Whilst living and honing my cooking skills in Thailand, I got on the food trend, band wagon, that is sweeping old world countries with Renovation Cuisine. Where the Chef goes back to very old traditional dishes of a particular cuisine and reproduces the dish with the odd modern change here and there. However the solid traditional foundation and especially the correct flavour must still be strongly represented.
This in turn influenced my menu creation at Classical Thai Cravings and in turn gave birth to our Royal Banquet. At the beginning I was apprehensive as to how clientele would respond. Those fears where but to rest by the over whelming response we have had to these traditional and sometimes rustic and robust Thai flavours.
At the heart of food there is certainly a commonality between palates the world over (This is able to be seen when cooking Thousands upon Thousands of meals as any professional Chef does, but it does require getting out of your kitchen and travelling coupled with food tasting). By this what I mean is certain dishes that have stood the test of time and rose to great heights of popularity will usually be accepted by other countries as well. Maybe this works with very ancient Thai dishes in Australia due to the multicultural palates of the Australian.
Whichever way thank you to everyone for your support of allowing me to bring different Thai dishes and flavours to Australia there still is a lot more to come.
See our Royal Banquet.
Ingredients
5 to 7 Prawns
275g Chicken stock
5g Galangal
5g Lemongrass
1g Lime leaf
2 or 3 units of birds eye chili
2 Units of coriander root scraped and cleaned
30g Button mushroom quartered
25g Fish sauce
20g Lime juice
6g sugar
Coriander leaf for Garnish
Method:
Gently simmer chicken stock. Add the lemongrass, Galangal, Lime Leaf, coriander root and chili. Simmer for 30 seconds than add the prawns and season with fish sauce. When the prawns are cooked, add the mushroom and turn off the stove and add the lime juice and stir. Garnish with coriander leaf.
Nothing beats this soup first thing in the morning when you have a severe hang over or you have the flu or a sore throat.
70g Roasted duck
30g Fresh pineapple
2 or 3 Cherry tomato’s halved
2 coriander roots
1 garlic clove
Half a Spanish onion
1/4 of a teaspoon of dry roasted coriander and cumin seeds
2 tablespoons red curry paste
1 Full teaspoon of sugar
1 tablespoon of fish sauce
2 lime leaves finely sliced
265mls of good quality coconut milk
10 Sweet Basil leaves
1 1/2 tablespoon of oil
Method: Blend or pound the red onion, coriander roots and garlic in a mortar and pestle.
Heat 1 1/2 tablespoons of oil in a pan to a moderate heat and add your pounded paste with the red curry paste, coriander seed and cumin seed. Fry for a few minutes and season with sugar followed by fish sauce. Than add the coconut milk and lime leaf.
When it comes to the boil add the roasted duck, pineapple and cherry tomato’s. Add the basil leaves right at the end and stir and serve. Garnish with Julianne cut long red chili.
I have read alot of books on culture shock but I first experienced it when I was 17. Being born in the Southern Highlands of NSW. I was a country boy and when I got off the plane in Bangkok for the first time and experienced Thailand for a few days, I suddenly started feeling these rushes of anger burst forth, at anyone who was unlucky enough to have made the smallest of mistakes in my opinion. I finally ended up wanting to get on the plane and go home. Lucky I ended up calming down in the end and stayed.
As the years passed and I kept returning to Thailand where I noticed my old friend culture shock visit me here and there I ended up looking into what it in fact was.
Culture shock happens when the mind is overstimulated by a new experience, surrounding, people etc. This is compounded with the mind being on alert at all times and not at ease in its new environment. This in turn causes tiredness. It all finally results in the mind wanting to run back to what is familiar.
So a Thai may act in a way that you dont like but they in fact may be trying to be nice. Incorrect asumptions are made becuse the mind is tried and negative which leads the senses and decsion making process to be dulled. So what have I found to help. Well when you feel these out of character feelings inside, go back to your room and watch movies from your own culture or talk to someone familar from home over internet chat , or eat your cultures own cusine. These simple remedies can save a Thai from getting an ear bashing for just trying to make a living.
There is alot of comptition in thai market places so try to be patient when some seller is forcing some of there wares upon you and is trying to rip you off at the same time. Sure try and get the best price but enjoy the challenge. I assure you Thais love the challenge and always put on a smile even though alot may have made no where near enough money for the day.
I hope this blog entry pays off some Karma for when the Thai has coped my anger for just trying to make a dollar off a vistor to there beatiful country.
A lot of us now are familiar with Thai Tattoo’s due to Angelina Jolie’s 5 line Tattoo on her left shoulder blade tattooed by the Thai Buddhist Master Ajarn Noo. There is a lot of misunderstanding with Sak Yants due to it being a very hard concept of belief to grasp, especially if you do not come from a Buddhist background. It has taken me many years to grasp what and how Sak Yants work. Sak Yants are Buddhist Mantras written in Khmer script. I’m not going to go into the ancient history of them but centre on the Thai belief of how they work. Animist belief and Buddhism are intertwined in the Thai mind. To a large degree it is close to our western belief in quantum physics. Everything has an energy or vibration or power. The more energy’s attached to one another forms a greater energy.
Thais believe in accordance with Buddhism that everything is continually changing form or energy structure. So with the Khmer script, each letter or language symbol carries a meaning or a Buddhist teaching attached to it. This meaning or belief in turn is believed by millions of people for thousand of years. So the thinking here is that the ancient craft of this style of tattooing is compounded energy being attached to the wearer. For example some are for protection, some to attract certain types of good fortune etc, depending on which tattoo is given to the bearer.
The tattoo is most commonly applied by monks specialising in this craft with a metal stylus which punchers the skin. They are able to give tattoos faster than a tattoo gun and they are doing it totally by hand with this metal rod.
Now me wanting to experience everything Thai, and this being an ancient craft, I just could not pass up on the opportunity. So I went under the rod, and well, it was very painful for the first few but since than I have become some what accustomed to the pain. It has certainly been an experience that I can not explain in words.
Last time we spoke about intensifying the flavour of your stir-fry by adding extra seasoning and a herb base. The second point I want to add today is: To thin and combine these flavourings you will need to add at least 70mls of chicken stock to your stir-fry. Try to use chicken stock and not water, in another post I will explain a quick Thai chicken stock and how to make it. Chicken stock really makes a stir-fry shine.
Put the chicken Stock in little by little so as things don’t go soggy in the wok.
Thai stir-fry are designed to be eaten with rice, so keep the following two central points in mind.
Point One: Make sure you have a strong enough flavour to begin with so the stir-fry is still tasty when mixed with rice and not dulled.
Point Two: Make sure you have enough sauce to mix through the rice e.g., make sure you add enough chicken stock to your stir fry.
Stir-frys are quick and easy but try to just take a little extra time and it will certainly pay off. Just wait and see what your guests or family say, you will be amazed what these little tricks will do to peoples palates.
Did you miss Part 1? Read it here.
I have often been asked about how our Vegetables and herbs at Classical Thai Cravings are so fresh. Do we buy daily? The answer is, No. It comes down to the handling of the produce when it is bought from a trusted supplier who genuinely has a passion for produce. These type of suppliers are not on every street corner that’s for sure. But once found it than comes down to the handling of the produce.
Firstly, cooling slows down the chemical or metabolic activity within plant cells that cause decay. But different produce requires being stored at different temperatures, this is the key of storage put plainly. Without getting technical, vegetables from temperate climates should be kept at the top of you fridge where it is most cold, e.g. 2 to 5 degrees and those herbs coming from hotter tropical or sub tropical climates should be stored at the bottom of the fridge in your veg draw eg 7 to 10 degree. This goes for the majority of Asian herbs. Secondly, stand your herbs upright in a container the way they grow with a black garbage bag gently slipped over the top as light accelerates decay. Put some paper towel in between the leaves and the garbage bag to absorb acids and condensation that leach from the leaves.
With all that said, remember to respect produce, it is a life that has gone to a degree of effort in becoming eatable. Concentrate on what you’re doing. Don’t just cut a carrot wrong and throw it in the bin. When food is respected it tastes better. Try and you will see the comments from your dinner guests. When I first heard this I thought it was quite crazy hair brain thinking but I have come to believe in it through trial and error. Stay tuned for more tips on handling produce correctly to maximize freshness and to keep more dollars in your wallet or purse.
There is no excuse for excessive drinking and using a fiery temper in the wrong way within a room of tiles. But the fact is it does happen. It takes years of training for some of us chefs to bring both of these excesses under control.
The cycle starts because cooking over 20 dishes at once in sink with a group of other chefs is bloody hard. Now all these dishes may have several different components with all different cooking times. One big mistake on a dish takes your attention, mixed with a waitress talking in your ear saying, ” the customer who asked for there curry hot wants you to do it again not as hot”. Now Mix that with waitresses asking at the same time how long is Mr Smiths take away order, his been waiting and he’s pissed”. You bend down to the oven, smash a saute pan into the tiles in anger to find you left the beef in to long. You suck it up, load the pan with another fillet and throw it in and turn to see the dish washer has broken 3 of you $70 dollar hand made Thai Celadon plates and well, he cops it. You turn back to the stove and feel bad that u overreacted and your emotions are in a spin. But you got to suck it up and focus on your 20 dishes, customers are pouring in and they all want to be fed within 20 minutes of ordering.
Now that all happened in a space of 5 minutes and I could go on and on with a night like that.
By the time you finish the night your head is screaming “feed me alcohol I got to unwind, so you do”. The next morning you wake up with a hang over and arrive at the restaurant. You check your bookings book and your full. You look outside and its steaming hot. You say in your mind “takeaways are going to pour in tonight no one will want to cook at home”. You walk into the kitchen and your sous chef says “the dishy has quit and he has rang and tried to find a replacement and no go”.
Its going to be a long day and night.
As you can see it takes time to master yourself as a chef. Anger, boo’s and kitchens don’t mix. But sometimes its hard for them not to.
Ingredients:
For the marinade in order of cooking.
2 teaspoon of oil
5 g ground fresh turmeric
2 g curry powder
7 g of ground coriander root and garlic
3 g of pandanus leaf, finely sliced
1g of white pepper
2g sugar
1g salt
1g seasoning or soya sauce
120g coconut milk
160g lamb meat, cut into 8 thin strips each about 2.5 wide and 6cm long
Instructions:
1/ Stirfry for about 5 minutes for medium well or alternatively skewer and BBQ.
Makes one serving of four satays.
Notes: Use fresh herbs and don’t be lazy with the fresh turmeric it makes this marinade shine.
You could also use this Thai marinade when BBQing, just multiply ingredients to get more marinade, it works great on seafood, chicken and beef.
Base Flavour Pattern:
Should taste sweet first followed very closely behind by salt. Do not let your seasoning override your beautiful fresh herb base, let there flavours shine forth.
Serve:
Serve with peanut sauce. You can buy in a jar or wait for my Blog recipe coming in the future
What makes Classical Thai in Mittagong a town next to Bowral, stir frys taste so good.
First it is always good to have a herb base. Thai and Chinese stirfrys are not the same. When you heat oil in your wok try not to do this till smoking point like is said in western cook books alot. Than add some ground Garlic and coriander root or simply add some curry paste with your ground chili etc. Whatever Asian herb you love really, even lemongrass for another example. Throw them in the oil and fry until you can smell the herb with the most water contents aroma. What I mean by this is: Garlic and coriander have more water content than say what they call old ginger or fresh lemongrass. Hence the more water the longer it will take for the water to steam out and the ingredient begin to cook. This equals longer cooking time. Add your choice of seasoning sauces after this eg oyster sauce, fish sauce and sugar.
Another good tip from what I have found is: A lot of Asian cook books and magazines written by westerners with stir fry recipes simply don’t have enough flavor. Try upping each seasoning sauce measurement at least a quarter, Asian flavours are more robust than western and as Australians we can handle this being a multicultural nation. Many food writers are stuck in the past for some reason.
Stayed tuned in the future for Thai stir fry recipes.
There’s more to stir frying than throwing ingredients in a wok and shaking a bit of soy and sugar in if you want them to truly shine.
But try it, its not complicated and you will love that fried herd flavour perfuming the dish.
Whilst living and honing my cooking skills in Thailand, I got on the food trend, band wagon, that is sweeping old world countries with Renovation Cuisine. Where the Chef goes back to very old traditional dishes of a particular cuisine and reproduces the dish with the odd modern change here and there. However the solid traditional foundation and especially the correct flavour must still be strongly represented.
