This dish is a typical Thai style salad, consisting of bamboo, chilli, and mint and finished off with pan roasted peanuts. It is made with a Thai mortar & pestle, the larger sized Thai mortar is needed for this you cannot make it in a small western spice mortar. For this dish you will need toasted sticky rice, an ingredient explained in the ingredients menu.

Ingredients
100 gms Bamboo Shoots
10 gms Red & Green Chillis
4 Garlic Cloves
2 Small Red Onion
2 Tablespoons Old Fish Sauce
1 Tablespoon Fish Sauce
50 ml Water
10 gms. Spring Onion
5 gms. Mint
1 Tablespoon Peanuts
1 Teaspoon Lemon Juice
1 Tablespoon Toasted Sticky Rice

Preparation
1. Put a frying pan on a very high heat and add the chilli, garlic, and red onion.
2. Fry for 5 minutes then pound it in a Thai mortar to break down the mixture.
3. Grate the bamboo finely.
4. Place the bamboo, old fish sauce and water into a cooking pot, and boil it for 5 minutes.
5. Take the bamboo mixture and add to the mortar. Pound the whole mixture, together with the fish sauce, lemon juice, toasted sticky rice.
6. Fry the peanuts in a small dry frying pan for 2 minutes until brown.
7. Serve the salad on a plate topped with the peanuts.

Serve With
Cabbage
Cucumber
Mint
Sticky Rice

Thai food can be overwhelming, with lots of strange ingredients and foreign vegetables. So here we have a very simple and very tasty recipe using sardines! We used sardines in oil, but you can also use sardines in tomato sauce, in which case you don't need the tomato puré. This should be served with fragrant Thai rice, but can also be served along with salads.

Ingredient for 2 People
2 Cans of Sardines in Oil
2 Teaspoons of Tomato Puré
20 gms Lemon Grass
20 gms Coriander Leaves
50 gms Onion
2 Red Chillis
2 Bird Chillis
1 Tablespoon Lemon Juice
1 Tablespoon Fish Sauce

Preparation
1. Remove the sardines from the can.
2. Mix the oil from the can with the tomato puré in a small mixing bowl.
3. Slice the onion, lemon grass, and chilles, and add to the bowl.
4. Add the fish sauce and lemon juice and mix all the ingredients together well.
5. Pour over the sardines.
6. Chop the coriander put around the edge of the sardine plate.

Serve With
Hot rice or salads.

This is another 'gop-gam' style dish, a small spicy dish designed to be eaten with beer or whiskey to cut through the alcohol. Its bulk comes from glass noodle and nuts, with pork mince and spicy onion salad to add the strong flavours.

Ingredients for 2 People (Medium Hot)
100 gms Pork Mince
100 gms Glass Noodle
50 gms Peanut
20 gms Bird Chillies
1 Spring Onion
1 Sprig Coriander
2 Tablespoons Lemon Juice
3 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
1 Teaspoon Salt
1/2 Teaspoon Sugar
200 ml Water
2 Garlic Cloves

Preparation
1. Boil water in the saucepan, add the salt and chop the garlic and add it into the pan.
2. When the water is boiling, add the pork mince and glass noodle and simmer for 4 minutes. Then pour out half of the water.
3. Chop the chillies, spring onion, and coriander into a pot with glass noodles.
4. Toast the peanuts in a dry frying pan to bring out the flavour.
5. Add the fish sauce, sugar, lemon juice, and peanuts and then mix.

Serve With
Lettuce
Tomato
Beer or Spirits!

This is a sauce, or is it a salad? It's difficult to classify Thai dishes into English recipe classifications, so lets call it a salsa. It is normally served with rice, a shared dish is placed in the centre of the table and guests take a spoonful onto their plate to eat as they like. It is made from Thai winged beans, but long green beans can be used instead. The flavor is of coconut, both from coconut milk in the liquid and from desiccated coconut added to the salsa at the end. This is a dish suitable for 'gop-gam', a party dish served with alcoholic drinks.

Ingredients for 2 People
50 gms Pork Mince
30 gms Cooked Shrimp
20 gms Peanut Toasted in Dry Frying Pan
10 gms Chopped Spring Onion
30 gms Chopped Wing Beans (or Long Green Beans)
10 gms Chopped Coriander Leaves
2 Chopped Big Red Chillies
3 Garlic Cloves
4 Tablespoons Coconut Milk
1 Teaspoon Dry Coconut
1 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
2 Tablespoons Lime Juice
1 Teaspoon Salt
1 Teaspoon Sugar
1 Teaspoon Dried Flaked Chilli
170 ml Water

Preparation
All the vegetables and meats should be chopped into fine small pieces for this recipe. The peanuts should be lightly browned in a dry frying pan and chopped or pounded in a mortar. If you are using uncooked shrimp, cook them with the pork, for cooked shrimp they can be added later.
1. Boil the water add the salt, and chopped garlic.
2. Add the pork to the water by forcing it through a very course sieve, this will keep the mince into nice and separate pieces.
3. Cook for 1 minute.
4. Pour off half of the cooking water.
5. Chop the shrimp meat into small pieces and add to the pan.
6. Add the chopped spring onion, chopped wing bean, coriander, and toasted peanut, into the pan and mix all the ingredients well.
7. Mix the chilli powder, chilli, fish sauce, lime juice, and sugar, in with the rest of the ingredients in the pan.
8. When serving place the salsa in a dish and add a little dried shredded coconut to the top.

Serve With
Salads, rice, whisky, or beer

The recipe for salty eggs is here, you need to make it 20 days in advance. This dish is a combination of spice shocks together with salt shocks, both very strong tastes! You should eat it with plain rice to soften the flavours.

Ingredients for 3 People
4 Salty Eggs (Hard-Boiled)
2 Garlic Cloves
5 Bird Chilles
1 Meduim Onion
1 Tablespoon Chopped Coriander Leaves
5 gms Mint Leaves
1 Teaspoon Fish Sauce
2 Tablespoons Lemon Juice

Preparation
1. Slice the eggs into halves, take the spoon and scoop out the egg from the shell - it's the easiest way to remove the shells.
2. Put the garlic and bird chilies into the blender and blend to a fine mix. Add the fish sauce, lemon juice and chopped coriander and mix together.
3. Place the eggs onto a serving plate, slice the onions and put them on top, then spoon the chilli mixture over the eggs.
4. Garnish with a few sprigs of mint.

Serve With
Plain Rice Soup

I wondered whether the word 'spicy' in the name of this dish was redundant. Perhaps I should say 'non-spicy' for the few salads that aren't spicy!

Ingredients for 2 People
8 Prawns
200 ml Water
1 Tablespoon Chopped Lemon Grass
1 Tablespoon Chopped Chillies
1 Clove Garlic Chopped
1 Teaspoon Chopped Spring Onions
5 gms Mint Leaves
2 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
1 Tablespoon Lemon Juice
1/4 Teaspoon Sugar

Preparation
1. Boil the shrimp in water for 1 minute and set aside.
2. Make the spicy sauce by mixing the lemon grass, chilli, garlic, chopped spring onions, with the fish sauce, sugar, and lemon juice.
3. Layer the salad, with a bed of mint, a layer of shrimp and pour the sauce over the top.

Serve With
Lettuce
Cabbage

A spicy salad made from liver, it's cheap Isan (North East Thailand) peasant food. Yesterday I made deep fried cheese sacks and today I need to balance that with healthier, simpler foods from my home region. Just because it's healthy doesn't mean it isn't tasty!

Ingredients 2 People
50 gms Pork Liver
300 ml Water
1 Tablespoon Salt
1 Tablespoon Chopped Bird Chillies
1 Tablespoon Chopped Red Onions
2 Kaffir Citrus Leaves
1 Tablespoon Chopped Spring Onion
1 Tablespoon Chopped Coriander Leaves
10 gms Mint Leaves
1 Teaspoon Flaked Chillies
1 Tablespoon Lemon Juice
3 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
4 Garlic Cloves

Preparation
1. Peel and chop the garlic, then put into the water together with the sale and boil.
2. When the water is boiling slice the pork liver thinly and put into the boiling water for 5 minutes. Remove and place in a serving bowl.
3. Add the chilli, red onion, spring onion, coriander, flaked chilli, lemon juice and fish sauce and mix in the bowl.
4. Sliced the kaffir leaves finely, and add to the bowl, together with the mint leaves.

Serve With
Sticky Rice
Green Bean
Cabbage

We Thai people and our spicy salads! This one is a pork mince salad with soya beansprouts and lots of mint. We often use mint in salads, it adds a pleasant freshness and is very easy to grow.

Ingredients
40 gms Pork Mince
2 Eggs (Hard Boiled)
20 gms Cucumber
20 gms Soya Beansprouts
1 Teaspoon Dried Flaked Chillies
1 Tablespoon Chopped Bird Chillies
1 Tablespoon Lemon Juice
1 Tablespoon Fish Sauce
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
5 gms Mint Leaves
5 gms Coriander Leaves

Preparation
1. Cook the pork mince together with salt in a saucepan, keep stirring it until it's cooked. Add the beansprouts just to warm through quickly, then turn the heat off.
2. Peel and chop the cucumber into tiny squares, add to the pan with the pork.
3. Add the fish sauce, flaked chillies, chopped bird chillies, lemon juice, mint and mix.
4. Slice the boiled eggs onto a serving plate, and pour the pork & soya mix over the boiled egg.

Serve With
Green Vegetables
Thai Fragrant Rice

A spicy squid salad made from fried chopped squid (calamari) and a bed of chillies, mint, coriander leaves (cilantro) and other green vegetables.

Ingredients for 4 People
200 gms Squid (Calamari)
100 ml Water
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
1 Teaspoon Vinegar
2 Teaspoons Toasted Pounded Rice
2 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
2 Tablespoons Chopped Chillies
1 Tablespoon Dried Flaked Chillies
2 Tablespoons Lemon Juice
1 Tablespoon Chopped Spring Onion
1 Tablespoon Chopped Coriander Leaves
1 Teaspoon Chopped Garlic
Mint Leaves to Garnish

Preparation
1. Boil the water, salt and vinegar.
2. Chop the squid into small pieces, add into the boiling water and cook for 1/2 minute.
3. Drain the squid, and mix with all the other ingredients.
4. Serve on a plate garnished with mint.

Serve With
Sticky Rice
Fragrant Rice

This is a great way to use soya beansprouts in a salad. Like a typical Thai salad it's spicy from all the chilli, for this it's best to use the freshest soya beansprouts you can find, they will add a sweetness to balance the spicy chilli taste.

Ingredients
4 Hotdogs
100 gms Soya Beansprouts
200 ml Hot Water
4 Bird Chillies
1 Tablespoon Chopped Lemon Grass
1 Teaspoon Lemon Juice
1/3 Teaspoons Fish Sauce
4 Cherry Tomatoes
Oil for frying

Preparation
1. Clean the beansprouts and remove the root, soak in hot water for 30 seconds.
2. Chop the hotdog into small pieces, deep fry it in hot oil for 30 seconds and drain.
3. Mix the beansprouts and hotdog pieces with chopped bird chillies, fish sauce, lemon juice, chopped lemon grass.
4. Garnish with cherry tomatoes halves and lettuce.

Serve With
Lettuce

You can either use pork crackling, the pork snack made from the skin of the pig, or fish stomachs you can get from Asian supermarkets.

Ingredients
1 Packet Pork Crackling
20 gms Butter Beans
5 Chillies
2 Garlic Cloves
2 Tablespoons Lemon Juice
2 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
1 Tablespoon Vinegar
1/2 Teaspoon Sugar
1 Tablespoon Chopped Coriander Leaves
2 Tablespoons Chopped Onions

Preparation
1. Soak the pork crackling in warm water for 5 minutes, drain and set aside.
2. Boil water, add the butter beans and boil for 3 minutes.
3. In a Thai mortar, pound the chilli, and garlic until finely pulped. Add the lemon juice, fish sauce, vinegar and sugar and pound again to mix.
4. Mix with the pork crackling, and butter beans, chopped coriander, and chopped onion and serve.

This pork & mushroom salad is served with a spicy sauce poured over it. Use pork with fat and rind attached, it gives more texture and flavour.

Ingredients
100 gms Pork with Rind and Fat
50 gms Red Pepper
50 gms Oyster Mushrooms
500 ml Water
2 Teaspoons Salt
1/3 Teaspoon White Pepper
1 Tablespoon Chilli Paste
1 Teaspoon Shrimp Oil Paste
2 Tablespoons Evaporated Milk
2 Tablespoons Lemon Juice
2 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
2 Tablespoons Dried Flaked Chilli
1 Tablespoon Chopped Coriander Leaves

Preparation
1. Boil water in a saucepan, add the salt and pepper.
2. Chop the pork to a strips and put into boiling water. Cook for 5 minutes.
3. Clean and slice the oyster mushrooms and red peppers and put into the boiling water with the pork. Cook for 3 more minutes, then rmeove and drain.
4. For the sauce, put the chilli paste, shrimp oil, lemon juice, fish sauce, flaked chilli and evaporated milk into a saucepan and heat for 1 minute, stirring all the time to mix.
5. Turn off the heat, then stir in the coriander leaves into the sauce.
6. When serving, spoon the sauce over the meat and vegetables.

A very simple and tasty way to eat seaweed. This makes a pleasant change from spicy Thai salads and green western salads.

Ingredients
70 gms Sliced Kelp Seaweed
30 gms Sliced Red Pepper
20 Chopped Spring Onion
1 Tablespoon Toasted Sesame Seed
1 Tablespoon Sesame Oil
1 Teaspoon Salt
1 Teaspoon Lemon Juice

Preparation
1. Mix all ingredients together, stir for 30 seconds and serve it raw.

Another way we eat chicken feet, as a spicy salad item. In Thailand when we buy these, they often have the bones removed, although in the west it's more common to see chicken feet with the bones still intact. You can also substitute wing-tips if these chicken appendages aren't to your tastes. I promise no more chicken feet recipes until Halloween now.

Ingredients
250 gms Chicken Feet
1 Tablespoon Salt
400 ml Water for Boiling
1 Tablespoon Chopped Red, Green Chillies
1 Tablespoon Chopped Coriander Leaves
2 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
1/2 Teaspoon Sugar
1 Tablespoon Lemon Juice
4-5 Cherry Tomatoes

Preparation
1. Bring a pan of the water & salt to the boil.
2. Clean the feet and chop off the claws. Put into the boiling water and boil for 30 minutes.
3. Mix the chopped chilli, fish sauce, sugar, lemon juice and chopped coriander leaves together.
4. When then chicken is cooked, put into the plate, pour the sauce over it and garnish with cherry tomatoes and other salad items if you wish.

Pieces of white squid and Doc Kae (a tree flower) make up this typical Northern Thai spicy salad.

Ingredients
30 gms Doc Kae
30 gms Chopped Squid
30 gms Pork Mince
30 gms Sliced Onion
20 gms Chopped Chilli
10 gms Chopped Coriander
2 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
1 Tablespoon Lemon Juice
1 Tablespoon Sugar Syrup
Water for Boiling
1 Teaspoon Salt
1/2 White Pepper

Preparation
1. Boil the water add salt and white pepper.
2. Add the squid, pork mince, doc kae, and sliced onion and boil for 2 minutes then put onto the plate.
3. Pound the chilli, fish sauce, lemon juice, and syrup together until the chilli is ground up. Spoon over the fish plate ingredients.

A spicy mixture of Thai vegetables and chopped shrimp served with a large helping of chopped lemon grass.

Ingredients
10 gms Lemon Grass
10 gms Small Red Onion
10 gms Coriander Leaves
2 Garlic Cloves
5 Chillies
2 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
1 Tablespoon Lime Juice
1/2 Teaspoon Sugar
100 gms Pork Meat
10 Shrimps

Preparation
1. Slice the pork meat into squares, clean and shell the shrimp and remove the thread gut by cutting down the back.
2. Boil a small pan of water and cook the pork and shrimp for 1 minute to just cook it.
3. Slice the lemon grass, coriander leaves and red onion finely.
4. Into a food blender, blend the chillies and garlic until they are finely chopped, and mix with all the other ingredients.

The 'noodles' you can see in the photograph, are made from sliced omelette and provide the bulk for this salad. Salmon is expensive, and so we like to flake it to make a little go a long way and bulk it out with other ingredients. The rest of the ingredients are very typical of a Thai salad, mint, coriander and killer spicy chillies!

Ingredients
2 Eggs
50 gms Sliced Salmon
1 Pinch White Pepper
1 Pinch Salt
1 Tablesoon Oil
1 Tablespoon Fish Sauce
1 Teasoon Sugar
1 Tablespoon Chopped Bird Chillies
1 Tablespoon Lime Juice
1 Tablespoon Chopped Spring Onion
1 Tablespoon Chopped Coriander Leaves
Mint Leaves
Sliced Cherry Tomatoes (Optional)

Preparation
1. Whip the eggs with white pepper and salt together until mixed.
2. Heat oil in a frying pan, add the whipped eggs and cook it as a thin omelette.
3. Slice it into noodle shapes.
4. Mix with the flaked salmon.
5. Mix all the ingredients together, and mix into the salad.

Danger, here be monsters! This is the typical dish of Thailand consisting mainly of papaya, chillis, seasonings, chillis and more chillis. If you like chilli this is the dish for you. The recipe varies from province to province, in the North East they add some fish sauce for flavour, in other provinces it can contain pounded small crabs, or pounded pickled crab. Sometimes mango is added to give a sour taste. The recipe below is typical of North East Thailand.

Ingredients for 2 People ( medium spicy )
1 Papaya
5 Bird Chillis
5 Big Red Chillis
2 Clove Garlic
1 Lemon
1 Tablespoon of Old Salty Fish
1 Tablespoon of Fish Sauce
1/2 Teaspoon Sugar
4 Cherry Tomatoes

Serve With
Any Salad of Vegetables

Preparation
Importance: you must have a proper Thai Mortar to pound the ingredients.
1. Chop the papaya into fine strips.
2. Pound the garlic and chilli to break it up
3. Slice the lemon and tomatoes.
4. Add the old fish sauce, fish sauce, sugar,1 slice of lemon and sliced tomatoes, and pound them a few times.
5. Add the papaya and pound again untill everything is mixed.
6. Taste it and add more fish sauce to salt, or more chilli to spice it to your preference.

Spicy Pork Salad is a Thai style salad. This is a dish of spicy pork that is served as a snack at parties or at home with beer or whisky. You might have a beer and pizza, but Thai people have a beer and spicy pork. The chilli content in the dish 'cuts' through the beer. Medium hot.

Ingredients for 2 people
200 gms Pork
150 mlts Water
1 Teaspoon Salt
4 Red Chillis
2 Green Chillis
3 Garlic Clove
2 Teaspoon Lemon Juice
1 Tablespoon Fish Sauce.
1/2 an Onion.
1 Teaspoon Chopped Celery

Serve With
Salad Vegetables
Beer or Whisky

Preparation
1. Clean the pork and slice into strips.
2. Put the water in pan to boil, add the salt.
3. When the water is boiling, add pork in the pan and boil for 2 minutes.
4. Put the chilli, garlic, fish sauce, lemon, celery, into a blender and blend until fine.
5. Chop the celery into tiny pieces, take only 1 teaspoon and put it in the mix with the spicy sauce.
6. Take the pork of the hot water put in the plate and add some salad vegetables to decorate it.
7. Pour the spicy sauce ontop of the pork and serve with drink or for a snack.

This is a great way to use tinned tuna in a Thai style. 'Yum' in a Thai dish means its a spicy version, Yum Tona is spicy tuna. This is a very very simple dish to make and is excellent when served with rice soup or as a side dish to other meals.

Ingredients for 2 People
2 Cans Tuna (Approx 160gms) in Oil
10 gms Lemon Grass
10 gms Spring Onion
10 gms Mint
5 Bird Chillies
1 Tablespoon Lemon Juice
1 Tablespoon Fish Sauce

Preparation
1. Place the tuna in a mixing bowl (including the oil).
2. Chop the chillies, spring onion, mint and lemon grass into very fine pieces.
3. Mix into the tuna.
4. Add the lemon juice and fish sauce and mix well.
5. Serve.

Som Tam, the famous (or rather infamous) chilli-papaya salad has many variants. This is Som Tam Mia Noi, Mia Noi means minor wife. The name is because it has many ingredients the same as a wandering husband has many girlfriends! Here I've made it with cucumber as it's main ingredient. If you don't like the monosodium glutamate in this recipe, you can use sugar, but MSG is the correct thing to use here.

Ingredients
100 gms Cucumber ( Grated )
100 gms Carrots ( Grated )
100 gms Bamboo ( Grated )
100 gms Soya Bean Sprouts
100 gms Sausage Sliced
100 gms Cooked Shrimp
5-8 Large Chillies
1-2 Garlic Cloves
2-3 Cherry Tomatoes
1 Tablespoon Shrimp Paste
2-3 Tablespoons Fish Sauce (or old fish sauce)
1/2 Teaspoon Monosodium Glutamate
1-2 Tablespoons Lemon Juice

Preparation
1. Pounds the chillies, garlic and shrimp paste together in a Thai mortar.
2. Add the fish sauce, cherry tomatoes, MSG, lemon juice and continue pounding.
3. Add all the remaining ingredients and mix.
4. Taste and adjust the seasoning.

Serve with raw cabbage and lettuce

This uses the dried squid cut into pieces in a salad. When I visited Holland, all the salads were mayonnaise with chopped vegetables, in Thailand all the salads are chopped vegetables mixed with chillies! Normally a Thai salad would use fish sauce, but the squid in this one provides the salt and fish flavours.

Ingredients
100 gms Dried Squid
1-2 Onions
40 gms Chopped Celery
1-2 Chopped Large Chillies
1-2 Tablespoons Lemon Juice
1 Teaspoon Sugar

Preparation
1. Fry the squid for 1 minute in hot oil, this will crunch it up and help bring out the flavour.
2. Dray it carefully on kitch paper to remove surface oil.
3. Chop it into strips.
4. Mix all the ingredients together, serve.

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.