Eating Tales

 

Last week I week I taught a Thai cooking lesson for three, they wanted a practical lesson, not just a demonstration. Our kitchen is suitable for a practical lesson for three people, as there are three work surfaces. They took it in turns using the hob as they each had ingredients prepared at different times. Now that I have a new camera I have photos to accompany the post! Including a photo of the new kitchen…

 The way it was arranged was that the recipes I gave them served one so they each prepared and produced their own meals. Being fairly amateur (apparently, never having cooked anything from scratch!) we started with the basics, frying prawn crackers, and then moved onto a Thai soup, Tom Kha Kai Mapaow Paow (Menam Chicken Soup), followed by Phad Thai noodles.

 

Pad Thai is an extremely simple recipe (all the effort is in the preparation). The recipe is posted earlier on this blog, and the soup is delicious, just as you would have in Thailand. They are worth a try!

 

Tom Kha kai Mapaow Paow- Menam Chicken soup

 

Ingredients (makes 1 serving)

12 tbs chicken stock

140g coconut milk (1/2 cup)

4 thin slices of galangal or ginger

1 stem of lemongrass very finely sliced on the diagonal

1 kaffir lime leaf- crushed

40-60g chicken breast- cut into thin slices

20-40g button mushrooms quartered

1 shallot halved and crushed

1-3 birds eye chillies crushed

1 coriander root and stem

To season

1 tbsp fish sauce

2 tbs tamarind juice

½ tbs lemon juice

1 tsp sugar

½ tsp oil of Nam Prik Paow (chilli oil)

 

Pound the Lemongrass and coriander root in a pestle and mortar to form a paste

Put the stock in a saucepan and bring to the boil over a medium heat.

Add the galangal, lemongrass & coriander root paste, shallot, chillies and kaffir lime leaves and boil for 1 minute.

Add the coconut milk and bring to the boil; add the sliced chicken and mushrooms and simmer for 1 minute until the chicken is half cooked.

Add the fish sauce, sugar, tamarind and lemon juice. Bring back to the boil and remove from the heat.

Transfer to a bowl and Float chilli oil on the surface and garnish with coriander leaves.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 15th, 2010 at 2:41 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.