TravelEater

Passport & Plate - Thai Pad Kra Prao (Stir fried basil with chicken)

traveleater — Mon, 2 Mar 2015 11:59:58 GMT

Ingredients
2 tbsp cooking oil
4 chili peppers (to taste: I like this dish spicy, use fewer chilies and remove the seeds if you don’t)
3-4 cloves of garlic
About 150 g chicken thigh, with bones and skin removed (or ground chicken)
About 1/3 of a red onion
3 handfuls of vegetables of your choice (e.g. long beans, green beans, asparagus, carrot, bell pepper)
3 tbsp oyster sauce
2 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp sugar; use palm sugar if you can find it (Note the 3 : 2 : 1 ratio for oyster sauce : fish sauce : sugar for making larger quantities)
2-3 tbsp water, if needed
1 handful of Thai holy (hot) basil (you can sub Thai sweet basil, which is easier to find)
Fried egg (optional)

How to prepare this recipe
Wash and cut all your ingredients before you start cooking -- Thai stir fries don't need much time on the heat.

Shred the garlic with a microplane or finely chop it. Finely chop the chili peppers.
Cut the onion and other vegetables into bite-sized pieces. Remove the stems from the basil, just keeping the leaves.
Cut chicken into bite-sized pieces.

Measure out the sugar, fish and oyster sauces into a cup and give them a quick stir.

In a wok or large skillet over medium heat, heat the oil. Add garlic and chilies. Cook, stirring, until fragrant (just a minute or two).

Turn the heat up a little. Add the chicken and stirfry until almost all pink has disappeared. Add vegetables (except the basil) and stirfry until chicken is fully cooked.

Add the sugar, fish and oyster sauces and stir for a minute to distribute. If it looks a little dry for your liking, add water, a tablespoon at a time, until it has the consistency you want.
Add the basil, stir, and turn off the heat.

Spoon rice onto plates, and then spoon on the pad kra prao. Add a fried egg if you'd like extra protein. Traditionally a Thai stir fry is put beside, not on top of, the rice; but I like the rice to soak up as much flavour as possible, so I buck tradition (even so -- no chopsticks!)

As with all stir fries, ingredient amounts are approximate and to taste. If you like more veg, use more veg; if you like shrimp instead of chicken, switch it; adjust everything to how you like it.
My only advice is not to skimp on the garlic, oyster sauce, fish sauce or basil, and, if you can handle it, the chilies. These are giving you the flavour of your dish, and Thai food is all about flavour.

This recipe is adapted from www.AsiaScenic.com. It serves two people, with basmati or sticky rice.

The story behind this recipe
"In Thailand," she sniffed, looking disdainfully at me, "we don't use [insert long pause of disgust] chopsticks."

Oops.

I'd been dating a Chinese guy, and was annoyed with all the Chinese restaurants giving him chopsticks and me a fork. I was in my first Thai restaurant, and thought it was happening again. I'd politely asked for sticks to eat #11 (I had no idea how to pronounce pad kra prao at that point).

Oops.

Turns out not using chopsticks is a point of pride for Thais. In the 19th century, King Mongkut decided to make Siam so civilized that European powers wouldn't even think to invade. This included adopting the fork and spoon. He succeeded -- Thailand is the only country in the region never colonized by Europe (though I'm not sure we can give the fork all the credit).

Despite my inadvertent insult to the server, I fell in love in my first Thai restaurant (no, not the boyfriend, he's long gone). I fell in love with pad kra prao. I'd never before tasted that intensity of flavour ... the basil, garlic and chili ... complex, yet clean and not muddy. Just enough kick to make you proud of yourself for being able to finish. While chicken (gai) is ubiquitous, it is delicious with any protein, and can be found in the best Thai restaurants, on the street, and in every kitchen in between.

Twenty two years later, pad kra prao is still my favourite dish. And last year, at the Asia Scenic cooking school in Chiang Mai, I finally learned to make it myself.

Pad kra prao is what Thais cook or order when they don't know what they feel like eating. It is a simple dish that can be cooked quickly, with ingredients that are on hand (with the exception Thai basil, you'll likely have them on hand too).

I've ordered it so many times I've perfected my accent (even the flat drawn out "kaaaa" politesse at the end of a sentence). Servers reply in Thai, knowing I want it spicy, but inquiring if I want a fried egg too. And I know not to ask for chopsticks.

Passport & Plate - The LP Sandwich

traveleater — Sat, 1 Mar 2014 01:51:00 GMT

Ingredients
Part 1: Chicken and marinade

4 15 cm stalks of lemongrass, with hard outer layers peeled off, cut into 2 cm pieces
6-10 cloves garlic (to taste)
Small piece of galangal (if you can find it)
1/4 cup water
juice of 2 limes
2 tbsp olive or other vegetable oil
3 tbsp fish sauce (nam pla)
2 tbsp sugar
2 skinless chicken thighs (preferable, they're juicer and harder to overcook) or breasts
6 kaffir lime leaves, cut in thick strips

Part 2: Sandwich assembly:

1 baguette
4 triangles Laughing Cow / La vache qui rit cheese
Sweet chilli sauce (your favourite brand, Mae Ploy is the best, but
Maggi is just fine and easier to find)
1 tomato, sliced
1 cucumber, peeled and sliced lengthwise
Chicken thigh or breast, sliced thickly
Salt and pepper to taste
Lettuce
Herbs of your choice (e.g. Thai basil, coriander/cilantro, mint) and, if you can find them, a few betel nut leaves

How to prepare this recipe
As for most sandwiches, this is more of a method than a recipe, and you should adjust ingredients to your personal taste. Serves 2.

Part 1: Chicken and marinade:

In a blender, purée the lemongrass pieces, peeled garlic and galangal with the water, lime juice, olive oil, fish sauce and sugar.

Put this mixture into a re-sealable plastic bag with the chicken and lime leaves. Refrigerate overnight.

Remove the lime leaves and then roast or sauté until cooked through. Slice to add to your sandwich.

Part 2: Sandwich assembly:

Cut the baguette into two sandwich sized pieces (depending on how hungry you are, approximately 15 cm in length). For each sandwich, cut through each piece to almost split the baguette in half (this gives your ingredients one less side to spill out of onto your lap).

Spread a triangle of Laughing Cow cheese onto each side of your sandwich. Add a few dollops of sweet chilli sauce.

Then layer in slices of the tomato, cucumber and chicken (warm or cold as your prefer). Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Stuff lettuce and herbs into any remaining empty areas. Squeeze the bread together to help keep everything in there.

An authentic sandwich will be wrapped in paper and secured with an electric band to further minimise spillage.

The story behind this recipe
"Now THAT's good chicken!", says my tuktuk driver with his mouth full, as he reaches for another piece.

The old woman running the sandwich stand crinkles her eyes with a smile and continues assembling my sandwich, stuffing in an extra piece of that chicken, fragrant with lemongrass.

I'm sadly leaving Luang Prabang, Laos, and I love these sandwiches so much I've asked the tuktuk driver to stop so I can get a last one to eat while I wait for my flight. I watch the preparation carefully so that I can imitate it when I get home. Over the next two weeks of my trip, I crave the sandwiches, even in Vietnam where bánh mì sandwiches are everywhere but can't compare in deliciousness. I'm actually looking forward to returning home so I can make what I've dubbed "The LP Sandwich" myself.

The LP sandwich evokes Laos and Luang Prabang with the contrast in textures -- chewy baguette, moist chicken, crunchy cucumber -- and with the melange of flavours, highlighted by the herbaceousness which delights both the nose and the tastebuds. Lao food is unique (dried river weed or buffalo skin chili paste, anyone?) and uses many ingredients found nowhere else in the world. Luckily these sandwiches are simpler, with ingredients easy to find, or substitute, in the west.

Back in my kitchen in Canada, I feel like I'm on that Luang Prabang street corner every time I eat The LP Sandwich. And after my first bite, I always mimic the tuktuk driver and mumble "now THAT's good chicken!".

My Scholarship entry - A 'place' I have visited

traveleater — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 13:34:07 GMT

I'm leaving my cushy life as a Canadian Public Service executive to explore the world, capture its uniqueness in photographs and write about it. And eat as much as I can along the way.
I go by TravelEater online because I love travel so much I could eat it, and because I love finding great things to eat and places to eat them, and what to do between snacks.

My Scholarship entry - A local encounter that changed my life

traveleater — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 12:26:52 GMT

Phnom Penh has lots of traffic. Not Hanoi levels, but the streets are clogged with bicycles, tuktuks, mopeds, and the occasional car. There are no real rules - people drive mostly on the right (but not exclusively) and weave around each other. If a street should be two lanes of traffic, it is really four, with the curb "lane" going the opposite direction to the real lane beside it. Drivers honk their intentions, no signal lights. Intersections are a free-for-all - I haven't figured out how they figure out who's turn it is. Police watch from the shade, detached from the traffic mayhem playing out. The half day Saturday school session has let out and everywhere there are teenagers in uniform doubling and tripling younger kids on mopeds and bikes.

A police officer waves us down, but my driver ignores him. Another intersection and a police motorcycle appears. He plays chicken with my driver, stop-starting closer and closer. Then he stops so quickly we accidentally bump his rear tire. Not hard, but a bump all the same. Shouting ensues. I stare wide-eyed.

The police officer dismounts and steps in front of our bumper. More terse sentences, accompanied by frantic gesticulation by both parties. Then finally a word I understand. "Sorr-eeeee", whispers my driver, and we rocket into the mid-day traffic. I'm thrown back as the car strikes the police officer square-on. He rolls into the windshield, but slides off, landing on his feet.

Horn honking, tires squealing, palms sweating (mine, I assume the driver's too), we weave in and out of tuktuks, bikes and mopeds, not to mention all the school kids. The driver tries desperately to evade the pursuing police officer (who has remounted his motorcycle), and avoid hitting anything, or anyone. We lurch and screech furiously. I clutch the door white-knuckled, and uselessly squeeze my eyes shut at close calls. But I'm grinning with excitement. I'm ready to tackle anything Southeast Asia throws at me.