Thai Fresh Spring Rolls

These little spring rolls (cups) are healthy and nice looking food. They are good for a party like cocktail party or the mood that you want to make something special for yourself. The party season is coming so I had this idea came up making something nice and healthy. It basically is a bite salad.

This healthy dish can be served all seasons as all the ingredients are available at the market. If you are allergic to seafood you can simply change shrimp to be grilled breast chicken, and if you are vegetarian you can just use grilled firm tofu sticks instead.

In this recipe, I use Thai brown rice vermicelli but if it is not available in your area then you can just use ordinary one.

Ingredients

30               Shrimp, peeled and deveined (size 31 – 40)

1 tbsp         Soy sauce

2 tbsp         Water

1 tbsp         Vegetable oil

150 g.          Thai brown rice vermicelli or rice vermicelli

5 pieces       Rice paper (for size 22 x 22 cm) or 7 pieces (size 15 x 15 cm.)

1                  Green or red lettuce

1                  Small carrot, cut into long thin sticks or julienne, 1 ½ - 1 ¾ inch long

1                  Small cucumber, cut into less than ½ x 1 ½ - 1 ¾ inch long (60 sticks)

60 leaves      Mint

1 tsp             Salt

Peanut Dipping Sauce (recipe follows)

Instructions

1. Bring a medium pot of water to a boil over medium high heat. Add salt and noodles, and cook until noodles are tender. Drain and transfer to a bowl. Put aside.
2. Combine shrimp, soy sauce and oil.
3. Place a frying pan on medium high heat. Add shrimp and water, and cover the frying pan with a lid while the shrimp is cooking, cook shrimp 1 minute each side until it is cooked or turn pink.  Remove from heat and transfer to a plate.
4. Dip rice papers in room temperature water and cut into 1 ¼ inch strips with scissors. And lay rice paper strips flat on wooded cutting board.
5. Cut green lettuce leaf 1 ½ inch from the ruffly edge of lettuce leaf by 3 inches long. Place a small bundle of noodles on top of mint leaves, and top with 2 cucumber sticks, 7 - 8 carrot sticks and shrimp. Roll lettuce around it tightly and secure the roll by wrapping around with a rice paper strip. Repeat with remaining ingredients.  Serve with peanut dipping sauce.

Peanut dipping sauce 

1 cake            Palm sugar (see the picture on "Herbs" page)

2 tbsp            Water

½ cup            Roasted unsalted peanuts, crushed

½ - 1              Fresh Thai chili or Prik Kee Noo, finely chopped

1 ½ tbsp        Fresh coriander, finely chopped

1 ¾ tbsp        Fish sauce (or soy sauce, if seafood is an issue)

1 ¾ tbsp        Lime juice

 Instructions

1. Place palm sugar and water in a small pot over medium heat. And cook until palm sugar dissolved, and remove from heat. Add fish sauce and lime juice, and mix well.
2. Add crushed peanut, chopped chili and chopped coriander, and mix well.

Hor Mok Ta Lay or Seafood Curry Custard

Hor Mok (literally, wrap and hide and “Ta Lay” is from “Ah Han Ta Lay” means seafood) is a steamed curry custard in banana leaves. This dish is a common food in Cambodia, Laos and Thailand, each country’s Hor Mok has some slightly different ingredients but Thai Hor Mok is always with seafood and some kinds of fresh water fish.

You can find this dish at Khoa Kheng Shop or and street food vendors to luxury Thai restaurants. The process is pretty straight forward even it has lots of different kinds of ingredients.

• It is better to use uncooked seafood for this dish so that it will mix and blend into fish and herb purée well. You can use any kind of seafood for examples (the popular ones in Thailand) are shrimp, mussel and squid. You can either have only one kind of seafood or mix seafood in this dish.
• In traditional way we use banana leaves for wrapping or making bowls for the size of one serving, but nowadays many chefs use nice little glass or ceramic dipping or sauce bowls for this dish.
• You can have your Hor Mok more texture by adding more chunks of seafood meat in purée besides indicating in the recipe. This is where the name of Hor Mok (wrap and hide) from – the chunks of meat are wrapped and hidden in the custard.
  
  

 12 servings

Ingredients

14                Shrimp (size 31 – 40) uncooked and thaw cut in half

14                Mussel uncooked and thaw cut in half

42 leaves     Sweet basil

Mussel, shrimp cuts

4-5 leaves   Coriander, garnishing

4-5 leaves   Kaffir lime leaves, slice very thin for garnishing

4 tbsp          Thick coconut milk

½ tsp           Potato or corn starch

Banana leaves enough for making 12 bowls.

*First part - herbs

1                  Large long chilli, slices for garnishing

10               Dried large long chillies, soft in warm water and remove seeds

5 roots         Fingerroot

2 roots         Coriander

Ingredients

2 tbsp          Lemongrass, slice

1 tbsp          Galangal, cut into small pieces

1–2               Fresh Thai chillies or Prik Kee Noo (optional, if you like spicy food)

3                  Shallots

3-4 cloves   Garlic

 1                 Kaffir lime, skin( 1 small one or ½ for a big one)

1 root          Turmeric, about 1” long

¹⁄₃ cup         Water or coconut water

**Second part

100 g           King Mackerel, remove bones and skin

2                  Eggs

1 tsp        Palm Sugar

1 tsp            Shrimp Paste, roasted (wrap in foil and roast on the element of stove)

½ tsp           Fresh ground pepper

1 ½ cup       Coconut milk, the thick one from a can

3 tbsp          Fish sauce

Instruction

1. Making banana bowls (if you use glass (pic. below) or ceramic bowls then skip this part), cut banana leaves into 5 x 5 inches. Fold each corner and secure with staples until finish for 4 corners.

   

   Bowls

2. Purée the ingredients of first part – herbs until smooth, and add the second part blend together until smooth. Pour into a mixing bowl and add shrimp and mussel and mix well. Store the mixture in the fridge for 10 – 15 minutes to set.
3. Heat a steamer on high heat.
4. Mix 4 tbsp of coconut milk with potato or corn starch well on medium heat until thicken or you can cook it in microwave. Set a side.
5. Place 3 basil leaves on the bottom of each bowl, scoop 2 tablespoon full of the mixture into the bowls (you can put more or less of the mixture, depending on the size of the bowls). The mixture of each bowl must have meat and sauce purée combined.

   

   For garnishing
   
   
   
   

6. Steam in boiling hot steamer for 8 minutes. Remove from the heat garnish with coconut milk sauce, long red chilli slices, kaffir lime leaf stripes and coriander leaves. And serve hot with steamed rice.

With glass bowl

Tod Man Pla or Thai Fish Cakes

Tod Man Pla or Thai Fish Cakes with red curry favour is a popular and well known dish. You can find this dish at street vendors to fancy restaurants in Bangkok. Original or in Thailandthis dish is made from Clown featherback or Clown knifefish which is Southeast Asian fresh water fish. The textures of fish cakes from this kind of fish are tough, firm and resiling so this kind of fish is ideal for making fish cakes and fish balls. Fish balls in Thailand, are original from Chinese cuisine, and are made from king mackerel or mackerel family fish.

Some Thai people use mackerel fish the kind that we have in Thai sea for making fish cake as well but it’s not that popular, because people have fixed the idea to the original one. Here we can find fresh king mackerel easily at a market so I use king mackerel for my fish cake recipe. The results from these two kinds of fish - Clown featherback and king mackerel, are very similar.

For the curry paste, we use red curry paste for the favour but it is not as spicy as the red curry. We use the same curry paste as Chu Chee curry, you can see the recipe on page Chu Chee curry- here.

In Thailand most people will deep-fry their fish cakes but you can also pan-fry the fish cakes as well.

*** I found the information of king mackerel substitutes:  Spanish mackerel OR shad OR bluefish OR herring OR small trout, the fish that has similar texture. 

For 13 - 14 pieces of fish cakes / size 2 ¼ inches x ¹⁄₃ inch

Ingredients

300 g                Fillets of king mackerel

4 tbsp               Curry Paste (see recipe from Chu Chee curry)

1                       Egg

¹⁄₃cup              Snake Beans, cut into ¼ inch

6 – 7 leaves     Kaffir Lime Leaves, cut into very thin stripes

½ tsp               Potato or tapioca starch

Snake bean and Kaffir lime leaves

4 – 5 tbsp        Cold water (or about ¹⁄₃ cup)

2 tbsp              Fish sauce

Oil for frying

Instruction

1. Remove fish’s skin and bones by scratching it with a spoon. Ground the fish in mortar with pestle or food processor until paste like.
2. Remove fish paste to a mixing bowl, and add egg, fish sauce and potato starch. Start kneading, in the same time add cold water gradually 3 - 4 times, and knead and grab the fish dough throw it back to the bowl, basically beating the fish repeatedly until the mixer tough and bouncing. (This process originally, the bowl with the fish mixer will be sitting on the ice. Beating the cold fish mixer will create a nice bouncing texture – bouncing fish cakes. The same process is for making fish balls as well) 

   

   The process of making fish cakes

    
3. Add snake beans and kaffir lime leaves, and mix well
4. Heat a frying pan or wok on medium heat, and add oil. Mould the mixer into 2 ¼ inches x ¹⁄₃ inch or shape like cookies. And fry both sides until nice brown colour or cooked. Remove and drain oil on paper towels.
5. Serve with cucumber pickles (see recipe below)

 Cucumber pickles 

1              Cucumber

2 tbsp      Coriander, chopped

¹⁄₃ cup     Peanuts, ground (optional)

1              Fresh Thai chilli, chopped (optional)

½ cup     White vinegar

½ cup     Sugar

1 tsp       salt

Instruction

1. Mix vinegar, sugar and salt in a pot on medium heat. Boil until bubbling for 1- 2 minutes. Remove from heat and set a side until it is cool.
2. Cut cucumber into quarter in lengthwise and slice into ¼ thick. Pour into vinegar mixer in a serving bowl. Add chilli and peanuts, and mix well.
3. Garnish with coriander.

Khai Luk Koei

Khai Luk Koei, Kai Leuk Koey or Kai Look Koey (literally, son-in-law eggs) is a dish that commonly found at Raan Khoa Khaeng or short order Thai restaurants. Khai Luk Koei or Son-In-Law-Eggs made of hard boiled eggs and we also have Khai Luk Sa Pai or Daughter- In-Law-Eggs made of over easy fried eggs but Son-In-Law-Eggs seems more popular.

Eggs are a common food for everyone, we simply turn the eggs to something more interesting, and it is for families especially for kids. In Thailand we consider Khai Luk Koei is a kind of comfort food and also it is a kid friendly dish as it contains a little sweetness, saltiness and sourness but is not spicy. Many people asked me what ages of kids can eat or learn to eat spicy food – I think it depends on each kid his or herself some can eat spicy hot food at very young age like 2 -3 years old and some can eat only mild spicy food even they are adult. We both my husband and I be able to eat very spicy food but not our son, he can eat mild spicy only. I was surprised he loved my Massaman Curry; this curry is mild hot in a sense of spicy hot from chilli pepper but it has the strong flavour of the spiciness of other different spices like cumin, for example.   

Ingredients

Tamarind Liquid

1                        ¾ x 1 ¾ inches of 200 g Tamarind cake (see picture)

½ cup                water

Break and knead tamarind in water until the mixer thickens

6                       Large eggs

½ cake             Palm sugar

6 tbsp               Tamarind thick liquid

2 tbsp               Fish sauce

½ cup               Oil for frying

1                       Large shallot, slice thin

2 tbsp               Chopped coriander

1                      Big long red chilli or Prik Chee Fah, sliced (optional) this kind of chilli is mild hot.

Instruction

1. Place eggs in a pot and cover with cold tap water and boil at high heat for 12 minutes (boil 10 minutes from tap water in Thailand).
2. Remove from heat, drain the hot water and rise and soak with cold tap water in the same time shake the pot so the eggs will be cracked from hitting to each other and peel the shells.
3. Put oil on a small frying pan over medium heat until hot. Add egg one at a time if using small amount oil in the pan and roll and turn the egg to brown totally until finish all.
4. In the same frying pan with the same oil, add sliced shallot, fry until slightly golden brown and drain oil on paper towel.
5. In the same frying pan, remove all oil, reduce the heat to low and add tamarind liquid, fish sauce and palm sugar and cook until palm sugar dissolves and the mixer thickens slightly.
6. To serve, slice the eggs and arrange on a serving plate. Pour on the sauce and garnish with crispy shallot, red chilli slices and chopped coriander. Serve with steamed rice.

Gai Hor Bai Toey (Chicken in Pandan Leaves)

Chicken in Pandan Leaves, or Gai Hor Bai Toey, is another popular Thai dish with chicken marinated wrapped in pandan leaves and deep-fried, and serve with sesame sauce. This dish is more a restaurant food from middle class restaurants to high end restaurants because it is more delicate in preparing and appearing.

Pandan leaves or Pandanus Amaryllifolius, and or Bai Toey (in Thai), is a tropical plant and is used widely in Southeast Asian cooking as a flavoring and coloring. In Thailand we use commonly and wildly in dessert more than in savory food. Pandan leaves are available in frozen form at Asian grocery stores.

About 18 pieces

Ingredients

400 - 450 g           or 2 Large chicken breasts (boneless and skinless), cut into approx 1.5 inch chunks.

½ tsp                    Ground pepper

3 roots                  Cilantro (coriander), chopped and pound with pestle

4 cloves                Garlic, chopped and pound with pestle

Pinch of Salt

1 tbsp                    Soy sauce

2 tsp                      Oyster sauce

1 tbsp                    Sesame oil

1 tbsp                    Cooking wine

1 tsp                      Potato starch or corn starch

10                         Pandan leaves, cut into half

Oil for frying

Instruction

1. Marinate chicken with ground pepper, coriander roots, garlic, salt, soy sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil, patato starch and cooking wine for an hour or more.
2. Wrap each piece of chicken in a pandan leaf until finish all. (see the pictures)** It’s better let some part of chicken being exposed so that part of chicken will get nice brown color.
3. Fry in Oil until cooked or turn golden and put on the plate and serve with sauce. 

The steps of wrapping chicken

1. 

   Secure chicken with toothpicks ( in Thailand pandan leaves are cheap so we use a whole leaf for wrapping one piece of chicken and it's long enough to fold itself without using a toothpick to secure)

Sesame Sauce

4 tbsp Thick sweet soy sauce (there are two kinds of thick soy sauce; sweet and salty) if thick sweet soy sauce is not available, Hoisin sauce can be used as a substitute.

1½ tbsp White vinegar

1 tsp Soy sauce

½ tsp Ginger, chopped very fine

½ tsp Roasted sesame seeds                

Instruction

Sesame Sauce

1. In a pot, heat sweet soy sauce, white vinegar and soy sauce on medium heat until sweet soy sauce dissolved and add ginger. Combine well.
2. Remove from heat and transfer to a sauce bowl.
3. Garnish with sesame seeds.