I’m not sure how but the food that I learned to make today was even tastier than yesterday. It’s going to be hard picking a favorite. I basically need to put the names of the dishes in a cup and then pick one out!
I also unmolded the Thai layer cake dessert from yesterday, since it needed time to cool. I thought it would be too sweet, but it wasn’t. The coconut milk and cream with sugar and varying flours was a lot better than I was expecting. I was blissfully surprised. There were two alternate layers, light green and white. Isn’t it pretty?
The dishes I made today included:
- Jungle curry paste (Nam Prik Gaeng Pah), made it from scratch!
- Jungle curry chicken (Gaeng Pah Gai)
- Crispy catfish green mango salad (Yam Pla Duke Foo)
- Stir fried clams with Thai chili paste (Hoi Laai Pad Nam Prik Phao)
- Thai-style chicken briyani with green sauce (Khao Mok Gai)
- Coconut milk custard (Kanom Tuay)
My station today. Lot’s of wonderful ingredients. Worked with smoked catfish too and minced it real fine after taking the bones out and skin off. I LOVE that I get to work with ingredients that I typically wouldn’t use…gives a whole different perspective on food and flavors. Things you may have thought as not too appealing to eat are wonderful!
Also, I have been waiting to be able to prepare my own curry paste from scratch and I got to today. It was a jungle curry paste, forgot to ask what makes it “jungle”, but it had the flavor of red curry paste, but better. It wasn’t as hard as I thought. The hardest part was my arms getting a great work out from using the mortar and pestle A LOT today for pounding spices, chili’s and herbs…no food processor in this place that I can see. All done old school, which is wonderful!
They also mince their own chicken here…at first I thought they just buy ground chicken but Chef’s sous chef was chopping it with a chef knife today and I was like what the? Doing it this way minces the meat, which is smaller pieces than ground.
Okay, now its time for me to choose my favorite dish of the day…decisions decisions….hum, I cant, its hard! Let me think about it for another 30 seconds [the game show timer]…Ok, I guess I will choose…its between the jungle curry chicken, the crispy catfish green mango salad (oh the dressing on this was amazing) and the stir fried clams with Thai chili paste…okay, I know, I got it down to 3 out of 4 savory dishes, but still not one…don’t worry, I have an internal process here…the winner is “jungle curry chicken“…had to pick this because the homemade curry paste was amazing! It had everything in it, dried red spur chilies, lemongrass, galangal ginger, shallots, kaffir lime rind, garlic, coriander root, roasted coriander and cumin seeds, shrimp paste, white pepper corn and salt…amazing. You put it all in a mortar and pound away until it’s a paste. A lot of ingredients but oh my gosh, what a great final product! Fresh curry paste lasts 2-3 days. If you want it to last longer you need to cook the curry paste in oil first.
[Jump to Printable Recipe]For the jungle curry chicken, you will need:
- 2 tablespoons jungle curry paste
- 1.5 ounces chicken thigh, sliced
- 1 green tiger eggplant/Thai round eggplant, quartered
- 1/4 cup long beans, sliced diagonally in 1″ pieces
- 6 Enoki mushrooms
- 2-3 lesser ginger
- 1 stalk green peppercorn
- 1/8 cup baby corn, sliced diagonally in 1/2″ pieces
- 1/4 cup holy basil leaves
- 2-3 Kaffir lime leaves, pulled into 2 each
- 1-2 red birds eye chili’s
- 2 1/2 cups chicken stock
- 1 tablespoon cooking oil
- 1/4 teaspoon sugar
- 1 teaspoon fish sauce
Steps:
- Put oil in wok and add red curry paste. Fry over low heat until fragrant, then add chicken stock. Stir constantly about 2 minutes
- Add chicken, eggplant and baby corn, bring to a boil.
- Add lesser ginger, kaffir lime leaves, long beans, Enoki mushrooms and simmer for a few minutes
- Add holy basil and red chili peppers and serve.
- Serve with rice, if you want.
Below are the before and final presentation pictures of the other WONDERFUL dishes I made today.
Hope you enjoy, until tomorrow!
Gaeng Pah Gai
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons jungle curry paste
- 1.5 ounces chicken thigh sliced
- 1 green tiger eggplant/Thai round eggplant quartered
- 1/4 cup long beans sliced diagonally in 1″ pieces
- 6 Enoki mushrooms
- 2-3 lesser ginger
- 1 stalk green peppercorn
- 1/8 cup baby corn sliced diagonally in 1/2″ pieces
- 1/4 cup holy basil leaves
- 2-3 Kaffir lime leaves pulled into 2 each
- 1-2 red birds eye chili’s
- 2 1/2 cups chicken stock
- 1 tablespoon cooking oil
- 1/4 teaspoon sugar
- 1 teaspoon fish sauce
Instructions
- Put oil in wok and add red curry paste. Fry over low heat until fragrant, then add chicken stock. Stir constantly about 2 minutes
- Add chicken, eggplant and baby corn, bring to a boil.
- Add lesser ginger, kaffir lime leaves, long beans, Enoki mushrooms and simmer for a few minutes
- Add holy basil and red chili peppers and serve.
- Serve with rice, if you want.
