My sister and brother-in-law have recently started their own fruit and herb garden. I never paid much attention to it until just a few weeks ago when I wandered around their backyard. Don't you think it's kinda nice to have your own personal greengrocer? Wandering in their garden, I found some lemongrass and kaffir lime plants. I instantly thought, Thai food! Surely there's an easy meal from David Thompson that uses these two ingredients: stir-fried clams with chilli jam and thai basil.
I bought some clams from my local seafood market, but they must not be in season (either that or the clams were on a diet?) because their flesh were really quite sparing. Plus, the chilli jam that I bought was not a thai chilli jam. It made the sauce a bit sweeter than I anticipated. I don't think my first attempt was very successful taste-wise, though it kinda looks beautiful.
This is my first dessert / snack yet from David Thompson's Thai Street Food. I picked an easy one to start with, sweet banana roti.
I'm addicted to fish lately. I've been trawling through my cooking books for great fish recipes. This particular one from David Thompson's Thai Street Food is a classic Thai dish. Salty, spicy, sour and sweet, an all-in-one dish.
I made a few modifications for convenience purposes. The recipe asked for banana leaves to plate the fish, which I omitted, because I couldn't find any. It also asked for barramundi, but the barra in my local seafood market wasn't particularly fresh that day, so I substituted it with a whole gold band snapper instead.
This asparagus and prawns dish from Thai Street Food is delicious, though perhaps a little bit mild depending on what you prefer. But, you can't go wrong if you go with top-notch ingredients.
David Thompson is one of the most respected chef in Australia. He made his name by getting the backing of the Thai government to re-establish authentic Thai food in Thailand, to fight the onslaught of fusion food in the country. He has a comprehensive Thai recipe book called Arharn Thai, but I was totally intimidated by it, so I never got around to buying it. So, when his new book Thai Street Food was published, I said to myself I definitely have to get that book.
My first thought was that surely street food would be easier than full-on Thai food to cook. I was sort of right, I think. Some recipes were totally do-able, like the neua pat bai grapao. But, there are quite a few pretty complicated recipes in there with a lot of ingredients. I was intimidated for about a minute, but I thought, it's totally time for me to get a bit of a challenge. To get me started, I picked this pretty straightforward recipe, with manageable amounts of ingredients.
