David Thompson is well regarded as one of the foremost non-Thai chefs of Thai food in the world. So it is with both excitement and some trepidation my girlfriend Hellraiser (HR) and I embark upon an afternoon of menu planning with Thai cookbooks lined up on the kitchen table. To make it more of a challenge we have invited friends along to the dinner party which means both Coconut cream and Prawns / crustations are off the menu – no mean feat as we start reading through the recipe books, especially when it came to choosing a curry.
Following that it was trips butchers and fruit and veg to pick up the few vegies that HR couldn’t get at the markets – including around 25 red shallots and we still ran shy! Then Sunday prep day! Spending the day in the kitchen with the music going and a girlfriend prepping with you – sounds like a perfect Sunday to me.
Making curry pastes from scratch gives you a whole new appreciation for the effort that goes into making the tasty curries (and gives you a fantastic work out for your arms!). We settled on a Chaing Mai Pork Curry - which could possibly also be renamed as a garlic and ginger curry! Making a double dose of the curry paste meant a double dose of pounding with the mortor and pestle. But the work didn't start there, prior to the pounding was peeling 52 cloves of garlic, roasting and grinding star anise, cummin and coriander, peeling red shallots and chopping lemongrass, ginger, galangal and red tumeric (shown above). A process which took a couple of hours - good thing it was a leisurely Sunday morning! However the smell of the freshly made curry paste was well worth it and the aroma of the roasted spices in the house made the whole place smell entirely delicious. You can't beat fresh made curry paste.
Herbs were chopped, citrus zested, juiced and segmented, shallots, ginger, garlic and chillies thinly sliced, sauces made, noodles soaked, eggplants charred and peeled, Chang Mai pork curry on the stove and all the early prep was done and it was time for prepping the house, setting the table and generally getting ready until it was time for all the last minute frying, heating, cooking and assembling that is needed as your guests arrive to make your Thai feast beautifully fresh.
Hot and sour soup of chicken and lemongrass - HR made a beautiful light chicken stock from scratch which was the base for this awesome soup starter. The hot and sour elements play off against each other perfectly with the fresh herbs, lime juice providing the sour, birdseye chillies (fresh from HRs garden) adding the hot and the poached chicken balancing this soup! Relatively simple the soup was a hit and a beautiful way to get the meal started.Chiang Mai Pork Curry - As mentioned above this curry has a curry paste that was made with love and an obscene number of garlic cloves - a number of garlic cloves that only multiplies in the cooking of the curry where more are added including 1 cup of pickled garlic cloves (from the Asian supermarket where else). The curry uses both pork belly and pork ribs which are cold blanched before adding to the curry - a technique I hadn't tried before which involves bringing the pork and water to the boil from a cold start. This reduces the richness and fattiness of the pork. The flavours in this curry just intensify over night so it makes pretty good left overs the next day too so make plenty.
Minced Beef with chilli thai holy basil leaves with a hot fish sauce dressing - This is from the Thai Street Food cook book Stir fried mince beef with chilli and holy basil. Pretty quick and easy I think my seasoning lacked somewhat and it didn't end up quite as saucy as I imagined it might - it wasn't until the next day that I remembered that I did have additional basil in the fridge I could have used rather than skimping on the amount as I thought I had run out. This is so quick I will give it another go hopefully a little more successfully. The side sauce with hot birdseye chillies in it got the sweat flowing from many a brow around the table and no doubt increased the beer consumption but in a positive kind of a way.
Duck Salad with Citrus and Star Anise dressing - This was the one dish that we cooked that was not from David Thompson. A fresh leafy salad with soft bean shoot vermicelli, bean shoots, plenty of coriander, orange and pink grapefruit segments and roast duck breast. The real punch in this salad though came from the dressing which was infused with star anise and reduced resulting in and almost candied orange zest and a rich thick dressing.
Grilled eggplant salad - This salad provides a great offset to the meatiness of curries and stir fries. A similar recipe inspired by the David Thompson recipe we used can be found here Smokey Eggplant Salad with shallot and mint. I have made both versions and they are both tasty - it is surprising how good this salad looks given the appearance of charred eggplant. Typical thai salad style dressing where fish sauce meets lime juice. I love these types of dressing something about the salty and tartness of them really appeals to me especially when teamed with fresh herbs. I'll be making this one again.
Pat Thai - This David Thompson recipe for Pat Thai (found here) I had made before - this time however it was without the dried prawns of course. I am a little disappointed in my second effort - leaving the noodles to soak far too long resulted in the noodles breaking up during the cooking process and the larger quantity of noodles meant that the sauce didn't mix through as well - however with the fresh bean shoot and the squeeze of fresh lime (essential) it was passable. That said my last effort on this recipe was fantastic and the photo from this effort is shown. (As an aside on this the last occasion that I cooked this I also cooked this quick and tasty Thai Chicken Curry which my brother and AC gave the thumbs up to).
Desert was set as Pomegranate agar - agar with thai inspired sorbets.Pomegranates what an amazing fruit - so shiny and apple like on the outside and so full of juicy fleshy little seeds on the inside - juicy seeds that some how manage to spread that bright red juice all over your kitchen.
Once I had managed to spread pomegranate juice all over the kitchen the next step was to channel some of that juice into a bowl to go in the Pomegranate Agar - Agar. Having never cooked with agar-agar it was an experience and I wasn't quite sure what to expect. Agar - agar is a heat activated setting agent so different from making desserts with gelatine. Panadaus leaf is simmered with water and the agar-agar before sugar, pomegranate juice and pomegranate molasses are added, then poured into individual moulds with some whole seeds to set! These looked fab but didn't turn out from the moulds quite as I had expected. The 1/2 cup moulds were a good size for the agar-agars as the flavour is quite intense. The texture is something best described as an "Asian dessert" texture - not quite jelly but yet not really something else.
HRs husband was on the sorbet duties and the sharp and tangy Lime, Lemongrass and Lemon sorbet that he put together was the right amount of sharpness to offset the sweetness of the pomegranate agar-agar. I was also pretty happy that there was some of this left over in the freezer which I have been testing out since - fantastic!! Big thumbs up from me! A lovely night with friends and all helped along the way with some Singa Beer to get the full Thai experience - perfect with the heat of the meal.
No comments:
Post a Comment