Stir fry pork with Thai green chilli paste, fish and oyster sauces, eggplant, bamboo shoots, green beans with zuchinni noodles.
Healthy, yummy and carb free! Easy weeknight dinner!
Tag: Thai
Tasty Thai Fishcakes with Sweet Cucumber and Chilli Sauce
Having done my dash with ham and turkey over the last week of Christmas festivities, I thought I’d spice things up for New Year’s Eve with some tasty Thai fishcakes. We were heading to friends to watch the spectacular Sydney fireworks and I wanted to take some treats that can withstand being served at room temperature.
This recipe makes about 20 bite-sized Fishcakes or you can make larger cakes and serve them as an entree to a main meal.
These fishcakes are so easy to make and are delicious with homemade sweet cucumber and chilli dipping sauce. Making the sauce is worth it as it so much zinger and fresher than bottled sweet chilli sauce and takes no time at all.
Fishcakes
Prep time including chilling mixture: 45 minutes. Cooking time: 10 minutes
Ingredients:
500g firm boneless white or red fish fillets
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 teaspoon store bought Thai red or green chilli paste
2 red chillies deseeded and diced finely
3 fresh kaffir lime leaves or Thai basil leaves very finely sliced
5-6 green beans very thinly sliced into rounds
Handful of coriander leaves finely chopped
1 stalk of lemongrass – chopped into quarters
1 tspoon sugar
1/2 tspoon salt
1 cup vegetable oil for frying
Method
Place fish fillets in microwave proof dish and just cover with water, add fish sauce and throw in the lemon grass stalks and a few kaffir lime or Thai basil leaves.
Microwave on high for 2-3 minutes, then drain well, remove herbs and flake fish.
Add flaked fish to bowl of food processor with curry paste, chillies and blend into a paste.
Put fish mixture into a bowl and add sugar, salt, chillies, chopped lime leaves, green beans, coriander and mix well.
Add 2-3 tablespoons of the beaten egg and mix into fish until mixture binds together but is not too wet.
Place mixture in the fridge to dry out for half an hour or so.
Form mixture into small balls and press down to create little cakes. I find squeezing the excess moisture out of the mixture as you make the balls helps to bind the cakes together.
Heat oil on high until very hot and fry the cakes until golden brown. Do not turn the cakes over until the bottom side is well fried as this will help the cakes stay together.
Serve with Sweet cucumber and chilli dipping sauce
Sweet cucumber and chilli dipping sauce
Prep time: 5 minutes Cooking time: 1 minute
Ingredients:
1/4 cup of water
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cucumber finely diced
1 red chilli finely diced
Method:
Put sugar and water into pot and bring to a simmer for 1 minute, mixing until sugar dissolves.
Add cucumber and chilli to syrup and allow to steep while you fry Fishcakes.
Thai Isaan Cuisine
I loved the Isaan cuisine of Thailand which I discovered while travelling in the north of Thailand back in the 90s. This article gave me a flashback. There used to be a great Thai Isaac place at Eastgardens in Sydney…wonder if it’s still there?!
Isan food offers much of the best eating in Thailand. Less celebrated globally but hugely popular locally. Although Isan food is less common outside of Thailand, inside the country it can be found everywhere. There are a few qualities and ingredients that seem to dominate: chili peppers, lime, peanuts, dried shrimp, fresh fruits and vegetables, […]
Thai flavoured chicken and vegetable noodle soup
I’ve been feeling a bit under the weather with the flu and the only thing I felt like eating was a light but flavoursome chicken soup. This version of chicken soup combines Thai flavours like galangal and lemongrass with fresh green vegetables and poached chicken and is full of goodness but omits the traditional coconut milk which often features in Thai chicken soups like Tom Ka Ghai.
Prep time: 5 minutes Cooking time: 1 hour
Ingredients
Poached chicken and stock
4 thigh chicken fillets on the bone, skin and fat removed
1 carrot peeled and chopped in large pieces
4 celery stalks chopped in large pieces
Large knob of fresh galangal peeled and chopped
Large knob of fresh ginger peeled and chopped
1 stalk lemongrass bruised then chopped roughly
4 cloves garlic
4 stalks spring onions chopped roughly
1 red chilli chopped
2.5-3 litres water
Soup
1/2 brown onion sliced finely
2 handfuls of honeysnap peas
5 button mushrooms sliced thickly
1 stalk bok choy finely chopped
4 cloves of boiled garlic retained from the stock and crushed into a paste
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
Shredded chicken
Handful coriander chopped
1 lime
125g vermicelli rice noodles
1 tablespoon vegetable oil, 1 tspn sesame oil
Method
Place chicken and stock ingredients in large stock pot and bring to a boil
Lower heat and simmer for 40-50 minutes, skimming surface to remove any “scum” that appears
Remove chicken pieces from stock and set aside to cool
Strain remaining stock to remove vegetables, reserving the loves of garlic for the soup
Shred the chicken and discard the bones
Heat vegetable and sesame oil in seperate saucepan
Add onion and cook gently until transparent
Add paste of crushed garlic cloves and mix through onions
Add honeysnap peas, fish sauce, pepper and stir fry for 2 minutes
Add bok Choy and mushrooms and stir fry for 1 minute
In the meantime bring stock back to a rolling boil, add vermicelli noodles and shredded chicken and cook for 1 minute, add vegetable mixture and cook for another minute or so.
Garnish with coriander and fresh chilli.
Squeeze over lime juice and add extra fish sauce to taste.
Serves 3-4
Top Thai with views in Singapore
We are in Singapore visiting our son Nick who has been posted here for work since earlier this year. Now living the life of an ex-pat, Nick is being a great tour guide during our stay. Last night we went down for a walk along Boat Quay along the river. The Quay is a bustling tourist destination with a range of restaurants from Lebanese and French to Indian and Singapore Seafood. We chose Lanna Thai for dinner after drinks at the Red Spot Brewery further down the Quay.
We were greeted warmly by the waiter and given a lovely table right on the riverside with views of the stunning Marina Bay Sands building, Fullerton Hotel and passing boats in the background. After ordering drinks, which are expensive, we decided to start with some Thai standards – mix satay of chicken, beef and mutton and Thai fishcakes. The satays came with a delicious satay sauce in which you could taste the freshly roasted and crushed peanuts. The Thai fishcakes were super authentic achieving that elastic texture and lightnness that only Thai cooks seem to know how to get.
For mains we chose Butter Grilled Prawns in Claypot, Thai Green Chicken Curry and Roast Boneless Duck. I ordered Nam Prik(fresh sliced chilli in fish sauce) as a side sauce to add that extra kick of spice. The food was so surprisingly good for what looks like a tourist trap restaurant, I forgot to take photos until we were almost done. Certainly the grilled king prawns with their sweet, succulent meat deliciously enhanced with a butter sauce were demolished quickly as was the meltingly tender boneless duck.
The Thai Green Chicken Curry was spiced exactly right with a finely balanced cocnut curry sauce and authentic vegetables such as apple and pea eggplants, bamboos shoots, and Thai basil.
Prices are calibrated for tourists so expect to pay $70-80 per head depending on how many you drinks you have! (Wine of course is as with much of Asia at silly prices for silly brands, so beer and spirits are the go!)
Not usually a fan of tourist area restaurants, I was very pleasantly surprised by the authenticity and quality of the food at Lanna Thai and would recommend a visit if you are heading to Boat Quay.
