This is the Thai version of muffins, they are made with rice flour, scented very gently with rose or other flower water and steamed rather than baked. To cook this you will need foil or paper cups, the dough mixture is runny and needs to be held in a cup during cooking. You can see from the pink muffin sliced in half in the picture above, that the mixture forms light moist muffins.

Ingredients for 4 Muffins
125 gms Rice Flour
125 gms Sugar
125 ml Rose Water
1 Teaspoon Fresh Yeast
1 Teaspoon Baking Soda
Food Colouring (Optional)

Preparation
1. Mix the yeast with the rice flour, add the rose water little by little and mix until the flour is soft.
2. Add sugar, and the remaining rose water and the baking soda.
3. At this point you can add 5 drops of food colouring. Or even divide the mixture into sections and colour each section separately.
4. Stir the mixture well and place in a covered bowl, leave for 1-2 hours for bubbles to form.
5. The mixture should be thick but still fluid. Fill each paper or foil cup to just below the top, the mixture will expand during cooking.
6. Place in a Chinese steamer for 10 minutes. You can check they are cooked by sticking a tooth pick or fork into the centre and if it comes out clean it is cooked inside.
7. Serve cold.

This is a typical handmade sweet (Kanom), with a texture similar to turkish delight and a rose scent. If you cannot obtain rose water, it is possible to use vanilla essence in water, or lemon or orange juice, making different types of sweet, but the authentic flavour is rose water.

Ingredients for Family
500 gms Cassava Root
300 gms Sugar
100 ml Rose Water
100 gms Desiccated Coconut.

Preparation
1. Peel the cassava leaving only the white flesh.
2. Grate the cassava flesh until finely shredded.
3. Mix the water with the sugar and cassava then blend it in a food processor.
4. Divide into portions for steaming, wrap each portion in aluminium foil to form parcels. You will cut these portions into smaller cubes later.
5. Steam the parcels for 25 minutes.
6. Leave to cool in the fridge.
7. Remove the foil, cut the cassava sweets into bite sized pieces.
8. Dust with the shredded coconut.

These should be eaten with care, it's common in Europe to eat raw beef, but it's considered unsafe to eat raw pork except in a very few cases. These parcels should be prepared only using very fresh farm grown pork that has been treated. If you are uncertain about the quality of the meat you can always cook it, or alternatively you can buy branded parcels from Asian supermarkets.

Ingredients
500 gms Pork Red Meat
10 Garlic Cloves
5 Bird Chillies
2 Tablespoons Salt
5 Tablespoons Lemon Juice
Tinfoil plastic bags or Banana Leaf

Preparation
1. Clean the pork and put into a blender/food processor.
2. Peel the garlic and add to the blender.
3. Add the chillies and salt. Blend until it completely mixed.
4. Add lemon juice and mix.
5. Make into parcels, and wrap in the banana leaves or tin foil
6. Chill in the fridge for 5-8 hours if you like more sour leave it for 2-3 day in wram place.

Tips
1. You can eat these raw, or if you prefer you can also cook this dish in the oven or by frying them. If you like spicy food you can cut up red chillies and push a piece into the centre of each parcel.
2. You can add sticky rice or fragrant rice too if you wish, but I prefer not to. Simply precook or pre steam the rice and use 50 gms sticky rice to each 1kg pork.

Serve With
Mint
Coriander
Chilli
Peanut
Lettuce

These balls are a doughy fried snack with a slightly sweet taste. It's quite tricky to get the deep fat frying oil the right temperature to match the size of the ball you're making. Too hot and the outside will burn before the inside gets cooked. Too cold and they soak up oil. The best way to strike a balance is to heat the oil to 170 degrees Celsius, try frying a practice ball until it's brown, then cut it open to see if it's cooked!

Ingredients
150 gms Wheat Flour
1 Egg White
50 gms Sugar
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
1 Teapsoon Baking Soda (Raising agent Soda + Citric Acid)
1 Tablespoon Water
1 Tablespoon Pork Oil (Pork Lard)

Preparation
1. Sift the flour, with the baking soda (use a packet raising agent, it normally also has citric acid in it) and salt.
2. Mix in the pork lard.
3. Whisk the egg white until frothy then mix with the sugar.
4. Add the egg white & sugar mix, together with the water to the flour.
5. Mix it to a soft dough which will froth due to the baking soda.
6. Heat the oil to 170 degrees Celsius.
7. Leave the dough for 5 minutes till expand.
8. Oil your fingers with a little cold vegetable oil, take a little of the dough in your hand and roll into a ball and sprinkle with sesame seeds.
9. Drop it into the oil, you will find it easier to do that without getting burned if you use a spoon to lower it into the oil.

This is perfect picnic food, the sticky rice forms good easy to eat balls, and the fried fish filling adds the flavour. These are very easy to eat, leaving no mess. In the photograph above, you can see where I've broken open one of the balls, so you can see the flaked fish inside.

Ingredients
150 gms Cooked Sticky Rice
80 gms White Fish, (Cod Haddock Hake etc.)
2 Teaspoons Salt
1 Tablespoons Light Soya Sauce
2 Tablespoons Oil
1/2 Teaspoon Black Pepper

Preparation
1. Put the oil into the pan over a medium heat.
2. Clean and chop the fish into steaks, fry until any water has been cooked off and the fish is dry. Remove the bones and flake the fish while it's still in the pan.
3. Add salt to the pan, add light soy sauce and black pepper
and fry continue to fry the fish until it is brown.
4. Take 30 gms sticky rice in your hand, flatten it to a disc, put a spoonful of the fish meat into the centre and fold the sticky rice over it to form a ball.

Serve With
Sweet Chilli Sauce
Coriander Leaves
Spicy Thai Salads

For this dish the chicken is prepared with lots of salt and left for several days, after enough time the salt reacts with the chicken to part salt the meat.

Ingredients
200 gms Chicken Mince
3 Garlic Cloves
2 Tablespoons Salt
1 Tablespoon Chopped Bird Chillies
Aluminium Foil

Preparation
1. Mix the chicken mince with salt and chopped chillies.
2. Form a sausage shape with the mince, and double wrap the small sausages in foil.
3. Leave in the fridge for 3 days.
4. Either barbecue the foil packets on a stove, or in a dry frying pan (still in the foil), for 10 minutes to cook them.

Serve With
Coriander Leaves
Bird Chillies
Sticky Rice
Mint Leaves

These look like pancakes, but are sticky rice patties with egg soaked in them. They can be fried or barbecued and make a delicious and very easy to make snack.

Ingredients
300 gms Steamed Sticky Rice
2 Eggs
1 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
1/3 Teaspoon Black Pepper
1/3 Teaspoon Salt
2 Teablespoons Oil

Preparation
1. Whip the eggs with the salt, pepper, and fish sauce.
2. Put oil into a frying pan over a high heat.
3. Take a handful of sticky rice and flatten it out to a circle. For frying they should be about 2cms thick.
4. Dip the rice into the whipped egg, and fry in the hot pan, turning every 30 seconds until cooked.

These eggs are sticky (glutinous) rice wrapped around a salty egg yolk and deep fried. I know what you're thinking - how can I keep an egg yolk from breaking while I wrap stick rice around it?! It's very easy with salty eggs, the egg yolk of a salted egg is quite solid and doesn't break. I eat these with a spicy dipping sauce, the sauce adds the flavour, the rice and egg form the bulk of the snack.
The golden rule is: it must be sticky rice, normal rice will not work and it must be a salty egg.

Ingredients for 3 People
5 Salty Eggs Yolks
200 gms Pre-steamed Sticky Rice
1 Tablespoon Salt
Oil for Deep Frying

Preparation
1. Take a lump (approx 1/5th) of the sticky rice in your hand and press it into a bowl shape.
2. Take one of the salty egg yolks and drop it into the middle, then fold up the edges to enclose the yolk.
3. Heat the oilt o 190 degrees celsius and deep fry the sticky rice ball. Cook until light brown and the yolk will be soft, cook it to darker brown for a hard yolk.

Inside the breadcrumbs there are herbs such as lemon grass and fish meat. It's not really a fish cake, the dominant flavour is the citrus taste from the lemon grass. As you can see from the photograph, I normally eat it with sweet chilli sauce.

Ingredients
200 gms Fish Meat
2 Tablespoons Chopped Lemon Grass
2 Garlic Cloves
1 Teaspoon Black Peppercorns
2 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
1 Tablespoon Fish Sauce
1 Tablespoon Chopped Coriander Root (Or Leaf)
2 Tablespoons Corn Flour
1 Egg
100 gms Breadcrumbs
Oil for Deep Frying

Preparation
1. Chop the fish meat into bite sized pieces then clean and dry them.
2. Pound the garlic with the black peppercorns and chopped coriander until they are finely ground. Add this mix to the fish pieces.
3. Also add the fish sauce, together with the light soy sauce and lemon grass. Leave to marinade for 15 minutes.
4. Put the corn flour and egg and whip together.
5. Heat the oil to 180 degrees Celcium.
6. Add the fish pieces to the egg mix to coat it, dip it in the breadcrumbs.
7. Drop the breaded fish into the hot oil and cook until brown.
8. Serve with sweet chilli dipping sauce.

Serve With
Sweet Chilli sauce
Salads
Thai Fragrant Rice

These deep fried balls are made from pork mince around a vegetable filling flavoured with Thai flavours such as oyster sauce. I eat these with pickles, or you can serve with sweet chilli sauce.

Ingredients
100 gms Pork Mince
50 gms Chopped Carrot
30 gms Chopped Onion
1 Tablespoon Fish Sauce
1 Tablespoon Light Soy Sauce
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
1/4 Teaspoon White Pepper
Breadcrumbs
Oil for deep frying

Preparation
1. Mix the pork mince with fish sauce, light soy sauce, salt, and white pepper then leave for 10 minutes for the pork to soak in the ingredients.
2. Into a blender, put the chopped carrot and chopped onion then blend until they are finely diced.
3. Take a piece of the the mix pork mince, about 25gms worth. Flatten it in your hands, spoon the vegetables in the middle and fold up the edges into a ball.
4. Steam them for 10 minutes. The leave them to dry.
5. Heat the oil to 190 degrees celsius.
6. Roll the balls in breadcrumbs, deep fry them just for 30 seconds, just to brown the breadcrumbs.

Serve With
Chilli Sauce for Chicken
Pickled Cucumber
Pickled Onion

Traditionally these are made from Chinese chives, but I like to use garlic greens - the spring onion like shoot that grows from garlic bulbs. They are easily available and the strong bite of garlic, they add a terrific strong garlic taste. These 'cakes' have a soft texture with a slight crunch on the outside from the frying.

Ingredients
120 gms Rice Flour
30 gms Sticky Rice Flour
100 gms Garlic Greens
2 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
2 Tablespoons Oil
30 gms Tapioca Flour
150 ml Water

Preparation
1. Put the water, rice flour and sticky rice flour into a saucepan. Warm over a medium heat until it forms a sticky thick translucent paste.
2. Remove it from the heat and leave to cool.
3. Heat the oil in the pan.
4. Clean and chop the garlic greens finely and stir-fry with the oil and light soy sauce for 30 seconds to part-cook them.
5. Take a piece of the dough, roll it into a ball in your hand. I find it easier to oil my hand a little to avoid the dough sticking. 6. Flatten the dough, place a spoonful of the garlic greens into the centre and fold up the edges to seal in the garlic greens.

6. Steam the dumplings for 7-10 minutes until cooked.
7. Heat a tablespoon of oil in a non stick frying pan and fry the cakes to just give them a light fried brown coating.

Serve with
Dark Soy Sauce With Chopped Chillies
Lettuce
Chopped Garlic Greens

Another of my favorite party snacks, these are bacon wrapped shrimp tails, deep fried and served with a sweet chilli dipping sauce. The tail acts like a handle to pick them up with.

Ingredients
10 Prawns
5 Strips of Bacons
Oil For Deep Frying
Tooth Picks

Preparation
1. Clean the prawns, remove the head and shell, but leave the tail on. Cut down the back and remove the black thread gut.
2. Cut the bacon pieces in half lengthwise to make them thinner.
3. Wrap the bacon around the prawn and skewer the ends with a toothpick.
4. Heat the oil to 150 degrees, and fry for 3 minutes until they are cooked.
5. Drain, remove the toothpick and serve with sweet chilli dipping sauce, carrot sticks and other dipping vegetables.

Serve With
Sweet Chill Sauce

These barbecued eggs are commonly available from street vendors in Thailand. Although they are cooked in their own shells, the eggs are first removed, mixed with seasoning and then put back into their shells for cooking & grilling. If you have a charcoal grill the smokey flavour infuses the egg for a better flavour. Eat them with sweet chilli sauce.

Ingredients
6 Eggs
2 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
1/2 Black Pepper
1 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
1 Tablespoons Spring Onions
Wooden Skewers for BBQing

Preparation
1. Clean the eggs on the outside. Break a small hole in the top, approximate 1 1/2 cms diameter.
2. Empty the yolk and white of the eggs into a plate.
3. Mix the egg with the light soy, fish sauce and black pepper.
4. Refill the shell with the seasoned egg mixture, a funnel helps.
5. Stack the eggs upright and steam for 8 minutes.
6. Now take the wooden skewer and poke it through the egg, so that is comes out the other end of the shell. You can get 3 eggs on each skewer.
7. Barbecue on the grill for 10 minutes. In the photograph you can see an egg in its shell at the back and some peeled egg halves at the front.

Serve With
Sweet Chilli Sauce
Lettuce

A delicious boiled pork dumpling, served with lots of fried garlic. It's traditionally made in this peak shape (as you can see from the photographs), which is why I called it 'pork peaks' in English.

Ingredients
Filling:
50 gms Pork Mince
50 gms Chopped Onions
4 Garlic Cloves
1 Tablespoon Dried Flaked Chilli
1 Teaspoons Salt
1/2 Teaspoons Sugar
1 Teaspoon Shrimp Paste
3 Tablespoons Oil

Outer Layer:
100 gms Sticky Rice Flour
50 gms Rice Flour
2 Tablespoons Cassava Starch
50 ml Water
Water for Boiling
Cold Water for Cooling

Preparation
1. Preheat oil in a frying pan.
2. In a blender, mix the pork mince, onion, salt, fish sauce, garlic, sugar, shrimp paste, and flaked chilli together. Blend to form a smooth mince.
3. Fry until cooked, then set aside to cool.
4. To make the rice dough, mix the rice flour, sticky rice flour and starch together. Add 50ml water and mix and knead until its smooth paste.
5. Take a small piece (about 30gms) of the dough, roll it into a ball and flatten in the palm of your hands.

6. Spoon some of the pork mixture into the centre, then fold up the edges and crimp it. If the dough sticks to your fingers, dust your hand with a little cassava starch.
7. To cook, boil a saucepan of water, drop the pork peaks into the pan. They only take a minute or two to cook, and will float up to the surface when cooked. Once cooked, remove and drop into cold water for a few seconds, then remove and allow to drain.

Serve With
Fried Garlic
Chillies
Lettuce

The kanar leaves (also spelt 'kar na') are an important part of this meal, they add a bitter crispness to contrast the chicken. If you cannot find kanar leaves in your local Asian grocers use a bitter lettuce leaf instead. I like to use fresh peppercorns in this recipe, so that I can leave them in the fried mixture and eat them as part of the parcel.

Ingredients
150 gms Chicken Breast
4 Garlic Cloves
10 gms Green Peppercorns
2 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
1 Tablespoon Fish Sauce
1 Teaspoon Sugar
1 Teaspoon Lemon Juice
2 Tablespoons Oil
Kanar Leaves

Preparations
1. Chop the chicken breast, put in a blender, add the garlic and blend until they are nicely minced, as you can see from the photograph.
2. Preheat oil in a frying pan. Fry the chicken mince until it's half cooked.
4. Add the fish sauce, light soy sauce, sugar, and lemon juice. Stir fry for 2 minutes, then add the green peppercorns.
5. Clean the kanar leaves, and dry them.
6. Place some of the mixture on the kanar leaves, roll them up and serve immediately.

A very traditional Isan Thai dish, a selection of steamed Thai vegetables with a spicy fish dipping sauce. It's very typical food, but something of an aquired taste.

Ingredients
1 Tablespoon Shrimp Paste
2 Teaspoons Sugar
1 Teaspoon Salt
4 Tablespoons Warm Water
1 Teaspoon Lemon Juice
3 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
5 Bird Chillies
5 Small Green Aubergines
10 gms Dried Shrimp
3 Garlic Cloves

Preparation
1. This is about as easy as recipes get. You place all the ingredients in a Thai mortar and pound them until they are all ground together. This sauce can be kept for months.
2. Steam the vegetables until cooked.
3. Serve.

Serve With
Aubergine
Cucumber
Baby Corn ( Steamed )
Dok Kar ( Steamed )
Thai Fragrant Rice

These roses are a typical Thai recipe from the Krua Klai Baan recipe forum, that I thought was worth translating into English for you. The filling is mainly pork and candied (glacé) fruits, a little sweet and a little savoury with excellent presentation, typical of Thai snacks. To make the flowers use a set of flat bladed small tongs, but if you don't have them, you can just make round balls instead.
In the following photographs you can see the filling used inside the roses:

Ingredients for Filling
30 gms Pork With Fat & Rind
50 gms Chopped Candied (Glacée) Fruits
30 gms Chopped Peanuts
20 gms Sesame Seeds
1 Teaspoon Salt
1-2 Tablespoon Oil

Ingredients for Dough
130 gms Rice Flour
1/2 Teaspoon Cassava Starch
1/2 Teaspoon Tapioca Flour
250 ml Water
2 Tablespoon Oil
2-3 Drops of Food Color

Preparation
1. Boil the pork in water 10 minutes.
2. Chop the pork to tiny tiny pieces.
3. Drain and place in a frying pan with a little oil
4. Fry for 30 seconds then add finely chopped candied fruits, sesame seeds, salt and fry again for 30 more seconds, then turn the heat off.
5. Add the chopped peanut in and leave to cool.
6. Make the dough by mixing the 2x flours & starch together, add the oil and the water and mix.
7. Place into a saucepan, over a medium heat and stir until the mixture cooks and thickens, this will take 8-10 minutes. Remove it from the heat and cover with a damp cloth to keep it moist.
8. Rub your fingers lightly in tapioca flour to stop the dough sticking.
9. Pinch off small pieces of the dough, about 30gms worth and roll it in your hands to form a ball. Repeat this until all the dough is used up.
10. Take each ball and press them flat in the palm of your hand.
11. Spoon some of the filling into the middle, fold up the edges and seal it.
12. If you wish, you can make roses at this point, this is explained below.
13. Steam for 5 minutes.

Making The Roses
Using the flat bladed tongs, pinch a triangle into the dough. Next go around spiralling and pinch out a leaf. The leaves form interlocking spirals around the triangle, they start near the triangle and spiral downwards. You repeatedly pinch the dough until the leaf is wide enough.

This fish sausage can be sliced and served with noodles, rice dishes or eaten as a snack. It has masses of flavour and unlike store bought sausages, you don't need to worry about what's in it!
In the photograph you can see the finished fried sausage at the front, and the steamed sausage in tin-foil at the back, I've sliced through it so you can see inside.

Ingredients
150 gms Soft Meat Fish Minced
1 Tablespoon Wheat Flour
1 Tablespoon Corn Flour
2 Teaspoons Salt
1 Teaspoon Black Peppercorns
1/2 Teaspoon White Pepper
40 gms Crushed Ice
Tin Foil or Banana Leaves

Preparation
1. Put the fish mince into a blender, add half the ice and all the other ingredients and blend for 2 minutes.
2. Add some more ice and blend again to break it up, keep doing this until all the ice is used up.
3. Take the mixture and form a sausage, wrap it in tinfoil or banana leaves. Wrap it tight to compress the mixture.
5. Steam for 15 minutes then leave to cool.
6. Remove the foil and deep fry for 5 minutes in hot oil.
7. Slice it when its time to serve.

Serve With
Noodle Soup
Fried Vegetables

These tofu towers are layered tofu with seasoned chicken mince between them. Fry them carefully to make sure the inside is completely cooked through. The best way to do this is to have a large frying pan half filled with oil, sufficient so that the oil comes far up the sides of the towers.

Ingredients
100 gms Tofu
50 gms Pork Mince
50 gms Shrimp Mince
3 Garlic Cloves
1/2 Teaspoon White Pepper
30 gms Chopped Onion
2 Tablespoons Sesame Seeds
2 Teaspoons Salt
2 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
1 Tablespoons Corn Flour
Oil For Deep Frying

Preparation
1. Mix the pork mince, shrimp mince, chopped onion, sesame seeds, salt, light soy sauce, garlic and white pepper together in the blender and blend to a smooth mince.
2. Slice the tofu into 1 cm slices, 3 slices for each tower.
3. Lay down the tofu, dust with a little corn flour - this will help the filling stick to the tofu. Spoon some of the mince mixture onto the slice and flatten it with a knife, dust with corn flour again, add another layer of tofu and so on to build the tower.
4. Preheat oil in a deep frying pan, fry the tofu towers for 10 minutes. You can cut one open to check it's cooked.

Serve With
Sweet Chilli Sauce

We call these dragon feet, but they're nothing more than deep fried shrimp heads in batter. Thai people don't waste the crunchy shrimp heads, they're very tasty and very crunchy when fried, plus a good source of calcium.

Ingredients
40 gms Shrimp Heads
4 Tablespoons Flour
100 Water
1 Teaspoon Salt
1/3 Teaspoon White Pepper
300 ml Oil for Deep Frying

Preparation
1. Preheat the oil.
2. Mix the flour, water, salt and white pepper to a smooth batter.
3. Dip the shrimps head in and fry in hot oil for 1 minutes.

Serve With
Chilli Sauce
Cucumbers
Lemon

Doc Kai, tree flowers, are nice stuffed with a mince of shrimp and pork. You can keep the shrimp heads and make dragon feet from them (see todays other entry).

Ingredients
40 gms Doc Kai
10 Shrimps Meat
30 gms Pork Mince
1 Teaspoon Salt
1 Tablespoon Sesame Oil
2 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
30 gms Chopped Carrots
4 Garlic Cloves
1/2 Teaspoon White Pepper

Ingredients for Batter
2 Tablespoons Flour
50 ml water

Preparation
1. Blend all the filling ingredients together in a blender, except the Doc Kai and batter mix of course.
2. Cut a slit in the doc kai, stuff with the filling and steam for 5 minutes (you can see one in the photograph above).
3. Mix the batter flour with the water, dip the doc kai and dry for 2 minutes in hot oil.

Serve With
Sweet Chilli Sauce
Lettuce

Another way we use left over pieces of chicken, this is salted chicken and you will find it in most Thai restaurants. It is nothing more than the end bones of chicken wings left to marindate in salt and lemon juice then fried.

Ingredients
200 gms Chicken Wings
2 Teaspoons Salt
1 Teaspoon Black Pepper
1 Teaspoon Lemon Juice

Preparation
1. Clean and chop the chicken wings.
2. Mix the chicken wings with salt, black pepper and lemon juice and leave it to marinade for at least 10 minutes.
3. Heat 50ml of oil in a pan and fry the chicken pieces.

Serve With
Fragrant Rice
Cucumber
Sliced Tomatoes

Another sushi influenced recipe, rather than eat pickled ginger (as the Japanese do), in our house we prefer to eat Thai mixed pickled vegetables. Pickled Thai vegetables can be made by mixing sliced green cabbage, spring onions and chillies with salt and the water that sticky rice is soaked in. It is then left for 2-3 days in hot temperatures to sour them. It's a bit of fuss, but you can just buy them in tins!

Ingredients
200 gms Fragrant Rice ( or Sushi rice if you prefer )
2 Tablespoons White Wine
1 Tablespoon Vinegar
1-2 Teaspoons Sugar
1/3 Teaspoon Salt
4 Tablespoons Black Sesame Seeds
Mixed Thai Pickled Vegetables

Preparation
1. Mix the fragrant rice, white wine, vinegar, sygar and salt. Leave for 20 minutes.
2. Take lumps of the rice, and press into cubes.
3. Cover with black sesame seeds.
4. Serve the rice cubes with the soured vegetables & wasabi.

Inside these balls made from tapioca pearls, are chopped nuts and sliced preserved turnip. The turnip you can buy in packets from Asian grocers, it is thin sliced and preserved in salt and sugar. These are a tiny bit sweet and tangy, and should be eaten with bird chillies and fried garlic.

Ingredients
100 gms Tapioca Pearls
40 gms Preserved Turnip
20 gms Toasted Peanut, Pounded to Fine Pieces
1 Tablespoon Oil
Tin Foil for Steaming

Preparation
1. Put the tapioca pearls into a bowl and add just hot enough water to make them wet, it will form a thick sticky paste with the tapioca beads sticking to each other.
2. Mix the chopped nuts and turnip together.
3. Grease a piece of tinfoil with the oil and place into a steamer.
4. Take a piece of tapioca paste in your hand, and press it flat in the palm of your hand. Take a spoonful of the turnip & nut mixture and place it in the centre of the tapioca.
5. Lift up the sides of the tapioca to enclose the filling and form a ball. If it sticks to your hands, wet your hands a little.
6. A typical ball will be about 4cms across, place it on the foil ready to steam with the join at the bottom.
7. Once you've used up all the tapioca, steam the balls for 8 minutes. As they cook they will become even more translucent.

Serve With
Chillies
Lettuce
Coriander
Fried Garlic
Mint Leaves

At this time of year you're often left with cold meat cuts. Here is a selection of Thai sauces you can use to add variety to cold meat cuts.

Ingredients For Pink Sauce
1 Tablespoon Red Bean Curd
2 Tablespoons Sesame Oil
3 Garlic Cloves
1 Teaspoon Salt
1 Teaspoon Sugar
2 Red Chillies
2 Green Chillies
Black Sesame Seeds to Garnish

Preparation
1. Mix all the ingredients together, blend it for a few seconds.
2. Heat until the steam just starts coming off.
3. Leave to cool.
3. Toast the sesame seeds in a dry pan and garnish.

Ingredients for Shrimp Oil Sauce
1 Tablespoon Shrimp Oil Paste
2 Tablespoons Soy Paste
1 Tablespoon Sugar

Preparation
1. Mix all ingredients together and take to heat for 1 minutes.
2. Serve warm or cold.

Ingredients for Black Sauce
1 Teaspoon Dark Soy Sauce
2 Tablespoons Plum Sauce
2 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
White Sesame Seeds for Garnish

Preparation
1. Mix all ingredients together, warm and stir to mix.
2. Toast the white sesame seeds in a dry frying pan over a low heat and garnish.

Pig ears are a very underrated part of the pig. They have a soft meat and plenty of fat for taste. Here's how we prepare them in Thailand as a snack to eat with beer or whiskey.

Ingredients for 4 People
200 gms Pork Ears
2 Teaspoons Ground Cinnamon
1 Tablespoons Salt
75 gms Sugar
2 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
1 Tablespoon Dark Soy Sauce
10 gms Chopped Coriander Leaves
400 ml Water

Preparation
1. Cleaning the pork ears remove any hairs, chop into 4cm chunks for cooking.
2. Boil the water in a sauce pan with the salt, light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, and sugar.
3. When the sugar and salt are dissolved add cinnamon into water.
4. Add the pork ears into the pan and simmer slowly for 1.30 hur.
5. Slice the pigs ear thinly to serve.

Serve with
Spicy Sour Sauce
Alcoholic Drinks

Ingredients for Sauce
5 Bird Chillies
2 Garlic Cloves
2 Teaspoons Sugar
2 Teaspoons Salt
2 Tablespoon Vinegar

Preparation
1. Pound the garlic with the chillies until they are well broken up.
2. Add the salt, sugar and vinegar, and pound it slowly just to mix.
3. Serve in a bowl, or over the sliced pigs ears.

This is the Thai equivalent of breakfast cereal. It's made from tapioca pearls, grass jelly and warm sweetened soya sauce. For the photograph I only put a little liquid into the bowl, so you can see the cereal better, but normally you put a lot more.

Ingredients
200 ml Soya Milk (Normally for Drinking)
1 Tablespoon Sugar
30 gms Tapioca Pearls
30 gms String Tapioca (a zig-zag tapioca style)
30 gms Sliced Grass Jelly

Preparation
1. Soak the all tapioca in warm water overnight.
2. Boil the tapioca until cooked.
3. Boil the soya milk with the sugar until the sugar is dissolved.
4. To serve, slice the grass jelly, spoon on some of the tapioca and pour on warm soya milk.

I always wanted to learn cheese making, and a friend of mine sent me a kit from cheesemaking.com, following on from my Tofu experiment, so I thought I'd have a go. I like cheese, even though it is not traditional Thai food, but it seems to miss one essential flavour. The spice of chilli, naturally!
As you can see the result is not as good as I'd hoped for. It's clear to me I should have left a little more moisture in the curd and then used more weight during the mould pressing stage. My fault, I cut that corner and the result is a crumbly cheese rather than a more homogeneous cheese. Never mind, Ricki's site has lots of tips for cheese making, and you can experiment yourself. She sells everything you'll need for your cheese making experiments.
I'm going to try cheese making again soon.

Ingredients
7.5 litres fresh or pasteurized milk (not UHT)
1 packet Mesophilic direct set culture (bacteria culture)
1/2 rennet tablet
1 tbls salt
1 very large pan
6-8 large red chillies

Preparation
1. Heat the milk to 90 degrees F, (32 degrees Celsius, room temperature in Thailand).
2. Add the bacteria culture, mix it well and leave for 45 minutes.
3. Dissolve the rennet in 1/4 cup water, and mix this well into the mixture.
4. Take a large ladle and push it down and up in the pan to ensure the rennet gets down to the bottom.
5. Cover for at least 45 minutes to let a curd form.

6. Take a long knife and make cuts diagonally down into the curd. Do not cut vertically down, as you will end up with long strands of curd, rather than cubes.
7. Next to warm it, it needs to be warmed very slowly to 100 degrees Fahrenheit (body temperature, 37.7 celsius). I just took it outside, covered into the sun and let that warm it up!
8. Stir occasionally, the curd will shrink and can be separated from the whey.
9. Pour through a cheesecloth. to separate the curds and leave them to drain further for an hour.
10. Break up the curds with your fingers, blend the chillies into fine pieces and mix them into the cheese evenly together with the salt.

11. Line a cheese mould with cheese cloth, press the curds into the mould.
12. Apply 5kg weight to the top of the mould, for 15 minutes, the 10kg for 12 hour and turn it over applying another 10kg for 12 hours. This is what I failed to do properly!
13. Remove the cheese from the mould, peel off the cheese cloth, leave under a net to air dry the cheese for 3-5 days, turning it to dry all sides.

14. Melt cheese wax in a pan, I found the easiest way is to turn the cheese in the pan rather than brush it on.
15. Mature in a coolish room for 3 months minimum.

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!

Another Thai variant of a Chinese dish. These are pork mushroom and carrot parcels, we called them 'Dim Sum' but our Chinese friends say the correct name for this type of starter is 'Chow Mei'. Served as a starter or a snack, each parcel is approximately 3cms across.

Ingredient for Pastry

200 gms. Wheat Flour ( Enough for 40 )
2 Tablespoons Oil
1 Teaspoon Salt
1 Teaspoon Sugar
2 Eggs

Ingredient for Filling

100 gms Pork Mince
3 Shitake Mushrooms
2 Carrots
1 Spring Onion
30 gms Coriander Leaves
1 Egg
2 Teaspoons Salt
2 Tablespoons Oyster Sauce
4 Garlic Cloves
2 Tablespoon Cassava Starch (Or corn starch)

Preparation for Pastry
1. Put the salt, sugar, and flour into a bowl and mix it.
2. Beat the eggs together and mix into the flour.
3. Knead it until it forms a dough.
4. Set the dough aside for 20 minutes, it should be covered with a damp towel to prevent a skin forming.

Preparation for Filling
1. Soak the shitake mushroom for 5-10 minutes.
2. Chop shitake mushroom, carrots, spring onions, coriander leaves, and garlic,into small pieces. It is easier to blend it in a food processor.
3. Add the blended mix into the pork mince and add the egg, salt, oyster sauce and cassava starch, and mix well.

Assembly
1. Cut the dough into very small balls.
2. On a slightly oiled or floured surface, roll the dough into small circles (approximately 6cms diameter).
3. Spread the filling evenly over the dough.
4. Lift up the edges into of the dought to form the sides - this will squeeze the filling into the centre.
5. For best results pleat the edges of the pastry to form pleated sides of the parcels.

Cooking and Storing
Add this point you can freeze them on a floured tray, or cook them straight away.
To cook them, place them in a Chinese steamer and steam for 10 minutes.

Serve With
Mint
Coriander
Lettuce
Sour sauce

Suggestions
If you like hot spicy food, you can insert a piece of red or green chilli into the centre of the parcel before eating it.
Another recommended way to serve them, is drissled with fried garlic and bacon in its oil, this is shown in the photograph.

In China these are made using Wonton skins: a flour based dough processed with lye to change the texture of the flour. However at home in Thailand we make our own pastry without using Lye. This recipe is much better than the frozen Chinese parcels you can buy in the supermarket, the fresh spring onion and coriander really makes a big difference.

Ingredients for 2 People
100 gms Wheat Flour
1 Egg
1 Teaspoon Oil
150 gms Pork Mince
1 Teaspoon Salt
2 Tablespoon Light Soy Sauce
1 Teaspoon Pepper
3 Garlic Cloves
20 gms Coriander Leaves (approx 2 sprigs)
20 gms Spring Onion (approx 1 spring onion)

Preparation
1. Whip the egg, put into flour and add the oil.
2. Mix this into a flour dough, it is better not to overwork it - knead it only enough to make a dough. Leave the dough for 5 minutes to rest.
3. Blend the pork, garlic, spring onion, light soy sauce, salt, pepper and coriander in a food mixer.
4. Take the dough, roll it into a sausage shape and chop off little pieces (approx 5 gms) from the end.
5. Roll each piece into a ball using your hands, then using a slightly oil rolling pin, roll the ball into a thin flat circle of pastry.
6. Put the meat filling into the centre, fold over the pastry and pleat the edges to form a parcel.
7. Pre heat a fryer or deep pan of oil to 190 degrees celsius (high).
8. Drop the parcels into the oil and fry for 2-3 minutes until the pastry has just browned and the meat cooked.
9. Remove and place on kitchen paper to remove any oil.

Serve with
Sukiyaki dipping sauce or chilli sour Chinese sauce and coriander, mint and chilli. Or you can just eat them plain.

These are a steamed snack with vegetables and pork wrapped up in a rice paper packet and steamed. They can be served hot as a starter or cold as a snack. You can see from the photograph that we eat this with fried garlic, it is a good idea to make a batch of fried garlic to be used as a condiment. If you like spicey food drop half a chilli into each parcel as you make them - it will create a burst of hotness as you bite into it.

Ingredients for Family
200 Pork Mince
100 gms Cabbage
100 gms Carrot
100 gms Bamboo
50 gms Glass Noodle
2 Egg
4 Shitake Mushrooms
4 Garlic Cloves
1 Teaspoon Ground White Pepper
5 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
2 Teaspoons Salt
2 Tablespoons Oyster Sauce
4 Tablespoons Peanuts
A Little Oil
30 Sheets Rice Paper
Grease proof paper

Preparation
1. Soak the glass noodle and shitake mushroom for 10-15 minutes.
2. Take shitake mushroom and chop finely mix with the pork mince, garlic, and carrot and blend. A food processor is ideal for making this filling.
3. Chop the glass noodle, cabbage, and bamboo into small pieces and add to the mix.
4. Crush or chop the peanuts and add those. In Thailand we pound them in a Thai mortar.
5. Add the pepper, salt, soy sauce, and oyster sauce and eggs into the mix.
6. The mix of vegetables, eggs and pork will become the filling.
7. Soak the rice paper in water for 3 minutes to soften it, do not soak it too long or it will disintegrate.
8. Take a large flat plate and smear oil on it, you will assemble the parcels on this plate and the oil will prevent them sticking.
9. Prepare your steamer by covering the bottom with grease-proof paper, take a knife and cut through the slots so that the steam can go through the paper to reach the food.
10. Drop a lump of the filling into the centre of a sheet of rice paper and fold over the edges into a neat parcel.
11. Put the parcel in a the Chinese steamer, steam it for 8-10 minutes. Do not oversteam the parcel, the rice paper will become too wet if you do.

Serve With
Garlic fry
Chilli
Coriander
Lettuce
Sour sauce (Vinegar, Chillies and Soy Sauce mixed)

Thai fish cakes are made from soft meat fish, green beans and starch and cooked by deep frying. They are served as a side dish with a spicy dipping or pouring sauce. Any soft meat fish will do and it's a great way to use often ignored smaller and cheaper fish.
To remove the meat of the fish: remove the head, slice it down the belly, and remove any entrails. Pull out the backbone, in soft fish this will also remove the bones. Then remove the top and bottom fins. Finally hold the fish by the skin and scrape off the meat from the skin with a flat bladed knife.

Ingredient for 2 People

150 gms Fish Meat
2-3 Tablespoons Thai Red Curry Paste
100 gms Long Green Bean
1 Tablespoon Cassava or Potato Starch
Oil for frying

Ingredient for Sauce

20 gms Cucumber
10 gms Peanut
2 Big Red Chillis
3 Tablespoons Sweet Chicken Sauce
(A sweet sauce normally used for chicken, it does not contain chicken!)

Preparation
Fish Cakes
1. Pre heat a deap fat fryer to 150 degrees celsius (Medium).
2. Add the fish meat, red curry paste, cassava starch, to a blender and blend it.
3. Cut the green beans into very short pieces and mix into the mixture.
4. Take a spoonful of mixture and form it into flat round 'cookie' shaped fish cakes.
5. Drop the fish cakes into the hot oil, when the fish cake is cooked it will float back to the surface.
6. Remove from the oil onto kitchen paper to dry out the excess oil.

Preparation
Dipping Sauce
1. Chop the cucumber and chilles, and mixed with sweet chicken sauce.
2. Pound the peanuts in a mortar into smaller pieces.
3. Top the sauce off with the peanuts.
4. Serve as a side dish, or you can pour it over the fish cakes as we've done in the top photograph.

We eat corn in everything! You will find it in desserts for it sweetness, in soups and like here, in snacks. In Bangkok, in front of the university, there are many little food stalls to feed the hungry students, including corn fritter stalls. This is one of the few Thai dishes that isn't spicy.

Ingredient For 2 People
100 gms Corn Kernels (Maize)
1 Tablespoon Corn Flour
1 Tablespoon Wheat Flour
1 Tablespoon Cassava Starch
120 ml Water
1 Teaspoon Salt
1/2 Teaspoon Pepper
200 ml Oil
Flat Frying Pan

Preparation
1. Mix all the corn flour, wheat flour and cassava starch together with the water in a mixing bowl. You can use a ready mix batter if you prefer.
2. Add the salt, pepper and corn kernels and mix.
3. Put the oil into the frying pan and preheat the pan over a medium heat.
4. When the oil is hot take a tablespoon of the mixture and drop it into the pan to make a circular fritter.
5. Fry it for a minute on each side until it is golden brown.

Serve With
Sweet Chicken Sauce
Cucumber

This is a side dish that's cheap and simple, it uses hot dog sausages together with green spring onions and chilli to spice it up. In Thailand dishes like this are called "gop-gam", snacks served with beer at night, but it can also be served with rice to make a full meal.

Ingredients for 2 People
160 gms Hot Dog (1 packet)
1 Onion
20 gms Spring Onion
10 gms Coriander Leaves
10 gms Mint
4 Bird Chillies
1 Red Chilli
1 Tablespoon Lime or Lemon Juice
1 Tablespoon Fish Sauce
1/2 Teaspoon Sugar
200 ml Water

Preparation
1. Heat 200 ml water to the pan until it boils.
2. Slice the hot dogs into bite sized pieces, put in the boilng water and heat through for 2 minutes.
3. Remove the hot dogs and put in a mixing bowl.
3. Chop the bird chillies & red chilli, the onions , the spring onions ,and the coriander, and add to the mixing bowl.
4. Add the fish sauce, sugar, and lemon juice, into the bowl and mix all the ingredients together.
5. Serve it on a plate with a little mint garnish.

Serve With
Hot Rice
Salad

These are boiled dumplings with pork and spring onion, the strongest taste is the fresh onion taste. They can be served as a starter or as a snack and can be frozen if needed. If you freeze them, they should be cooked from frozen, simply cook them a minute or two longer to allow them to defrost.

Ingredients for 2 People
100 gms Wheat Flour
1 Egg
1 Teaspoon Oil
150 Pork Mince
1 Teaspoon Salt
2 Tablespoon Light Soy Sauce
1 Teaspoon Pepper
3 Garlic Cloves
2 Sprigs Coriander Leaves
2 Spring Onions (approx 20 gms)

Preparation
1. Whip the egg, put into the flour and add the oil.
2. Mix these together and knead them a little to form a dough.
3. Leave the dough for 5 minutes to rest it, this makes it easier to work with.
4. Into a food process, put the pork, add the garlic, the spring onion, the light soy sauce, the salt, pepper, and coriander leaves.
5. Blend until the filling is well mixed.
6. Pinch off small pieces of dough, and roll them on a flat oiled surface into small circles (approx 6cms diameter).
7. Put the meat filling into the middle of the pastry, and fold the pastry over and crimp the edges to form a closed dumpling.
8. Boil a pan of water, drop the dumplings into the boiling water and cook for 4 minutes.

Serve With
Noodle Soup
Sukiyaki Sauce
Green Vegetables

The crunchy mix you see in these leaves is fried chicken flavoured with fried baby shrimp. I've used lettuce in the photograph, but traditionally we'd use betel leaves. These leaves are an acquired taste but very popular in Asia. They are the same plant that betelnuts come from, the nuts they sell on the street in Taiwan. Unfortunately they are popular because they are a legal stimulant, and I avoid them because it makes my heart flutter as though I'm nervous.

Below is a photograph of the Betel leaf version of this dish.

If you think an omelette should taste of eggs, this recipe is a wake-up call. It has a strong meaty flavour with a slight spicy after-taste that is very different from a traditional 'eggy' omelette. Best of all, it's a very easy dish to make. A good way to serve this omelette is to cut it into squares, so that it can be shared between several people as a side dish.

These are some of the most flavorsome sausages you can eat, best of all, because you make them yourself, you can ensure only the best meat goes into them. In Thailand we make these wrapped in banana leaves, but you can also steam them in tinfoil like we've done here. They can be eaten hot or cold, when serving, its normal to cut them into slices.