On the Menu: Thai Food

Our Friday Feast - Thai Style

Oh, it's been a long week!  This time change stuff always makes me feel like the days are so long.  Anyway, I was looking forward to making and eating some Thai food all week so TGIF!!! If you've never had Thai food you're in for a yummy treat.  It's similar in concept to Chinese food and other Asian cuisines but I find it lighter and more flavorful than Chinese.  They use a lot of lemongrass and basil and a ginger-like spice called galangal.  There are curries and stirfries that range from mild to crazy-OMG- hot!!  It's good and healthy- they use a lot of vegetables and herbs and coconut milk which is supposed to be a good fat.  So we made a couple of dishes and bought a few more from our local Thai restaurant (sorry if you don't have one near you) and had a great little feast in front of the fire!  Winter has finally come to Northern California and it's cold so we were looking forward to some spicy food.  The kids were at their cousin's house so they missed out :)

Here is a picture of our feast- we had Tom Kha Kai (chicken and coconut milk soup), Pork Satay with Peanut Sauce (BBQ pork on skewer), Spicy Pumpkin Beef (stirfried pumpkin and beef with chilies and basil), Pad See Ewe (flat noodles, chicken and vegetables), and for dessert Coconut Sticky Rice with Mangoes!!  I made the pork satay, peanut sauce and dessert but if you'd like more recipes I found a great website ThaiTable.com.  Some of the ingredients might be hard to find but worth the effort!  Here are the recipes for the food we made at home -

Pork Satay w/Peanut Sauce
For the recipe you will need:

• 1 cup coconut milk
• 4 T curry powder
• 1 t salt
• 2 t sugar
• 2 lbs pork sliced into 1/4" strips
• bamboo or metal skewers

1. Combine all the marinade ingredients and add to sliced pork.  Let marinade for 1 hour at least.
2. While pork is marinating, soak bamboo skewers in water.  This will keep them from burning
3.  Thread pork onto skewers.  Mine made about 10 skewers.
4.  Grill or broil until cooked through.  Since the meat is so thin it doesn't take very long.
5.  Serve with peanut sauce (recipe follows)

Peanut Sauce

• 1 c  coconut milk
• 1 T red curry paste (look in Asian foods section)
• 1 1/2 T fish sauce (also in Asian section or sub. soy sauce)
• 4 T peanut butter
• 3 T sugar
• 1 T tamarind paste (I couldn't find this)

1. Combine all the ingredients and tweak the tastes to suit you.  I couldn't find tamarind paste at the Asian market but I thought the sauce was pretty tasty without it.

Coconut Sticky Rice

• 1 c coconut milk
• 2 pinches salt
• 1 c sticky rice (this might be hard to find- it's a short grain rice)
• 2 T sugar

1. Soak rice in microwaveable bowl of warm water for 10 mins.  This step is very important.
2. Cover bowl and cook in microwave for 3 mins.
3. Stir rice and microwave for 3 more minutes or until rice is translucent and cooked through.
4. Heat coconut milk in pan until just boiling, reduce heat and simmer, stirring constantly, for 2-3 minutes. 
5. Add sugar and salt and remove from heat.
6. Pour 3/4 of mixture over hot rice.  Rice will absorb it.  Save the rest to drizzle over when serving.
7.  Serve warm or chilled with fresh mangoes.  Yummy!!