Instant meals, Instant noodles!

If you are too lazy to cook for your dinner, if you are not borned to be a good cook, or if you want to make Thai dish in less than ten minutes, your choice is INSTANT NOODLES. Instant noodles are very famous in far-east Asia and Southeast Asian countries. In Thailand, MAMA is the most popular brand due to there are wide ranges of tastes and flavours and the cheap price. You can have a delicous Thai dish in less than ten minutes. Other brands are Wai Wai, Yum Yum, etc. The Japanese, Korean, Malaysian and Vietnam are less spicy than Thai brands. But Thai brands also have non-spicy and vegetarian menu for you.
Normally, you tear the envelops, put noodle and seasonings all together in a bowl, add hot water, close it with cover for three minutes and then add meat, chicken, or fish balls, shrimp and/or vegetables if you like (they has to be boiled or done before if you choose this quick method). Someone and some menus will ask you to boil every thing on the pot for three minutes or less or in the microwave (use microwave-proven container). That's it. Some menu are dried one such as Pad-Thai. You have to add hot water and wait three minutes, pour out the water and then add the seasonings, add vegetables and meat that you like.

Mama product range
Tom Yum Koong (King Prawn Spicy Soup) noodles-spicy(add shrimp or fishballs)
Moo Sub(Minced Pork) flavoured soup noodles-little spicy(add minced pork or anything you like)
Moo Sub Tom Yum (Hot and Sour Soup with minced pork)-spicy (add minced pork, lime juice as you like)
Ped Pa Loh (Duck with five spcie soup) noodles-not spicy (add roasted or boiled duck)
Yen Ta Fo (White rice noodles with red sauce)-little spicy(add fishballs, cuttle fish, morning glory)
Pad- Thai (dry rice noodles with sweet chilli sauce)-little spicy (add bean sprouts)
etc.

You can buy these from Oriental, Chinese, Thai or Malay super markets in your town. Or for Thai students, they usually bring them from Thailand because they are much cheaper but space and weight- occupying for your travel.

We can adapt the recipe using these noodles as basic ingredient such as Yum Mama (hot salad with noodles), Pad Mama (fried mama) and so on. We just use the instant noodles because it is easy to find and it is less time to cook because they are semi-processed for nearly instant used.

WARNING; ONE THING TO BE NOTED: MONOSODIUM GLUTAMATE OR MSG IS ADDED IN ALL FLAVOURED. SO IF YOU ARE NOT FOND OF IT, YOU HAVE TO AVOID THESE INSTANT NOODLES MENU.

There is so much controversial about MSG as food additive. Anyway, it contained sodium, so it should be avoided in hypertensive patients too. Water and salt restriction for edematous patients (heart failure, renal failure and liver disease) make instant noodles menu inappropriate too. Contact your doctors if you are allergic to any ingredients, have any underlying medical conditions before have these menu.

Thai style omelette (Khai Jiao)

Omelette is normally have as breakfast for westerner and the nice look puff of French omeltte is quite well known in every breakfast cafeteria or restaurant. Thai-Style Omelette (khai jiaw) is usually eat on the street as a quick breakfast or lunch with steamed rice or boiled rice (chinese style). It’s usually eaten as a one-dish meal over rice, It’s also served for dinner. In Thailand, we served these in restaurant too, especially for kids or one who did not like spicy food, typical thai dish.  So it is a dish for every meal, everywhere and every person. I love to make them when I don’t want to think much or take too much time for cooking. Although we should beware too much cholesterol byconsume too many eggs!

1. Crack tho-three eggs into a bowl. (for one serving) Add the fish sauce and pepper, and whisk with a fork until mixed and frothy. Sometimes we add a little water to make them soft or add a little lime juice to make it more doughy, soft and expanded
2. Add the oil to the pan on high heat. Wait until the oil is hot and start dancing around in the pan and almost smoking. Test the heat by drop a few drops of egg mixture, if it is ready, egg mixture will immediately comes to top of oil.
3. Pour the egg mixture into the oil at a slowish rate, so that it’s a stream of egg hitting the hot oil.
4. Leave until lightly browned. Flip and cook the other side until browned as well or as crispy as you like.
5. Remove and serve over rice. Serve with Sri Racha sauce but I prefer Prik Nam Pla Manao (chilli with fish sauce and lime juice with garlic)
6. This is called plain omelette, but you can fancy prawn, minced pork, nham (cured pork-thai style), mushroom (fungini) or any other that you can try to add to the eggs mixtures before pouring into the heated pan with oil.

7. Tip: Normally, wok is better than Teflon pan fry when you want to make thai looks of Khai Jiaw. It will be expanded well, not flat as you use a pan fry.

Tom Ka Gai (Thai Chicken Soup with Coconut milk and galangal)

Tom Ka Gai is one of well-known Thai soups served in best Thai authentic restaurant around the world. It has spicy taste of chillis and herbs and sour flavour from lime juice. Its also delicate and aromatic due to coconut milk added. It is very easy to make it at home if you can find the Chinese or Thai supermarket that almost always have Tom Ka Gai ready paste.  What you will need more is only coconut milk, mushroom, chicken (or you can use king prawns, beef  or leave them for vegatarian) and coriander leave for decoration. Lime juice and fish sauce are use for improve taste for your preference. It is normally served with rice, but Westerners tend to order it as a la carte soup for the appetizer or someone have it as a main course.

If you want to make everything from scratch, you will need grated galangal. crusted chilli. choped lemonglass stalk. kafir lime leaves, and chicken stock or chicken mixed cube. Boil these mixtures with water and coconut milk. Add chicken (or beef) and mushroom. Add fish sauce. Until it is boiled, turn the heat down. Add lime juice and taste the balance between spicy, salty and sour. Some people add sugar but I don't. Sprinkle with fresh coriander leaves and enjoy your meal.

Some people add Nam Prik Pao (Thai Chilli paste) to make  it some bright red looking. :D

Thai green curry recipe. Heaven on earth!

Thai green curry

Recently, one Thai cuisine has been awarded the best world dish. It is called Masaman. That is one of the Thai curry menu. But today I will recommend another famous and I think more famous among westerners who love to have Thai food and it has been served in all Thai restaurants. This is Thai green curry. Curry is used in many cuisines including Indian, Malaysian, and Japanese food. The flavour is different from nations to nations. Thai curry dishes is relatively hot and spicy (except Masaman, that is the reason why it is famous among non-Thai who cannot eat too hot and spicy dish). The colours in Thai curry dish are different due to the added ingredient. Green curry paste used green bird chillies and other green herbs. Red curry used red bird chillies to make it red. There are many other varieties that are famous among each regions of Thailand that I do not know them very well.

Thai green curry is among the easy to cook as I used the ready mixed curry paste. It is quite difficult to do it fresh because I cannot find all ingredients to make the paste. The problem is each brand tasted different and you might have to try several until you find the right one for you. Some brand is too salty such as Mae Ploy and some is too bland such as Lobo. The other way is you have to season them to match your taste. Some brand are adapted for westerners with less hot and spicy.

Ingredients:

You can buy all the ingredients from Chinese or Thai supermarket in your town.

Thai green curry paste.

Coconut milk (canned, boxed, or power for water dissolved)

Lime leaves

Sweet basil

Fish sauce

Sugar

White eggplants (crisp eggplants) and pea eggplants (These two eggplants are difficult to find in my city so sometimes I use large purple aubergine instead)

Bamboo shoots (optional)

Winter Melon (optional)

Chicken, beef, pork or any meat that you like (normally we use chicken and call it Gaeng Kiaw Waarn Kai) or mushroom for vegetarians

Vegetable oil

Recipes

Stirred fry curry paste with little vegetable oil until you can smell it strong. (need good ventilation as you will be suffocated by the hot smell!)

Add half of coconut milk to make it creamy.

Add melon (if you like and I like it very much), boil about 10 minutes.

Add chicken or meat or mushroom. Cook until done.

Add same amount of water and coconut milk.

Add eggplants or augergine. Leave until boiled again.

Switch off.

Season with sugar and/or fishsauce as you light.

Add kafir lime leaves and basils.

Slice red pepper to decorate.

Served with boiled rice. OH! Go to heaven!!!!!

The first dish: Tom Yum

The first dish to be recommended is Tom Yum.

Tom Yum is literally meaned boiled and spicy mix.

It is very well known and very easy Thai menu.

This is very suit for people who like hot and spicy soup.
Thai herbs make it is aromatic and lime adds sour taste to fresh your life.
Thai people usually have all the dishes at the same time altogether with boiled or steamed rice and Tom Yum is one of the most ordered dish to take as soup from home, street food van through high class restaurant.
The trick of making this dish varying is the kind of meat added to the soup that you can use any fish, king prawns, cuttlefish, fish and shrimp balls, chicken, and so on. Most common is fish (such as sseabass), prawns, chickens and seafood. And it is also made as vegetarian dish by using mushroom instead of meat.
If you want to make a very quick Tom Yum, you can buy ready to use Tom Yum paste or cube from the chinese or Thai supermarket that can be easily found in nearly everywhere in the world. But if you can find fresh ingredients, you will make a perfect taste and perfect look dish in less than 15 minutes!

What you need:
Medium pot
Fishsauce
Bird chillies
Lemongrass
Lime leaves
Limes
Thai Chilli paste
Milk
Coriander
Mushroom

Meats: chicken, fish or king prawns as you want

What to do

Prepare your meat or mushroom as pieces ready to have

Put water in the pot and boil.

Add chopped lemon grass and lime leaves.

Add meat or mushroom, stir very little to avoid bad smell.

Wait until the meat are done.

Turn off the stove. Add fishsauce and lime as you like! The taste should be more sour than salty.

Add chopped Bird chillies. Chillie paste and some milk to make it thick and creamy look.

Decorate with coriander leaves.

[You can easily done without mixing anything by using ready mixed cube or paste added to boiled water, add meat and wait until done. That's so easy but you might need to add lime and/or fish sauce to make it right!]
That's it. Yummy. :)

Prologue

I am a Thai man with Chinese origin. I have never imagined that I can cook before but when I have to go study abroad leaving from the food paradise land. I found that western food is too bland for me. Thai and Chinese restaurants are not difficult to find in my town. But dining out everyday is not possible for the budget I have, so I start learning to cook. Browing from internets and reading from books, I got thousands of recipe to try. But to cook is not that easy from start. These blogs will be the collection of my success menu. They are easy as I can do that. Everyone can do delicious Thai and Chinese dishes. :D