Thai Chicken Galangal soup

This is one of my favorite thai soups.

I learnt to do it a long time ago, when I was taking Thai cooking classes. The recipe stayed with me and I cook it regularly. It's very delicate and quite easy to make, and very healthy.
I live close to Chinatown, so I am pretty spoilt, but I reckon many of you will find it difficult to find fresh galangal, and all the other ingredients I always have at home. I'd say you could replace it by either fresh ginger or pwdered galagal, however, it wopn't quite be the same. Thai food is best eaten with fresh ingredients. Other than that, the other ingredients should be easy enough to find in normal supermarkets, in Britain anyway.

You will need for 4 people (or two greedy ones):
- 200g chicken Fillet, sliced into mouth size pieces
- 5 slices of fresh galangal
- 2 cups of Coconut milk (a tin of Chaokoh coconut milk will be perfect)
- 1 cup chicken stock or water
- 2 sticks of fresh lemongrass sliced diagonally
- 3-4 Kaffir lime leaves, fresh if possible, dry is ok
- 2 tblsp thai fish sauce
- 1 to 2 tablspn Lime juice
- 5 bird eye chilis, (2 if you are a bit sensitive), sliced diagonally
- 2 sprigs of fresh coriander
- 200g fresh mushrooms, prepared and cut in half

Heat the coconut in a pan, dilute with either chicken stock or water , and once hot, throw in the galangal, mushroom, lemongrass, kafir lime and then the chicken.
Season with the lime juice and fish sauce, the chilis
Simmer for one minute only and then add the coriander to garnish.
Serve right away and enjoy.

This soup is great to warm you up in winter, and obviously can be apreciated in hot weather as well. It
feels very light and satisfying.

It is a typical soup you can find in Thailand, in restaurants or as street food. The photo at the top was taken at my favorite streetfood stall in Koh Samui: John's stall as I mentioned in an earlier post.

The soup can also be made with prawns or seabass instead of chicken.
Also, the same soup can be made without the coconut milk (only chicken soup), but it would then be a Tom Yam soup, very delicious as well.

The best coconut milk available in our shop is the chokaoh brand, as it is made of young coconut scrapped.

I have inserted below a few photos I took during a stay in Thailand, where I visited a coconut harvest at a plantation, near Chiang Mai:

Making coconut milk


Bunny Rabbit coconut grater

Source: My Thai cook teacher Chorchaba, photos: myself.

Sweet and sour cold summer soup & hot sweet grilled gammon on the side

You have never heard of this dish?
Me neither. I just invented it today, and it is definitely worth sharing. I had a very sudden burst of good inspiration. And once again, it is very quick to prepare and is very tasty, and the salad is very healthy.


Per person for the sweet gammon you will need:
- 1 slice of gammon
- 1 tablespoon maple syrup
- black pepper, coarsely ground.

Prepare the gammon first as it takes 18 minutes to cook.
Lay the slice of gammon on a flat over proof dish or plate, brush it with the maple syrup, sprinkle with the black pepper. Done.
Cook at 200 degrees (last 5 min with the grill on) in the oven for 18-20 min depending on your oven.

Per person for the cold soup you will need:
- 4 little tomatoes cut in quarters or 8/10 cherry tomatoes cut in half
- 1 mango, diced (use the juice too)
-1/4 lime juice
- fish sauce - same amount as the lime juice
- 1 small clove of garlic (optional)
- 1 slice of fresh ginger finely chopped
- a small handful of roasted peanuts
- 1 lemongrass stalk, sliced
- 1 kaffir lime leaf, fresh if possible
- 1/2 a chili pepper (less if you use the Birdeye type)

Mix all the ingredients. Done, how's that for easy!?

Serve the sweet gammon and the soup at the same time, and enjoy. It is very refreshing, very tasty in flavour, rich and satisfying. And there you are, you have your five a day...

The dish looks beautiful and colourful, so if you have guests to impressed and want to spare some efforts, that's the one.

On a funny note, I'd probably describe this dish as Thailando-Canadian!

I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I have!

Recipe and photo: me.

Red Thai Chicken

This dish is for very lazy and healthy days, you'll just need (for 1 or 2 people):

- 150 g chicken breast or better, goujons per person
- 1 sweet red pepper (the long thin ones are the best) - chopped in squares
- 1 fresh firm tomato (diced)
- 1 courgette, chopped in thin slices (cut the slices in two..)
- 1 branch of lemongrass, chopped in slices
- 2 kaffir lime leaves
- 1 hot chili (not the birdeye chilli, the bigger type), cut in slices
- 1 lime (juiced) (+ 1 for backup if adjustment needed or not very juicy)
- 1 garlic clove, finely chopped
- thai fish sauce, slightly less in volume than the juice of the lime
- 1 tblsp sesame oil

In a small bowl, mix the lime juice with the thai fish sauce, taste and adjust with more juice or more fish sauce: If it's too sour add some fish sauce, if too salty add some more lime juice, it's about balance. Reserve.

In a wok, heat the sesame oil, and when hot, throw the chicken cut in long strips, when browned a bit, throw the chopped vegetables, when almost cooked, add the garlic, the kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass and chilli pepper, stir in a bit, then at the last moment, add the lime juice and thai fish sauce, and it's ready to serve....

You can serve it with rice, but I think it's fine on its own because it already contains vegetables.

Bon apetit!

Source: my lazy imagination!...

Food in Koh Samui

A year ago or so, I was in Thailand, and the last pasrt of my trip was Koh Samui.
The breakfasts were taken at the hotel for convenience, but also because we were litterally by the sea... However, ever other meal was taken at street food stalls, which we much preferred to hotel restaurants.
Food is everywhere in Thailand, and it's very difficult to get a bad meal... all day long we were teased by food passing in front of us... including the beach of course, where I have had my best mango to date...

Temptation was everywhere....

In the evenings, gorgeous swanky restaurants were flaunting their superb settings:

But we preferred the street stalls, planted in the mud, where the Thai lived, not the tourists. The latter were rare in that area, afraid to be poisoned by the gorgeous food (we had no problem whatsoever eating at these stalls, nor any other for the matter!). The lively area had shops of all sort, and the locals were going about their business. There was a celebration at the time, and the park was taking an air of fun fair...

But one shop got our attention (and our tastebuds!) from the first evening. There was inumerable food stalls and we tried a few, but this stall had a large range of great curries, the owner was from Chiang Mai, where we'd just been, and we established contact very quickly as John (the owner, he gave us the name of John since his real name was much longer) could speak reasonnable English (Japanese and Iraqi too we found out as he worked abroad!) and was pleased to share his thought with us. The food was delicious, and we came back many time to his shop. So much so that we ended up making acquaintance to the whole family(the picture only shows the 'cooks' (John and his parents), but we got to know the brother and the cousins too..), and John's brother lead us around the island for a day's discovery.The generosity and welcome from the family was very humbling. It was wonderful to be able to talk to locals and have an insight into their lives, quite a hard working life really. The mum cooked a soup especially for us for the last night.

Everyday we were getting some rice sausages that were superbly tasty, served with pickled ginger.

If you go to Samui, stray off Chaweng Road : you'll find a road that goes West , 15/20 min walk from the North of Chaweng, you'll find wonders, including this little shop, full of great food!
You'll also witness great street scenes...

Inspiration: Franco-Thai beef

To make a change from the usual steak tartare and to suit my cravings of Thai food, I created this recipe, a mix between French ideas and Thai ingredients... It is pretty easy, and the most demanding is chopping the ingredients, as always.

Preparation time: 15 min
Cooking time: 10 min

For 1 or 2 pers:
- 250g Fresh lean mince beef
- 1 tomato (cut in 1/2 slices)
- 1/2 broccoli (Cut in small bouquets)
- 2 red peppers (cut in squares)
- 1 clove garlic (cut thinly)
- Ginger (same amount as garlic, cut thinly)
- 1/2 lime juice (squeezed!)
- Fish sauce (same amount as lime)
- 4 mushrooms (cut thinly)
- 2 spring onions (cut thinly)
- 1 big red chilli pepper (or 2 small ones for those who like it hot, cut in 1/2 slices)
- Kaffir lime leaf (optional: it's hard to find, 2 or three whole leaves to be removed once the dish is ready. Do not eat them!)
- 1 spoon sesame oil
- 1 teaspoon sesame seeds

Mix the meat with the lime juice, the fish sauce, the spring onion cut in slices (green stem included), the mushrooms and half the chilli pepper. Mix with the hands, briefly, so as to get buns. Sprinkle the top of the buns with the sesame seeds.

Mix the rest of the ingredients: tomato, broccoli, red pepper, garlic, ginger.

Heat the sesame oil in a pan, brown the beef buns sides well, then add the mix around the buns. Cook on high heat (+ 1/2 a lid to soften the vegetables) add the kaffir lime leaves just before the end. Do not over cook the vegetable so that they keep a vibrant colour.

After you dish, de-glaze the pan, and pour over the beef.

Serve hot, that's it.

I sometimes cook the meat in the oven on a grid which allows the fat to drip away from the meat.

Source: my own cravings

Thai steamed seabass - my favorite

I must have mentioned by now how much I love Thai food.
Now this is a dish which is light, very delicate and delicious, incredibly healthy, simple and flavoursome, and beautiful too.

I prefer to buy fillets of sea bass (cut in front of me) rather than the whole fish, purely for taste, it also cooks faster and more evenly.

Anyway, for 2 you will need:
- 2 fillets of sea bass (in french 'loup', but buy the babies at a proper fishmonger's, not the big ones..)
- 1 lemongrass
- 1 and 1/2 juicy lime
- Thai fish sauce (beware: this is important, Vietnamese fish sauce tastes completely different)
- 4 medium tomatoes
- 1 big red pepper
- fresh coriander (fresh basil is OK if you're stuck for coriander)
- 3 fresh Kaffir lime leaves (dried if you can get hold of it)
- 1 clove of garlic finely chopped
- 1 nail worth of finely chopped ginger
- 1 Bird eye chili

In the photo you can see I see I also used a courgette, but you don't have to.

Place the diced red pepper and diced tomatoes ( and diced courgettes if any) in the lower tier of your steamer.
Place the sea bass fillet in the top tier of the steamer, with on it one or two slices of lemongrass and the Kaffir lime leaves if dry. Set your steamer on 10 minutes

In the meantime, prepare the sauce:
Squeeze the juice of 1 lime, and mix with it a bit less than the same quantity of fish sauce.
Taste and adjust (it should not taste too salty nor too sour from the lime) with the juice of he 1/2 lime and the fish sauce.
When the taste is right, add the rest of the sliced lemongrass, the sliced bird's eye chili, the garlic and the ginger,kaffir lime leaves and fresh coriander chopped.

When the fish and vegges have finished cooking, dispose on a plate and add the sauce on top. Serve immediately, and sit down to enjoy the beautiful signals ALL your taste buds will send your overwhelmed brain.

Source: Chorchaba, who used to be my Thai cooking class master, the best ever Thai cook I ever hope to encounter..

Thai Chicken and red peppers

Et Voila, my dish tonight (It's fast food!)! Not a very french dish again.. If you have any idea of french dishes you'd like me to talk about, please give me some suggestions.. I've forgotten what it's like, eating French food every day...

In toasted sesame oil fry the strips of chicken with garlic, brown it a bit, throw the broccoli tomato and red pepper, remove from fire and add fresh kaffir lime leaves, sliced lemongrass, and 1/2 squeezed lime and adjust with fish sauce.
Serve with couscous you will have prepared with fish sauce and seaweed... nothing easier and faster than couscous. for 21 persons, plan a cup of couscous semolina, mix with a teaspoon of fish sauce, 1/2 tsp toasted sesame oil, a few dry wakame seaweeds. Mix well add the same volume (1 cup) of water, and let it rest for a few minutes. Then detach the grains with a fork, place in a coffee cup or other recipient to shape nicely, and return onto the plate. Done!

Streetfood: voted best.....

,...by me

The banana pancake, a must of thai street food! The best pancakes we found (come on, of course we tried a few!!!) were made by Indian and Bangladeshi people in the street (always with mobile kitchens of course..). The pancake originates from India but spread all over Asia under different disguise. I found it in malaysia as Roti Canai, served for breakfast and with curries, but no banana in sight. It's amazing to see how different Thai and Malay foods are considering they are neighbours...

Some observations: no banana tastes or behaves like these in Europe, there is quite a lot of fats used to make them (I absolutely can't care they are too superlicious), and they are soft and crunchy at the same time owwww!. Ah, and I miss street food so much.

All is left to me in Europe is to look at this video I made when I was in Chiang Mai over, and over, and over again....

So watch out, I might try to cook it sometimes..

Sticky rice and Mango

I've wanted to try the dessert for ages before I actually could. I'd heard it was so delicious... So I tried it as soon as I could, but I've never been too satisfied with it. I suspected that I might have to hunt it at the source. So when I went to Thailand, I hunted it in the streets, and at last, found the gorgeous dessert I'd been hoping all along. I found out the secret of it as soon as I put it in my mouth, and from then was able to reproduce it. It goes like that with a lot of thai foods: it's all about balance, and when you've found it, you can't forget it.

So you'll ask, what was the secret of a gorgeous sicky rice and mango?
it is...tadaaaaa.... Salt!
Don't pull this face. yes. salt. It's a balance between sweet and salty.
For 2 people, count 100g rice per person, rinse the sticky rice with cold water - not til the water goes clear, because with sticky rice, it never will. Add a small tin of coconut milk (preferably the Chaokoh brand because it is young coconut scrapped). Addd some water. cook until the rice is soft (add morewater if needed). Add sugar, then add the salt until balance is reached.
When ready, dish the rice and add on top the best (sliced) ripe mango you can find.
That's it, a delight. Soooo easy!