Category Archives: food

by | 04/27/2011 · 12:51 pm

Why Food

The unseasonably wet weather and ensuing traffic snarls have put me into a meditative mood. So indulge me for a moment as I blather on like your 84-year-old great-aunt, the one who doesn’t see people very often and puts SWAT-team-level preparation into “going out”.

Because that is how I feel nowadays. My Thai has never been the greatest — conversations frequently turn into an unwieldy catalogue of what has NOT been said, a litany of all that has NOT been communicated. I am literally two-dimensional; beyond initial remarks on the weather, what to eat and where to go, I am cashed out of words, making do by playing the role of the dim-witted auntie, a role I am getting unnervingly good at.

This is leeching into my English language communication, which is fast becoming a halting negotiation of what to express and what to leave out. Interaction is Thailand is an unspoken deal: say the expected things at the right time and you will have passed. Saying something different means you have not kept up your part of the bargain. This is something that has taken me years to learn, but is somehow understood by Thais who have grown up here — just like everyone knows you don’t eat durian with alcohol, or without mangosteen, or that you don’t transport it on the Skytrain because then people will look at you like you just took a baby, a kitten and a puppy and forced them to listen to the Black Eyed Peas’s latest album. All Thais somehow know these things.

So food is a wonderful oasis for me. When you are cramming your piehole with stuff, you don’t have to talk. When your table is groaning under the weight of tasty food, people around you are happy. When you venture to talk about this dish or that, people are invariably willing to discuss it — food is a fine, happy place, where everyone loves you, as long as your plate is still full.

It’s logical, then, that I would love Restaurants of Bangkok, which offers a nifty monthly program they call “Running Dinners”. Every course — appetizer, main, dessert — is offered at a different restaurant in the same area. Despite the logistical difficulties of herding up to 20 increasingly inebriated people to different places every hour or so, it’s surprisingly well-run, and a great way to feature restaurants that are new or easily overlooked. (In the interests of full disclosure: next month’s dinner includes dessert at Maduzi Hotel, which belongs to my husband’s family.)

Blurry photo of dessert course at Philippe, taken after fourth glass of wine

But I’m an equal-opportunity gobbler (uh, duh). I obviously like to go the opposite end of the spectrum too. Sometimes you need to work a little for your food fix, just sayin (don’t you hate it when people write “just sayin?” Like, didn’t you already just say it? I see it more and more frequently, and it is almost always preceded by something semi-obnoxious — “BLAH BLAH STUPID STUPID MOUTHFART MOUTHFART. JUST SAYIN.” Blech. Okay, rant over.)

So the beef noodles on Sukhumvit Soi 16, across from the Korean restaurant, are also a wonderful refuge for the socially impaired. Beloved by office workers and motorcycle taxi drivers alike, it is the “we are the world” food stall of that particular road, where people can set aside their various color allegiances or complete and total political apathy (I’m lookin at me, Bangkok Glutton) and jostle each other for bowls of delicious beef water instead.

Options are rice vermicelli (sen mee) or thick noodles (sen yai), or no noodles at all (gow low). Open 7am-1pm, closed on Sundays. Call 087-564-9469.

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Filed under Asia, Bangkok, beef, dessert, food, food stalls, French food, noodles, restaurant, Thailand

by | 04/25/2011 · 4:22 pm

What’s Cooking: Gaeng liang

I don’t think I would be exaggerating to say I was a total mess after giving birth the second time. Dazed, depressed and demoralized, I struggled with things I thought were so easy as a new mother a decade earlier — changing diapers, giving baths, getting up in the morning.

This spicy vegetable soup was one of the few constants in a maze of uncertainty (“Why is he crying? Is he sick? What does he want?”) Full of nutrients and flavor, it is real Thai health food: one of the things Thai people say new mothers must eat to bring their milk in and keep their strength up. So for me, gaeng liang is the soup of retreat and renewal. It is also one of the few things that can make me sound like a spa brochure.

I based this recipe on Chef McDang’s gaeng liang in his “Principles of Thai Cookery”, which calls for pumpkin, buab (sponge gourd), bai tum lung (ivy gourd leaves) and lemon basil leaves. I swapped water out for chicken stock, grilled serpenthead fish in favor of shrimp, and added nam thao, a sort of watery green gourd. Because this soup is so rich in vegetables, you can omit the seafood altogether, but the shrimp paste is essential.

Gaeng Liang (for 4)
-300 g chicken stock
-16 shallots
-7 small green chilies
-1 Tbsp kapi (shrimp paste)*
-1/2 Tbsp white peppercorns
-2 Tbsp fish sauce
-1 tsp sugar
-2 g pumpkin, peeled and cut
-2 g straw mushrooms
-1 buab (sponge gourd), peeled and cut**
-1/2 nam thao (green gourd), peeled and cut**

Mushrooms, pumpkin and gourds


-handful of lemon basil and ivy gourd leaves

Bai maeng rak and bai thum lung


-300 g white shrimp, cleaned

1. Set chicken stock to boil over high heat.
2. While chicken stock is heating, make your soup base. Pound shallots, chilies, shrimp paste and peppercorns with mortar and pestle until semi-smooth consistency is achieved. Your chili paste should look like this:

3. Once boil is reached, add chili paste. Brace yourself; the smell can go up your nose and set off a cascade of sneezes.
4. Once boil returns, add fish sauce, sugar and veggies except for pumpkin, which gets mushy if overcooked.
5. Once boil returns, add pumpkin. Your gaeng should now look like this:

Skim foam off surface periodically as veggies boil to cut down on shrimpy smell. Leave for about 5 minutes.
6. Add shrimp but do not overstir. Add herbs and, without stirring, cover. Lower heat to medium. Leave for another 3-5 minutes.
7. Taste and, if necessary, correct seasoning. Shut off flame and leave to “marinate”. Your gaeng should look like this:

You can leave this for a day (refrigerated overnight) before eating. The kapi-heavy nam prik you so painstakingly pounded will turn the broth into a mahogany-colored, shrimpy ambrosia. Lunch the next day:

Next up: we delve deeper into the wonderful world of nam prik (chili paste) — the foundation for all Thai dishes.

*You need good-quality kapi for this to work. Chef McDang says you can roast store-bought shrimp paste until fragrant, but you can also buy the type made from small shrimp (referred to as kuey in the southern Thai dialect), which needs no pre-roasting at all.

**You may not be able to secure sponge gourd or green gourd where you live. Just in case you come across them, they look like this in their natural state:

If you can’t find these, substitute zucchini and yellow squash for the gourds, and baby spinach for the ivy gourd leaves.

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Filed under Asia, Bangkok, food, seafood, Thailand

by | 04/20/2011 · 2:48 pm

What’s Cooking: Gaeng om

If there’s a good place to start for a Thai food cooking virgin, it’s with this tasty Northeastern Thai “soup”. It’s full of good-for-you greens, bright and light with fresh, herbal flavor, and crazy easy to make. Felt like I robbed a bank with this one.

Gaeng Om (for four)
-1 head white cabbage, chopped

-2 g Thai lemon basil (bai maeng rak)
-2 g dill, chopped
-2 g scallions, cut into 1-in pieces

-2 stalks lemongrass, cut in half
-1 large piece galangal, sliced
-12 shallots
-12 small red chilies

-3 g oyster mushrooms (het nang rong)

-300 g white fish filets, skin-on, cut into pieces*

-2 Tbsp fermented Thai anchovy juice (nam pla rah)**

-200 g chicken stock

-200-300 g water

-1 Tbsp fish sauce (plus more to taste)***

1. Set water and chicken stock to simmering boil in pot. Meanwhile, mix lemongrass, galangal, shallots and chilies in blender or food processor until finely diced.
2. Once simmering boil is achieved, add chili mixture to stock.
3. Add pla rah juice, 1 Tbsp fish sauce and fish pieces. Do not overstir, or fish will get mushy. Cover.
4. Increase heat to rolling boil. Add mushrooms and white part of scallions.
5. When water returns to the boil, add cabbage and the rest of greens. The pot should look like this:

Cover.
6. When vegetables lose some volume, carefully “fold” into broth. Taste and add more fish sauce if needed.
7. Shut off flame. Pot should look like this:

Cover and let “marinate” for a few hours (cool and place in fridge if leaving overnight).

*If you’re a meat person, use sauteed chicken wings or pork ribs instead.
**You can buy Thai anchovies in any supermarket here in Thailand, but Khum Gon, my Thai food tutor, claims homemade is best (obviously). Fermented Thai anchovies look like this:

If this isn’t available to you, try mashing regular good-quality anchovies instead.
***Khum Gon believes that fish sauce from shellfish (such as razor clams) is best because it smells less fishy than other types. Frankly, I am not that sensitive to the smell, but if that is an issue, then take Khum Gon’s advice.

What we ended up with:

Lunch

In the end, it was … pretty good. I’d use all chicken broth next time. And more Thai anchovy juice. But it was everything I expected and wanted from my first Thai cooking experiment. Next up: a veggie-rich gaeng liang.

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Filed under Asia, Bangkok, fish, food, Isaan, seafood, Thailand