I was in Asia Books earlier today at Seacon Sqaure browsing the Thai food section. I am always on the lookout for new books. I no longer want those recipe books as they are all much the same as each other. I am now more interested to learn about the ingredients and cooking methods. One good book that is missing from the shelves for sure is a comprehensive one on street food. "Thai Hawker Food" is good but relies too heavily on drawings instead of pictures. And it isn't very comprehensive.

A new book just out is called "Herbs and Spices of Thailand" by Hugh T.W. Tan. Here is an extract from the back cover:

"Thai cusine is often regarded as one of the best in the world, if not the best. Made with fresh ingredients, Thai food is aromatic, tasty, healthy and full of interesting textures. These sumptuous aromas and tastes are largely the result of the herbs and spices used to flavour the dishes. Surprisingly, only thirty or so herbs and spices are used in Thai cooking; it is the ingenious combination or blending of these ingredients that makes Thai food so unique and flavoursome."

Buy at amazon.com

So, what are these herbs and spices so important in Thai cooking? Here is the list from this book:

Hoary basil, holy basil, sweet basil, bird peppers and chilis, cinnamon, Chinese keys, kaffir lime, cumin, clove, galangal, coriander plant and fruit, garlic, ginger, star anise, shallot, lemon grass, mint, nutmeg, onion, sawtooth coriander, screwpine, pepper, tamarind, turmeric, torch ginger, bay leaf, spring onion and cardamom.

There are plenty of illustrations throughout this book. Not only of the herbs and spices but also sometimes of the bigger plant itself. It also gives you a list of dishes that use each of the ingredients illustrated. I think this book is an excellent introduction to Thailand’s herbs and spices.

(Pictures of the herbs and spices can be found on page 2...)

If you ever come to Thailand then there is one thing you will never need to worry about. For sure, you will never go hungry. Thai people love snacking and they can do so all day long without putting on any weight. They even have a word for it, "play eating". Or, just eating for fun. Food stalls are everyone on just about every corner. Some are fixed and some are mobile. You don't even have to leave your house as throughout the day they come up and down your soi. Each one with their own special bell to draw your attention to what they are selling. If you do venture out then it doesn't really matter what time of day or night it is. You can easily find food stalls that are open all through the night. So, if the hunger pains hit at three in the morning, you are bound to find a noodle shop open nearby.

There are quite a few different types of “gaeng” soups in Thai cooking. Today I want to show you an example of “gaeng kua”.  This soup is generally regarded as being a mild one and can have tastes such as sweet, sour and salty. The dish I want to show you today is called Chicken and wax gourd curry or gaeng kua fak in Thai ( แกงคั่ว ). The vegetable fak (despite sounding like a swear word in English) is wax gourd which is sometimes also known as a winter melon.  It is cucumber shaped and even has green skin and pips inside. To prepare for cooking, you need to first peel the wax gourd and then scoop out the pips. Then cut into one inch chunks. This is then added to the soup. As well as gaeng kua you can also add it to gaeng liang. When cooked, the wax gourd maintains its shape but has a rather bland flavour.

This version of gaeng kua is made with the following ingredients: wax gourd, chicken, gaeng kua paste, coconut cream, coconut milk, red spur chili, kaffir lime leaves, and seasoned with palm sugar, fish sauce and tamarind juice. Heat the coconut cream in a pan and then fry the chili paste until fragrant. Add the chicken and cook until nearly done. Pour in the coconut milk and then add the wax gourd chunks and continue cooking until done. Season the soup and then just before serving add the torn kaffir lime leaves and red chili. Another fine dish though I must admit not one of my favourites. It just makes a nice change.

The temple fair is still continuing here in Samut Prakan. The weather has also been improving so I have been able to go out and get some good photographs. As people come from far and wide to sell their produce at the fair, this is actually a good opportunity to see food from other provinces. Today I want to introduce you to khanom la which is a famous product from Nakhon Si Thammarat. There are several versions of this sweet. One is flat and the other tube like.

I don’t have much information yet on the ingredients. One person suggested it contains rice flour, granulated sugar, plam sugar and egg yolk. Honey can also be used. Coconut oil is used for the wok. I will try and update this more later. As you can see from the above photo, the mixture is poured into a can with holes in it. This is then swung above a pre-heated wok in circle motions until a kind of spider’s web is weaved. Less than a minute later it is set hard and a kind of poker is then used to make the tube like end result. It was quite fascinating watching her do this. She was obviously very skilled as she did every step very quickly.

I think one food item you always see a lot at the temple fair is the fried insects. Those crunchy things that taste a bit like burnt bacon. Fancy a grasshoper? No? Then why not try some fried baby birds? If you are feeling squemish, do not go to page two to see the close-ups!

I seem to be in the habit of blogging about Thai food and saying things like, “oh, this is my favourite curry” or “this is my favourite Thai dessert”. Well, today I want to show you khanom mor gaeng ( ขนมหม้อแกง ) which is definitely in my top 10 for Thai desserts. Probably quite close to the top though it is a little on the sweet side. You can find this dessert around Thailand (we have it in Paknam market sometimes) but the authentic dish can only be bought in Phetchaburi. When people from Bangkok go down to the beach resorts at Cha-am or Hua Hin, they will nearly always stop at these large roadside food shops selling Thai desserts. Phetchaburi is famous for this dessert and others too. Everyone knows I like this dessert so I was pleasantly surprised this morning when our local samlor driver knocked on the door with two bags of Thai desserts. No, he hadn’t just been to Phetchaburi! Around here people use samlor and motorcycle taxi drivers as their personal messengers.

This dessert is a bit like our custard pudding. In fact, some people reckon that it was introduced to Thailand by Portuguese traders in the 18th century. Or, at least it was influenced by Western visitors. The main ingredients are duck eggs, mung beans and coconut milk. There are different variations, but I will give you the directions from one recipe I have here. Beat together 4 chicken eggs with 2 duck eggs. Add 1 cup of palm sugar and 1 cup of coconut cream. Use pandanus leaves to knead this mixture until the sugar dissolves. Strain through a cheesecloth and add either mashed taro or mung beans and mix well. Put the oil from fried shallots into a wok and add your mixture. Stir until it becomes thicker. Transfer to a baking tray and bake for about 30 minutes or until the custard is set and the top is a golden brown.

You must really try it. They do export it to Bangkok and you might find it in Chinatown and some department stores. It is VERY delicious.

There is a favourite dish I have at the restaurant called “bpoo pat pong gari” which is basically Stir-fried Crab with Curry Powder. It can be quite expensive depending on the size and weight of the crab. Maybe as much as 800 baht. But, it is really delicious. As you can imagine, I don’t have it that often so I was pleasantly surprised the other week to see a different version of this dish selling at the new food shop. Instead of crab, this version used chicken, gai pat pong gari. It also only cost 25 baht!

I was planning on blogging about this dish the other week but someone ate it before I had a chance to take a picture. If you have ever been with me to a restaurant, you know you have to wait for me to take pictures first! I have been back to this food shop half a dozen times since and they have always hadother curries. Anyway, I was at this food shop on Monday with Steve from the blogs and the food vendor promised me that his wife would cook it for me the following day. And they did, which was sweet of them.

In Thai, “pong gari” means curry powder. I think I told you before that both curry and gari are based on the same Indian word. It is quite easy to cook this dish, though you just need to make sure you have some curry powder! Basically, chop up some garlic and fry it over a medium heat until golden brown. Add the chicken and turn the heat up to high. Fry for a few minutes and then add some water until it just covers the chicken. As soon as only half of the water remains, add the curry powder and season with fish sauce, soy sauce, oyster sauce and sugar. Add the onion and also tomatoes if you like. Beat up two eggs and mix with some milk. Add this to the pan and stir until the sauce thickens. Just before it is ready, add the red chili. And that’s it! Another good example of a curry without coconut milk.