Bangkok Thai Cooking Academy-Day 12

Today was an AMAZING day…Oh my freaking gosh! This is going to be a LOOOONG post today since it was a double private lesson with Chef Nat. He is so amazing! It was noodles day + a lot of other good stuff. I can make that wonderful, rich, flavorful broth used in soups now! This was one of the things I couldn’t wait to learn. Such a wonderful flavor profile, and no wonder…there are about 50 ingredients in each recipe (and I am NOT exaggerating)! I hope I can find everything at home.

From the 9 different things I made today, one of them included an array of teas that can be drank hot or cold as well as the most amazing Thai milk tea. I have had it several times in the states but didn’t think it was that great…well, it was amazing today with the recipe I was taught. I could have drank 5 glasses worth!

Some of the new ingredients I worked with today included (and there were A LOT today) galangal ginger chunks, rock candy (rock sugar), pickled garlic, pork balls, bitter melon, dried shitake mushroom, dry cherries (different than the dried cherries I’ve used at home), Chinese yam, dried roselle, Thai tea, and suki yaki sauce…whew, that was alot of new ingredients.

My stations today, there were multiple ones…remember, a double day of training today. Such amazing ingredients that alone may not be that great but put them together and they create perfection.

What I made today:

• Boat noodles with pork (Kuay Teow Rua Moo)
• Pork clear noodles soup (Kuay Teow Moo Naam Sai)
• Chicken noodles with bitter melon soup (Kuay Teow Gai Ma-Ra)
• Thai tea drinks (roselle, Thai milk tea, lemongrass tea, Bael tea)
• Stir fried shrimp with asparagus (Goong Pad Nor Mai Farang)
• Northern dip with vegetables (Nahm Prik Ong)
• Thai suki yaki seafood (Suki Yaki Talay)
• Fried prawn on toast (Kanm Pang Na Goong)
• Hot & sour spareribs soup/stirfry (Tom Sab Si-Krong Moo)

Today will be hard to pick my favorite dish. First of all, all 3 of the soup broths were very flavorful and tasty…but I did have a favorite, which was the boat noodles with pork. Two of my other favorite recipes today were the fried prawn on toast (so amazing, I couldn’t stop eating the darn things!), and the teas, especially the iced Thai milk tea and the roselle tea. But if I have to pick one recipe I like the best I just have to go with the boat noodles with pork. It would be a disservice to the soup world to have made this recipe, tasted it and to not choose it as my favorite.

That being said, I have to warn you…I hope I captured all the ingredients, because each Chef tends to add additional things that are not listed in the recipe so if you are not fast on your feet you may miss something and forget to write it down :). Either way, the soup was so amazing, even if a few ingredients were left out it would still be wonderful! It’s a doozy of ingredients, makes a lot of soup, and a little complicated…but the flavor is amazing. Here you go!

For the boat noodles with pork, you will need:

• 7 liters water
• 1/2 kilogram pork bones
• 250 grams pork shank/brisket, big chunks, approximately 2″ by 6″
• 500 grams pork balls (pre-made meatballs)
• 150 grams white radish/daikon, cut in large 1″ half moon pieces
• 8 dried shiitake mushrooms, reconstituted
• 4 pandanus leaves
• 500 grams rice noodles (I liked the big wide rice noodles)
• 250 grams pork shank/brisket, thinly sliced
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1/2 tablespoon corn starch
• 1 cup pork fat, cut in small pieces
• 1/4 cup garlic, small type, crushed well with skins on them
• 1/2 tablespoon cooking oil
• 1/4 cup spring onions, chopped 1/4″ thick
• 1/4 cup coriander, chopped 1/4″ thick
• 2 tablespoons pickled cabbage
• 1/2 cup fresh small green and red chili’s, dry toasted and pounded to a thin paste
• 3/4 cup vinegar
• 2 tablespoons fish sauce
• 1 tablespoon chili powder
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 cups bean sprouts
• 200 grams Thai sweet basil
• 1/4 cup garlic, crushed
• 5 coriander roots, crushed
• 2-3 galangal ginger chunks, crushed
• 1 cinnamon sticks, crushed into large pieces
• 4 star anise
• 4 bay leaves
• 2 tablespoons peppercorn
• 3 tablespoons rock candy/rock sugar
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar
• 5 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1/2 cup seasoning sauce
• 4 pickled garlic
• 3 pieces pickled bean curd
• 1/4 cup dark sweet soy sauce
• 3 tablespoons soybean paste
• 1 tablespoon chicken powder
• 1 1/2 tablespoons salt
• Additional water for cooking veggies and noodles

Steps:

1. Put water to boil in a large stock pot with pork bones, pork chunks, pork balls, Daikon, mushrooms and pandanus leaves.
2. In the meantime, toast in pan, the crushed garlic, coriander roots and galangal ginger chunks, for several minutes then put into a sachet bag, close and throw into stock pot.
3. Add cinnamon sticks, star anise, and bay leaves to pan to toast for a few minutes and remove and set aside.
4. Add peppercorns to pan and heat for a minute or so then add to a second sachet bag then crush them some in the bag and then add the toasted cinnamon sticks, star anise, and bay leaves to the same bag. Close and throw into stock pot.
5. Then add all the seasonings, from the rock sugar to the salt, to the pot.
6. Bring to boil then simmer for 2 hours, while occasionally skimming off the scum off the top.
7. Mix chopped green onions and coriander (also known as cilantro) in a little bowl, mix together and set aside for use as a topping later.
8. In a wok, add cooking oil, such as canola, and throw in pork fat. Rendering the fat for about 10 minutes then also add the crushed small garlic to fry with pork fat. Remove from wok into a serving bowl.
9. Add 1 tablespoon soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil and corn starch to thinly sliced pork shank/brisket. Mix well and set aside in the refrigerator until ready to use.
10. Mix toasted small pounded chili’s in with vinegar and set aside.
11. Add fish sauce, chili powder and sugar to separate condiment bowls and set aside.
12. When broth has simmered for a couple of hours taste and make sure it doesn’t need any additional seasonings to your liking.
13. Remove a chunk of the pork brisket and slice thinly and set aside
14. Take out raw marinated pork from refrigerator and set aside
15. To assemble soup bowl, using a spider strainer basket add some bean sprouts, Thai basil, and a handful of rice noodles of your choice into the basket. Set in a pot of simmering water and cook for a couple of minutes or until your noodles are done, as you shake the strainer in the water to redistribute and cook the ingredients.
16. Strain and add contents to a 1 person serving bowl, that has been warmed with the hot liquid from the strainer and then water in the bowl dumped back into the water pot.
17. Now, your guests/family have a choice. You can add the precooked and sliced pork into the soup bowl or add a fresh pork version. In the fresh pork version you will put several pieces of the raw marinated pork into the same spider strainer basket (after you have removed the bean sprouts, noodles, and basil) and set it into the broth pot (not the water pot) until it cooks fully…about 3-5 minutes and shake the strainer every so often so the pork doesn’t stick together. Once done you can place it on one side of the perimeter of the serving bowl, on top of the noodles.
18. Add a piece of daikon, a mushroom, some pork balls to the perimeter of the bowl as well.
19. Top, in the middle of the bowl, with chopped green onion and coriander mixture and then with pickled cabbage on top of the onion/coriander mixture.
20. Finally add broth to the bowl to come up to where your ingredients end.
21. Serve with four condiments (fish sauce, chili in vinegar, chili powder and sugar) on the side and everyone adds whatever they want to their bowl.

I told you this was a doozy of a recipe…I should have chosen the fried prawns on toast, huh? Nahhh, this one is much better! The fun thing was that after I made my bowl to try Chef had me make about 6 other ones for the other staff to eat…and of course they picked the type of noodles and meat they wanted (precooked pork or freshly cooked pork)…it was fun, I felt like I was in a restaurant cooking to order!

And the other dishes I made today:

Well, that is all for today, yeah, I know, that was enough! I have my one day break tomorrow, Sunday, before I get back to it and eat, eat, eat. Catch you on Monday!