Assorted Vegetables Sour Yellow Curry (Southern Style)

Gang Leung Pak Roum ( Gang=curry, Leung=yellow, Pak=vegetable, Roum=mixed)

This is another curry when my body needs something light to consume. This sour curry is water-based curry, no coconut milk added. It's very light and energized.

There is something to be clarified about sour curry in Thailand; There are two different way to call sour curry in Thailand, which is Gang Som and Gang Lueng. Gang Som is sour curry from the central part of Thailand. Gang Lueng is sour curry from the southern part of Thailand, called by people from other parts of Thailand except people from the South themselves. People in the South call their sour curry Gang Som, there is no Gang Lueng in the South.

People from the rest of the country call sour curry from the South Gang Lueng (yellow curry) because of the yellow color in the curry which come from Turmeric , sour curry in the central part of the country doesn't have turmeric in the ingredient.

So, if you are in central part of Thailand, and you want sour curry with central style cooking, you order Gang Som. If you want the Southern style sour curry with yellow color curry, you order Gang Lueng. Now, when you are in the South and want sour curry, you order Gang Som, what you will get is sour curry with yellow curry, and that's it! There is no Gang Lueng in the South.

When it comes to making Gang Som and Gang Leung, I normally made my own curry paste, since the ingredients of this curry are easy to find, and the best part is I get the fresh taste and fragrant from the herbs, which is better than those getting form the packaged one.

Making your own curry paste
If you have granite mortar and pestle, it's time to get them out and put them to work. If you don't, the food processor will work out fine.

- 3 heads of shallot, choped.
- 1 stalk lemongrass, fine sliced.
- 7 cloves of fresh garlic.
- 2 inches long of fresh or frozen turmeric, cut to small. (available in South East Asian groceries, mostly frozen)
- 10 small dried chillies, or as much as you think you can handle the spicy.
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1 tbsp. shrimp paste.

Head-up!....this process might make you cry because of the shallot, chilies and garlic, so if you don't want to shed some tears, go with the food processor.

Put all ingredients (except shrimp paste) in the mortar and pound them until they become paste then add shrimp paste to this point. Continue to mix until the shrimp paste incorporates with all ingredient.

 

- 3 tbsp. curry paste

- 2 cups of water

- Fish sauce

- Tamarind water

- Lime juice

(I don't give the exact measurement here because it's' better to gradually seasoning, starts with an equal part of fish sauce and tamarind water, and then build up the taste from there.)

Choose all vegetables you like.

These are some of vegetables that go great with this kind of curry : Bamboo shoot, young small corns, green papaya, Napa cabbages, Chinese broccoli, snow peas, cauliflowers, water spinach, watercress, mushrooms, etc.

1. Dissolve the curry paste in water, put on high heat until it reaches full boil.

2. In go, vegetables, start with the kind that isn't get soft easily. Let it reaches the full boil one more time then start seasoning.

3. Keep building up the taste by gradually add fish sauce and tamarind water. Add the soft vegetables.

4. Taste it...it should lead by gentle sour taste.

5. Turn off the heat, add lime juice, stir to incorporate. To this point, the curry should taste slightly sharp sour after adding lime juice. You can cut the sour taste by adding a bit more of fish sauce, if you like.

Paring this sour curry with some fried fish, chicken or some kind of meats, or stir-fried dishes, and eat with steamed rice is a great way to balance the taste of the whole meal.

Saute Spinach with Garlic and Chilies

Another easy vegetable dish to accommodate heavy dish such as meat or fish dishes. It barely takes 5 minutes to get done.

My mother in law made this dish when we were back in Thailand in 2010. She used the same technique using for Flame Water Spinach, and it's delicious.


I am so happy with this dish, it means that, from now on, I don't have to crack up a fortune cookie to see if I would get the water spinach from the market in any days, when my crave for Pak Boong Fai Dang kicks in, just grab a bag of fresh spinach, and throw them in a hot wok for two minutes, I'll definitely have my resembled Pak Boong Fai Dang to enjoy with.

Fresh spinach make delicious!
- a bag of fresh cleaned spinach
- 3 cloves of garlic, crushed.
- 3 fresh Thai chilies, crushed.

- 1 tbsp. oyster sauce
- 1 tsp. sugar
- 2 tbsp water
- saute oil

* In a big bowl of fresh spinach, put oyster sauce and sugar on top of cleaned spinach, set a side*


Get the wok extremely hot.
1. Let the wok sits on the hot flame for 2 minutes then add in the oil.
2. In goes, garlic. Quickly stir until fragrant, but not burn.
3. Add a bowl of seasoning spinach into the wok, follow with chilies and a bit of water. Give a quick stir for two minutes, turn off the heat.
4. Serve.

Stir-fried Brussels sprout with Garlic

I love these cute little green cabbages. They are so green and crunchy and yummyyyy. Shame that they cannot grow in hot weather like Thailand. It was here, in the state, that I had the first taste of them, and I was hooked since.

At first I didn't really know how to cook these guys, so I just thought that since they are tiny cabbages, I'll cook them just like how I cook big cabbages - Stir-fried, and I wasn't disappointed. They taste better than big cabbages.



Wok is the best thing to stir-fry vegetable
I was watching one of the cooking show, the guy was talking about woks, comparing the benefit of woks and saute pans, which one keeps the heat better during the process of stir-fry, and then he concluded that wok can't do a good job because of its lack of to be able to keep the heat during stir-frying according to the shape of the wok.

After that show, he came back again and said that he got a lot of letters and emails, (well, he should) saying that he was so wrong about woks, and that he doesn't know what he is doing, so he had to come back and cleared it out that he meant woks are not good for using with the regular gas stoves because, according to the shape of the wok, the heat will lose anyway.....Again, he's still wrong about that.


Working with wok
You can stir-fry vegetable with wok with regular gas stoves and get the best stir-fried vegetable still.

The tip is.....
the wok has to be really really really Hot....before adding oil. Once wok gets really hot it will keep the heat through out the stir-fly process. Keep in mind that stir-fry is a quick cooking process, you only need 2-3 minutes to do it, so it preserves the crunchiness and taste of vegetable. To say that, with a very hot wok and only 2-3 minutes of stir-fly, the wok will not lose the heat that bad as some might think it will, and they do an excellent job as we all know.



How hot is the wok?
The heavy stainless steel wok is the ideal for stir-fly cooking though. Forget about those non-stick wok, since you need to heat it up to the extreme. I usually heat the empty wok until I can see the hot air dancing over the wok, that tells me that the wok is heated up all over then I'll add oil and, right away, start to stir-fry.

Now, let's get Brussels sprout stir-fried



- Fresh Brussels sprout
- 3 cloves of garlic, smashed
- ground black pepper
- 1 1/2 tbsp. Oyster sauce or Soy sauce
- 1 tsp. fish sauce
- 2 tsp. sugar
- oil
- 4 tbsp. water


1. Rinse vegetable to clean a few times, cut them into a half.
2. If seasoning with oyster sauce like I do, pour oyster sauce over the raw vegetable before hitting a wok.
3. Heat up the wok until you can see the hot air dancing over the wok then add the oil.
4. In goes garlic and Brussels sprout.
5. Add some water, give a few quick stir, add fish sauce and sugar, stir. (* add more water if the wok's getting to dry because of the heat*)
6. Turn off the heat, sprinkle with black pepper.

Chive Cake, Kanom Guui Chy

I just got a good looking bunch of chives from the market. My mind flew back to a street where my university is located. There was a smoke filled stall on the side walk in front of the university gate selling these filling appetite called Kanom Guui Chy or Chive cake in English.
Fresh Chives

As an art student, I normally spend long period of times in each classes-painting, sculpturing, printing, and more often had little times to eat before running to another class. To tame my hunger before a next meal, I would run out to grab these chive cakes, sizzling in a flat, wide, hot pan, bathed with dark, sweet spicy sauce. They are tasty and filling kind of appetizer made with very simple ingredients-flours and chives.


You need three kind of flours
The cake part
- 1 1/2 cups rice flour
- 1/2 cup tapioca flour
- 1/2 cup glutenous rice flour
- 2 cup water
- 1/4 cup vegetable oil

The chive part
- 200 gram chives, cut into one inch long
- 1/4 baking soda
- 1 tbsp. black soy sauce
- 2 tbsp. soy sauce
- 1 tbsp. vegetable oil
- 1 tbsp. mince garlic
- 2 tsp. sugar


Saute the chives
1. In a small bowl, combine backing soda, black soy sauce, soy sauce, sugar together.
2. In a frying pan, put in vegetable oil, heat it up to medium heat.
3. Put in mince garlic saute until fragrant.
4. In goes chives and sauce mixture.
5. Saute until chives are wilted and incorporated with sauce, turn the heat off.
6. let them cool down.

- Prepare a steamer, bring it to boil, get ready for steaming.
- lightly oil a small brownie pan, set aside.

Mix the flours
1. Mix all flours together.
2. Mix in vegetable oil, and gradually add water, stir until incorporated.
3. Mix in saute chive, stir.
4. Pour the mixture into a oiled pan.
5. Bring it into a steamer. With the lid close, steam for 20 minutes, until the mixture looks almost translucence.
6. Bring it out, let it sit and cool down before cutting.


Now they are ready to eat, or sear them in a hot oil pan to make skin crispy like I love.

Black Sweet Dipping Sauce
- 1-2 crushed small chilies.
- 2 cup sweet black soy sauce.
- 1/4 soy sauce
- 2 tbsp. white vineger.
- 2 tbsp. sugar.

1. Mix all ingredients in a sauce pan, bring it to medium heat to incorporate.
2. Turn off the heat, serve.

Saute Baby Buk Choy with Fresh Garlic

This is a nastily easily vegetable dish to cook when I lost my cooking pants. It is also an easily tasty dish to complete a meal. Like other Asian nation, the Thai way of eating doesn't come as a course. Each meal, all the the food will be served at once on the table and we will eat them together. The taste of each individual dish usually complements each other. We will have vegetable dish, meat dish, soup or curry dish and fired dish to eat together.


And this saute baby Buk Choy is another excellent choice of vegetable dish to put on the table. I made a bigggg pot of beef Massaman curry, which will last us long for a week. All I have to do for each meal is to cook a small and easy vegetable dish to go along with a yummy curry.

You will need
- 2 cloves of fresh garlic, crushed
- 2 Buk Choy, cut into half
- 1 tbsp. Oyster sauce or soy sauce
- crushed black pepper
- 2 tbsp. oil for saute
- 2 tbsp. water

1. Cut Buk Choy into half, clean them thoroughly, blot them with paper towel, so they don't splash when hitting the hot pan.

2. Heat up the pan until it is very hot, drizzling in the oil.

3. Put crushed garlic, saute to smell, in go Buk Choy.

4. Season them with oyster sauce or soy sauce, give them a quick stir, add a little bit of water, sprinkle with black pepper, turn off the heat.

5. Put them into your mouth :)

Dressed up Tofu, Tao Hoo Song Kreung

I first had this dish more than ten years ago, back then I was not quite a big fan of tofu dishes, and I was hooked right away. My foodie friend ordered it for the table at our getting together party, the next thing I knew, it's become our usual-dish every times we sit and eat together.

It's called Tao Hoo Song Kreung, which is simply translated as a dressed up tofu in English. The word Song Kreung in Thai is used in many meaning involving dressing up in everything - foods, clothes, even hair styles. It means turning ordinaries into an extraordinaries - in anything - put more jewelries, more cloths, more ingredients. As it is in this dish, the plain tofu is dressed up with a varieties of vegetables and meats.



There are many different ways to cook this dish in term of the varieties of ingredients, depends on each kitchen, but the foundation of the dish is the same, which is skin crisped tofu topped with sauté assorted vegetables and meats.

This time I don't have much varieties of the ingredients. I just took what ever vegetable I had in a refrigerator that is good for sauté, as well as the meat, and of course, they made a delicious tofu dish as always.

Not a big fan of tofu? Give this one a chance.



You will need

1. Soft tofu ( look for those with the word "Silken" on the package.
2. Vegetables - broccoli, carrot, snow pea, mushroom you love, asparagus, Chinese cabbage. In a nutshell; what ever vegetables you like. Try choosing the kind that is not easily wilted.
3. Meat of your choices - chicken, beef, pork, shrimp, squid. You can even mix them all together, I am serious. Remember? it is Song-Kreung
4. two cloves of garlic, crushed

Seasoning

1. Soy sauce or Oyster sauce to marinate the meats.
2. 1 tbsp. fish sauce
3. A pinch of sugar
4. 1 tsp. white vinegar
5. ground pepper



I am hungryyyyyy

1. cut up all vegetables into small pieces, do the same with meats, except shrimp
2. Marinate the meats with Soy sauce or Oyster sauce for 10 min.
3. cut tofu into half (you can use all two pieces or use only one piece - how hungry you are)
4. blot tofu with paper towel, let paper towel sucks the water out of tofu, so that it will not splash when it hits the oiled, hot pan.
5. Heat up the pan with the amount of vegetable oil until the oil get very hot.
6. Carefully put tofu into the hot oil to be browned through all sides.




7. Take the tofu off the heat after all sides are browned, and let it sit in a serving plate.
8. Heat up a pan to sauté vegetables and meats.
9. Put in crushed garlic until scented, follow with marinated meats.
10. add two table spoons of water, keep sautéing the meats for three minutes until the pink meats are gone.
11. add in all vegetables, give a quick stir, season with fish sauce, sugar and white vinegar.
12. sauté for two minutes, sprinkle with ground pepper, turn off the heat.
13. Scoop up the sauté onto the resting tofu.
14. serve with fluffy, steamed rice.



15. Yum Yum Yum.

Flame Water Spinach

Pak Boong Fai Dang

When I was a little girl, I was a "meat-etariean", totally vegetable-free. When ever I saw some greens on my plate I would pick them out. I felt that fried chicken, beef or eggs was way tastier than vegetable. Aunt and mom were tired of me making a long face over my plate every times there were some tiny pieces of vegetable snugged under the rice.

My eating habit started to change when I went to the university. I was 1600 km. away from my family, living by myself - no body told me what to eat, what not to eat. My most influence during that times was friends. They all love to eat. They were always dragging me with them to try some now dishes they'd heard from somewhere else which, of course, involved with a lot of vegetable dishes, I went along and the next thing I knew, I enjoy eating vegetable more and more.


This dish is one of my favorite vegetable dishes. It's called Pak Boong Fai Dang, which is easily translated to Red Flame Water Spinach - Fai = Fire, Dang = Red. It gets the name from the way it's cooked. I love watching the cooking of this dish especially when we go out to a long line of street food stalls at night market where you can see foods are prepared and cooked in front of you. It is quite a show, if I can say.

A wok is heated till it's very hot - sometimes until the smoke starts to come up then Pak Boong is thrown into the wok, stirred and tossed, right away as they touch the wok, in a speed of moving hurricane. Now, Don't blink!...You are about to see the flame shooting into the wok and up to the air in a split second. How big the flame is depends on technique of each cook. It gives the dish a little smoky touch to your nose and preserves the crunchiness of vegetable. I never get to try this technique of bring the flame into the wok or into my kitchen and I don't think I will. My husband is a graphic designer not a hunk fire-fighter. I don't think he would like to deal with Fai-Dang kitchen.

Here is my non-Fai-Dang technique.



I got this technique from my best friend, Kung, who own the restaurant on Koh Panagn, a beautiful island in Aow Thai sea. She cooked this dish for my husband and I when we visited her and her family there.

After Pak Boong are rinsed and shaken off the water, she put them in a preparing bowl, followed with oyster sauce, bruised fresh chillies and a pinch of sugar - you can omit the sugar if you want to. The next thing is preparing the wok - heat it up with little oil till you can see a bit of smoke start to come up, throw in crushed garlics and all ingredients from the preparing bowl, and, again, stir and toss, right away as they hit the wok, in a speed of moving hurricane.....and turn the heat off.


You still get the crunchiness - the only thing you'll miss is a smoky touch, but, well...since I don't want to burn my bang, I rather cook this dish with non-Fai Dang technique. If I want a smoky taste, I'll go out to food stalls and enjoy their show and food.