Thai Pineapple Fried Rice (Khao Pad Sapparot)

Blogging Marathon#64: Week 4/ Day 2

Theme: Mega BM Bookmarked Recipes 

Dish: Pineapple Fried Rice from Mireille 

For Day 2 of bookmarked dishes I have a sweet, sour and spicy Thai Pineapple fried rice from Mir's blog. I have seen pineapple fried rice recipes on any food blogs but I wasn't sure how the sweetness of the pineapple would taste in a savory rice dish. So never tried to make it at home before.

But when I saw Mir's dish, I wanted to give it a try. I had all the ingredients on hand and my husband was travelling so I took a chance and made it for myself. I have to say I really liked this dish. The sweetness from the pineapple is actually complemented by the spicy curry powder and the saltiness of the soy sauce.

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Thai Coconut Lime Dressing (and a Salad) Vegan recipe

Blogging Marathon# 62: Week 3/ Day 2

Theme: Cook with Coconut

Dish: Thai Coconut Lime Dressing

Today's dish uses coconut milk in a very interesting way, in a salad dressing. I bookmarked this recipe from Food52 a while back and made it for this week's 'Cook with coconut' theme because who doesn't like creamy coconut dressing with Thai flavors and served with colorful veggies. I sure do :-)

This recipe could not be simpler, mix all the ingredients for the dressing, chop all the ingredients for the salad, cook rice and assemble. Original recipe used fish sauce in the dressing and I subbed it with low-sodium tamari (soy sauce would work well too). I'm sure fish sauce is much more flavorful than just soy sauce, so if you can your hands on some vegan or vegetarian fish sauce, by all means use that. This dressing is great for salads or as a dipping sauce for spring rolls or lettuce cups.

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Thai Curried Noodles for #Food of the World

We are visiting Thailand for this month's Food of the World event. Thai cuisine is one of my favorite and I have tried and posted quite a few Thai dishes on the blog. I looked through my 'Buddha's Table' cookbook and found this Curried Noodles recipe.

This is a spicy and delicious dish that is perfect to serve on a chilly winter day. The list of ingredients is long but all of them are easily available in well stocked Asian grocery stores. I made a trip to my local Korean market to get the noodles and some other ingredients and I was set to make the dish.

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Thai Vegetable Red Curry (Vegan Recipe)

Today's dish is a spicy, creamy & slightly sweet Thai red curry made with vegetables. I always have Thai curry pastes, both red and green, in the refrigerator to make quick curries, rice or even noodles. Make sure to check the ingredients on the store bought Thai curry pastes because some might have fish sauce or other seafood related ingredients in them. Even better, use the recipe for the curry paste at the end of the post for your very own homemade version.

This recipe is adapted from 'Buddha's Table: Thai feasting Vegetarian Style' cookbook. I used the veggies listed in the recipe, but any vegetable can be added to this curry. Potato, mushroom, zucchini, baby corn, carrots are all good in here. It is great when served with some steamed jasmine rice.

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Thai Iced Tea (with Black Tea bags & Star Anise)

Blogging Marathon# 48: Week 4/ Day 3

Theme: 1 Cuisine -- 3 Dishes

Dish: Thai Cuisine -- Thai Iced Tea

For the final day of this month's blogging marathon under 'Thai cuisine' theme, I have a cold, refreshing Thai Iced Tea. I wanted to try a Thai dessert, but then couldn't get my hands on the ingredients, so after a little search I ended up on this Thai Iced Tea recipe by Giada.

Traditionally Thai tea is made from strongly brewed Ceylon tea. However, due to the high price of the Ceylon tea, a locally grown tea known as Bai Miang is commonly used along with added food coloring to make Thai Tea. It is flavored with either orange blossom water, star anise or crushed tamarind seed. This tea is sweetened with sugar and condensed milk and served chilled. Evaporated milk, coconut milk or whole milk are generally poured over the tea and ice before serving to add taste and creamy appearance.

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Vegetarian Thai Massaman Curry

Blogging Marathon# 48: Week 4/ Day 2

Theme: 1 Cuisine -- 3 Dishes

Dish: Thai Massamun Curry

After the refreshing first course of yesterday's Green Papaya Salad, I have a spicy, sweet and tangy Thai Massamun curry today. This curry is very aromatic and flavorful and uses a variety of Indian herbs and spices. I thought the curry tasted a lot of tangy, sweet South Indian pulusu.

If you have the curry paste already prepared and ready to go, then this dish does not take long to make. This curry is also very versatile and can be customized to ones likes and dislikes. I added some tofu puffs that I had in the freezer to amp up the protein, but regular tofu or soy chunks can also be used instead.

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Massamun Curry Paste Recipe (Vegan)

Massamun is supposed to be the heartiest of all Thai stew-like curries. The curry paste used to make the curry is complex and elaborate, containing more ingredients, especially dry roasted flavors, than any other curry pastes.

Even though it is a long list of ingredients for the curry paste, most of them are readily available in a well stocked kitchen or a grocery store. I've never seen fresh galangal or kaffir lime leaves in any of the stores that I go to, but luckily I found some canned/ jarred ones in Whole Foods that I picked up right away. They keep in the fridge for quite a while and are quite handy in making Thai curry pastes and other dishes.

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Thai Green Papaya Salad (Vegan Recipe)

Blogging Marathon# 48: Week 4/ Day 1

Theme: 1 Cuisine -- 3 Dishes

Dish: Thai Cuisine -- Thai Green Papaya Salad
My theme for this week's blogging marathon is pick 1 cuisine and cook 3 dishes. Valli gave us 4 countries to choose from and I went back and forth between Arabian and Thai cuisines, but finally ended up picking Thai. So for the next 3 days I will be posting 3 different courses of Thai dishes.

Today is a very famous Thai salad made with Green Papaya. My husband used to travel to Thailand quite frequently and he had nothing but praise for this Green Papaya salad. He tasted them at many street vendors and seemed to thoroughly enjoy it. We were at a party in a Thai restaurant recently where they served Green Papaya salad, it looked amazing but had dried shrimp and fish sauce in it, so we couldn't taste it. But it definitely inspired me to make the salad right away at home.

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Thai Sticky Rice with Mango

We are exploring the beautiful northern part of Thailand for this month's 'International Food Challenge'. Northern Thailand is blessed with the best scenery in the kingdom, it is the region with forests and mountains, rivers and waterfalls. It is the home to Thailand's hill tribes, whose conventions and customs differ from mainstream Thai culture. 

Rice is the staple of this region and they use both ordinary and glutinous varieties. Food is seasoned with fish sauce and chili peppers. Our host for this month, Sangeetha Priya, gave us some amazing Northern Thai dishes to try.

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Pad Thai (Vegan Recipe)

Blogging Marathon# 38: Week 4/ Day 2
Theme: Revisiting Recipes
Dish: Pad Thai

Today I'm revisiting one of my favorite noodle dish, Pad Thai. Recipe is from the cookbook Vegan with a Vengeance by Isa Chandra. It is a simple recipe, but it sure needs some preparations to be done. Once all the veggies are chopped and the sauce is made, dish gets done in no time. 

Below recipe serves 2, if you are planning to make this for a crowd, then multiply the ingredients according. Make the sauce in bulk, but assemble the noodles only 2 servings at a time and serve immediately.  

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Panaeng Curry with Tofu & Peppers

Panaeng Curry is one of my favorite Thai curries because it's creamy, mild and not as spicy as other Thai curries. Panaeng curry paste has peanuts and the usual Thai ingredients like lemon grass, galangal, garlic, coriander seeds etc. 

This curry usually is drier than most Thai curries. Its dryness is acieved by reduction, which, at the end, leaves the curry with an intense taste. 

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Thai Style Split Pea Soup

Bowl of hot soup is such a comforting meal on a chilly winter day. I'm not a big fan of soup, but this split pea soup is so hearty and delicious that I went back for seconds. Original recipe is from Culinate. To make it perfect for a weeknight dinner, I pressure cooked the split peas making it a perfect one-pot meal that can be made in less than 30 minutes. I also used ready made tom-yum paste that a dear friend gave me. But I have included the recipe for spice paste at the end.

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Thai Red Curry

Last two days have been a little hectic at work. Our department director was retiring and we were busy with the work hand-off meetings. She used to be my cubicle-mate and I'm going to miss her and her stories very much. I get emotional when I see someone else getting emotional (yes.. even in movies and my husband gets a kick out of my crying.. ahem), so I was ready to cry in her retirement party, but fortunately I didn't.

For today's dinner, I made this Thai red curry with store-bought red curry paste, tofu, broccoli & potato served over jasmine rice. Quick and easy. I just followed the instructions on the bottle, so no recipe.

Have a great weekend everybody.

Thai Yellow Curry

Vegan Mofo III starts today. For the uninformed Vegan mofo is Vegan Month Of Food started by Isa Maskowitz. The idea is to write as much as you can for the month of October about vegan food. It doesn’t have to be about food, it could be any vegan topic. So this is my 2nd Vegan Mofo and I’m excited about participating this year. I’m planning to make as many vegan recipes as I humanly can and if I make any on-vegan dishes, they will have to wait to be posted until November.

I’m kicking off the event/ month with this super delicious Thai Yellow curry way back in June and has been waiting in the drafts to see the light of your screen.

Ingredients:
Japanese Eggplants – 3 medium, chopped into half moons
Green pepper – 1 medium, chopped (any other color pepper would work too)
Potato – 1 medium, chopped
Onion – 1 small, chopped
Sprouted Moth Beans – ½ cup (chickpeas would be great too)

Yellow Curry Sauce – 1 cup (I used store-bought sauce, if it is homemade, you might have to use lesser amount)

Coconut milk – ½ cup
Soy sauce – 1tsp
Brown sugar – 1tbsp (or jaggery)
Salt – to taste

Method:

• Heat 2tbsp peanut oil in a large sauté pan; add onions and sauté till translucent, about 8minutes.
• Add eggplant, potato and pepper; cover and cook until the veggies are half cooked.
• Add the beans, curry sauce and all the other condiments. Cook until the veggies are tender and serve with steamed jasmine rice or whole-wheat couscous.

If you are interested in joining the other 265 enthusiastic vegan bloggers and participating in this year's event, head right over to Kittee's blog and leave a comment by October 2nd. I guess you still have a few hours to join the wagon. So hurry up...

Spicy Thai Fried Rice with Sugar Snap Peas

Fried rice is my go-to dish on days when I’m dog tired to cook anything and also when I’m trying to clean out the fridge. This is one such recipe and it tasted pretty good.

Ingredients:
Basmati Rice – 1½ cups, soaked in water for at least 15 mins
Lemon Grass – 2 tbsp finely chopped (from fleshy mid section of about 2 stalks)
Sugar snap peas – 1½ cups, finely chopped (I used frozen) Green beans can be substituted
Green Peas – 1 cup
Baby Corn – 14 oz. can, drained and rinsed
Shallot – 1, medium chopped
Green Chilies – 4, thinly sliced
Ginger – 1” piece, grated
Garlic – 1 clove, minced
Thai Red Chili Sauce – 2tbsp
Soy sauce – 1tbsp
Asian chili sauce – 2tsp (optional, I used Sriracha chili sauce)
Salt – to taste

Method:

• Cook rice and let it cool completely.
  
• Heat 2tbsp peanut oil in a large sauté pan; add shallots, ginger, garlic and lemon grass and sauté till nice and fragrant about 2-3 minutes.
  
• Add sugar snap peas and baby corn; cover and cook till they are tender about 5-7 minutes.
  
• Now add Thai red chili sauce, hot sauce and soy sauce; stir fry for a minute.
  
• Add thawed peas and stir fry for couple of minutes until heated through.
  
• Finally add the cooked rice and stir fry for 2-3 minutes.
  
• Add scrambled egg or baked tofu to make it a complete meal.

Thai Inspired Fried Rice

I say Thai "inspired" because I used ingredients like lemon grass, green curry paste, coconut milk that are used widely in Thai cooking, but I cannot vouch for the authenticity of the manner in which it was cooked. This is kind of “Passport to Thailand” kind of a recipe made using ingredients on hand.

It is also “clean your fridge for next week’s grocery shopping” recipe too.This dish came about while thinking of IVAW-Thai being guest hosted by talented Priya @ Akshayapaatram and looking at the stragglers in the fridge. Its A Vegan World is a monthly blog event started by Lovely Vaishali @ Holy Cow.

This makes a quick dinner and great for lunch boxes too. Here’s how I made it.

Ingredients:
Basmati Rice – 1½ cups
Extra firm Tofu – 1 12 oz. package, drained and cubed
Mixed veggies – 3 cups (I used carrots, French cut beans, green pepper, peas)
Onion – 1 large, diced
Green chilies – 2, sliced
Scallions – 1 bunch, chopped
Green curry paste – 3tbsp (I used store-bought)
Coconut milk – ¼ cup (I used store-bought)
Ginger – 1” piece
Garlic – 2 cloves
Lemon grass – 2tbsp of the chopped soft fleshy part
Soy sauce – 2 tsp
Sambal Oleak – 1tsp (optional)
Salt & Pepper – to taste

Method:

• Cook rice and keep aside to cool.
  
• Heat 1tbsp oil in a large sauté pan on medium high; sauté tofu till lightly brown on all sides, about 10-12 minutes; remove from the pan and keep aside.
• In the same pan, add ginger, garlic, lemon grass and sauté for 30seconds.
  
• Add green curry paste and sauté for couple of minutes until fragrant.
  
• Next add all the veggies and stir-fry on medium high until crisp tender. Add coconut milk, salt and pepper; cook for 5 minutes until the mixture dries out just a little bit. Add cooked rice, mix well and cook until heated through, another 5 minutes. Enjoy this spicy fried rice with some raita.

Mixed Vegetables in Thai Yellow Curry Sauce

It has been a little hectic at work this past week. Not much energy left to cook after coming home, so I took a shortcut route to make this mixed vegetable Thai curry. I used store bought Thai yellow curry sauce, but jazzed up a little bit for a quick weeknight dinner. This goes to talented Priya @ Akshayapaatram who is guest hosting IVAW-Thai. IVAW is the brain child of Vaishali @ Holy Cow.

For all foodies who want to make Yellow curry paste from scratch, I'm giving the recipe from "Buddha's Table" by Chat Mingkwan at the end of the post.

Ingredients:
Extra Firm Tofu - 16oz. pkg, drained and cut into 1/2" pieces
Carrot - 1 medium, diced
Broccoli florets - 1 cup
Green beans - 1/2 cup (I used frozen french cut beans)
Red Onion - 1 medium, chopped
Coconut milk - 1 cup (I used Lite coconut milk)
Ginger - 1" piece grated
Garlic - 2 cloves, minced
Yellow Curry sauce - 1/3 cup
Soy sauce - 2tbsp
Jaggery or Brown sugar - 2tbsp
Salt - to taste

Method:

• I microwaved carrots & broccoli for 2 minutes, I then added the frozen beans in the same bowl to thaw and nuked for another 1-11/2 minutes.
  
• Heat 1tbsp peanut oil in a large skillet or wok. Add onions, ginger and garlic and saute till transparent, about 4-5 minutes. Add the other veggies and cook for 2-3 minutes.
  
• Then add tofu, curry sauce, coconut milk, soy sauce, jaggery and sauce. Simmer the sauce until it thickens a little bit, about 10-15 minutes.**

I served the curry with brown rice cooked with chopped lemon grass and freshly ground coriander & cumin seeds. Made for a awesome dinner and a lovely lunch the next day.

**If the sauce is too watery, add some cornstarch slurry (mixed in water) and simmer for couple of minutes for a thicker sauce.

Yellow Curry Paste from Scratch.

According to Chat Mingkwan, author of Buddha's Table, Yellow curry paste (Namprik Gaeng Garee) is a direct descendent of Indian curr, with small modification of added lemongreass and kaffir lime for the Thai palate. The word "garee" is derived from the Indian "curry" powder, whose yellow color obviosuly carries the name.

Ingredients:
Dried Red chilies - 6 large (California, New Mexico or guajillo chilies)
Whole coriander seeds - 2tsp
Whole cumin seeds - 1tsp
Lemongrass - 3tbsp, chopped (tender midsection only)
Curry powder - 2tbsp
Shallots - 2tbsp chopped
Garlic - 2tbsp chopped
Galangal - 1tbsp chopped
Ginger - 1tbsp chopped
Kaffir lime skin or leaves - 2tsp
Salt - 1tsp

Method:

• Stem and seed dried chilies. Soak them in warm water for 10-15minutes or until soft. Drain and squeeze dry.
• Dry roast coriander & cumin seeds over medium heat for 3-5 minutes or until fragrant.
• Combine all the ingredients in a food processor or blender and process into smooth paste with little water if required.
  

Pad Thai for A.W.E.D-Thai

My DH travels to Thailand quite a bit on business. Being a foodie himself, he raves about all the food he has eats on the streets and in the restaurants of Bangkok. He absolutely loves pad thai, papaya salad, sticky mango rice and pineapple fried rice. I tried making papaya salad at home, but it wasn’t up to his expectations. Well.. I didn’t like it much either.

I wanted to try pad thai next, but I couldn’t find pad thai noodles in any of the groceries I go to. Then last weekend we went to 555 Asian Supermarket in Jersey City, NJ and I bought a pad-thai kit with sauce et al. but I ditched the sauce packet and made my own.

Recipe is from Vegan with a Vengeance, which I’ve been eyeing to make for quite sometime now. It is a quick and easy recipe if you have all the ingredients on hand. To my relief, DH LOVED it and said we should serve it to one of his Thai colleagues for dinner. I think that says it all.
On to the recipe now.

Adapated from Vegan With a Vengeance.
Ingredients (Serves 2):
For the Sauce:
Tamari – 3 tbsp
Sugar – 3 tbsp
Tomato Paste – 1 tbsp
Asian Hot sauce (like Sriracha sauce) – 1 tbsp
Rice Wine Vinegar – 2 tbsp
Tamarind concentrate or Lime juice – 1 ½ tbsp

For the Pad Thai:
Pad Thai Noodles – 8 oz., cooked according to package directions
Tofu – 8 oz. drained and pressed cut into small cubes or triangles
Red onion – 1 small, cut in half and thinly sliced
Garlic – 1 clove, minced
Lemongrass – ½ tbsp, finely minced
Bean sprouts – 1 cup
Scallions – 4, sliced into 1 ½” lengths
Dry red chili – 1, crumbled
Roasted peanuts – ¼ cup, chopped
Cilantro – 2 tbsp, chopped
Lemon wedges for serving

Method:

• Set the prepared noodles to the side.
• Mix all the ingredients for the sauce; keep aside.
• In a large sauté pan, or a wok, heat 1 tbsp peanut oil and quickly add tofu. Stir fry for 5-6 minutes until tofu is crisp on the outside. Remove and keep aside.
• Pour 1 tbsp more peanut oil to the pan, add onions and stir-fry for 30 seconds. Then add garlic, lemon grass and stir-fry for 30 more seconds.
• Now add the sauce and once the sauce starts to bubble, add the noodles and mix well.
• Then add tofu, scallions, chili and peanuts. Stir for 30 seconds. Transfer to two serving plates and garnish with coriander and lemon wedges. (I didnt have lemon wedges for garnish ;-( but we never missed them while eating) Enjoy hot.

According to my DH, all the ingredients for pad Thai are served separately in Thailand and the final dish is usually a little dry. But this dish is full of flavor with just the right amount of gravy. Also if you notice there is no salt added to the dish, but you won’t even realize it. I used low sodium tamari and didn’t think the dish lacked flavor. I’ll be making this very often now.

This is going to lovely DK @ Culinary Bazaar for her A.W.E.D: Thai cuisine event. I’m thinking since the event is on, I’m going to try more Thai dishes, so even my DH will be happy. Two birds at one shot.. right!!!!!

Thai food at home

I have had Thai food a couple of times and it’s kind of intriguing to me. I like the flavors of coconut milk, ginger, lemon grass and thai basil. But finding truly vegetarian dishes in Thai restaurants has always been an issue for me. Though they serve a lot of vegetable dishes, most of these are prepared by using ingredients like oyster sauce and fish sauce, while even the seed based sesame sauces can contain some animal extracts. I treid these Thai recipes from my "Vegetarian: The greatest ever Vegetarian cookbook" by Nicola Graimes and they turned out pretty good.

Thai Fragrant rice:

Ingredients:
Brown basmati rice – 1 cup
Onion – 1 medium chopped
Vegetable stock - 3 cups
Ginger – 1” piece, peeled & chopped
Lemon grass – 1 stalk, finely chopped
Lime zest – 1 tsp
Cumin seeds – 1 tsp
Coriander seeds – 1 tsp
Salt – to taste

Method:

• Rinse rice in cold water till the water runs clear. Soak in water for at least 30 minutes.
• Heat 1 tbsp olive oil in a pan; add onions, spices, lemon grass and lime zest and cook gently for 2-3 minutes.
• Add rice and cook for another minute, then add the stock and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to very low and cover the pan. Cook gently for 30 minutes then check the rice. If it is still crunchy, cover the pan again and leave for a further 3-5 minutes. Remove from heat.
• Fluff up the grains with a fork and leave for 10 minutes.
  

Thai Potato Curry

Ingredients:
Yukon gold potatoes – 4 medium
Onion – 1 large chopped
Coconut Milk – ½ cup
Low sodium vegetable broth – 1/3 cup
Chopped tomatoes – 1 cup with juice
Thai green curry paste (vegetarian) – 2 ½ tbsp (store-bought or homemade)
Chili powder – 1 tsp (optional)
Fresh basil - 1tbsp
Lemon juice – 1 tsp
Salt – to taste

Method:

• In a wok or skillet, heat 2 tsp vegetable oil over medium-high heat. Add chopped onions and stir-fry until golden, 5 minutes. Add the curry paste and stir-fry 1 minute.
• Add potatoes and toss well to coat. Stir in coconut milk and broth.
  
• Cover and cook on medium low flame till the potatoes are tender.
• When the potatoes are just done, add the tomatoes with juice, chili powder (if using). Mix well, cover and cook for 5 minutes.
• Stir in lemon juice and basil. Serve over rice.

This is my entry for this Anthony's Curry mela #30.