Thai Dinner For 10 (In 30 Minutes) Recipe - Cooking Index
Thai Dinner For 10 (In 30 Minutes) Recipe - Cooking Index
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This was still ticking in my mind waiting to prompt an idea for a posting of a recipe, when two of my wife's sisters "dropped in" with their husband's and children, so completely unexpectedly we had 6 adults and 5 children ranging from 3 to 12 years old to feed. Unlike Chef Caprial we don't have a multi-ring cooking hob and a double oven, but nonetheless we forgot the simple meal we'd intended to have that evening and put plan B into effect. The menu would be
- steamed rice - muoi's salad talay (a seafood salad) - tom yum koong suki (that is to say a tom yum shrimp soup cooked in a suki pot) - chicken stew (well it has a Thai name and is quite traditional, but this makes more sense.) - yum moo ( a spicy pork dish) - pad nuea nam man hoy: spicy stir fried beef
Now I've posted a yum nuea (beef) version of the yum dish - but this variation was made in a hurry, and is different. Also I've dealt with a tom yum before, but this version is essentially done as a tabletop quickie. A suki pot is the Thai version of the device I've seen referred to in America as a Mongolian Hot Pot or fire pot: a copper vessel with a central chimney that can be heated on the table top. Traditional Thai pots use charcoal, but modern ones use solid fuel or gas (ours is a butane model).
The last three dishes can all be made with beef, but together they should each be made around a different meat for contrast. The stew is relatively bland, by Thai standards, the yum is hot, the stir fried beef in oyster sauce is spicy, rather than hot.
The salad is only a traditional Thai dish in the sense that it is my wife's invention, and she's Thai :-)
This meal took 30 minutes from start to finish to prepare: however the veggies were all ready cleaned and ready to use. We took the meat out of the freezer when the guests arrived and used a microwave to make sure they were defrosted.
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Rice
OK: I'm not really going to tell you how to steam rice: 10 cups of washed Thai Jasmine rice was placed in an automatic rice steamer with the appropriate amount of water and placed on the dining table. Fifteen minutes later somebody stirred the rice to fluff it and after thirty minutes it was ready for us to eat.
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Muoi's salad talay
('talay' means seafood, and salad is the Thai word for, well, salad, actually :-)
You need two cups of mixed salad veggies, to which you add a cup of fresh bean sprouts, and a cup of chopped onion (we use scallions/green onions, but whatever takes your fancy).
Steam enough clams, mussels and other shellfish to yield 2 cups of cooked fish.
2 cups of parboiled potato. (Using Thai sweet potatoes, I split two large potatoes in half lengthwise, and place them in the microwave for 5 minutes on high, then peel them. The surface of the potato exposed to the air turns white, and is cut off and discarded. The potato is then cut into bite sized chunks). The potato is then deep fried in an electric fryer for a couple of minutes (Thai potato floats when it is cooked, and you scoop it out and place it on paper towels to drain the oil).
Toss the veggies, potato and the shellfish together in a salad bowl and salt and pepper to taste.
The dressing consists of one cup of mayonnaise, half a cup of tomato ketchup, two table spoons of oyster sauce, one tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce and two tablespoons of hot Thai Chile Sauce. If you can't get the Thai chile sauce you could use Tobasco, but it isn't as hot, and is somewhat more salty, so be careful). You then add enough of the dressing to the salad to coat it thoroughly when tossed. The remaining dressing is placed on the table as a dipping sauce, together with a few plates of raw sliced veggies (cucumbers, carrots, etc...)
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Tom Yum Koong
Place about a litter (or a quart) of fish stock in the hot pot (if you haven't got one, you could use a small "deep fryer" or a fondue pot as a replacement).
Bring it to a boil and add:-
2 stalks of lemon grass, bruised (this isn't eaten, but is an essential flavorant)
2-3 "kaffir" lime leaves (use lime zest if you can't get it) 2 coriander [cilantro] plants, chopped. 1 tablespoon fresh ground ginger ground chili powder (prok phom) to taste 4 tablespoons red chilies in vinegar (prik dong) 4 tablespoons green chilies in fish sauce (prik nam pla) the juice of 3 or 4 limes 2 or 3 tablespoons of sliced bamboo shoots or coconut shoots 2-3 tablespoons "chilies in oil" (prik nam pao)
raw shrimp (about 15 to the pound in size) are placed on the table (in Thailand we don't bother cleaning them - you might want to remove the heads, legs and shells, and devein them), together with fresh mushrooms. The guests then cook these by placing them in small bronze-wire baskets and dipping them in the suki pot. If you are using fondue forks, you might want to add the mushrooms to the soup liquor just before everyone starts to dine.
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Chicken Stew
It occasionally gets cold in Thailand (the temperature recently has been below 30 at midday, and has even gone as low as 16 Celsius at night... :-)) and this dish is traditional in the Isan region
Note if done with beef, the meat is simmered slowly, for several hours. Quite unusual in Thai food. However chicken cooks quite quickly and is tender. Remember my slogan: you cook it until it is cooked!"
Take the meat from a medium chicken, and cut it into bite sized chunks.
Place it in a large stewpan, and add:-
- a piece of cinnamon, - about a tablespoon of grated galangal, - the chopped roots of three coriander plants, - about half a cup of fish sauce, - 2 tablespoons of dark sweet soy, - a tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce - a cup of chopped celery (preferably Chinese celery) - about two cups of chopped veggies (cabbage, kale, ...) - 2 - 3 tablespoons of fried garlic
Cover with water, and simmer until the meat is cooked. Stir in some rice flour or corn starch to thicken the sauce.
Recipes By: Muoi Khuntilanont
Source:
"The Frugal Gourmet on our Immigrant Ancestors" by Jeff Smit
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