Thai feature drink and dessert

After giving ourselves some time to recover and digest the Thai apps, we moved on to dinner! Forgive me, but I can't for the life of me remember what wine we had to drink. As I recall, there aren't too many Thai wines around so I'm guessing there were a bunch of reds that went with spicy food.

On the other hand, the feature drink of the evening was rather more-ish. I would totally make it another time and likely double the recipe. Six people can go through it quickly!

Lemongrass-Lime Leaf Sparkler 

(with gin added) from epicurious.com
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Lemongrass-Lime-Leaf-365192

1/4 cup lemon zest (from 6 lemons)

1/4 cup lime zest (from 8 limes)

20 kaffir lime leaves

2 stalks lemongrass, roughly chopped

3/4 cup Simple Syrup, divided (1 cup sugar, 1 cup water)

6 cups soda water, divided

Directions:Combine citrus zest, lime leaves, lemongrass, and 2 cups water in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer for 5 minutes. Strain lemongrass mixture into a jar and chill. Fill a 12 ounce glass with ice cubes. Add 2 tablespoons lemongrass mixture and 1 tablespoon simple syrup. Top with soda water (about 1/2 cup) and stir to combine. Repeat to make 11 more sodas.

Or, just double the recipe and enjoy...

Mango and Sticky Rice 

1 peeled mango - add on top of Coconut Milk Sticky Rice

Coconut Milk Sticky Rice - Kow Neuw Moon

1 cup coconut milk
2 pinches salk
1 cup Sticky Rice
2 tablespoons sugar

The Traditional Method Using a Steamer: Soak the sticky rice in enough water to cover the rice for at least an hour and even overnight. Take your steamer, put water in the bottom and cover the steam section with cheese cloth or muslin cloth. Pour the sticky rice on the cheesecloth, cover with the lid and put it on the stove on medium to high heat. The sticky rice should take about a 20 minutes of steaming to cook and will become translucent when done.

The Microwave Method: I learned this method from my friend who has mastered microwave cooking to such a high level of proficiency that she has earned the title 'the microwave queen'.

Soak the sticky rice for 10 minutes in warm water in a bowl. Soaking the rice is very important. I have tried this method without soaking the rice first and it was disastrous. The rice was undercooked and inedible. The water level should be just above the rice, which comes out to be 1 cup of rice and a little over 1 cup of water (about 10% more). I recommend using a non-plastic container because you may melt the plastic in the microwave. Cover the bowl with a dish and cook in microwave for at full power 3 minutes. Stir the ricearound to move the rice from the top to the bottom. You will notice that some of the rice is translucent or cooked and some still has white center or the uncooked portion.

Heat it up again for another 3 minutes. Check and see if it is done. When cooked, all the rice should be translucent. If it needs more cooking, I recommend heating up and checking every 3 minutes or so. How long it takes to cook really depends on your microwave.

Putting it together: Heat the coconut milk in a pot over medium heat. Stir constantly and let the coconut milk simmer. Hard boiled coconut milk will curdle. Add sugar and salt. Remove from heat. Pour 3/4 of the hot coconut milk over the hot sticky rice. Let it sit for 5 minutes. The hot sticky rice will absorb all thecoconut milk. The rice should be a little mushy. Spoon the rest of the coconut milk on top of the rice at serving time.

http://www.thaitable.com/thai/recipe/mango-on-sticky-rice

Thai appetizers

Hello out there, world! I sincerely apologize for the lack of consistency in our posts here. All is entirely my fault as life just got in the way.

So, without further ado, here are the recipes and photos of the Thai appetizers from our last meeting of the AlphaGourmet club back in April 2012.

We had several appetizers to start off the evening including Thai spring rolls and chicken satays with Ajaad (cucumber) salad. The spring rolls were wrapped in home made spring roll wrappers that were way better than any kind you can buy in Kingston. All recipes are probably what you think about most frequently when thinking about Thai food so they can really satisfy a craving! Here's the recipe and a photo of the spring rolls before they were cooked:

Home made spring roll wrappers

Ingredients:

1 cup rice flour
4 tablespoon regular white flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 large eggs
1 teaspoon cooking oil
2 cups fresh water

Directions:

1. Sift all the dry ingredients together twice.
2. In a separate bowl, mix the eggs, oil and water . Then pour this mixture into the dry ingredients to form a batter. Mix thoroughly to get all the lumps out.
3. Cover and set aside in a cool place for an hour.
4. Heat a non-stick frying pan and drizzle or spray a little cooking oil on it.
5. Pour in a little batter and quickly swirl in around to make a thin pancake. You don't have to flip it to cook the other side and it should not brown. Take it out of the pan when it looks like it has set.
http://www.essortment.com/homemade-spring-roll-wrapper-recipe-13943.html

The stuffing for the spring rolls was made in two batches. One was to make the sausage itself and the other was to get the other Asian flavours to meld together.

Thai Spring Rolls Ingredients

1 package of spring roll wrappers (use 24 wrappers)

100 g of bean thread noodles (soaked in cold water for 30 minutes, drained and cut into 2 inches.)
2 cups of grated carrot
2 cups of shredded green cabbage
½ cup of wood ear mushrooms (soaked and sliced)
1 cup of diced onion
2 tablespoons of thin soy sauce
1 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of pepper
1 tablespoon of cornstarch

2 tablespoons of water
3 cup of vegetable oil

Directions:

1.  Add 3 tablespoons of oil in the wok on medium high heat. Put the vegetables and noodles into the hot oil and season the filling mixture with soy sauce, salt and pepper. Sauté the ingredients until the filling is well done.
For this exploration, I made two fillings: sweet red pepper with bok choy (and the vegetables listed here) and shrimp with mushroom (baby bella and shitake). For both I used bean sprouts as I couldn’t find those bean noodles To counteract some of the earthiness of the mushrooms with the shrimp, I put a splash of pineapple juice and lime as citrus always enhances seafood and the sweetness of the pineapple controlled the mushroom and bean sprout mixture.
2. Let the filling cool down
3. In a small bowl, combine some cornstarch and water until mixed well together
4. Lay a spring roll wrapper with the point up on the counter and add 2 tablespoons of the filling on the bottom of the wrapper.
5. Fold the bottom edge up over the filling and insert behind the filling. Then fold the right edge and the left edge to the middle and roll tightly until the end of the wrapper.
6. Seal the roll with mixed cornstarch and repeat until finished.
7. This recipe should make about 24 rolls.
8. Heat the oil in the wok over high heat. Deep fry spring rolls until golden brown and remove the rolls to paper towels to blot the extra oil. Serve hot with plum sauce.



The completed spring rolls:

Ajaad Salad Ingredients

200 ml White vinegar

40 gm Sugar

1 tsp Salt

50 gm Cucumber, quartered and sliced

50 gm Shallots, sliced

2 Fresh red chilies, sliced

Directions: Mix together the vinegar, sugar and salt. Bring to the boil and simmer until the quantity is halved. When ready to serve, mix the remaining ingredients and pour over the reduced sauce. http://www.your-thai-recipe.com/thai-salads/vegetable/ajaad-salad.html Ajaad Salad (mostly eaten by the time the photo was taken...sorry!) Thai Chicken Satay Ingredients (60 sticks) 1 lb of chicken breast (sliced into strips about 1” x 2”) 1 tablespoon sweet black soy sauce ½ cup of coconut milk 60 bamboo skewers Marinade 3 cloves of garlic 1 onion (chopped) 1 teaspoon of cumin 1 teaspoon of turmeric 1 teaspoon of coriander seeds 1 lemongrass (thinly sliced) 2 teaspoons of salt 2 tablespoon of tamarind paste 1 tablespoon of palm sugar 2 tablespoon of vegetable oil ½ cup of water Directions 1. Add marinade ingredients in a blender and blend until mix well. Transfer to a large bowl. 2. Put sweet black soy sauce and coconut milk into the marinade sauce and stir to combine. 3. Marinate the chicken for at least 2 hours to overnight. 4. Thread 1-2 pieces of chicken onto each skewer. Baste each side with oil or coconut milk to prevent the chicken from getting stuck on the grill. Cook over a fire until brown. 5. Remove the chicken skewers from the grill and serve with peanut sauce and cucumber salad (Ajaad)

 http://www.cooking-thai-recipes.com/thai-chicken-satay.html