This is one of the uses for frizzy pork hair. We eat it as breakfast food with coffee. The pork hair (really dried pork meat rubbed into fine strands) has a very salty savoury taste and rough texture and the condensed milk is very sweet and has a sticky texture and the two together balance each other out. This is probably one of the simplest Thai dishes to make.

Ingredients
Frizzy Pork
Condensed Milk
White Sandwich Bread

Preparation
1. Cover the bread with frizzy pork.
2. Drizzle with condensed milk.
3. Serve. Yes it's that easy!

When I was a schoolgirl, this was our school lunch, pork and sticky rice. We would pay 3 baht for a little square bag of pork and sticky rice, just like the plastic bags in the photograph. This pork is idea for picnics, if you make the little square bags like I've done, and eat it straight from the bag in the same way you can eat a sandwich. The plastic bag keeps your hands clean.

Ingredients for Family Picnic
250 gms Sticky Rice
500 ml Hot Water
300 gms Pork Meat
2 Tablespoons Light Soya Sauce
2 Tablespoons Honey
1 Tablespooon Dark Soy Sauce
1 Teaspoon Sesame Seeds
1/2 Teaspoon White Pepper
2 Tablespoons Oil
1 Teaspoon Lemon Juice
Coriander Leaves for Garnish
Small Bags For Packing

Preparation
1. Soak the sticky rice in hot water for 1 hour.
2. Clean the pork and slice very thinly into squares, about 5x8 cms.
3. Marinade the pork in the light soy, dark soy, honey, sesame seeds, lemon juice, white pepper, and oil, for 30 minutes or longer.
4. Steam the rice until it is cooked, a Thai steamer works best.
5. Into a frying pan, add 3 tablespoons water and place on the heat.
6. Add the marinaded pork, together with the marinade into the pan and fry for 8-10 minutes (until the pork is cooked).
7. For the picnic, it's best to take a piece of rice, put it into the bag, press it flat inside the bag then put a slice of pork in the bag and a piece of coriander.

Serve With
Cucumber
Tomato

These pastry cups are made using frizzy pork hair, the shredded dried pork meat fibre that looks like hair when you take it out of the packet. You will also need pastry cups, known as Kratongs for this, that recipe is here. This can also be eaten simply as a side dish with rice instead of in a pastry cup.

Ingredients
50 gms Frizzy Pork Hair
50 gms Chopped Onion
5 Garlic Cloves
20 gms Chopped Chillies
50 ml Oil
1 Teaspoon Salt
1/2 Teaspoon Sugar
5 Pastry Cups

Preparation
1. Chop the garlic finely, add to a frying pan together with the chopped onion and oil. Fry for a few moments to soften them.
2. Add the chopped chillies, fry over a medium heat for 30 seconds.
3. Drain the excess oil off.
4. Place all the ingredients into a blender and blend to form a paste.
5. Spoon into the pastry cup.

Serve With
Thai Fragrant Rice
Lettuce
Cucumber
Cabbage
Long Green Beans

What an eclectic mix of flavours this is! In the centre is a salty egg yolk, wrapped in a sweet peanut & fruit layer and enclosed in a crunchy pastry wrapper. As you bite through the pie you hit the sweet then the salt. You will need salted egg yolks for this, either store bought or you can make your own in 3 weeks.

Ingredients
100 gms Peanut ( Dry Fry Them For Extra Flavour )
2 Tablespoons Oil
50 ml Water
70 gms Sugar
1 Teaspoon Salt
50 gms Dried Mixed Fruits (Mango, Cherry, Pineapple, Berry)
30 gms Glacé (Candied) Fruits
4-5 Salty Eggs Yolk
Ready made Single Crust Pastry
1 Egg Yolk & 2 Tablespoons Milk for Glazing the Pie

Preparation
1. Mix the peanuts, with 50ml water, salt and sugar. Blend with a food processor to form a liquid paste.
2. Into a saucepan, heat the peanut mixture together with the oil. Gently heat it to boil off excess water, stirring continously.
3. Once you have the mixture very thick, leave to cool. It should be a stiff paste that can hold it's shape when cold.
4. Chop the candied and dried fruit and mix into the peanut mixture. Separate the mixture into 40gm balls. You need 1 egg yolk for 2 balls of peanut mixture.
5. Cut the raw salty egg yolk in half. Salted egg yolks are solid, not liquid so they cut easily.
6. Take a ball of peanut mixture, flatten it in your hand, insert half a salty egg yolk, wrap up the peanut mixture around the egg yolk.
7. Next to the pastry, a single crust ready made pastry is easiest.
8. Cut squares of big enough to wrap up the ball. I used 10cm x 10cm squares.
9. Wrap up the peanut ball in pastry and crimp the back.
10. I have a heart shaped mould I press the pies into to form a heart shape. But that stage is optional.
11. Bake for 25 minutes at 180 degrees celsius until golden brown.

In Thailand it's common to eat bamboo with spicy chilli sauce on its own. This is a picnic version of that dish, with the spiciness inside the roll itself coming from Nam Prick Pa Yang paste. It is intended to be part of this picnic box.

Ingredients
200 gms Precooked Fragrant Rice
2 Tablespoons Nam Prick Pa Yang
2 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
1 Teaspoon Sugar
2 Garlic Cloves
2 Tablespoons Oil
2-4 Seaweed Paper
2-4 Boiled Bamboo (Available in Tins)

Preparation
1. Finely chop the garlic, fry in a frying pan with the oil.
2. Add the Nam Prick paste and stir for a few seconds.
3. Add the cooked rice, fish sauce and sugar and stir fry until all the ingredients are well mixed, then remove from the heat.
4. Spread over the seaweed paper.
5. Along one edge lay out bamboo pieces, if the bamboo is too thick, the cut it in half lengthwise.
6. Roll up the seaweed paper tightly, slice into bite sized pieces and add them to your picnic box.

These fried balls are made with broccoli (leaf and stalk) and should be eaten with a spicy sauce, or sweet chilli sauce. They are part of this picnic box, but you can include them in any picnic or packed lunch box. A word of caution, they contain a lot of water and can burst when you deep fry them, be careful of the hot oil.

Ingredients
100 gms Broccoli
100 ml Water
1 Teaspoon Salt
1 Teaspoon Light Soy Sauce
1 Teaspoon Sugar
1/4 Teaspoons White Pepper
100 gms Flour
1 Egg
Oil for Deep Frying

Preparation
1. Chop the broccoli into pieces, put into a blender and blend to very small pieces.
2. Add salt, soy sauce, sugar, white pepper and continue blending until the broccoli is fine.
3. Add egg, then the flour a little at a time, until the mixture is a thick paste - thick enough to roll in your hands.
4. Preheat the deep frying oil to 180 degrees Celsius (medium hot).
5. Take a small pieces of the mixture in your hand, about the size of a quails egg. I like to oil my hand first to make the mixture easier to handle. Roll the mixture into an egg shape and drop into the hot oil.
6. Deep fry until cooked, this takes about 10 minutes, be sure they are cooked in the centre of the ball.

Serve With
Sweet Chilli Sauce

This is intended to be part of this picnic box with the spicy sauce, but you can use it for any picnic box. The centre of the roll is crunchy 3 layer pork (pork with fat and rind), surrounded by rice and a soft pancake.

Ingredients
2 Eggs
2 Tablespoons Condensed Milk
2 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
200 gms Cooked Fragrant Rice
200 gms Three Layer Pork (Pork with a layer of fat & rind).
2 Teaspoons Salt
400 Water
Oil for Deep Frying

Preparation
1. Boil the water, add the salt and the pork and cook for 5 minutes.
2. Dry the pork with kitchen paper, heat oil for deep frying and fry the pork for 8 minutes or until it's very crispy.
3. Whip the eggs, condensed milk and light soy sauce together and fry to form a thin soft pancake. The condensed milk makes it easier to roll up.
4. Lay the pancake down and cover with rice, at one edge, make a line of pork strips. Roll up the pancake around the pork and slice into sections.

The 4 compartments you can see in this picnic box are shown in separate recipes, although you can mix and match picnic box recipes as you wish. The 4 compartments are: Broccoli Balls, Crunchy Pork Rolls, Spicy Bamboo Rice Rolls, salad vegetables and a dipping sauce. The sauce is essential, it adds a lot of the flavours to the picnic dishes.

Ingredients for Spicy Sauce
4 Bird Chillies
1 Garlic Clove
1 Tablespoon Chopped Coriander Leaves
2 Tablespoons Lemon Juice
3 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
1 Teaspoon Sugar

Preparation
1. Pound the chillies and garlic together in a Thai mortar to break them up.
2. Add all the remaining ingredients and continue pounding to mix all the flavours.

In Thailand we eat rice rather than bread as our staple food, and naturally our picnics are built around rice rather than sandwiches. Here is a typical well presented picnic box consisting of omelette wrapped fried rice, fried vegetables and prawns in batter. Although you can't see it so clearly in the photograph, the base of the box contains chopped lettuce.

Ingredients
150 gms Pre-Cooked Fragrant Rice
20 gms Chopped Carrot
20 gms Green Peas
20 gms Corn
1 Tablespoon Chilli Paste
1 Tablespoon Fish Sauce
1 Tablespoon Lemon Juice
1 Teaspoon Sugar
1 Teaspoon Salt
2 Eggs
4-6 Shrimp
1 Tablespoon Batter Flour (or Regular Flour + 1 Egg Yolk)
Oil
Seaweed Paper

Preparation
1. Slice lettuce and fill the base of the box with the shredded lettuce.

2. Boil the carrots, peas and corn for 3 minutes (don't overcook them, you need a little crunch).
3. Wrap them in seaweed, place with parcel in the centre of your picnic box. If you have any left over, you can garnish the rice with them later.

4. Mix the fragrant rice, chilli paste, fish sauce, lemon juice, sugar and salt together.
5. Fry for 3 minutes, stirring all the time so as to mix them well.

6. Heat some oil for deep frying - this will be used to fry the shrimp.
7. Clean the shrimp, remove the black gut by cutting down the back, for presentation I like to leave the shell on.
8. Mix the batter flour with a little water and dip the shrimp in this batter. If you don't have batter flour, use regular flour and mix in an egg yolk to help the flour stick to the shrimp.
9. Deep fry the battered shrimp for a minute to cook them.
10. Drain and place the shrimp in your picnic box.

11. Whip the eggs, fry in a clean frying pan with a little oil until just cooked through.
12. Take the omelette, cover it with the stir fried rice you made earlier and roll it up. Slice it into 6 pieces and stack these in your picnic box.

Another option for a picnic box, these rice paper parcels contain spicy mince & shitake mushrooms. In Thailand, dishes that contain shitake mushrooms are usually named 'Shanghai' after the chinese city. I've cut them in half for this photograph, but its better to keep them whole so that the rice, mince and mushrooms stays inside.

Ingredients
100 gms Sticky Rice (Pre Steamed)
50 gms Pork Mince
5 Shitake Mushrooms
2 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
2 Tablespoons White Wine
2 Tablespoons Chopped Chillies
1 Teaspoon Salt
1 Tablespoon Lemon Juice
10 gms Chopped Coriander Leaves
10 gms Chopped Mint Leaves
12 Rice Papers

Preparation
1. Fry the pork mince in light soy sauce, white wine, and salt until the mince is cooked through.
2. If the shitake mushrooms are dried, soak them first in water for 15 minutes. Cook the mushrooms in a pan of boiling water for 5 minutes, then chop them finely.
3. Mix the sticky rice with the fried mince and chopped mushrooms, chopped chillies, lemon juice, coriander leaves.
4. Soak the rice papers in warm water for 3 minutes to soften it.
5. Lay a piece of rice paper down, spoon on the mixture, roll up into a sausage shape, cut in half and serve.

Serve With

Here I've photographed a typical picnic box with these rolls inside. The other compartments are: steamed sticky rice, coriander and mint leaves and spicy mince, but you can mix and match with other picnic boxes.

Another picnic item, stir fried rice made with bacon, pork and lots of Thai flavours. I made it for the following picnic box, the other compartments include strawberries, coriander and mint leaves and some lemon to squeeze into the fried rice. But with bacon, eggs and ham, it's practically a breakfast too.

Ingredients
300 gms Cooked Fragrant Rice
50 gms Chopped Ham
30 gms Chopped Bacon
10 gms Chopped Onion
2 Eggs Yolks
5 gms Chopped Coriander Leaves
3 Garlic Cloves
2 Tablespoons Oil
1 Teaspoon White Pepper
2 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
1 Teaspoon Sugar
2 Tablespoons Tomato Ketchup

Preparation
1. Put the oil into a frying pan add chopped garlic and fry for 10 seconds just to start the flavour going.
2. Add the bacon and ham and fry it for a minute to brown it, the browning will give it flavour.
3. Add the egg yolks and stir fry, breaking up the eggs and mixing with the bacon.
4. Add all the other ingredients and the rice and fry for 1 minute.

This is a mixture of Thai spicy prawn salad and falang bread, to make a picnic sandwich with Thai flavours. For the photograph I let some of the filling spill out of the bread at the front for this photograph, so that you can see it clearly.

Ingredients
4-6 Slices Sandwich Bread
100 gms Prawns
2-4 Red Chillies
1 Tablespoon Lemon Juice
2 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
10 gms Lettuce
10 gms Cucumber
10 gms Tomato

Preparation
1. Clean the prawns, and dry fry for 30 seconds on each side to just cook them. It's easier to cook them in their shells.
2. Then remove the shells.
3. Chop all the salad vegetables, chillies and prawn and mix together with the lemon juice and fish sauce.
4. Spoon onto wholemeal bread and serve.

This week I'm making sushi style dishes from Thai ingredients. Here is a sushi style presentation of omelette Thai rice and seaweed. Serve with either wasabi in soy sauce or with chopped chillies in fish sauce. This dish is quite plain on it's own, but it's perfect as a carrier for the spicy tastes.

Ingredients for 1-2 People
Cooked Fragrant Rice ( or Sushi Rice )
1-2 Eggs
1-2 Seaweed Papers
1 Tablespoon Oil

Preparation
1. Whip the eggs, fry in a hot frying pan with a little oil and cook the egg to a flat omelette and leave to cool.
2. Add a sprinkle of wine vinegar and white wine to the rice and mix.
3. Lay out the omelette, then a layer of seaweed, and spread the rice evenly over the top.
4. Roll up the omelette, a sushi mat helps you roll it tightly, but a cloth works just as well.
5. Slice with a moistened sharp knife.

This pie originates from China, however my favorite type of this pie is the slightly salty, slightly sweet version with salty eggs inside they sell in Thailand. For this you will need salty eggs yolks which take 2-3 weeks to prepare. You will also need yellow beans which you can either buy in packets, or prepare from green beans - see the ingredients section of this site for instructions on both these items. The most difficult part of this is the pastry, which is made from multiple layers of 2 types of pastry.

Ingredients First Layer Pastry
150 gms Wheat Flour
2 Tablespoons Sugar
2 Teaspoons Salt
7 Tablespoons Oil
80 ml Cool Water

Ingredients for Second Layer Pastry
70 gms Wheat Flour
7 Tablespoons Oil
6 Tablespoons Cool Water

Ingredients for Filling
200 gms Yellow Soya Bean
30 gms Sugar
1 Tablespoon Salt
7 Tablespoons Pork Lard
3-4 Salty Egg Yolks

Preparation
1. Steam the yellow soya for 20 minutes.
2. Pound them in a Thai mortar to form a paste, mix with the sugar, the oil and salt.
3. Warm the paste gently in a pan until it thickens as the water evaporates, then leave to cool.

Prepare First Layer of Pastry
4. Mix the flour with the sugar, salt, oil and water. This needs to form a smooth dough, so add a little more water if necessary and knead a little until you have a pastry dough.

Prepare Second Layer of Pastry
5. Mix the flour with the oil and water. As with the first layer adjust the water and mix until you have a smooth pastry dough.

Even More Pastry Preparation
There's a little more preparation work to do, the two layers are rolled out in a way so that tiny thin layers of each pastry are formed.
6. Roll out the first out. Roll the second layer out separately. Put the second layer ontop of the first layer and roll up both layers together by hand to form a sausage shape.
7. Roll the pastry sausage flat, turn it 90 degrees and roll up again into a sausage, then again roll the sausage flat, turn 90 degrees and roll up yet again into a sausage then roll the sausage flat.
8. If it's too much work, you can use puff pastry from the supermarket!

Filling and Cooking
9. Roll the pastry into a flat disc. Spoon the soya mixture into a pile in the middle.
10. Push the salty egg yolks into the soya beans, (salty egg yolks should be hard from the salt, they are not cooked!).
12. Lift up the edges to wrap the filling up in the pastry.
13. Grease a baking tray, turn the pie over to hide the seam where the pastry was joined.
14. Cook in a preheated over at 170 degrees Celsius for 25 minutes.

Similar to a scotch egg, but made with Thai ingredients and smaller quails egg for a better egg to meat ratio! These Thai eggs should be eaten with sweet chilli dipping sauce to add extra flavour.

Ingredients
5-10 Quail Eggs
1 Tablespoon Red Curry Paste
30 gms Pork Mince
30 gms Minced Fish Flesh
20 gms Chopped Green Beans
5 Kaffir Leaves
1 Teaspoon Salt
1 Eggs
1 Tablespoon Wheat Flour
1 Tablespoon Corn Flour
Oil for Deep Frying

Preparation
1. Boil the quail eggs for 8-10 minutes and drop into cold water. If you leave hot eggs in the air they form a grey layer around the yolk, so it's best to take them from hot water to cold water.
2. Put the pork mince, fish mince, red curry paste, salt, egg, and the wheat and corn flour into a blender. Blend to a thick mixture.
3. Slice the green bean and kaffir leaves, add to the blended meat and mix.
4. Take the egg, wrap the egg in meat to form a ball, then deep fry the balls for 5 minutes.
5. Serve with the following sauce.

Ingredients for Sweet Chilli Sauce
3 Tablespoons Sweet Chilli Sauce
10 gms Chopped Cucumber
1 Teaspoon Crunshed/Chopped Peanuts
1 Tablespoon Vinegar

Preparation for Sauce
1. Mix the sweet chilli sauce with the vinegar and heat for 2 minutes.
2. Add all ingredients in and serve.

This is another version of the fake donuts . That one was chicken and pineapple, but the classic combination of pork and apple works too.

Ingredients
150 gms Pork Mince
3 Garlic Cloves
2 Coriander Root
1 Teaspoon Ground Pepper
2 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
2 Tablespoons Oyster Sauce
2 Tablespoons Chopped Spring Onion
2 Tablespoons Wheat Flour
1 Egg
1-2 Apples
Bread Crumbs
Oil for Deep Frying

Preparation
1. Pound the garlic, coriander, and pepper together. Mix with the pork mince. Add all the sauces, chopped spring onions, eggs and flour and mix together.
2. Leave it for 30 minutes to meld.
3. Peel, core and slice an apple. For this the apple slices should be 1cm or more thick.
4. Press the meat onto the apple.
5. Place the breadcrumbs on a plate and cover the donut with the crumbs.
6. Fry at 180 degrees celsius (medium) until golden brown. Check that it's cooked in the center, the apple can hold back the cooking of the meat in the center.

This is a classic gop-gam dish (side snacks served with beer), the pork is covered in sesame seeds, seasoned and dried in the sun for 1 day to cure it a little, then fried and served with spicy chilli sauce. In the photo below you can see it drying in the sun.

Ingredients
400 gms Pork Meat
5-6 Garlic Cloves
2-3 Coriander Root
1 Teaspoon Peppercorns
2 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
1 Teaspoon Salt
1/2 Teaspoon Pepper
1 Tablespoon Dark Soy Sauce
1-2 Tablespoons Sesame Seed

Preparation
1. Pound the coriander roots, garlic and peppercorns together.
2. Slice the pork meat into strips, add all the ingredients, including the pounded mixture and lay out in the strong sun for a day. I keep it behind a window to avoid flies, but you can also just use a wire net or just tolerate them.
3. Fry in hot oil until cooked, serve with chillie sauce.