http://www.khiewchanta.com/ en Copyright 2012 Sat, 04 Feb 2012 11:20:46 +0000 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss I made Strawberry Daifuku, only a few days ago. The Japanese dumpling with the strawberry in it. But if you've read my blog, you'll know by now I want to bring Thai flavours to these dishes, and here I'm filling a Daifuku with a Coconut Sticky Rice and a Mango center. Instead of strawberry, we have the mango, instead of the sweet bean paste, I have the sweet/salty coconut sticky rice. Even if I say so myself, this really worked well. The resulting dumpling had an extra texture from the sticky rice, and the coconut flavour is far more interesting than the sweet bean paste, which made it better than the strawberry original. I think with a little more practice I could keep the mango in the center, but nothing is perfect. ]]> http://www.khiewchanta.com/archives/desserts/jelly-agar-recipes/mango-and-sticky-rice-daifuku.html http://www.khiewchanta.com/archives/desserts/jelly-agar-recipes/mango-and-sticky-rice-daifuku.html Jelly & Agar Recipes Sat, 04 Feb 2012 11:20:46 +0000 The famouse Japanese sweet dumpling, 'Daifuku' is similar to our Thai rice ball, a sweet filling contained in a wrapper made from glutinous rice flour. There is one that has a nice variation on this theme, and that's Ichigo Daifuku, a three part Daifuku, with a whole strawberry at its center. I'm using the recipe of 'Cooking with Dog', the video blog for Japanese cooking. She makes it look easy, but I find the hardest part is wrapping the center with the glutinous rice dough. The trick is to pinch out the pastry into a circular disc first, using plenty of starch to avoid it sticking. That made it easier to pull the pastry around the strawberry and end up with something even and thin. Don't make the outer layer too think, it will be unpleasantly chewy and spoiled the effect of the daifuku, if you have too much glutinous dough when you pinch the edges together, pinch off any excess. The other thing is, use a small slightly sour strawberry for this. The strawberry sourness is the contrast for the sweet red bean paste. If it's too ripe and sweet you lose the effect. Perhaps I'll try marzipan instead of red bean paste. You need sweetness, and firmness in that layer, but it strikes me that marzipan is the perfect layer there. Or even the sweet yellow bean paste, the Chinese use for in sweet pies. ]]> http://www.khiewchanta.com/archives/desserts/jelly-agar-recipes/strawberry-daifuku.html http://www.khiewchanta.com/archives/desserts/jelly-agar-recipes/strawberry-daifuku.html Jelly & Agar Recipes Thu, 02 Feb 2012 09:28:51 +0000 Another variation on the sweet toast theme. This one is salty sweet pork hair toast. Pork hair or fiber is pork meat, dried and rubbed to form fibers, it is widely available in Asia grocers. The sweetness comes from sweet mayonnaise, often called 'salad cream', the kind with 20% sugar. When I bought these in the market, I thought it used a lot of pork, but when you actually make them, you realize the pork is sitting on a line of mayonnaise and that is what glues it to the toast! So its very economical with the pork. ]]> http://www.khiewchanta.com/archives/desserts/baked-cake-recipes/pork-hair-toast.html http://www.khiewchanta.com/archives/desserts/baked-cake-recipes/pork-hair-toast.html Baked Cake Recipes Wed, 01 Feb 2012 03:05:54 +0000 I first saw these buns in China Town, when I went to the Chinese New Year Celebrations. They are a steamed bread bun, stuffed with all kinds of Thai meats and salty egg till they're bursting out. There's two versions of this I've seen, one has an extra layer of pork mince and corn flour in the middle to hold the roll together. If you want to make that version, mix a couple of tablespoons of corn flour, with pork mince and seasoning. Add this at the filling stage along the center of the bun then stick the other ingredients into this. I preferred to keep the bun dry, so I could drizzle some dim-sum sauce on it, and this variation tends to soak up fat from the pork mince. You can see my Thai meat platter for ideas on meats you can use, and this dish also uses pork hair, the fibers of the pork meat.]]> http://www.khiewchanta.com/archives/steamed-dishes/bursting-buns.html http://www.khiewchanta.com/archives/steamed-dishes/bursting-buns.html Steamed Dishes Sat, 28 Jan 2012 11:03:09 +0000 With so many prepared meats in Thailand, it's worth just preparing a simple Thai pickle and meat platter. There's almost no work involved yet the result is every bit as good as a cooked dish, there are sweet meats, savory meats, crunchy meats, spicy meat. If you want to expand the textures, don't forget the hairy meats too. For more unusual pickles, well you could add sweet pickled turnip. ]]> http://www.khiewchanta.com/archives/snacks/picnic-food/thai-meat-pickle-platter-1.html http://www.khiewchanta.com/archives/snacks/picnic-food/thai-meat-pickle-platter-1.html Picnic Food Fri, 20 Jan 2012 08:22:09 +0000 This rolled, boiled, belly pork forms the centerpiece of noodle dishes, the pork is fatty, but the fat has been cooked down to a delicious melt-in-the-mouth texture. Once it's cooked, it is left cold and sliced as thinly as you can make it, then use it to garnish noodle dishes like the one shown below. Start with three layer pork (pork belly with the fat still attached), the fat is essential, it is what binds the roll together and brings the flavour. Make the roll a day ahead, it needs a long time to boil and to be completely cold before slicing. Be sure to tie this with proper cord string, and not the plastic kind. The meat roll is browned on the outside in a frying pan, plastic string would melt at this stage if you used it. ]]> http://www.khiewchanta.com/archives/noodle-dishes/rolled-fatty-pork-for-noodles.html http://www.khiewchanta.com/archives/noodle-dishes/rolled-fatty-pork-for-noodles.html Noodle Dishes Thu, 19 Jan 2012 06:00:31 +0000 The warm sweet sticky rice & coconut adds creaminess, the strawberries add sourness, and in the center, chopped strawberries in syrup add the sweetness. This makes a very delicious dessert. ]]> http://www.khiewchanta.com/archives/desserts/steamed-desserts/strawberry-sticky-rice-swirl-k.html http://www.khiewchanta.com/archives/desserts/steamed-desserts/strawberry-sticky-rice-swirl-k.html My Favorites Steamed Desserts Thu, 12 Jan 2012 12:51:57 +0000 It's the holiday season and as you can imagine I'm busy. The big thing for Thailand is really the New Year rather than Christmas, and I spend a lot of my time making snacks to serve with drinks over the New Years eve. This one is about the simplest one you can make, yet incredibly tasty. They are wontons skins, (the Chinese pastry used to make dim-sum and similar snacks) dusted with pork seasoning powder and fried. What you get is a salty, savoury, crunchy snack that is absolutely perfect to eat with drinks, and absolutely perfect too because it takes only a few minutes to prepare! Happy New Year. ]]> http://www.khiewchanta.com/archives/fried-dishes/fried-seasoned-wontons-1.html http://www.khiewchanta.com/archives/fried-dishes/fried-seasoned-wontons-1.html Fried Dishes Sat, 31 Dec 2011 07:32:41 +0000 Gyoza may be Japanese (or rather the Japanese version of Chinese dumplings), but that doesn't mean they can't benefit from some Thai spices. Here I've made a Lap-Mu filling (a spicy pork dish common to Thailand), the side vegetables served with Lap Mu are cabbage, coriander leaves and spring onions, and these have also been incorporated into these gyoza, and give it a lighter filling than you'd have with meat alone. The pastry part is the same as other gyoza recipes, I've included it below for convenience. For Lap Mu you need to make toasted sticky rice, it's such a common ingredient that you can buy it in Thailand in packets, or simply toast your own stick rice in a frying pan. ]]> http://www.khiewchanta.com/archives/snacks/dumpling-snacks/lap-mu-gyoza.html http://www.khiewchanta.com/archives/snacks/dumpling-snacks/lap-mu-gyoza.html Dumpling Snacks Sun, 11 Dec 2011 20:20:03 +0000 Gyoza are the Japanese version of the Chinese pot sticker dumplings which are very very popular in Thailand. You can see from that sentence just how far good food travels. The Japanese version has soy or seasoning sauce in the filling and tends to have more expensive ingredients like shrimp. I make a lot of these and so have a gyoza crimper to get them all even and well made (you can see it in the photo below - the white plastic thing), but most people crimp them by hand using a pleating action. Be sure to follow the pastry recipe carefully, if you don't rest the pastry long enough it shrinks back and becomes too thick, likewise if you overwork the dough it becomes too chewy. ]]> http://www.khiewchanta.com/archives/fried-dishes/fried-seafood-fish/shrimp-gyosa-gyosa-goung.html http://www.khiewchanta.com/archives/fried-dishes/fried-seafood-fish/shrimp-gyosa-gyosa-goung.html Fried Seafood & Fish Fri, 09 Dec 2011 08:13:03 +0000 Another Japanese influence, as Thailand gets richer, so people want to try new things. This is a popular dish in Thailand, originating from Japan, it is a dish of cold noodles with a raw quails egg and side flavorings such as radish and wasabi. The noodles are the plain center of the meal that carries the flavours. Her I've used squid ink noodles that have a wonderful smell of squid as you boil them which I like, but wholewheat egg noodles are more authentic. Thais tend to add sliced meat and sliced omelet and serve the noodles, which is not authentic and spoils the simplicity of the dish. A lot of this dish is about the eating process, each person individually mixes their own dipping sauce to their own preference, and the cold noodles become the central shared communal food. A social food, that establishes social hierarchy and bonds - who gets the noodles first, who takes the most, who signals who to eat first. and so on. The dipping sauce is Soba Tsuyu, which is 50-50 Mirin and Light Soy. Miring is a sweet rice wine, the Mirin adds the sweetness, the soy adds the salt and flavour. You can also get ready made sauces for noodles, known as Soba Tsuyu. If you can't get it, don't worry, a sweetened soy sauce works perfectly well. ]]> http://www.khiewchanta.com/archives/noodle-dishes/cold-noodles-mee-yain-so-ba.html http://www.khiewchanta.com/archives/noodle-dishes/cold-noodles-mee-yain-so-ba.html Noodle Dishes Thu, 08 Dec 2011 10:10:15 +0000 Bituoy also known as Pandan Leaf, is a green leaf with the flavour of bubblegum used to make cakes in Thailand. 'Bituoy Water', is blended leaf sieve into water to transfer the smell and colour to the water. Bread in Thailand is usually sweet and eaten more as a dessert than a main course side dish. This recipe is typical of that, it's a sweet bread with added Bituoy and it's one of the recipes I learned at baking school. The baking school I learned from, uses their own various additives, a cake/bread emulsifier 'Pacto3', which is used to keep in moisture and softness, but other brands of cake emulsifier also work, and you get perfectly acceptable bread without any emulsifier at all, but the bread will dry out quicker. Consider it optional They also use U99, their flour improver, this makes the bread more foamy, more like cotton wool and less like rustic bread. I'm afraid that this is a sweet bread, and without the flour improver, it will have the wrong texture. Three difficult to obtain ingredients, sorry, Bituoy, Cake Emulsifier, Flour Improver...]]> http://www.khiewchanta.com/archives/desserts/baked-cake-recipes/bi-tuoy-bread-ka-noom-pan-bi-t.html http://www.khiewchanta.com/archives/desserts/baked-cake-recipes/bi-tuoy-bread-ka-noom-pan-bi-t.html Baked Cake Recipes Tue, 06 Dec 2011 12:56:06 +0000 The tuna in this sandwich is fried until it's crunchy, then pepped up with chillies and glued to the bread with sweet mayonnaise which also adds the sweet balance to the spicy tuna. Frying the tuna like this definitely adds an extra dimension and texture to otherwise boring tuna sandwiches. Be careful when frying the tuna, it will burn easily and it also spits as the water in the fish flakes boil off. After experimenting with it, I decided to fry it slowly in the oil that comes in the can, and covering it with an anti spatter lid, shown below, to let the water cook off without the tuna flying everywhere. ]]> http://www.khiewchanta.com/archives/snacks/picnic-food/crunchy-spicy-tuna-sandwich.html http://www.khiewchanta.com/archives/snacks/picnic-food/crunchy-spicy-tuna-sandwich.html Picnic Food Thu, 01 Dec 2011 23:49:02 +0000 Japanese pizza, or Oknonmiyaki as they call it, is a cabbage batter mixture fried and covered with a dark barbecue sauce, mayonnaise, bonito flakes (dried flakes of fish used to add flavour) and shredded seaweed. That's the basics, but the real secret with this dish is it's all about using up leftovers. Tuna, bacon, crab sticks, shrimp, whatever you happen to have leftover, can be used to add bulk and flavour to the pizza. For mine, I have shrimp, crab-sticks, bacon, carrot and spring onion to use up. It reminds me of the Spanish fritata rather than a pizza. For easily cooked items like tuna, add them to the cabbage batter mix, for more difficult items like bacon, fry them first then pour the cabbage batter mixture over the top. Otherwise you'll end up with overcooked cabbage and undercooked bacon. Dashi is used to flavour the batter, but fish or chicken stock, or chicken seasoning powder in water can also be used. Without the flavouring you have only plain cabbage flavour, so it's worth adding something! The dark sauce on the top, Okonomiyaki sauce, is similar to barbecue sauces, if you need to make a substitution a strong deep barbecue sauce is what you're aiming for. ]]> http://www.khiewchanta.com/archives/fried-dishes/fried-seafood-fish/japanese-pizza-oknonmiyaki.html http://www.khiewchanta.com/archives/fried-dishes/fried-seafood-fish/japanese-pizza-oknonmiyaki.html Fried Seafood & Fish Thu, 24 Nov 2011 06:49:45 +0000 Use sweet bread (bread with a high sugar content) for this recipe. In Thailand it's very difficult to find bread that isn't sweet, even a cheese sandwich in Thailand is typically made from sweetened bread and sweet cheese with an added layer of sweet mayonnaise. I'm afraid that is how Thailand is heading these days, copying western food, but adding more sugar to it. Pandan (aka Bituoy) is a green leaf with a candy/bubblegum flavour used to make flavoured water with is then used for recipes like this one. You can also buy pandan flavouring in Asian shops if you can't find the leaf. Alternatively as a fall back, use vanilla essence and make vanilla toast. I've recorded a video of this toast being sold in Bangnarmphueng Floating Market Bangkok that you can see below: ]]> http://www.khiewchanta.com/archives/desserts/pandan-toast.html http://www.khiewchanta.com/archives/desserts/pandan-toast.html Desserts Mon, 07 Nov 2011 02:45:54 +0000