I have no taste for strong Indian curry but I rather like Thai curry for the usage of ingredients and herbs that are familiar to Vietnamese cooking. I have observed this way of making curry before when my Indonesian friends came over to my home and cooked us some traditional Indonesian dishes, one of which was a curry dish. Some herbal and root ingredients are processed into paste – which is the curry paste itself. The way of using coconut milk instead of water to make the slightly thick soup is very authentic and typical to this kind of curry. Coconut milk makes the curry more flavorful though the soup is also fatter, but this is crucial to bring out the genuine taste.

Some prefer the soup to be thick but I’d rather cook it just slightly thick by using thinner coconut milk, which I feel more pleasant to eat. I also use fewer chilies to reduce the spiciness. Besides, I also cook with less oil. It is great to have this curry with hot steamed rice on cold days.

Read the rest of this post >>

I got this recipe from one of my baking books. Actually I’ve never had a chance to visit Bangkok and see whether these waffles are in fact very popular as a street food there or not. 

Just because I have been impressed by many other Thai foods, I didn’t hesitate to try making these waffles, or pancakes. These waffles contain typical flavours of Thai cuisine and the ingredients are used widely in many other dishes. According to the book, the dipping sauce is made from pure fish sauce, but when I tried that way, the sauce was too strong, therefore the flavor of the waffles became insignificant. So I decided to lighten the sauce by adding some water and sugar to it. And the dipping sauce became more pleasant to serve with the waffles. 

Read the rest of this post >>

I was attracted to this beautiful dessert firstly by its tempting color. And I love pomegranate, too, however, it’s has been a long time since my last experience with pomegrantes (those in Singapore are too expensive for me and they do not often look fresh in supermarkets). So I was curious at this mock pomegrante sweetened soup. 

I learned about this dessert when browsing a collection book of Thai desserts. I realized that a typical characteristic of many Thai sweet desserts is the application of coconut milk/ coconut cream in making the sweet soup. Coconut flavor is present in almost every recipe. I also realized that they (Thai people, or at least the recipes in that book) use a very large amount of sugar and coconut milk, which sometimes the coconut soup yielded overwhelms the other main ingredients and too sweet. 

Having too much sugar and coconut milk is not good to the health, so when cooking Thai dessert, I just take note of the ingredients and cooking process, then I change the amount of sugar and coconut milk, sometimes also omit unnecessary extra coconut milk so that the taste suits my liking better and that I do not feel guilty when enjoying Thai desserts as such. So, like me, you may adapt the recipe and use the quantity of sugar and coconut milk/ coconut cream according to your taste and liking. 

With this dessert in particular, actually, the ‘mock pomegranate seeds’ are water chestnut cubes covered with tapioca flour. The water chestnuts are soaked in water with some red food coloring to obtain the typical red color of the pomegranates. I used strawberry paste coloring, just one or two drops are enough to bring out this color. When cooking, you may not see the color as deep and profound as such. But after cooking, when you let them stand for a while until serving time, they do appear with this color. I was doubtful a lot while making this, however, later on when serving and taking photo of it, the red color was exactly what I expected to have. 

Read the rest of this post >>

This is the first time I tried making this beef salad in Thai-style. However, I have eaten other kinds of Thai salads several times before, so I get the typical flavor out of Thai salads. Still, I was amazed at the great flavor out of this dish. It gave me a refreshing feeling and I craved for more.

This salad is the combination of beef and other kinds of vegetables, plus some Asian herbs, which are typical especially for South East Asia. These herbs and fish sauce are the main ingredients that create a distinctive taste to the salad. For me, I am quite familiar with this kind of combination of the salad dressing with the herbs since many salad dishes in Vietnamese style also call for this combination. This similarity between Thai food and Vietnamese food (maybe mainly because both nations use fish sauce very often in cooking) reminds me of the homely flavor.

Try, I bet you will like this. I follow the ingredients in one of the cookbook "Bowl Food" that I do reference quite often.

Read the rest of this post >>

I made this green mango salad following the Thai salad style. I really like having something light and sour on hot days since consuming these flavors makes me feel more comfortable.

Green mangoes are easy to find at Asian supermarket, so I often use them to cook sour soup. However, this time I used green mango in this salad, which is very fresh and crunchy. The mango strips are a little softened yet crunchy, you can still hear the sound when you chew them in your mouth. The roasted coconut flesh and cashew nuts not only add the texture but also the buttery taste to the salad. This is also the familiar taste I often get from my home country’s salads.

Read the rest of this post >>

Thai basil, despite the name specified with Thai food, is a very popular kind of herbs used frequently in Vietnamese food. Normally the herb is consumed raw as the condiment for other foods. I really like the pungent taste of this basil, especially when the basil is served with the right food. I cooked this dish to use the chicken breast which I filleted from the whole chicken I bought some days ago.

The chicken was marinated shortly with some hot spicy plants first, then it was quickly roasted on a wok or saucepan. Many spices specified with Thai cuisine were used in this dish, which offered a very authentic taste of Thai food. I like this since eating Thai foods always reminds me of familiar flavor of the foods in my hometown.

Read the rest of this post >>

This is a Thai-inspired dish which is very simple and quick to make. I adapted the recipe from my book for party food and appertizers. I do not often eat spicy food, yet this dish is a good choice and pleases my stomach when the weather in this hot island gets cool (during rainy season after a heavy rain, the air may get cooled down).

I am not so sure about the yellow bean paste used in the recipe, however, I guessed it is a kind of yellow soy bean paste, so I used the spicy soy bean paste I got at home. Since the paste is already spicy, I reduced the chilli called for in the ingredients.

What I love the most from this dish is Thai basil. This kind of basil is used very popularly in Vietnamese dishes, both in cooking and eating raw as a condiment vegetable to other foods. So when you find the fresh clams sold in your neighborhood, remember this dish to enjoy another great Asian flavor.

Read the rest of this post >>

Having a home party? Then you may think of this tasty dish as a snack to amaze your friends. These balls have so many flavour inside. Being coated with chopped peanut and then deep-fried, the balls become crunchy outside yet chewy inside. Guess what is there inside? It is the mash cooked rice mixed with various kinds of seasoning and herbs.

This dish belongs to Thai cuisine with its typical hot chili taste. In addition, peanuts, fish sauce, turmeric, lime and other seasonings are very popular in other Thai dishes. Making this dish is quite time-consuming, however, it’s worth trying. When making the inside rice balls, it would be very sticky, so prepare to cope with that. I am not a fan of hot stuffs, and these balls turned out to be a bit too spicy for me. So next time, I will remember to reduce some chilies. If you prefer them hotter, you can have them dipped in sweet chili sauce. If not, then serve them as they are.

Because the rice inside is pre-cooked, so it only takes time for the peanut coating to get brown in oil. In order to reduce the cooking time to get the brown color of the peanuts, I roasted peanuts on the pan first. So I didn’t have to deep-fry them too long, and so less oil would absorb into the rice, which made me feel that the balls were healthier

Read the rest of this post >>