Som Tam
So, Ann a lovely lady in our Thai office located in Bangkok, had organised for me to meet her Mum and have a cooking class with her in her own home. Now this was music to my ears, as i always think the best way to learn how to cook is by getting in the kitchen, and it was an honour to have such a learned teacher! Ann's mum explained to me (via Boworn my esteemed translator) that she cooked for 100 pupils at the local nursery school in her town. She wanted to show me three dishes. The first was Gang Phed Dang Gai - Thai red curry soup with chicken.
First Ann's mum prepared the chicken, or rather she showed me how she liked it cut into small pieces against the grain (as this makes it more tender) and then let me finish the job! Then we started off with a little fresh coconut milk which we brought up to heat in a wok. An interesting fact about Thai curries in Thailand is that they will traditionally be made with a head and tail - the head is the thicker first pressing of coconut milk, and the tail is the thinner second pressing of coconut milk. Traditionally the head(or cream)will be fried until it seperates into oil and coconut solid and then the paste will be fried in this. This creates the luscious seperation you get on the most authentic of Thai curries. Once this coconut milk had boiled we added the fresh red curry paste bought from the market we had visited in the morning, which was made from dried red chillies, galangal, garlic, shallot and lemongrass all pounded together in a stone pestle and mortar. She then fried this paste in the coconut milk to get rid of the rawness from the chillies and release the aromas. As it fried, she continued to add coconut milk until it made a thick syrupy mixture that was ready for the chicken. Once we had brought the paste to the right consistancy, we added the chicken. Now although this was added to a relatively dry mixture, Boworn described this as 'hot marinating' rather than stir frying. It wasn't used to cook or seal the meat, it was just to impart flavour. It was at this point, after 'hot marinating' for 4-5 minutes that Ann's mother added a couple of tbsp of Thai fish sauce or Nam Plaa and a tbsp of palm sugar. This was stirred in and then the remaining coconut milk was added. At this point the whole lot was transferred to a cooking pot for the remainder of the cooking time. We waited until the curry was boiling before adding the pea aubergines and kaffir lime leaves. Shortly afterwards we threw in the quartered baby (sometimes known as apple) aubergines - it's important to wait until it is boiling and near the end of cooking, otherwise the aubergines will become too dark (according to Ann's mum). These then cooked for perhaps 5 minutes and it was then finished off with a large bunch of Sweet basil (the Thai basil with the purple stems and aniseed aroma), sliced finger chillies and a final taste for the balance of flavours, in this case sweet and hot (and a little salty).
Our second dish was Lon Poo, or crabs in a coconut sauce. It was a simple dish with a coconut base, made with minced pork, salted crabs (that were soaked before use), palm sugar, tamarind, mild green chillies, sliced Thai shallot and shredded kaffir lime leaves. It was very simple to cook, and i loved the combination of pork and seafood. It was served with crisp, raw slices of cucumber, baby aubergines and winged beans all artfully sliced and presented beautifully. The crabs were a bit of a mystery to me as there was little meat on them. Ann's father showed me how to suck the legs and shell to get the salty flavour from them - a bit out of the ordinary for me to have a main ingredient that hasn't got any meat on it, that is for sucking, not eating!
Finally we cooked a traditional Thai desert called Sakoo Peak which means 'Wet Sago'. Now i can only describe this pudding to look like a multicoloured frogspawn! It consisted of fresh sweetcorn kernals cooked in coconut water. When this boiled, the sago (little balls resembling that polystyrene packing material, coloured green from pandan) was added and boiled until it resembled frogspawn i.e. a hard white middle with a soft jelly outside. Then a hell of a lot of sugar was added (we prefer Silver Spoon :) and it was served with coconut milk and young coconut meat. I enjoyed it - it was a very strange texture though...
I mustn't forget the A.C. Market though. See above and below some of the sights i witnessed...
Thai aubergines - various (the yellow ones are sour, green and purple are sweet)
Happy Cooking!
HJ
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