Em's Kitchen Jam

Going bananas or easy vegan dessert

2013-06-22T08:30:00.000+07:00

From champagne, cream, lemon, saffron and mustard - yellow is the hottest colour this season. The model is wearing bananas in amarillo yellow with deep chocolate spots. Chiquita brand is definitely passé, in are niche brands from independent local sellers. We chose a no-name brand from a small vendor with a stand in the day market in Mae Sot (second one on the right pass the dried shrimp and batlenut sellers coming from Paradatwithi Rd). They are thinner, come in slightly smaller size and their delicate, feminine silhouette and soft curves make them a perfect fit for petite shapes.

This recipe manifests:

absurdism* - if you find the wold an absurd place this recipe is for you
women's body image satisfaction - if you think fashion industry and mass media distort image of female body causing dissatisfaction of women and girls with their bodies this recipe is for you (you don't see what does it have to do with the recipe? Well, we live in an absurd world...)
anti-consumerism - bottom line buy less, only 3 ingredients for this recipe

How to choose perfect banana bunch
Bananas are available here in various odd places. This is due to the fact that many people have banana trees in their gardens so even if you sell tires you may just as well put out the bananas that has just turned ripe and sell them for couple of baht. If there is no one with a banana tree near you go for the ones that look less perfect. If there are any varieties available choose the smallest ones - they generally have more flavour (yep, that's my technical banana knowledge). And if you lucky enough to find the red bananas you can confidently choose those against any other variety. They are sweet without being bland and have pleasant sour hint. These are available here rarely as everyone prefers to eat them themselves instead selling them but I remember seeing them in WholeFoods

This dessert may not look beautiful or appealing as a matter of fact but is really delicious and dead easy.

Bananas and coconut dessert

Ingredients (serves 2):
- 2 small bananas (preferably red bananas), diced
- 125ml coconut milk
- 1 spoon of palm sugar (jeggery)

Preparation:

Turn on some cheesy holiday tune that will remind you of lazy afternoons on the beach under a palm tree, like Kokomo by Beach Boys
heat coconut milk in a pan, add sugar and stir in until dissolves
add banana pieces and cook until the milk almost evaporates and bananas start to stick to the bottom and become gooey in a toffee sort of way (about 10-12min)
transfer to serving cups and enjoy hot or cold

If you live in a place with miserable weather or long winters this makes a perfect dessert for Summer Party to keep you going before the spring - ask everyone to wear their summer clothes, play summer party hits and serve summery foods. Just remember to turn your heating on max at least 12 hour prior to the party...

*Absurdism - a philosophy stating that the efforts of humanity to find meaning will ultimately fail (and hence are absurd) because the sheer amount of information as well as the vast realm of the unknown make certainty impossible and explores how individuals, once becoming conscious of the Absurd, should respond to it.
In search for a meaning in a meaningless world, humans have three ways of resolving the dilemma:
a) suicide
b) religious, spiritual, or abstract belief in a transcendent realm, being, or idea
c) acceptance of the Absurd

Stay tuned to see which way chooses the author of this blog! (no posts my suggest option a)

Twisted pork or sustainable slow food

2013-06-15T08:30:00.000+07:00

They all lied. I feel cheated. It was a normal day like any other - I took Friday off work I dropped off my laundry and went to do some shopping at the new Tesco. I picked couple of things that cannot be found nowhere else in town - chickpea, ground coffee, passion fruit juice, then went to the meat section to pick up some marinated pork and headed towards the cashier. At that moment I felt an urge to do something different, something that I've never done before - I went back to the meat section I put the meat back on the shelve. Then I saw them. They were sitting there on the side of the shelve. They were STRAIGHT as straight can be. Pig tails. Eeeeh? All my live I lived convinced that pigs have twisted tails. I didn't make it up myself. What about Piglet and Pepa Pig - were they yet another images of distorted reality that they want us to believe in? Why would they lie like to us that? Well, the truth is that human minds are full of surprises and we will probably never find out why.

From the age that we become conscious individuals the world is feeding us with disappointment uncovering its true image. First you find out that the Santa doesn't exist (and any magic in general) then you graduate and find out that higher education doesn't necessarily open all the golden doors of opportunities and now it's the pigs' tails. That's it. It was a killer. I've had enough. Where are alternative universes when you need them?

Anyway, I decided I'm going to take these pig tails home and cook them in an act of manifesto against mendacity.

What other causes can eating pigtails support?

food sustainability - eating all parts of the animal supports reducing food waste, so if you are not a vegetarian pig tails are for you
slow food - pig tails are definitely not a fast food, they need from 1.5 to 2h to cook

Smoked pig tails in wine

Ingredients (serves 2*):
- 2 smoked pig tails
- 200ml of wine
- 1 carrot cut in large chunks
- 1 shallot cut in fours
- 500ml of stock
- salt and pepper
- spoonful of olive oil (adds flavour)
- spoonful of regular oil (prevents burning)
- if you live anywhere in the west you may want to add bay leaf and thyme

Sprinkle the tails with salt and pepper and leave in the fridge overnight
For this cooking session you will need couple of CDs, I start with Gramma by Lana del Rey
Fry the carrot and shallot in the oil mix until brown
Add the pigtails and brown from all sides
Pour wine and stock and leave simmering and covered for 1.5h
Check if the meat is soft if not leave for further 30min, if all the liquid evaporated already at this point simply add water
Leave the tails out to cool for 15min or so, remove the fat and peal the meat off the bone (be careful as the bones are quite small an easy to overlook.
Serve the meat with gravy from cooking and greens of your liking. I used potatoes and broccoli.
Enjoy in a good company with a glass(es) of wine (gourmet style) or beer (Bavarian style)

*it's a gourmet meal so you'll probably need a dessert or a starter to fell full, or both

Home-made Mirinda or think local

2013-06-08T08:30:00.001+07:00

I'm sitting naked on my couch with the fun turned on. Drops of sweat are sliding down my neck and then down on my cleavage. The rainy season is about to start - it's sticky and hot. I get in the shower and let the cold water run down my body. I just want to stay there forever. Sadly, I get out. I leave my body wet to maximize the cooling sensation. I turn the fan back on and reach for the fridge. A multipack of Chang soda water is standing at the top shelf in its full glory, shining with a heavenly glow.

The Chang experience

Psssst- the sparkling magic begins floating in the air releasing it's enchanting burstiness
Gulp, gulp,gulp - a mighty flood of bubbles travels up, releases some of it's energy through the nose and continues to it's final destination - the brain.
Burp, burp - the bubbles pop out in your brain releasing their magic content causing a slight euphoric dizziness to finish of this champagne experience comparable with a friendly hit in the head with an elephant trunk - in Thai Chang means elephant.

It's not that I never drink soft drinks by MNC's brands but in Thailand they are all at least twice as sugary and have strange neon colours so being slightly addicted to the Chang sparkling magic it wasn't hard to come up with this recipe.

Home-made Mirinda

Ingredients (serves 1)

- a 325ml bottle of Chang soda water

- fresh juice of 3 tangerines

Preparation

Put on a juicy song like That time by Regina Spektor
Open a bottle of Chang soda water
Drink the content until the level reaches the edge of Chang label (about 3 gulps)
Fill in the rest of the bottle with tangerine juice
Sit down and enjoy the rest of the song sipping your home-made Mirinda (so Sweet and Juicy!)

This recipe supports:

buying local

Syrian red lentil soup or stop the disckheads

2013-06-01T09:00:00.000+07:00

View over Syria from Umm Qai, in northern Jordan - this photo was taken in April in it is the closest one can get to Syria for the time being. According to United Nations the conflict in Syria has killed more than 70,000 people and left 1.5 million seeking refuge in neighboring countries.

One night I was walking in downtown Amman in a touristy street with a young Syrian whom I met in the guesthouse. He was a veterinary student but needed to flee once the fights broke out and could not complete his degree. We were sitting on a small, stone wall drinking coke and a guy with a small boy was keep passing by, going back and forth up and down the street selling tea. Every they passed by the little boy would look at me and smile. I've not seen mobile tea sellers like that anywhere else, only tea deliverers so I though it was a bit strange. My companion explained to me that they were Syrians too. It made more sense - you wouldn't do this odd job and take your 5-year old son with unless you HAVE TO. For this little boy it was probably just a night out with his papa...

As individuals there is little we can do to stop the fighting in Syria but little is more than nothing. Here is a list of petitions that you can sign with various causes related to Syria.

I've met few travelers in Jordan that were telling me what a wonderful traveling destination it was, with amazing hospitality and food. Unfortunately, all we can do for now to experience a little bit of pre-war Syria is to cook something Syrian at home, so this is what I'm going to do.

Syrian red lentil soup

Ingredients (serves 2):

- 1/2 a glass of red lentils, washed twice

- 1 carrot, sliced

- 1 medium size potato, diced

- 1 small onion, chopped

- 2 garlic cloves, mashed

- 1l of stock or water

- 1/2 tea spoon of cumin seeds

- 1/2 tea spoon of colander powder, crushed in a mortar

- salt and pepper

- small bunch of colander or parsley, chopped

- lemon wedges

- olive oil

Preparation

Turn on some music. I'd like to dedicate this song to Syria's president Bashar Al-Assad (and some others) - Dickhead by Kate Nash
Heat the olive oil in a pot on a medium heat and saute the onion (the oil cannot be too hot otherwise will burn), for about 4min, add garlic and fry for 30 more seconds
Add the spices and fry until fragrant
Add lentil and fry for 1min
Add water or stock and cook for about 30min on a small heat
Add potato, carrot, salt and pepper and cook for 14 more minutes.
Serve with lemon wedges, colander, a dash of olive oil and flat bread

For more authentic Syrian dining experience multiply the ingredients by 5 and invite your friends and neighbours.

Other causes that this recipe supports:

sustainable consumption* - if you support reducing world's hunger this recipe helps you to reduce your meat consumption and impact global demand for meat which is at least twice as energy- and water- consuming as vegetable and cearials and therefore putting sufficiency of global resources to feed the 9 billion, that will inhabit the planet by 2050, at risk

To learn more about feeding growing global population read what UN and International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development says about ways of increasing food production productivity - this article is a response to the Economist's article on the same subject.

*Sustainable Consumption - use of services and related products which respond to basic needs and bring a better quality of life while minimizing the use of natural resources and toxic materials as well as emissions of waste and pollutants over the life cycle of the service or product so as not to jeopardize the needs of future generations (by the 1994 Oslo Symposium)

Thai Gold on a plate or alternative whisking methods

2013-05-25T08:30:00.000+07:00

Golden, ripe and juicy. Excellent with sticky rice and blended in a shake. With rainy season about to start any day now high season for mangoes will soon finish and they will vanish from the market stalls.

There are at least couple of varieties available, all different sizes and skin colour. I won't pretend I know much about that. I know only that the big yellow one is for the mango sticky rice (I don't need to bother with making as I can buy it right at my door step) and the green mango aka mamuang man (or just man มัน) is used for the green mango salad (although even man is sold ripe and sweet in the hot season).

I had two girlfriends over and we were making this for a Sunday branch and one of them brought a blender.

I thought picture of the mango girl is much more interesting that the picture of the pancakes but if the picture of the food that you are going to make is what motivates you to make it, your pancakes are gonna look like this.

Mango pancakes

(serves 3 I assume as it served the 3 of us but might have just as well serve 2 or 1...)
- 3 large eggs
- 115 g flour (one glass) - I tried it with wholewheat before and it's also good
- 1 heaped teaspoon baking powder
-140 ml milk (about 3/5 glass)
- pinch of salt
- 1 big, ripe and juicy Thai mango chopped into cubes (or any mango you can get hold of in a concrete jungle)

Equipment needed:
1 bowl, 1 glass, blender (if you don't have one you can use a fork but then you will need 2 bowls...), 1 pan, 1 spatula

Separate the whites and the yolks - you will need focus and concentration as any traces of yolks in the whites will prevent them from beating and will prevent you from enjoying perfectly fluffy pancakes on a Sunday morning (and then whole Sunday will be RUINED). If you have limited equipment like me, place the yolks in the glass with milk
Concentration time over - now you need some brisk and lively tune, such as Brother Ole by Asa (you may want to continue with the whole CD for the entire pancake making process), as we are going to use the blender now. Put the whites and salt in the blender and turn high speed on. Alternative method: place the whites and salt in a bowl and using a fork whip energetically with circular motion as if you were feeding a baby in an extra high speed mode*
Mix yolks and the milk in the glass
Mix the flour and baking powder a bowl and slowly pour milk and yolks mixture into the middle of the bowl and mix with circular motion slowly more and more towards the edges of the bowl until all flour dissolves and no lumps are visible
Add the mango pieces
Fold the whites gently into the batter
fry on a medium heat until golden.
Enjoy with great company until early hours of the afternoon

* for those of you who wonder "why don't you buy the freaking whisk, women?" I can answer that the cost of whisk here is about the same as cost of making pancakes for the whole football team so I'm being cheap and using my small-town resourcefulness instead :P

Thai style brown rice noodle salad

2013-05-18T20:30:00.000+07:00

The greatest inventors came up with ideas and solutions because they weren't afraid to break the patterns and come up with new ways of doing things. It’s ok to do things your own way, even if it’s not the commonly approved way.

I love this little shopping adventures at a new destination, experiencing the new and unknown flavours, buying things you have no idea how to use and just experiment with them. It may not be the way the locals would use but improvising is what we are going to do here, so feel free to change it and do it your own way. This is a variation on Thai glass noodle salad.

Ingredients (serves 2):
- 1/2 a pack brown rice noodles
- handful of uncooked shrimps (15-20)
- 1 small cucumber sliced
- 2 small tomatoes cut in eights
- 1 or 2 shallots sliced in halves
- small bunch of celeriac roughly leaves chopped
- bunch of colander chopped
- 2 bird-eye chillies roughly chopped

For the dressing:
- juice of 2 limes
- 1 tablespoon of palm sugar
- 1 tablespoon of fish sauce
- 2 tablespoons of warm water

Preparation:

turn on some good tune (I use Faist Mushaboom Mocky Mix)
soak the noodles in lukewarm water for 5min
mix dressing ingredients and put aside
remove the heads of the shrimps and wash in cold water, put them in a bowl and soak in boiling water for about a minute or until turn red but remain moist and fleshy inside.
cook noodles according to packet instructions
rinse noodles in cold water and mix with remaining ingredients
pour over the dressing

You should be finished by the time the tune starts for the 3rd time. For a classic Thai experience serve on a plastic plate with aluminum cutlery (this time I was cooking at work so I found this fancy matte-grey, square plate but next time will be on my plastic plates with a pink floral design).

Jamming, DIYing, improvising and the such

2013-05-10T23:36:00.000+07:00

Living in a small town on Thai-Burma border most certainly will make you resourceful. In my kitchen (maybe you wouldn't even call it a kitchen, especially if you are an Americans in an lucrative government position) there is one hot plate, one pan, one big Thai knife (yes, I love it!), one multipurpose Swiss knife, one small chopping board and one spatula. A chef in Mae Sot need to be robust but if you can make it here, you'll make it anywhere.

I'm a small-town Polish girl but you are not going to find out how to make Pierogi or Schnitzels here. Jamming is what we are going to do here. The limited kitchen equipment requires to improvise but with almost unlimited great local ingredients we'll make the best of it. For sure.