This fried rice with pork is a quick meal, often cooked for children and westerners because it is a lot less spicy than the majority of thai cuisine. It's ideal if you have left-over rice to use up, cold rice from the day before is perfect. Other variations of this dish use chicken or shrimp. In this dish we've used pork shoulder for its tasty fat content, but other cuts of pork are also suitable. Originally from central Thailand, this is a mild non spicy dish.

Shrimp Pate (a paste of ground up shrimp) is used to make chilli sauce or for mixing with rice in a dish called 'Kao Kloock Kapi'. This recipe is quite a way to use shrimp paste, used in Eastern Thailand, it is salty and should be eaten with lots of vegetables. The egg aubergines used are Thai vegetables, very different from the larger dark aubergines easten in the west.

Do you have 1 type of bread? Do Italians have one type of pasta? Well Thais have many different types of stir-fried rice! This rice dish is a type of stir-fried rice made with lemon grass and dried small shrimp. Stir-fry rice is a great way to use up left over cooked rice.

This is fried rice, Isan style. Isan is the name given to North Eastern Thailand, famous for its sticky rice and chillies, although this dish is not very spicy we normally eat it with a sauce made from flaked chillies. The sticky rice has a nutty taste that comes from adding toasted (dry fried), pounded sticky rice. If you don't have sticky rice to toast, use ground peanuts.

This is a popular dish among westerners and is very easy to find in Thai restaurants abroad. It has a sweeter taste than many other rice dishes, thanks to the raisins, and so is an ideal way to get children to eat their rice! There are many variations of this dish, if you omit the bacon and use soy sauce instead of fish sauce you can make a very nice vegetarian version.
It's common to serve this in a hollowed out pineapple half, but it's not essential, thats only for show.

This is a nice way to present rice fried with mixed vegetables and raisins. The rice is spread over an omelette and the omelette rolled up tightly and sliced into spiral shaped cross sections. This is usually served as a dish in it's own right in Thailand, but you can also serve smaller portions as a side dish.

This is a sweeter rice dish, with lychees and raisins adding a pleasant and refreshing sweetness, balanced with salty cashew nuts. Maggic sauce is a German savoury sauce popular in Thailand.

This is a good way to use fresh spinach. Spinach has a lot of water and it doesn't survive other cooking methods well, but this stir-fry method keeps it whole and nutritious.

This dish is made from pork, beans and rice but the taste is a lot better than that description makes it sound. Pork with fat and rind is used, and the stock the pork is cooked in is used to make the rice, keeping all the flavour inside. It's traditionally cooked in a pot known as a Maw Din, but I use a rice cooker.

This sticky rice dish is a variation on a Vietnamese snack. They make them into parcels wrapped in banana leaves and carry them into the jungle to eat as a snack. Thailand has a similar version of this dish, also eaten as a snack wrapped in banana leaves.
In the photograph you can see a salted duck egg yolk, beans, mushrooms and other parts of the rice dressing. Remember that the salted duck eggs take 2-3 weeks to prepare, so you will need to prepare these well in advance.

This rice dish contains pork nam, you can either buy pork nam in Asian shops or make it yourself by pounding pork meat with garlic, cloves, salt and chillies.

This slightly sweet rice is made from dried fruit (which has a natural sweetness) and candied fruit (to add small pockets of sweetness).

Ingredients
50 gms Dry Mixed Fruits, Cherries, Mango, Pineapple
20 gms Chopped Candied Fruits Orange, Melon, Pear
300 gms Precooked Fragrant Rice
1 Teaspoon Salt
2 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
1 Tablespoon Maggi Sauce
1 Tablespoon Oil

Preparation
1. Mix the fragrant rice with the dried and candied fruits.
2. Heat oil in a frying pan.
3. Add the rice mix, salt, light soy sauce, and Maggi sauce, and stir fry for 1 minute then serve.

This is a stuffed omelette, a mixture of starchy potato and taro together with rice, all steamed together. A cheap and filling meal.

Ingredients Rice
100 gms Fragrant Rice
250 ml Water
20 gms Chopped Carrot
20 gms Chopped Potato
20 gms Chopped Taro
20 gms Corn
20 gms Peas
3 Garlic Cloves
1 Tablespoon Oil
4 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
1 Teaspoon Sugar
1 Teaspoon White Pepper

Ingredients Omelette
2 Eggs
1 Tablespoon Maggi Sauce
1/3 Black Pepper
1 Tablespoon Oil

Preparation
1. Clean the rice, add the water, chop all the vegetables for the rice, and mix in. Either steam or cook in a rice cooker for 15 minutes.
2. Whip the eggs, Maggi sauce and black pepper.
3. Heat oil in a frying pan, add the egg mix and fry.
4. Add the rice into the centre and fold up the omelette.

Spicy spicy rice & crunchy crunchy pork make for a delicious delicious combination. Yum dishes are typically spicy salads, here it's mixed into rice to make the rice spicy and I've poured some over the top for extra effect.

Ingredients
250 gms Fragrant Rice
2 Small Red Onions ( Chopped )
5 Bird Chillies ( Chopped )
2 Garlic Cloves ( Chopped )
2 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
1 Tablespoon Lime Juice
1 Tablespoon Palm Sugar Syrup
20 gms Sliced Carrot
300 gms Pork Three Layers (With meat+fat+rind)
3 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
1 Teaspoon White Pepper

Preparation
1. Slice the three layer pork into small pieces. Place in a frying pan with light soy sauce and white pepper.
2. Shallow fry in oil over a medium heat until the pork is crunchy, then drain and set aside - this is the crunchy part of this dish.
3. For the yum sauce, mix chopped red onion, chillies, chopped garlic, fish sauce, lime juice and the palm syrup together.
4. Cook the rice, then, mix the yum sauce with the cooked rice.
5. You have two choices, you can either mix the crunchy pork in aswell, or as I've done for the photograph, lay it out next to the rice.

Serve With
Spring Onions
Cucumber
Lettuce

These are eaten with Nam (raw pork) and fried dried chillies. This is classic Isan food, cheap, bulky and tasty! It's a way to use up left over fragrant rice.

Ingredients
500 gms Cooked Fragrant Rice
2 Tablespoons Red Curry Paste
3 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
1 Teaspoon Sugar
100 gms Ground Coconut
4 Large Eggs
Oil For Deep Frying
Dried Chillies

Preparation
1. Mix the fragrant rice, red curry paste, fish sauce, sugar, ground coconut, and eggs together and mix until sticky. Make into large balls, approximately 6cms diameter.
2. Heat the oil in a deep fryer to medium (about 180 degrees celsius), and fry the rice balls until they go brown. You want the ball to cook slowly so it cooks through the centre.
3. Fry the dried chillies for 10 seconds.
4. To serve, break the ball up, add some lemon juice, fish sauce, fried chilli and mix together.
5. This dish is normally served with raw pork nam.

Serve With
Coriander Leaves
Mint Leaves
Bi Chaplu
Lettuce
Basil Leaves

Another Japanese influence, these salmon and rice rolls served with wasabi are made with Thai fragrant rice rather than sushi rice and is all the better for it! We like things spicy in Thailand, and so I've put some extra wasabi in the rice.

Ingredients
150 gms Salmon
1 Teaspoon Salt
3 Teaspoons Sugar
2 Tablespoons Vinegar
250 gms Cooked Fragrant Rice
Seaweed Paper
Wasabi Paste

Preparation
1. Mix fragrant rice, salt, sugar, and vinegar together and leave in the fridge while you cook the rest.
2. Fry the salmon until cooked, then mince the flesh.
3. Lay a sheet of seaweed paper on a sushi matt. If you don't have a sushi mat, a cloth or plastic bag can be used.
4. Spread on a thin layer of rice, the a little wasabi, then a thin layer of salmon.
5. Roll it up, use the sushi mat to pull it tight together.
6. Leave it rolled up in the fridge for 30 minutes.
7. Dip a sharp knife in water, then use it to cut the roll into slices.

Serve With
Soy Sauce and Wasabi

Another influence from Japan, these rice and cucumber rolls are a fun gop-gam dish to eat with wasabi and Thai beer. The sesame seeds give a nutty taste, the rice gives bulk and the cucumber crispness.

Ingredients
1 Cucumber
Sesame Seeds (Toasted)
150 gms Cooked Fragrant Rice
1 Tablespoon White Wine Vinegar
1 Tablespoon Sugar
1 Teaspoon Salt

Preparation
1. Mix fragrant rice with the vinegar, sugar, and salt.
2. Chop the cucumber into long batons.
3. I use a plastic bag to roll up the sushi, but it's more common to use a sushi mat - a mat made of sticks used to roll up sushi.
4. Moisten the mat with a spray of water.
5. Spread the toasted sesame seeds over the mat, then spread the rice over the top.
6. Put a line of cucumber batons along one edge of the mat, and use the mat to roll up the rice around the cucumber.
7. Cut into 3-4 cms pieces with a wet knife.

Serve With
Wasabi & Soy Sauce

A common rice dish with rice well cooked so that it is soft and soaks up all the flavours from the rest of the ingredients. You could almost call it 'mushy'. ;-)

Ingredients
250 gms Fragrant Rice
4 Shitake Mushrooms
20 gms Champignon
50 gms Pork
10 gms Cashewnuts
2 Garlic Cloves
10 gms Chopped Onions
1 Tablespoon Oil
2 Tablespoons Chinese Sake (or Chinese Whiskey)
2-3 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
1 Teaspoon Dark Soy Sauce
Basil Leaves

Preparation
1. Slice the shitake mushrooms finely. If they are dried, soak them for 30 minutes first.
2. Chop the pork and garlic and fry in oil over a medium heat until the pork is cooked.
3. Add the chopped onion, sliced shitake mushrooms, cashew nuts, champignon, sake, light soy sauce and dark soy sauce.
4. Fry and stir for 30 more seconds to mix.
5. Place in a bowl and steam for 10 minutes to make the rice softer, remove and garnish with basil.

This dish is also sometimes made with noodles, the chicken is cooked in a large stock pan and the resulting rich (slightly fatty) chicken stock is used to cook the rice. It's worth buying a corn fed chicken for this as the fat under the skin will give it extra flavour. 'Pickle Garlic Water' is the juice from a jar of pickled garlic used to impart a strong garlic and slight vinegar taste. Daikon Radish is a large white radish used to give flavour to soups, if you can't locate this vegetable use Swedes instead (Rutabagas).
There are 3 parts to this dish, a main plate for rice and chicken, a small soup bowl, and a sauce used to spice the dish.

Under the sweet sausage is favoured rice, this is a typical farmers lunch, wrapped in banana leaves, steamed, and taken into the field to eat when they are hungry. The Thai sweet sausage you buy in Asian grocers in packs, its a very famous style of almost candied pork and if often used in spicy dishes to balance the spice.

Stir fried rice is a great way to use up uneaten rice, but just because it's a meal made from leftovers doesn't mean it can't be rasty! You can substitute chicken or fish for the pork, whatever you have leftover.

Ingredients for 2 People
500 gms Ready Cooked Rice
100 gms Pork
3 Garlic Cloves
1 Egg
1/2 White Pepper
1 Teaspoon Sugar
1 Tablespoon Lght Soya Sauce
1 Tablespoon Fish Sauce
2 Tablespoons Oil
50 gms Red Pepper
50 gms Carrot
50 gms Onion
Chop Coriander Leaves for Garnish.

Preparation
1. Chop the garlic and fry with a little oil.
2. Chop the pork into small bite sized pieces, and put into the frying pan to cook for 2 minutes.
3. Add the egg, mix the egg to break it up as it cooks
4. Add the rice and fry until it is warmed through.
5. Chop the red pepper, carrot and onion into tiny pieces.
6. Put the carrot, red pepper, onion, light soy sauce, fish sauce, sugar, and white pepper into the frying pan and cook for 2 minutes, stirring to mix.
7. Add a little coriander to garnish.

Serve With
Cucumber
Tomato
Salad

This rice is a typical rice dish, made with lotus nuts and dried Chinese herbs. It's typical in Thailand to pad rice with dressings to make it more interesting as a daily food, as you can see with the tomatoes and rolled egg in the photograph. Don't worry if you can't find all the herbs, the most important one for this recipe is lotus nuts, and you can usually buy Chinese herbs in packets, so simply choose a blend that includes lotus nuts.

Ingredients
Un cook Rice
50 gms Peanuts
50 gms Lotus Nuts
50 gms Astragalus
50 gms Dried Lycium Fruit
1 Tablespoon Oil
3 Garlic Cloves
2 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
Pinch of Sugar
Pinch of Black Pepper

Preparation
1. Soak the nuts in warm water for 30 minutes to soften them. Mix into the rice and cook together with the rice.
2. Chop the garlic, and fry in a little oil to release the flavour. Add the cooked rice and all the other ingredients and fry, stirring as it cooks for 2-3 minutes.

Serve With
Fried Egg Omelet
Tomato
Cucumber

More use of my traditional pot with this recipe. This is a slow cooked rice and pork dish, that couldn't be simpler to make. I cook this on a raised stone platform over the fire (the candles in the photograph are just to make the photo more interesting!) but you can also just make this in a rice cooker.

Ingredients
50 gms Fragrant Rice
50 gms Red Rice
100 gms Pork Three Layers (Mat+Fat+Skin)
1/2 Teaspoon With Pepper
5 gms Dried Chillies
2 Teaspoons Shrimp Paste
6 Garlic Cloves
6 Small Red Onions
4 Tablespoons Coconut Milk
1 Teaspoon Salt
1 Teaspoon Sugar
2 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
1 Tablespoon Oil

Preparation
1. Slice the pork and fry till browned and cooked through.
2. Put all the ingredients except the two types of rice, together in a blender and blend until fine.
3. Add this to the pork and fry this for 10 seconds just to release some flavour, add the rice and mix together, then transfer the whole thing to the pot.
4. Pour enough water into the pot so that there is 2cms layer of water above the rice.
5. Cover and put on the stove until the rice has absorbed all the water and cooked through. The water should boil, the rice will cook through and all the flavours be absorbed by the rice.
6. Obviously if you're using a rice cooker, you transfer the ingredients into the cooker instead of the pot, add the water and let the rice cooker do it's job.

The best bacon for this is traditional bacon. When you fry it, fat should come from frying bacon, not water. If your bacon produces lots of water, or worse, that chemical liquid that turns brown when fried, it's best to get your meat from elsewhere.
When you make this fried rice dish, keep the fat from frying the bacon and fry the rice in it, the rice will soak up the bacon fat and be flavored by it.

Ingredients

200 gms Pre-Cooked Rice
100 gms Asian Mushrooms
100 gms Chopped Long Green Beans
4-6 Bacon Rashers
1 Tablespoon Fish Sauce
1 Tablespoon Oyster Sauce

Preparation
1. Fry the bacon until crispy, remove from the pan and cut into small pieces. Set aside.
2. Fry the mushrooms on a low heat in the fat that came off the bacon until cooked and soft.
3. Add the pre-cooked rice, add the bacon piece, the chopped pieces of long bean, the fish sauce, and the oyster sauce.
4. Fry the rice for 3-5 minutes turning it over to warm it through.
5. Serve with chillies, spring onion and cucumber.

This dish is Koa Cruck Kapi Song Kruang', 'Kruang' means dressed, Koa means rice. This dish is literally fried rice dressed with all the trimmings. In the photograph you can see sweet pork, sliced omelette, onions, spring onions, coriander leaves, and of course sliced chillies.

We have a flower in Thailand, known as the Butterfly Pea Flower, or just the blue pea flower, dok anchan. It grows in the border along the street next to my garden and is edible and used to colour rice. I've seen it many times, and wondered if the gardeners spray any chemicals on it or whether I could pick it and make the blue 'Thai Pea Flower Rice'. Well yesterday, the street gardeners were here, and I got talking to the woman tending to the border. She never uses chemicals, the blue flowers are from her garden, and she also showed me where she'd planted some 'Thai Kaprow Basil'. It seems some of the houses don't like the basil, I've asked her to plant it next to my house if they ask for it to be removed!
With freshly picked Dok Anchan, I can make my rice!

This is more about presentation than ingredients. It is a tulip garden made from colored quail eggs & cucumber on a plate of golden rice. The rice is flavored with Ketchup, Oyster sauce and Maggi Sauce - the German made savory sauce that is popular in Thailand.