Easy Chicken Stew-y Over Rice

Kao Rard Na Gai

It was a cloudy Sunday that we didn't feel like going out, just wanted to make it an easy at home kind of day, and that also mean making an easy food for the whole day as well.

So I decided to go with what we call a single dish ( Ar-Han-Jarn-Deaw)  in Thailand, when everything is put together in one plate or bowl, including rice, and are served in one single dish,  instead of an a la cart style, which is a common table for Thai dining.

Kao Rard Na Gai is a kid friendly kind of food -as well as for the grown-up like my hubby- the taste is light and comforting, and the important thing is it's so easy to make - nothing's complicated at all

Light shopping

- 1 nice size chicken breast, cut into small pieces.
- 1 cup bamboo shoot in a can, leave out the juice.
- 1/2 can of baby corn, cut into a bite size.
- mushroom, as much as you love them.
- a handful or more of green onion, cut into 1inch long.
- 3 cloves garlic, crushed.

- 2 tbsp. saute oil
- 3 tbsp oyster sauce ( if you prefer soy sauce, add sugar and a bit of salt for more round taste)
- chicken stock, as much as just to cover all the ingredients.
- a pinch of ground pepper.
- 1/4 cup corn starch mixed with water, make it a bit watery batter.

10 Minutes Done!

1. In a hot pan with saute oil, add garlic and saute until fragrant then add chicken, saute until all the pink meat have gone.

2. Add bamboo shoots, baby corns and chicken stock just to cover the ingredients. Let it reaches a full boil.

3. Add mushroom and start seasoning with oyster sauce (or soy sauce, sugar, salt). Turn the heat to medium, let it simmer for 3 minutes.

4. In goes, corn starch mixed (stir it up, if the starch is separated from the water)  little by little pour the batter into the pot as well as keep stirring so that the starch doesn't get into  lumpy. The sauce should have a stew-like consistency, you can add more corn starch mixed with water if the sauce's still too watery.

5. Taste it!...and adjust the taste if you like, and then add green onion, ground pepper, stir them together. Turn off the heat.

6. Serve it over steamed rice, and that's how we call a single dish..

Shrimp Paste Rice With Caramel Pork

Kao Klook Ka Pi

I love this dish. It's a chock-full of flavors and textures in one plate, well balance of sweet caramel pork and gentle salty of shrimp paste rice, touched up with a bit of tang from fresh lime, also the crunchy fried dried shrimps, the softness of egg strands, sweet pungent of fresh shallots and a kick of hot chili....I'm exhausted already.

As the name of the dish stated, Klook means Tossing in Eng. It's the idea of eating this yummy rice. Besides tossing the rice with shrimp paste, tossing the tastes and textures all together at once before eating is the way to enjoy the dish, and you will be surprise how tasty this dish brings to you.


This rice dish will be worth a million when making with good quality shrimp paste, and with all the love, my mom gave me two kilos of her top-notch *O* It's the kind of shrimp paste she's proud of.

Making this dish requires quite a preparing. But!... no need to be intimidated, I will walk you through step by step. So, sit tight and take a sip of red wi.....bull....Yep..! better Red Bull ;) It's a long post, I think.


- 6 small heads of fresh shallot, chopped.
- hot chili (as much as you think you can beat them) chopped.
- 2-3 wedges of fresh lime
- dried shrimps
- 1 cup thin sliced pork.
- 2 eggs, beaten

- 1 tsp. fish sauce
- 2 tbsp. palm sugar (or 1 piece of cake palm sugar)
- 1 tbsp. granulate sugar
- 1 tsp soy sauce
- 1 tsp. black soy sauce
- 2 tbsp. saute oil
- 1/3 cup of water

- 2 tbsp. vegetable oil or olive oil
- 1 tbsp. shrimp paste
- steamed rice, portion of two


Step One:chopping up
Chop up fresh shallots, chilies, cut the lime. Set aside.



Step Two: making egg strands.
1. A pan on low-medium heat, heat it up, drizzling in the oil, just to coat the pan.
2. Two eggs in a measuring cup for easy pouring, beat them up and seasoning with 1 tsp of fish sauce.
3. Pour the first half of the beaten egg to the pan, lift the pan up and swirl the pan around, spreading the egg to completely cover the bottom of the pan, making a thin sheet of egg.
4 Let it cooks for 3 minutes.
5. Using a spatula, flip the egg. Let it cooks for 2 minutes. Take it off the pan, let it cool down.
6. Drizzle in a bit more of oil, and do the same with the rest of the egg, making the second sheet.

Leave the sheets of egg to cool down, we'll come back and cut them into small strands later. In the meanwhile let's fry dried shrimps.



Step Three: frying dried shrimp
*Dried shrimps burn easily, so don't take your eyes off.*
1. With the same pan using for the eggs, set on the low heat, add 2 tbsp. of saute oil.
2. Add the dried shrimps, pan-fry them until fragrant and look golden. Fetch them out, and let them cool down.


Step Four: making caramel pork.
1. In the same pan and the oil left off from frying shrimps, on medium heat, (add more 1 tbsp. oil if needed) add the sliced pork. Saute until no pink left.
2. Add 1/3 cup of water, let it reaches full bubble then bring the heat down to low.
3. Add black soy sauce, soy sauce, palm sugar, granulate sugar. Stir to incorporate, and let the sauce simmering on low heat for 2-3 minutes.
4. Taste the sauce. The taste should be very sweet, caramel-ly sweet - sweet one step above the level you think it is because we need the sweet caramel pork to cut the salty rice later. So, don't be scare to be sweet at this point, add more sugar if needed.
5. Stir frequently, let it cooks until the liquid turn into thick caramel, coating all the pork. Turn off the heat.


Now the egg sheets are cool enough, it's time to cut.
1. Roll the sheets into small log, and cut them with a sharp knife into about 1/4" wide. Done!


Step Five: tossing the rice with shrimp paste.
1. Wrap 1 tbsp of shrimp paste with aluminum foil, bring to the open flame, and roast it for 2 minutes. Turn off the heat.
2. Steamed rice in a mixing bowl, add 2 tbsp. of vegetable oil, or olive oil, and roasted shrimp paste.
3. Use your hand, wearing a thin glove, or a spoon to incorporate the rice, oil and shrimp paste together. Make sure there are no lumps of shrimp paste left.

Now you can wake up!....it's all done

Ready to serve.
Spoon a little of each prepared ingredients to the plate, sprinkle with lime. Now you can adjust the taste of your plate right before eating. The rice has a gentle salty taste, cut with sweet caramel pork and lime, and if you love the kick on the taste buds, don't forget hot chili.

Before eating, toss all ingredients in your plate together - like making salad. That's how you eat Kao Klook Ka Pi.

Note: In Thailand you will find this dish served with chopped sour green mango or some kind of fruits that give the sour taste instead of a wedge of lime like I did. Well, where I live has no luxury of having sour green mango. So, lime is my best friend ;)

Cooking Sticky Rice in a Microwave

Here comes everybody's favorite rice, the sticky rice. Sticky rice is considered a staple diet for people in the Northern and Eastern part of Thailand when rice is more of staple grains consumed commonly by the rest of the country.

Cooking sticky rice is a bit tricky for most people. As Thai, we all know how easy it is to cook rice - every households have rice cookers which makes no-brainer to have perfect fluffy rice - just pluck-in and press the button. But when it comes to cooking sticky rice, manual mode is applied, and I'm not a master of that.


Last time we went back to Thailand, Noom's mom asked if I knew how to cook sticky rice in Microwave because she's heard that's how most Thai people, including her friends, living aboard cook sticky rice.

It was my first time cooking something in her kitchen, and it happened to be cooking sticky rice for my mother in law who is a master of Eastern food. Even though I wanted to run out of her kitchen, I went for it.


It turned out she loves it. She loves that it's quick and easy compare to the original way which always takes times, and it became my job to do sticky rice when she made Eastern food.

It only takes 12 minutes to cook sticky rice in a microwave.


1. Rinse a cup of sticky rice a few times to reduce the starch.
2. Soak the rice with clean water for 30 minutes.


3. After 30 minutes of soaking, check the level of water. Make sure that there is 1/4 inch. of water above the rice, or check it with your fingers. Your fingers shouldn't be covered with water when the other side of fingers touch the rice.
4. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and put in the microwave for 7 minutes.



5. Take it out of the microwave after 7 minutes. Open the plastic wrap, be careful with the steam coming out. To this point, the rice is not completely cooked, still.
6. Use a fork to fluff up the steaming rice. Fluff it thoroughly.
7. Put the plastic back on again, and send the fluffy sticky rice back to the microwave for 5 more minutes.



8. And there you have it. Easy and delicious sticky rice. Eat with grilled chicken, papaya salad. Best lunch always.

Rice Soup with Cod Fish

Kaw Tom Pla


My husband and I are not breakfast kind of people. The only time we become breakfast persons is when we are at home in Thailand where breakfast is always ready on the table every morning.....Thanks mom.

Here in New York, we usually have only coffee in the morning and go on our lives. We know that's not a good way to live a good life, so we are trying to get rid of our bad habits and aiming for the right directions.


Now, we're making an effort to have breakfast every day and cutting down a big dinner into small amount of fruits and vegetable and soy milk before bed....sounds good huh?

Still, I am struggling to come up with what we're going to have in the morning...It has to be something that is not too complicate and doesn't take too much times to make. So, I try to think of what kind of breakfast mom would make for us every morning back home, and the one that we usually see on the table is Rice soup and Congee.



One of my favorite rice soup is rice soup with white fish. Just like most rice soup, it is light and easy to make and doesn't take much of the morning time to come up with. So, I'm stocking up white fish meats in my freezer.

You will need

- white fish of your choice. I use cod fish here - cut into big chunks.
- long grain rice
- chicken stock or stock you like
- celery leaves
- garlic oil
- Galangal powder

Soy bean condiment (optional) but it tastes better to have it
- 1 tbsp. fermented soy bean
- a wedge of lime
- a pinch of sugar




1. Boil rice with stock until the grains break. Gradually add a bit of water if it is too thick, taste it, add a pinch of salt if you like.
2. In another small pot with water boiling, put in celery stalks or roots and fish meats. Boil the fish meats for three to five minutes. Scoop out the fish, save the fish water.
3. Making soy bean condiment by mixing all the condiment ingredients together.




Serving
Ladle the rice soup into a serving blow, top with fish meats, garlic oil, celery leaves and sprinkle with Galangal powder. Add the fish water if you feel that the soup is too thick. Seasoning as you eat with a bit of soy bean condiment....my morning is as bright as sunshine.

Crab Fried Rice, Koa Pad Poo

Poo is a crab in English.

Whenever I have some crabs left over from the other day, I usually take time to pick all the crab meat out, so the next day I can make this delicious fried rice with it.

Making fried rice is a good way to turn the left-overs into a new dish that is very delicious and easy to make. Next time you have steamed rice left over from your Chinese day, don't throw it away. Make fried rice.



Five minutes, done!
- left-over steamed rice is the best.
- crab meat
- 2 eggs, beaten.
- fresh garlic, crushed.
- carrot, snow pea, green onion, cut into small pieces.
- lemon
- oil

- 1 tbsp. fish sauce
- 1/2 tbsp. sugar
- white pepper powder




1. Heat up a wok, drizzling in oil.
2. Add garlic and saute until fragrant.
3. Put in crab meat, follow with beaten egg. Give a quick stir until crab meats are lightly coated with egg.
4. In goes, steamed rice, carrot, snow pea, make quick stir for everything coming together.
5. Start seasoning with fish sauce, sugar and white pepper powder. Sprinkle with green onion. Taste and adjust the taste you like.
6 Serve with chili fish sauce and a wedge of lemon - sprinkle over it before eating.



Num Pla Prik (Chili fish sauce)

Jok Moo Sub, Thai Congee with ground pork balls

Cold weather is creeping in. It's time for me to hibernate under the blanket. Talking about comfort, there is nothing else to comfort my soul and body as good as Congee or Jok (Jook) in Thai. The word Jook is Chinese which is pronounced like Joke when it comes to Thai.



Jok is a real comfort food. It warms the body and lifts up the soul. It is the food I always turn to when I get sick in bed - with extra fresh julienne ginger, of course - or whenever I feel like....comforting! (roll my eyes all the way to the back of my head) It has a reputation as a breakfast in many Asian countries, but, practically, we eat it whenever we want to since it is made with rice and we commonly eat rice three times a day. It's very easy to make if you know how to boil thing with water because that what it is all about - boil the rice with water and let the rice do the magic.

It's made with long grain white rice - either steamed, plain rice or uncooked rice. I personally love to make them with uncooked rice from the fact that the starch from the uncooked rice makes it more yummy-ly creamy. On the other hand, making it with leftover, steamed rice give a little grainy since the starch is rinsed off before cooking, again, if you use the leftover steamed rice and want to get a creamy texture, just cook it a bit longer until you can see the rice break down in the water. More often that I make it from the leftover steamed rice - as we are living in The Rice Kingdom, we don't throw away leftover rice. I can still hear my mom say, "finish your rice. It's hard work for rice farmers to pick the grains, so that we can all have rice on our plates." So it's better not to make the queen of the kitchen get mad.

As for meat of choices, the more common Jok in Thailand is to add ground pork balls or boiled, shredded chicken.




Ready to cook?

Oh let me say this - I don't strictly measure the ingredients when it is not necessary - just follow the taste buds as I go.

- 1/2 cup long grain rice
- 2 1/2 cups plain water or broth
(if using cooked rice, I put just how much rice I have into the pot then put the water two time the rice or more - as the rice continue cooking the water will reduce - just to make sure it's not too thick and it shouldn't be too watery.)
- ground pork balls (How many balls you want is, again, your choice) Marinate ground pork with soy sauce or oyster sauce, a pinch of sugar (or omit it), ground pepper, a pinch of corn starch, mix it and let it sit.
- fish sauce or soy sauce
- salt (or omit it)
- julienne fresh ginger
- chopped green onion or a few cilantro leaves...or both.
- Crispy garlic in oil (NOOO...don't run if you don't have iiit. It's just a tiny luxury to make me happy. I'll tell you how to make it. It's a jewel for all Thai soups)



1. Put rice and water into a pot, bring it to the boil (stir as water starts to heat up to loosen up the lumps of rice which tend to stick at a bottom of the pot) then bring the heat down to simmer. Stir often as water is reducing - to this point, you can add more water if rice start to get too thick. The idea is to maintain a creamy consistency. While it is cooking, it is better to have more water than to have it less as the water will reduce and the rice will break down in the water create a creamy texture.

2. When rice start to break down and get very soft, ball up the marinated, ground pork - a size of your thumb - and add them to the pot.

3. seasoning with fish sauce or soy sauce, and test it. If it's too salty add more water a little at a time. A little bit of salt can give it more round taste. Turn the heat off when the ground pork balls are cooked.

Serve!

Top it up with julienne fresh ginger, green onion, cilantro leaves and crispy garlic in oil. Sprinkle with ground pepper. Your stomach will thank you for these.

Kaw Moo Krorb, Crispy Pork Belly on Rice.

If you are a weight watcher, I suggest that you might need to stay miles away from this dish , and don't bother to count the calories because you might pass out, once you know it.



I consider myself a part-time weight watcher, so, there are still rooms for me to gorge myself on some, in my own word, "evil" foods. One thing I notice, most "evil" food taste SOOOO good. They always lure you to their empire with delicious appearances, heavenly smell and god sent taste even though you know it is not so good for your health, but you just can't resist it....how is it not evil?

This dish call Kaw Moo Krorb in Thai which is directly translated as "Crispy Pork on Rice". It is an over-the-rice dish - means you put everything on top of the rice in one plate instead of A-la-carte style. As the name suggests, the leader role of this dish goes to Moo Krorb or Crispy Pork which is the belly part of the pig appears in three layers when it's sectioned - the top thick skin, fat in the middle and the red meat at last. It can be easily found in Chinese butcher stores - mostly are already cut into long strips.

How to make Moo Krorb?



1. The pork bellies are boiled with water until the thick skin get soft, take them out of the boiling water then poked the only thick skin with sharp knife or fork, make sure every inches of the thick skin are poked - if you are in the mood of killing somebody, this is a good time, instead of people, take it on the pork belly. Slash the red meat part a few times, but, don't slash it through the fat layer- the idea is - when they are fried, the oil can get into those tiny holes and make a thick skin get very crispy, otherwise you might need a hand saw when you eat it, and the red meat is cooked through.

2. Rub the white vinegar all over the already- soft and poked thick skin, rub the red meat with salt and hang them dry over night - let the oil drip until it dry.

3. The next morning, throw them in the oven with 380 F. Let them sit happily in there just about the thick skin starts to bubble under the heat releasing more oil through tiny holes you poked then pull them out, let them to cool down before putting them to deep-fry.

There you have it.
They can be kept for two or three days. Besides this dish, chop them up and stir-fry them with chines broccoli, bean-sprout or other vegetables ...YUM!

Ready? Set, Serve...



These dish is served with so-called Nam Moo Dang or Roasted Red Pork Sauce over the rice and Moo Krob, seasoning with white vinegar mixed with black soy sauce and fresh chili in it. No need to beat yourself up making this sauce from scratch. Last time my husband and I went back to Thailand, my mother in law suggested that the instant sauce that come in powder which can be found in Thai grocery store works well and is tasty equally making it from the scratch. I've tried, and yes it does work well and is taste right, but, since I have heavy taste buds, I still need a little seasoning....can't help it!

Besides the sauce on top, there are chunks of Chinese sausage, hard boiled eggs on the side. Cut the overwhelming taste with fresh spring onions....Evilly Yum!...and off I go, running round the blocks.