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!

Hi All! Luckily (for my stomach), today I did the typical 5 dishes and only 2 extra for the second part of my day. There is no time to eat all of this food!

Today I made some more unique dishes, more “arts and crafts” were utilized :). There was only one new ingredient I used today and it was fresh spring roll paper made of wheat and they were REAL thin (not the rice paper kind that you use in fresh Vietnamese spring rolls…but Chef Ratch said you can use those too). A new technique I learned was to use these iron molds to make little cups from a batter to house some food. So fun. I need to get me some of those molds!

The ingredients on my station today. More turmeric, which you can’t touch too long cause then your fingers (and everything it touches) becomes yellow! Although I hear that it is good for a lot of stuff, so eat more turmeric, especially the fresh kind :).

The dishes I made today included:

• Fresh spring rolls with gravy sauce (Por Pia Sod)
• Stir-fried pork with vermicelli (Wun Sen Phat Khai)
• Deep fried fish in 3 flavor sauce (Pla Thod Sam-Rod)
• Crispy golden cup (Kra Thong Tong)
• Sweet taro with coconut filling (Takoh Pheuak)
• Stir fried chicken with yellow curry powder & pineapple (Kai Pad Sapparot)
• Morning glory with peanut curry (Phra Ram Long Song)

The most fun was making the fresh spring rolls and the crispy golden cup. The fresh spring rolls because I got to make an egg crepe and flip it, and it worked :). The crispy golden cup because it was soo fun making the little cups. I think if I put a little more sugar in the batter it can be used to make a funnel cake, but a lot crispier! I am going to try it when I get home!

The two most fun dishes to make were also my two favorite ones. That being said, I am going to pick the fresh spring rolls for my number 1. When I first saw how we were going to make it I didn’t think I would like it, because there was A LOT of tofu in it, but it was the perfect bite with the creamy gravy on top. Yum!

For the fresh spring rolls, you will need:

• 6 fresh wheat spring roll sheets
• 1 egg
• 1 block of tofu (about 4 by 2 inches)
• 200 grams chicken breast
• 1-2 cup chicken stock or water
• 2 cloves garlic, lightly crushed
• 1 coriander root, lightly crushed
• 15 peppercorns
• 1 star anise
• 1 small chunk of cinnamon stick
• 1 cup bean sprouts, blanched
• 2 mini cucumbers, peeled and cut lengthwise in quarters
• 1 red spur chili, seeds removed and julienned (for garnish)
• 1 spring onion, green part only, chopped (for garnish)
• 1 teaspoons sugar
• 1-2 teaspoons dark soy sauce (for color)
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon tamarind
• 1 teaspoon pickled plum (remove seed)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup cornstarch

Steps:

1. Crack egg and beat well. Pour the egg into a non-stick pan and roll the pan around so the egg is on most of the surface, like a crepe. Cook (you can try flipping it at this point or just cook until it’s done on top too). Remove the egg to the side and roll, then slice julienne style.
2. In a small pot, add chicken stock or water along with 1 teaspoon of the dark soy sauce, garlic, coriander root, peppercorns, star anise and cinnamon. Bring to a boil.
3. Add chicken breast and tofu block into pot and simmer until chicken is done, about 25 minutes.
4. When chicken is done, remove from pot, along with tofu. Cut chicken in long finger like strips or shred. Also, cut tofu in long finger like strips, set aside.
5. Remove spices from pot and only leave the liquid.
6. Mix cornstarch with a tablespoon or 2 of water and mix well.
7. Pour cornstarch mixture into liquid in pot and stir over medium heat until the liquid becomes a slightly thick gravy. If you need to add more cornstarch to thicken do so.
8. Place a fresh spring roll sheet onto cutting board and lay some bean sprouts, a slice of cucumber, a piece each of chicken breast and tofu and sprinkle with some egg, then roll it up.
9. Cut roll into 4 to 5 pieces and lay on a plate/platter. Continue with the rest of the rolls.
10. Top the rolls with the gravy and garnish with additional shredded egg, red chili slices and chopped spring onions or chopped cilantro.

Some of my other dishes today:

Well, I hope you enjoyed all the dishes from today. See you back here tomorrow!

Good day to all! Hope you are enjoying all the posts on all the wonderful Thai food that I am preparing. What a wonderful opportunity that I have to do this for a month!

Some of the new ingredients that I used today included wing beans and Thai bananas (these cute little 3-4″ banana’s). The wing beans were very unique, they had ridges all around.

Today the recipes were not as spicy as other days. Of course I always have the choice of how spicy I want to make my dishes but I have leaned towards making the recipe as is to see what it tastes like. Well, today as is was not too spicy :).

My station today:

Today’s menu included:

• Gaeng khua curry paste (Nam Prik Gaeng Khua)
• Mussel curry with pineapple (Gaeng Khua Sapparod)
• Crispy pork paste dip (Nam Prik Kak Moo)
• Stir fried squid with salted egg yolks (Pla Meuik Pad Kai Kem)
• Wing bean salad (Yam Tua Plu)
• Steamed banana pastry (Kanom Kluay)

Today is the first day that it’s easy for me to pick my favorite recipe. Even though all the dishes had their merits I REALLY loved the wing bean salad. Mildly spicy with coconut cream and chicken and shrimp…wow, it had a wonderful subtle flavor. The wing beans had an interesting texture, very different than a regular string bean. The only bad thing was that it seemed like too small of a portion!

For the wing bean salad, you will need:

• 250 grams Wing beans, sliced thin
• 1/4 cup minced chicken
• 3 shrimp
• 1 hard boiled egg, peeled and cut
• 1/4 cup fried shallots
• 2 fried dried small hot chilies (optional, for decor)
• 2 tablespoons coconut cream
• 2 tablespoons mild chili paste
• 1/1/2 tablespoons fish sauce
• 1/2 tablespoon palm sugar
• 1 1/2 tablespoons lime juice

Steps:

1. Blanch the sliced wing beans in boiling water for 1-2 minutes then immediately put into cool water and drain. Set aside.
2. Add coconut cream to pot over medium heat and bring to a simmer
3. Add in chicken and shrimp and cook for 2 minutes.
4. Add chili paste and stir well then add fish sauce, palm sugar and lime juice and combine well.
5. Cook for another minutes and taste for seasoning then serve by itself or over rice.
6. Top with fried shallots, boiled egg and dried chili, if using.

I have to say that these dishes I am making have been some of the most colorful dishes I have made, consistently! The ingredients are also so fresh, it’s amazing. Here are some pictures of the other dishes I made today.

The next dish I made is called a dip, which I was confused about since it’s not what I would think of as a “dip”. It’s pork fat, shallots and garlic that all have been sliced REAL thin and then deep fried. After you fry it you throw it all in a wok and heat it some more as you throw in some chili powder, salt and sugar. I asked Chef why it’s called a dip and she said that they eat it by dipping chunks of sticky rice into it and it sticks to the rice and you pop it in your mouth. Of course it can also be served over rice or as a garnish on dishes, or you can just pop the crispies in your mouth!

This next dish was very pretty. Looks very festive and holiday like!

And lastly, dessert. This one I thought would be great but was just so so. It had too much of a rubbery texture for my liking :), but the fresh shaved coconut was REAL good.