes with a difference, the fish taste comes from dried whole baby shrimp. I don't want to put you off, but those black specs you can see are the eyes of the baby shrimp looking at you!

Ingredients
50 gms Dried Shrimp
2 Tablespoons Mix Flour for Frying
1 Teaspoon Limestone Water
100 ml Water
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
1/4 White Pepper
200 ml Oil

Preparation
1. Mix the water and limestone, add the flour and mix together.
2. Add the dried shrimp, salt, and white pepper into the flour and mix thoroughly.
3. Heat oil in a frying pan until its good and hot.
4. Pour enough of the batter into the hot oil so that it spreads out to 6cm circles, then fry until golden brown.
5. Serve with sweet chilli sauces.

These strawberries come with their very own armour of shrimp meat, carrot and breadcrumbs. The warm strawberries inside add a sharp contrast that helps to cut through the fried taste of the shrimp. To finish it off, they are served with a sweet & sour strawberry dipping sauce. Strawberries are in season now, so enjoy them while you can.

Ingredients
5-8 Strawberries
50 gms Shrimp
30 gms Chopped Carrot
30 gms Chopped Onion
20 gms Chopped Coriander Leaves
1 Egg
1 Teaspoon Salt
1 Tablespoon Light Soy Sauce
1 Teaspoon Sugar
1/3 Teaspoon White Pepper
50 gms Breadcrumbs
350 ml Oil for Deep Frying

Preparation
1. Clean the shrimps remove the black gut.
2. Put the shrimp into a blender, add the chopped carrots, chopped onions and coriander leaves, and blend until it forms a smooth paste.
3. Mix in salt, light soy sauce, sugar and white pepper.
4. Clean the strawberries and dry with kitchen paper.
5. Take some of this mince mixture and wrap the strawberry in it to completely cover it.
6. Whip the egg roll the coated strawberry in the egg, the roll it in breadcrumbs to coat it completely.
7. Heat the oil (medium heat 180 degrees Celsius).
8. Fry the strawberry balls for 10 minutes.
9. Drain on kitchen paper.

Ingredients Strawberry Sauce
1 Strawberry
3 Tablespoons Sugar
2 Tablespoons Vinegar
1 Teaspoon Salt
Chopped Coriander Leaves

Preparation
1. Mix the vinegar, sugar and salt together and heat until the sugar has dissolved, the leave to cool.
2. Chop the strawberries finely, slice the coriander, and mix them into the sauce.

The main part of this dish is the finely mince shrimp that has been deep fried in the centre of the photograph. For presentation I've put the shrimp heads and tails around the dish, and the flavours are finished off with spicy chilli and sliced raw garlic. This is normally served as a shared dish with rice.

Ingredients
100 gms Shrimp (4-6 depending on size)
2 Tablespoons Chopped Chillies
2 Tablespoons Chopped Celery
2 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
2 Tablespoons Lemon Juice
1 Teaspoon Sugar
2 Garlic Cloves
1 Tablespoon Sliced Onion
Oil for Deep Frying

Preparation
1. Clean the shrimp removing the black thread.
2. Dry the shrimp with kitchen paper - this is to stop the oil reacting with the water and spattering when you fry them.
3. Mince the shrimp meat finely.
4. Heat oil for deep frying.
5. Fry the shrimp meat and the shell head and tail. 30 seconds is usually enough time to cook shrimp - it does not take long.
6. Remove and drain on kitchen paper.
7. Make a spicy sauce by mixing chopped chillies, chopped celery, fish sauce, the sugar and thinly sliced onions and raw garlic.
8. Present the dish as in the photograph, with the shrimp meat in the middle, the shrimp heads and tails as a garnish, and the spicy sauce on either side.

Serve With
Thai Fragrant Rice

Why eat fish fingers when you can eat salmon battered fingers! Battered salmon sticks, served with Maggi sauce and Plum sauce. Very simple and very delicious. Rod Dee is a flour batter, a mixture of: Wheat flour, garlic powder, a little ground cinamon, a little MSG, and salt. Asian food often contains MSG (both natural and synthetic, it's nothing to worry about.)

Ingredients
200 gms Salmon (without skin)
4 Tablespoons Rod Dee
2-3 Tablespoons Water
400 ml Oil

Preparation
1. Slice the salmon into bit sized sticks.
2. Mix the flour batter with water and coat the sticks.
3. Heat oil in a frying pan to medium hot.
4. Fry the salmon sticks to golden brown.

Serve With
Palm Sauce
Maggi Sauce

Fish bones can be such a pain for your guests, for this dish I cut large fillet nuggets from the flesh, cut the head and tail off and lay the fish segments to look like a body.

Ingredients
500 gms Tilapia or White Firm Flesh Fish
2 Garlic Cloves
2 Coriander Root
1 Teaspoon Black Peppercorns
2 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
100 gms Wheat Flour
Oil for Deep Frying

Preparation
1. Clean the fish and slice the fillet off the bone and cut into large chunks. The bones come off in one piece if you cut from the back bone and gently let the knife do the work.
2. Pound the garlic, coriander root and black peppercorns, together. Mix with the light soy sauce and salt and leave to marinade for 30 minutes.
3. Heat the oil to 170 degrees celsius.
4. Dip the fish in the flour, and fry until cooked.
5. Fry the heat and tail too.
6. Reassemble the fish and serve with the dipping sauce.

Ingredients for Spicy Seafood Sauce
5 Bird Chillies
1 Garlic Cloves
1 Tablespoon Chopped Coriander Leaves
2 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
2 Tablespoons Lime Juice
1/2 Teaspoon Sugar

Preparaion
1. Mix all the ingredients together in a blender and blend until smooth.

An Orada, is a type of fish with soft white flesh and few bones that is pan sized - making it ideal for frying. This dish is a shallow fried fish with a spicy sweet sour sauce, the sour comes from tamarind. For this recipe any similar non-oily fish can be used if Orada is not available. Thailand people loves fresh fish and fish dishes are to be found on most menus. Gut and clean the fish carefully, you can clean inside with lemon to rid the fish of any bitterness if necessary.

Ingredients
1 Orada approx. 500 gms.
3 Teaspoons Salt.
700 ml Oil ( or better if you have frying pan )

Sauce Ingredients
1 Tablespoon Sugar
1 Tablespoon Light Soya Sauce
1 Tablespoon Fish Sauce
1 Tablespoon Tamarind Juice
3 Red Chillis
2 Garlic Cloves
4 Basil leaves
1 Red Onion

Preparation
1. Tamarind juice, is water added to tamarind pulp, the tamarind is squeezed in the water to made a sour bitter flavoring water.
2. Clean the fish and take entrails out, score it across each side with 3 lines.
3. Mixed with salt and leave it for 10 minutes for the salt to flavour the fish.
4. Put oil in pan turn heat on high ( the oil should be 190 degrees C if using a deep fat fryer) . The oil should just submerge the fish.
5. Fry the fish for 15 minutes and place it on a plate.
6. Put a tablespoon of oil in small frying pan on medium heat.
7. Chop the chilli, garlic and onion into small pieces.
8.When the pan is hot, fry the chilli, slice the onion and garlic for a few seconds and add the fish sauce, light soy sauce, sugar, and tamarin juce.
9. When the sauce is well mixed turn off the heat and add the basil.
10. Just before you are read to serve, pour the sauce over the fish.

This fish is left for 3 days to allow it to sour as a result of slight decay (the salt in the recipe stops it completely rotting). In Thailand, many homes don't have fridges and food goes off in the heat very quickly. Sometimes this isn't such a bad thing and a little bit of decay adds a lot of flavour. Just like you have 3 month old cheese, so we have soured 3 day old fish!

Ingredients
200 gms Fish (Hake Cod etc.)
5 Tablespoons Salt
3 Garlic Cloves
2 Tablespoons Rice Flour
2 Tablespoons Fragrant Rice

Preparation
1. Clean the fish and gut it.
2. Dissolve the rice flour in 300ml water, soak the fish in this liquid for 5 minutes, then rinse. This will help clean the fish.
3. Pound the garlic, salt and fragrant rice together.
4. Spread the pounded mixture over the fish and inside the cavity of the gutted fish.
5. Place in a plastic bag and leave at room temperature for 3 days.
6. Heat oil in a frying pan and fry the contents of the packet (including the pounded garlic) in hot oil until the fish is golden and crispy.

Serve With
Garlic Cloves
Big Red Chillies
Lots of Coriander Leaves
Lots of Mint Leaves

A sour-spicy salty fried fish dish, fried fish dishes are a staple of Thai cuisine, we love the crunchy texture of the fish coupled to spicy chillies!

Ingredients
200 gns Fish (Hake Cod etc.)
Oil for Deep Frying
5 Red Chillies
3 Garlic Cloves
2 Tablespoons Vinegar
2 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
2 Tablespoons Sugar
2 Tablespoons Oyster Sauce
1 Tablespoon Light Soy Sauce
2 Tablespoons Oil

Preparation
1. Clean the fish and slice into 3 cm thick slices. Dry then take to deep fry until the fish is golden and crunchy, then set aside.
2. Pound the garlic with the chilli in a Thai mortar.
3. Put oil into a frying pan, and heat it over a medium heat.
4. Add the pounded garlic, and chillies and fry until the smells are released.
5. Add all the ingredients and cook until the sugar is dissolved.
6. When serving pour the sauce over the fish.

Serve With
Thai Fragrant Rice
Tomatoes
Cucumber

Inside these spring rolls are shrimp and seasonings. Another dish suitable for a party as a snack plate.

Ingredients
10 Shrimp
10 Spring Rolls Papers
2 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
1 Teaspoon Chopped Coriander
1 Teaspoon Chopped Red Chillies
Pinch of Pepper

Preparation
1. Clean and shell the shrimp, cut down the back and remove the black thread.
2. Mix the shrimp, light soy, chopped coriander, chopped chillies, and pepper and leave for 5 minutes to blend the flavours.
3. Fold the spring roll sheets into hat shapes, as shown in the smaller photograph. Roll the shrimp and seasoning in the spring roll paper.
4. Fry in hot oil until crunchy and golden.

Serve With
Sweet Plum Sauce

These egg halves are stuffed with crab and pork meat and fried in a coconut batter. In the photograph you can see where I cut one open and below you can see the uncooked egg halves.

Ingredients
3 Hard Boiled Large Eggs
100 gms Pork Mince
100 gms Crab Meat
3 Garlic Cloves
2 Coriander Roots
1 Teaspoon Ground pepper
1 Tablespoon Chopped Coriander Leaves
1 Tablespoon Ground Coconut
1 Tablespoon Fish Sauce

Ingredients for Flour Batter
75 gms Flour For Frying (Tempura Flour or Similar)
150 ml Coconut Milk
Pinch of Salt

Preparation
1. Pound the garlic, coriander, and ground pepper. Mix with the pork mince, crab meat, chopped coriander, ground coconut and fix sauce.
2. Shell and cut the boiled eggs in half, remove the yolk (use for something else).
3. Spoon the mixture into the egg halves and round off to make each half egg look like a whole egg.
4. Cover with flour batter and deep
5. Make the batter by mixing the flour, salt and coconut milk.
6. Cover with the batter and fry in 180 degrees Celsius oil until cooked (approx 6-8 minutes).

I might retake that photograph, since it's taken from such an ugly angle! This is a fried fish, topped with a spicy salad to add flavourings and texture.

Ingredients
500 gms Dace Fish
Oil for Deep Frying
1 Tablespoon Toasted Rice
1 Tablespoon Flaked Chillies
1 Tablespoon Fish Sauce
1 Tablespoon Lime Juice
1 Tablespoon Chopped Coriander
1 Tablespoon Chopped Mint
1 Tablespoon Chopped Spring Onion
1 Tablespoon Sliced Kaffir Lime Leaves
1 Tablespoon Crushed Garlic
1 Tablespoon Sliced Red Onion

Preparation
1. This couldn't be simpler! Heat the oil to 180 degrees and deep fry the fish until cooked and a little crunchy on the outside. Drain and set aside.
2. Mix all the other ingredients together and top the fish with the salad, the fish sauce from the salad adds salt, so it's not necessary to add more.

Another way to eat friend fish, shitake mushrooms, especially dried ones, add a delicious flavour to the fish, the vinegar adds a little bite and the soy a little saltiness.

Ingredients
500 gms Fish Suitable for Frying
2 Tablespoons Flour
Oil For Frying
6-10 Shitake Mushroom ( soak overnight if dried )
1 Grated Ginger
3 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
1 Teaspoon Vinegar
1 Tablespoon Corn Flour
Shredded Chinese Cabbage (For the base)

Preparation
1. Clean the fish, gut and scrape the scales off. Your fishmonger will usually do this for you.
2. Cut diagonal score marks over the fish, to increase the surface that touches the oil and make more crunch.
3. Dry it with a piece of kitchen paper, cover with the flour, then shallow fry until the fish has a crunchy skin and is cooked through.
4. Slice the mushrooms, add to a pan with soy sauce, vinegar, grated ginger and heat until boiling.
5. Mix the corn flour, with a few tablespoons of water, mix into the pan with the soy mixture and stir until it thickens.
6. Shred the raw cabbage, lay it in the base, put the fish on top and pour the source over the top.

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