At home we make these sacks normally with meat or fish, however try this variations, made with a strong flavour cheese such as Brie or Mature Cheddar. The best sauce to dip them in is spicy Thai chilli sauce, it cuts through the fattyness and gives a spice to balance the smoothness of the cheese. In the photograph below you can see the uncooked sacks, tied with the spring onions. If you don't want to prepare the pastry yourself you can use wonton skins, available from an Asian grocer.

Ingredients
120 gms Wheat Flour
1 Egg
1 Tablespoon Oil
4 Small Spring Onions
Oil for Deep Frying
200 gms Brie Cheese
Rolling Pin

Preparation
1. Mix the flour with the egg and oil together and knead the flour for a minute until it forms a smooth dough.
2. Place the dough in a bowl, cover with a damp cloth and let it rest for 5 minutes.
3. Chop the spring onions into 8 cm long and very thin strips. You will use these as string to tie the sacks with. Heat your deep fat oil, and fry the spring onion strips for just a few seconds to make them soft. Do not let them go brown!
4. To make pastry sack, roll the dough until flat and 1-2mm thick.
5. Cut the pastry into squares, 6x6 cms
6. Chop the cheese into small cubes to approx 2 cms on each side.
7. Place the cheese into the center of a square of pastry, pull up the edges into a sack shape and tie with one of the spring onion strips.
8. Get the frying oil good and hot before you fry these sacks (190 degrees celsius).
9. Fry for 1 minute. The cheese will just melt and the pastry should just be browned and they should float to the top.
10. Serve with sweet chilli dipping sauce, this sauce is essential to the dish.

Serve With
Sweet Chilli Sauce
Salad

This is a potato side dish I adapted from an English cookbook I was given. We don't use potatoes much in Thai cuisine, and almost no cream. So this dish has coconut milk instead of cream and a much stronger garlic taste, more typical of a Thai recipe. Serve this as a side dish with another meat or fish dish.

Ingredients (4 Persons)
1 Kg Potatoes
100 gms Onions
8 Cloves Garlic
4 Tablespoons Oil
Salt to taste
100 ml Coconut Milk

Preparation
1. Peel and place the potatoes in a pan of boiling water, simmer until half cooked. (Approx 10-15 minutes).
2. Drain and chop the potatoes into cubes, then salt to taste.
3. Fry the potatoes in the oil until they start to brown
4. Chop the onion and add to the pan.
5. Crush the garlic cloves, add to the pan and continue frying.
6. Once the onions are cooked, add the coconut milk and heat to just warm it through.
7. Serve garnished with coriander leaves or chopped spring onions.

Skewered pork & green pepper (like a Kebab) but served the way we eat it at home, with a chilli and garlic sauce.

Ingredients
400 gms Pork Meat
30 gms Green Pepper
30 gms Onion
2 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
1 Tablespoons Dark Soy Sauce
1/2 Teaspoon White Pepper
Wooden Sticks
8 Bird Chillies
2 Garlic Cloves
1 Tablespoon Fish Sauce
1 Tablespoon Vinegar

Preparation
1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius.
2. Clean the pork and chop it into 3cm cubes, mix with light soy sauce, dark soy sauce and white pepper. Marinade it for at least 20 minutes.
3. Chop the green pepper and onion into similar 3cm square sized pieces and skewer the pork, onion and pepper onto the sticks. Grill in the oven until cooked.
4. For the sauce, into a blender place bird chillies, garlic, fish sauce and vinegar and blend them together. Alternatively you can pound them in a Thai mortar.
5. Spoon the chilli sauce over the pork kebabs, it does not need to be cooked.

Serve With
Coriander Leaves
Lettuce

The red sauce is made from the same ingredient used to give barbeque pork it's red colour & taste - Thai teriyaki seasoning. Here I've used it with duck, since duck is a heavier meat that goes well with the taste. I use to work in a restaurant and this was a favorite among farangs (western foreigners).

Ingredients
400 gms Duck Breast
1 Tablespoon Butter
2 Tablespoons Orange Juice
2 Tablespoons Lemon Juice
1 Teaspoon Salt
1 Teaspoon Sugar
2 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce

Preparation for Duck
1. Clean and score the duck on the meat side, but not the skin side.
2. Into a saucepan, combine the salt, sugar, light soy sauce, orange juice, lemon juice and butter. Heat until the sugar and salt have dissolved.
3. Pour this over the duck and leave to marinade overnight.
4. Grill or oven at 170 degree until cooked, approximately 20-30 minutes.

Ingredients for The Red Sauce
1 Tablespoon Thai Teriyaki Powder
2 Tablespoons Brown Sugar
1 Teaspoon Sauce
30 gms Tamarind Pulp
50 ml Water
1 Teaspoon Corn Flour

Preparation
1. Squeeze the tamarind in the water to make it brown and release the bitter tamarind taste.
2. Put just the water part of the tamarind mix (sieve out the pulp) into a sauce pan over a medium heat.
3. Add the salt, sugar, and teriyaki powder in and cook until the sugar and sale have dissolved.
4. Mix the corn flour with 3 tablespoons of water and stir into the sauce to thicken it.
5. When its thick, pour it over the duck breast.

Serve With
Rice
Salads
Cucumber
Spring Onions

This is actually macaroni in a spicy Thai chilli sauce and is commonly available in many restaurants in Bangkok. I think the English name Picant Pasta fits it a lot better though - the sweet & spicy chilli sauce is the main flavour.

Ingredients for 3 People
300 gms Pasta
1 Tablespoon Salt
150 gms Chicken Breast
3 Garlic Cloves
2 Tablespoons Sliced Onions
2 Tablespoons Chopped Spring Onions
2 Tablespoons Chopped Coriander
2 Tablespoons Oil
2 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
2 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
2 Tablespoons Sweet Chilli Sauce
1 Teaspoon Black Pepper

Preparation
1. Boil the pasta with the salt until cooked then rinse in cool water and drain well.
2. Put the oil in a frying pan on a high heat, chop the chicken into small pieces, add to the pan and stir fry.
3. Chop the garlic, add to the frying pan and continue cooking until the chicken is browned.
4. Add all the other ingredients and mix, then add the pasta, mix well and fry for a further minute to warm it all through.

Serve With
Green Lettuce
Tomato
Bread

Yes we eat chicken nuggets in Thailand it's a very popular food, although they are a Thai version of the western snack. I made these because today is domino day in Holland, where they topple million of dominoes to make a new world record in domino toppling. I've made them in the shape of dominoes for the photograph and laid them out like a circle of toppled dominoes.

Ingredients
300 gms Chicken Breast
2 Teaspoons Salt
2 Tablespoons Oyster Sauce
1/2 Teaspoon Black Pepper
Breadcrumbs
Oil For Deep Frying

Preparation
1. Clean and chop the chicken breast.
2. Mix with the salt, oyster sauce and black pepper.
3. Blend it in a food processor until it is a smooth mince.
4. Flatten the mince by rolling it out.
5. Cut into nugget sized pieces.
6. Dip the nuggets in the breadcrumbs, you can do with by filling a bag with crumbs, dropping the nugget into the bag of crumbs and shaking it.
5. Deep fry the nuggest at 170 deegree for 7 minutes.

Serve With
Salads

It's called a sandwich, but the sauce is soaked into the bread and you may prefer to eat this with a knife and fork. A good wholemeal bread is better for this recipe, it has to stand up to the strong cinnamon flavours in the pork filling.

Ingredients
12 Slices Sandwich Bread
250 gms Pork With Fat and Skin
300 mls Water for Boiling
1/3 Teaspoon White Pepper
2 Teaspoons Salt
4 Boiled Eggs, Shelled
2 Tablespoons Dark Soy Sauce
2 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
2 Tablespoons Sugar
1 Tablespoon Fish Sauce
1 Teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
1 Tablespoon Chopped Coriander Leaves

Preparation
1. Boil the water and salt. Slice the pork and put into the boiling water to cook for 5 minutes.
2. Remove the pork and chop into bite sized pieces, (keep the water).
3. Bring the water back to the boil and add all the remaining ingredients. Continue boiling until the sugar has dissolved.
4. Add the thin sliced pork again and simmer over a medium heat until the sauce has reduced and the sauce is thick. Stir the pork while it simmers to get it well coated in the sauce.
5. Make the sandwich filled with a layer of meat, a layer of sliced boiled egg and pour some of the sauce over the filling.

Serve With
Lettuce
Tomato
Cucumber

These stuffed green peppers have a spicy chilli centre, if hot Thai chillies are not to your tastes, you can omit it.

Ingredients
4-5 Green Peppers
40 gms Pork Mince
4 Slices Wholewheat Bread
2 Garlic Cloves
1/3 Tablespoon White Pepper
1 Teaspoons Salt
2 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
2 Tablespoons Oil
2 Tablespoons Chopped Spring Onions
4-5 Red Chillies

Preparation
1. Clean the green peppers and cut to 5 cm lengths.
2. Soak the bread with water for 1 minute and squeeze out the excess water.
3. In a blender, mix the pork mince with the garlic, white pepper, salt, chopped onion, fish sauce, and oil. Blend until you have a smoother stuffing. Then mix in the bread.
4. Stuff the green pepper pieces, chop the chillies into 3 pieces and push one piece into the center of each stuff chillie piece.
5. Cook in the oven, on a greased tray at 170 degree Celsius for 20 minutes.

Thai muffins are steamed rather than baked and so tend to be softer & more moist. This dried fruit muffin is a typical Thai style muffin made with chopped dried fruits and raisins and scented with floral water, if you prefer you can substitute vanilla for the rose water.

Ingredients
200 gms Wheat Flour
1 Teaspoon Baking Soda
1 Tablespoon Yeast
2 Eggs
150 gms Sugar
110 ml Water
1 Teaspoon Lemon Juice
4 Tablespoons Condensed Milk
1 Teaspoon Rose Water
30 gms Dried Fruits (Cherry, Pineapple, Mango, Raisin etc.)
Metal Muffin Cups

Preparation
1. Mix the flour with the baking soda.
2. Whip the eggs, sugar, yeast, and water together. The mixture should be creamy.
3. Add the flour and mix in until smooth.
4. Add the condensed milk, lemon juice, rose water and continue to mix.
5. Stir in the dried fruit.
6. Grease the muffin cups with a little butter or oil.
7. Spoon in the mixture.
8. Steam for 15 minutes in a Chinese steamer.

These fried prawn sandwiches are rolled up for extra presentation. When I made them for the photograph, I used wholemeal bread, but that didn't really work, it is better to use soft white bread, because it is easier to roll.

Ingredients
5 Slices Sandwich Bread
100 gms Prawns
10 gms Chopped Onion
1 Tablespoon Butter
2 Tablespoons Condensed Milk
1/4 Teaspoon Salt
1/4 Teaspoon White Pepper
Sliced Cucumber
Lettuce Leaves
Sliced Tomato
Tooth Pick

Preparation
1. Clean and shell the prawns.
2. Chop the shrimp into small pieces.
3. Put butter into a frying pan and fry the chopped onion and chopped shrimp until the are cooked.
4. Season with the pepper and salt.
5. Take a piece of bread, lay a lettuce leaf over it, spoon a little of the prawn mixture along one edge, and lay some tomatoe and cucumber along that edge too.
6. Roll up the sandwich and skewer with a toothpick.

Num Prik ( a spicy sauce of mince ) is normally eaten with rice, however if you make it a little meatier it's perfect as a spaghetti sauce too. That's what this recipe is, a Thai spicy sauce made thicker and served with spaghetti.

Ingredients for 2 People
250 gms Spaghetti Noodles
600 ml Water
1 Tablespoon Salt

Ingredients for Sauce
100 gms Pork Mince
1 Tablespoon Sour Curry Paste
200 gms Tomato Sauce
2 Garlic Cloves
20 gms Chopped Onions
20 gms Chopped Coriander Leaves
1-2 Tablespoons Dried Flaked Chillies
1 Tablespoon Sugar
1 Teaspoon Salt
3 Tablespoons Fish Salt
4-5 Cherry Tomatoes

Preparation
1. Put a pan of water on to boil, add the salt, when the water is boiling, add the spaghetti and simmer until cooked.
2. Chop the garlic and fry with a little oil for a few seconds just to release the garlic smell.
3. Add the pork mince, sour curry paste, and fry until the mince is cooked.
4. Add all the other ingredients, and continue frying on a low heat for 5 minutes, stirring all the time.
5. Spoon onto the spaghetti.

For this western style pastry, I used Thai sliced sweet palms seeds. The palm seeds are naturally sweet, and served in syrup making them idea to make sweet pastries like this one.

Ingredients
1 Packet of Puff Pastry
50 gms Tinned Palm Seeds in Heavy Syrup

Preparation
1. Cut the pastry to 5x5 square.
2. Slice the palm seeds.
3. Spoon some of the seeds into the middle of each pastry square and fold the corners into the middle.
4. Brush the pastry with milk.
5. Half way through the baking, brush the pie and pastry with some of the heavy syrup from the tin. This will keep the seeds moist.
6. At the end brush the pastry with a little more syrup to give it a shine.

I'm tempted to create another category called 'Pies & Pasties', since I've made several recently! This pastie contains beansprouts, chicken and vegetables and is a nice way to eat Thai food in a falang way.

Ingredients
1 Packet of Puff Pastry or Make Your Own
200 gms Skinned Chicken Breast
100 gms Soya Beansprouts
2 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
1/2 Teaspoon Black Pepper
A Pinch of Salt
1 Tablespoon Oil
1-2 Garlic Cloves

Preparation
1. Chop the chicken breast and garlic together and fry with oil until the chicken is cooks and a little brown. This browing stage adds flavour.
2. Add the light soy, black pepper and stir fry for 30 seconds more.
3. Cut a circle of the puff pastry, spoon the fried filling into the middle, but be careful not to spoon any liquid or that will wet the pastry.
4. Add some beansprouts. Sprinkle a little salt on.
5. Fold over pastry into half, seal the edge with a little milk or egg and crimp. Brush the pasty with a milk.
6. Bake at 190 degrees celsius until the pasty is golden brown, this takes 30-40 minutes.

This is quite a time consuming pie to make, but the results are well worth it. The main flavours are chicken and rosemary, with shitake mushrooms, leeks and carrots adding to the bulk. The sauce is made with cream to blend and merge the flavours. In Thailand many people don't eat cream or milk, because they didn't drink milk when they were infants and have lost the enzyme that digests milk. So you may prefer to omit the cream.

Ingredients
1 Whole Chicken
2 Chicken Stock Cubes
2 Sprigs of Rosemary
2 Bay Leaves
200 gms Carrots
200 gms Leeks
4-6 Shitake Mushrooms (Soak for 10 minutes if dried)
Salt to Season
200 ml Single Cream
50 gms Butter
2 Tablespoons Flour
Puff Pastry to Cover

Preparation
1. Start by preparing the chicken rosemary stock. Clean the chicken and remove any innards.
2. Place the chicken in a large boiling pot, with the rosemary, bay leaves, chicken stock cubes and enough water to cover the chicken.
3. Bring to the boil, then simmer on a low heat for 2 hours.
4. Remove the chicken from the stock, shred the meat off the bone and set aside on a plate.
5. Sieve the chicken stock.
6. In a separate pan, melt the butter and stir in the flour until you have a thick paste. This will be used to thicken the sauce.
7. Return the sauce to the pan.
8. Stir in the cream, add salt to taste, then add a little at a time of the flour-butter paste while you heat the sauce until it thickens.
9. Clean and slice the leeks, peel and slice the carrots.
10. I used store bought puff pastry, but you can also make your own pastry.
11. Into a pie dish, place the shredded chicken, carrots, leeks, mushrooms and pour over the cream sauce.
12. Cover with puff pastry, brush with milk or egg and bake at 190 degrees celsius for 40-50 minutes. The chicken is cooked, you only want to cook the pastry and vegetables to finish this pie.

This recipe is a blend of Thai yellow curried pork, coriander leaves, mint and lettuce served in pita bread. If you like Greek food and Thai food, why not mix the two and fill a pita bread with a Thai curry. This is a particularly way to serve Thai flavours to people who don't like rice, the pita bread substitutes for the rice in this dish.

Ingredients for 2 People
4-6 Pita Breads
300 gms Pork Meat
2 Tablespoons Yellow Curry Paste
2 Tablespoons Maggi Sauce
1/4 Teaspoon Salt
1 Teaspoon Sugar
100 ml Coconut Milk
100 ml Water
1 Tablespoon Oil
30 gms Chopped Onion
2-3 Garlic Cloves Chopped

Garnish
Lettuce
Sliced Tomatoe
Cucumber Cubes
Corander Leaves
Mint Leaves

Preparation
1. Heat the oil in a frying pan on a medium heat, add the chopped garlic and onion and fry for 1 minute.
2. Chop the pork into small cubes, add to the frying pan and fry until half cooked.
3. Add all the other ingredients (coconut milk, curry paste, etc.) and continue frying on a low heat for 5 minutes, until everything is cooked through.
4. Warm the pita breads for a few minutes. Cut down the edge with a knife and slide your fingers in to open the bread pocket.
5. Fill the the fried pork, and the garnishes.

These ribs are pan cooked with teriyaki seasoning for a more moist rib than is possible with oven or grill cooking. The meat should be tender after cooking and practically falling off the bone. The best way to get this is to cook them very slowly for a long time. When I make these, I simmer them until the water has nearly gone, then leave them overnight sitting in the pan, top up the water again, and simmer again until the water has reduced down again.

Ingredients
500 gms Pork Ribs
3 Tablespoons Red Teriyaki Powder
400 ml Water

Preparation
1. Clean the pork ribs and chop to 5-6 cm lengths.
2. Mix the pork ribs with teriyaki powder and water together in a saucepan.
3. Bring tot he boil, then lower the heat and simmer over a medium heat until the water has reduced by 80%.
4. For the best ribs, leave them in the pan overnight, top up the water the next day and repeat the cooking. If you want, you can cook lots of ribs and serve them over several days, topping up and simmering down.

Serve With
Fragrant Rice
Pickled Cabbage

We don't use bread much in Thailand, its strictly for snacks and treats and this recipe is no different. Each square of bread is coated with seasoned pork mince and egg and grilled.

Ingredients for 2-3 People
100 gms Pork Mince
1/3 White Pepper
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
1-2 Eggs
Sandwich Breads
Black Sesame Seeds
White Sesame Seeds

Preparation
1. Mix the pork mince with the salt and pepper.
2. Spread the pork over the bread until its all used up.
3. Whip the eggs, dip the bread, pork-side-down, into the eggs.
4. Garnish with black and white sesame seeds.
5. Cut into squares.
6. Bake in an oven at 180 degrees celsius until they are cooked.

The kebabs could be from anywhere in the world, but the sauce is Thai through and through! The sauce is a seafood sauce made with fresh chopped spicy chillies. The seafood flavouring really broadens the flavours of the grilled meat and the spiciness adds bite.

Ingredients
300 gms Chicken Breast
100 gms Green, Yellow, Red Peppers
100-200 gms Mushrooms
2 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
Pinch White Pepper
Pinch Sugar

Preparation
1. Slice the chicken breast thinly, soak in the light soy sauce, sugar and pepper for 30 minutes.
2. Clean and chop the vegetables (all except the mushrooms) into chuncky pieces.
3. Skewer the chicken, vegetables and mushrooms on wooden skewers.
4. Grill until cooked, serve with the following Thai seafood sauce.

Ingredients for Sauce
8 Fresh Red and Green Thai Chillies
1 Garlic Clove
2 Tablespoons Lime Juice
1 Tablespoon Vinegar
2 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
1/2 Teaspoon Sugar

Preparation
1. Place all the ingredients in a blender.
2. Blend until smooth.
3. Serve immediately, if you want to prepare this ahead of time, keep it in the fridge.

To you this is a variation of an eastern Turkish dish, to me this is a western dish! Inside the turkish bread is a typical Thai soft yellow curry for a Thai flavour with a western twist.

Ingredients
Turkish Bread
250 gms Pork Steak Meat
220 ml Coconut Milk
50 ml Evaporated Milk
1 Teaspoon Yellow Curry Paste
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
1 Teaspoon Sugar
20 gms Chopped Onion
4 Garlic Cloves Chopped
2 Tablespoons Oil

Preparation
1. Chop the pork into cubes, fry in oil until the pork is half cooked and a little browned.
2. Add the chopped garlic, chopped onion and fry for another 30 seconds.
3. Add the sugar, salt, yellow curry paste, evaporated milk and coconut milk and simmer until the sauce has reduced to half.
4. Slice open the turkish bread and spoon inside.

I really enjoyed the yellow curry Turkish style sandwich I made the other week, and so I wanted to try something in the same vain. Here I made a Thai red pork curry, scooped out the centre of a large french loaf and fill it with the curry.

Ingredients
30 gms Green Beans
230 ml Evaporated Milk or Coconut Milk
1 Tablespoon Red Curry Paste
1-2 Teaspoons Sugar
50 gms Pork Meat
1 Tablespoon Oil
Large Round Loaf of Bread

Preparation
1. Chop the pork Meat into small square. Fry in the oil over a medium heat.
2. Add the red curry paste, and stir fry for a few seconds to release the flavours.Add the milk, fish sauce, green beans, and sugar and cook for 2 minutes.
3. Slice open the bread, and scoop out some of the inside to make a bowl.
4. Fill the bread with the curry, including the sauce which will soak into the bread.
5. I served this like a cake, cutting wedge shaped slices of bread and spooning the curry on the plate.

This is a signature Chinese dish rather than Thai, but save some of the duck, we will need it for two Thai recipes in the following days. Ideally the duck should be prepared a day ahead, in Chinese kitchens then tie the duck skin and blow it up with air to separate the skin from the duck to make the skin more crispy, but this step it not practical at home.

Ingredients for the Duck
1 Whole Duck
Palm Sugar
Dark Soy

Preparation for the Duck
1. Clean and wash the duck.
2. Scald the skin by pouring boiling water over it.
3. Take your fingers and run them under the duck skin to separate skin from fat.
4. Pat the skin dry with kitchen paper.
5. Dissolve palm sugar in soy sauce, and brush it over the duck, leave to dry and brush again to build up a good coating.
6. Roast in the oven, on a raised grill, 1 hour per kilo in a medium oven is typical, for the last 5 minutes turn the heat up to crisp the skin.

Ingredients for Pancakes
200 gms Flour
Very Hot Water
Sesame Seed Oil

Preparation of Pancakes
1. Place the flour in a large bowl.
2. Boil the water and let it cool back a little.
3. Take a wooden spoon, pour the hot water into the flour and mix as you do it.
4. Add enough water to form a strong dough.
5. Take small pieces of the dough and roll them into balls.
6. Dip the base of a ball in sesame seed oil, and press it against another ball. The oil will let you separate these two pancakes after cooking.
7. Roll the two pancakes together on a flat clean surface until thin.
8. Cook them in a dry hot frying pan, don't let them brown, they should be cooked but still a little doughy.
9. Let them cool, then peel apart the two pancakes.

Serve With
Spring Onion Brushes (cut the ends of the spring onions into a fan, then drop them in ice water to curl them)
Hoisin Sauce
Plum Sauce
Cucumber Sticks

To Eat
Take some of the skin, duck, sauces, spring onion and cucumber and roll then in a pancake and eat!

Satay sauce is normally served as a side sauce to chicken or pork. It is however a lot more versatile! This is one use for this sauce, I've stuffed in inside pork meat and made a satay burger. Another part of pork satay is the cucumber and chillies in a sweet sauce, I've used that as the topping, together with onions. For the photograph, I squeezed the burger to show you some sauce!

Ingredient For Peanut Butter Sauce
200 gms Unsalted Peanuts
2 Tablespoons Sugar
1 Teaspoon Salt
1 Tablespoon Chilli Paste
1 Tablespoon Soy Sauce
150 ml Water

Preparation for Peanut Sauce
1. Blend the peanuts with salt, sugar, soy sauce, and chilli paste in a food processor until the peanuts form a smooth sauce.
2. Add the water into the peanut mix and blend again.
3. Place it in a sauce pan and bring to the boil over a low heat, cook until the sauce browns and reduces to thick.

Ingredient For Burger
200 gms Ground Pork
Salt & Pepper

Preparation
1. Mix the pork with the salt and pepper.
2. Flatten it out into patties (flat circles).
3. Spoon in some of the satay sauce.
4. Place another pork circle over the top and press the edges to seal it in.
5. Fry gently until cooked through.
6. Serve with your favorite toppings, or the spicy sauce below.

Ingredient For Cucumber Salsa
Chopped Cucumber
Chopped Red Chillies
3 Tablespoons Vinegar
3 Tablespoon Sugar
1 Teaspoon Salt

Preparation
1. Heat the vinegar salt and sugar until the liquid thickens.
2. Mix in chopped cucumber and chopped chillies.

During Halloween, if you kill a chicken, it will rise from the dead and the chicken claws will try to take back it's flesh from your plate. BOO! Well that's what I tell small children anyway, we celebrate Halloween as a bit of western fun even in Thailand, this dish is chicken dumplings with fried chicken feet. You can eat it all, if it doesn't eat you first.

Ingredients For Nam Gai
150 gms Chicken Breast
4 Bird Chillies
1-2 Garlic Cloves
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
1 Tablespoon Oyster Sauce

Preparation
1. Clean the chicken breast, peel the garlic cloves and blend all the ingredients together in a blender until well blended.
2. Marinade in the fridge for 2 days.
3. Take pieces of the mince, and pat them into thick circles.
4. Grill under a medium heat until cooked all the way through.

Ingredients for Chicken Feet
6-10 Chicken Feet
3-4 Tablespoons Flour for Batter
Pinch of Salt
Oil for Deep Frying

Preparation
1. Mix the flour, salt and 4-5 tablespoons water and stir to mix, you want a thick batter, so add a little more flour or water if necessary.
2. Clean the chicken feet carefully.
3. Dip them in the batter and deep fry until brown.

I have a small confession: this recipe was invented by MacDonalds in Thailand for their Thai customers. Thailand people eat mainly rice rather than bread and a burger with a bread bun isn't like their normal food. So MacDonalds invented the sticky rice burger, where the bun is replaced by as glutinous (sticky) rice patty. This recipe uses the same trick, if you are not familar with sticky rice, read the ingredients section of this site - you cannot use regular rice, and it must be prepared by steaming.

Ingredients for 4 Burgers
500 gms.Sticky Rice
500 gms. Minced Chicken
2 Teaspoons Salt
2 Teaspoon Black Pepper Corn
3 Garlic Cloves
3 Tablespoons Oyster Sauce

Serve With
Salad Vegetables
Mustard
Mayonnaise
Onions
Pickles

Preparation
1. Soak the sticky rice in water for 30 minutes ( 500 gms. sticky rice for water 1 ltr. )
2. After 30 minutes take the sticky rice and steam it for 30 minutes and leave it for a further 10 minutes to cool.
3. Pound the garlic and pepper corn, together and mix with chicken mince add salt, oyster sauce in and mix it up.
4. Mould the chicken mince into a hamburger shape and grill or fry it until cooked.
5. Mould sticky rice into flat round burger shapes, one for top and one for bottom.
6. Put the sticky rice and chicken burger together and put some salad vegetable in and sauce.
Make it as you would make a regular burger with all your favorite toppings.

Everyone in the world loves fried chicken and Thailand is no different. This recipe is how the Thais eat fried chicken, its slightly different from the KFC fast food you get worldwide, the flavour comes from the chicken not the coating! For healthy eating, it's better to mix this with one of the healthier Thai dishes, but its fine as a treat. For best results use a good quality corn fed chicken.

Ingredients
6 Chicken Legs
2 Tablespoons Salt
2 Teaspoon Black Pepper
1 Egg
200 gms. of Fine Bread Crumbs
500 gms.oil

Preparation
1. Mix chicken legs with the salt & pepper and leave for 20 minutes.
2. After 20 minutes put on the legs steaming pan and steam for 30 minutes until cooked.
3. Take it of the steam leave it to cool, dry it with kitchen paper.
4. We will deep fry these legs, the best option is a deep fryer, but failing that a pan of oil will do.
5. Switch the fryer on at 170 degrees Celsius, (medium).
6. Break the egg and mix it, dip the chicken legs in the egg to coat them all over.
7. Dip the legs in the bread powder in the plastic bag and put chicken leg inside the bag, shake it until the crumbs stick to the chicken.
8. Deep fry them for 5 minutes until the crumbs are golden and brown.

Serve With
Vegetable salads
Sweet chilli sauce

In our house we eat this as a 'gop-gam' dish (a snack dish to eat at the end of the day with beer or whiskey), but usually they're made smaller and eaten as an appetizer. The pastry is a basic shortcrust pastry that is baked separately into cup shapes. The fillings are made later with Thai flavours, curries and spicy fish etc.. In the photograph above you can see two sizes, in the 3 flavours we made, but feel free to experiment.

Ingredients for Pastry (Makes 18+ Large or 25+ Small Cups)
150 gms Flour
60 gms Butter
1 Egg Yolk
Water
A baking tray with cup shaped impressions

Preparation for Pastry Cups
1. Place the flour and butter in a large mixing bowl.
2. Rub the butter into the flour using your finger tips. Once you've finished you should end up with a fine breadcrumb like mixture.
3. Add the egg yolk and just enough water to form a pastry dough.
4. Flour the baking tray so that the cups don't stick.
5. Roll the pastry onto a floured surface, cut out circles and place them into the baking tray.
6. Bake for 10 minutes at 190 degrees celsius until just brown and cooked.

Spicy Sardine Filling
This filling is shredded sardines with a Thai spicy sauce, for Kratong Tong that bite back! There is approximately enough filling to fill 6 larger cups with these ingredients.

Ingredients for Spicy Sardine Filling
1 Can Sardines in Tomato Sauce (Approx 90gms)
2 Red Chillies
1 Teaspoon Sliced Lemongrass
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
1 Teaspoon Chopped Coriander Leaves

Preparation for Spicy Sardine Filling
1. Slice the chillies, lemongrass and coriander leaves.
2. Mix with the sardines and sauce from the can and salt.
3. Drain off excess liquid.
4. Spoon into the pastry cups.

Pork Curry Filling
This filling is pork & potato filling and the main taste is curry. The ingredients are enough to fill 6 large pastry cups.

Ingredients for Pork Curry Filling
50 gms Minced Pork
1 Clove Garlic
Pinch Pepper & Salt
1 Small Onion
1 Teaspoon Curry Powder
1 Tablespoon Oil
200 gms Potato

Preparation for Pork Curry Filling
1. Boil the potato until its cooked, dice it into small cubes.
2. Pound or chop the garlic until it is fine.
3. Cut the onion into fine pieces.
4. In a frying pan, add the oil, the mince, the onion and the garlic and fry until the pork is cooked (3-5 minutes).
5. Drain off excess oil.
6. Add the curry powder, salt and pepper, mix into the other ingredients and fry for a further minute.
7. Take off the heat, and mix in the chopped potato, its now ready to use as a filling.

Other Filling Ideas
You can use western ingredients too, in the photograph, for example, we also made a vegetarian filling with mashed potato, carrot and sweet corn. Or perhaps tuna and sweetcorn, or potato and shrimp are more to your liking.

I might add this to a fake food category, since we like fake food in Thailand. These are spring rolls, filled with rice and crab sticks to look like sushi. (If you speak Thai, visit kruaklaibaan.com where the original idea for this recipe is).

Ingredients
200 gms Fragrant Rice
3 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
2 Tablespoons Vinegar or Saki
1 Tablespoon Sugar
Sliced Courgettes
Seaweed Paper ( Nori )
Crab Sticks
Spring Roll Papers
1 Egg Yolk

Preparation
1. Mix the fragrant rice, soy sauce, vinegar and sugar together and leave for 5 minutes.
2. If you have a sushi matt to help you roll it up, lay that down, a cloth also works as does greaseproof paper.
3. Lay down the rice paper, then the seaweed paper, then spread the rice over it thinly. Add a little courgettes along one edge, about 2cms in from the side. Lay a line of crap sticks along the same edge.
4. Roll up the matt, tuck in the ends of the roll, since this will be fried, the ends need sealed too.
5. Spread a little egg yolk along the final edge. This will help you seal the roll.
6. Heat the oil to 180 degrees celsius, and deep fry the rolls until they are brown and crunchy.

Serve With
Sweet Chicken Sauce or Plum Sauce

This is classic rich coconut ice-cream, served in a Thai style. Thai ice-cream isn't really iced cream, it's often made from non dairy products. This recipe contains taro, a root vegetable whose starchiness gives the ice-cream a soft smooth texture. You can also use sweet potato if you cannot obtain taro.
This recipe is much easier if you have a hand blender, during the preparation you will need to blend the ice-cream repeatedly as it freezes, this is done to break up the ice crystals that form. It is much easier to do that with a handheld blender or egg beater. Finally, the decoration is made from a gummy coloured mixture of cooked sticky rice flour, this is also very typical Thai, but you can use whatever toppings you like, although not strictly Thai, rum soaked raisins are popular in my house among the adults.

Ingredients
800 ml Coconut Milk
200 gms Sugar
5 gms Salt
100 ml Skimmed Milk
75 gms Taro or Sweet Potato
5 gms Corn Flour
Ice-water To Rapidly Cool the Mixture

Preparation
1. Chop the taro or sweet potato into large cubes and steam until cooked through.
2. Heat the coconut milk in a sauce pan on a very low heat (about 55 degrees celsius, this is nowhere near boiling, it is simply hot to the touch).
3. Mix the corn flour with 100 ml water and add to the coconut milk in the saucepan.
4. Add the sugar, salt, and skimmed milk, to the saucepan and stir until everything is dissolve.
5. Warm it to 65 degrees C and keep stirring it. Do not let it boil.
6. Mash the taro cubes with a fork and add into saucepan and using a hand blender blender the contents of the pan until the mixture is completely smooth and the taro has disappeared into the liquid.
7. Warm the pan a little higher to 80 degrees C for 4 minutes. Again it must not boil. This is to cook the flour through, without permitting it to become a thick sauce.
8. The mixture should be cooled quickly and then put in the fridge, the best way to do with is to empty it into a containing that is sitting in ice water.
9. Once it is cool enough, put it into the freezer until frozen.
10. While it is freezing ice crystals will form, every few hours you should remove it from the freezer and blend it with a hand blender to break up the crystals.

Sticky Rice Ball Topping (Ruam Mid)

These are used as the topping, they have a gummy texture and a rose smell, if you prefer you can use vanilla essence in water for a vanilla smell or other fruit essences. You can use coconut essence if you really want to emphasize the coconut taste.

Ingredients
Red, Green and Yellow Food Colouring
9 Tablespoons Sticky Rice Flour (3 tablespoons for each colour)
4 1/2 Tablespoons Rose Water (1 1/2 tablespoons for each colour)
300 ml Cold Water
Water for boiling

Preparation
1. The colours need to be made up separately, steps 2 - 4 should be repeated for the red, green and yellow shapes in separate cups.
2. Drop the red food colorings into a cup and add 1 1/2 tablespoons of rose water.
3. Add 3 tablespoons of sticky rice flour to the cup and mix to a paste.
4. Pinch off small amounts of the paste and roll into tiny (corn sized) balls, or small sausages.
5. Repeat steps 2-4 for yellow and for green food colouring.
6. Boil water in a saucepan and drop the balls and sausages into the boiling water.
7. They will swell slightly when cooked, it only takes a couple of minutes. One cooked, scoop them out with a sieve and drop into the cold water.
8. Mix a few with the ice-cream just before serving.

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

It's ribs day at Cassa Khiewchanta! This recipe is how Thai people make barbeque grilled ribs, the only difference is that traditionally we cut the ribs into short lengths rather than longer ribs as shown in the picture. The BBQ sauce is essentially soy sauce and garlic so this is very simple to make. When I was a child we would hold camping days in the forest and grill these over an open wood fire, the ribs would gain a wood smoke. As a child its so difficult to wait for ribs to cook!

Ingredients for 2 People
500 gms Pork Rib
4 Garlic Cloves
1 Teaspoon Black Pepper Corns
3 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
1 Teaspoons Salt
2 Teaspoons Dark Soy Sauce
2 Tablespoons Honey
3 Tablespoons Fish Sauce

Preparation
1. Pound the garlic with the pepper corns until finely ground.
2. Put into bowl together with the other ingredients. Mix well to make a marinade.
3. Marinade the pork for 8 hours or more.
4. Grill in the oven or over charcoal for 30 minutes.
5. When you place it on the grill baste it with the remaining marinade.

Serve With
Hot fragran Rice
Cucumber
Tomato