ThaiTable.com: Recipes

Chinese Chive Dumplings Recipe

Gui Chai or Chinese Chive Dumplings is my all time favorite snack. I used to get up real early to go to an open-air market around our house with my mother.

There was a lady busy frying Chinese Chive Dumplings for her customers and there was always a long line at her stall. We would always stop at this Gui Chai stall and buy some for a snack before breakfast (only for me, I guess no one else snacked before breakfast). She made the best Chinese Chive Dumplings sauce I ever had. The sauce recipe is made from my memory.

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Fresh Bamboo Shoot Soup Recipe

Fresh bamboo shoots make incredibly flavorful, clear soup with a few ingredients. The flavors in this soup come straight from the freshness of bamboo shoot and chicken. The natural sweetness comes from fresh bamboo shoot, not sugar.

With fresh bamboo shoots you can play around with shapes. They are easy to cut out and will please the smallest members of your family. Children tend to eat more or at least try their favorite shapes. I can attest that a heart or bunny actually tastes better than a rectangle or round piece.

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Boiled Jackfruit Seeds Recipe

Boiled jackfruit seeds are a plain and simple snack that is made at home. I don't recall seeing the seeds for sale on the street. When you prepare ripe jackfruit, each pocket of the yellow fleshy "fruit" surrounds a large seed. That seed is edible, once cooked and peeled.

The simplest preparation is just to boil the seed and peel the thin husk. The boiled seeds taste like a combination of boiled potato and taro. It's soft and creamy. You can enjoy them plain!

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Pomelo Recipe

Pomelo, a common Thai citrus, is becoming more popular in the US. I don't remember seeing pomelos at all the markets like I do now. The majority of Thai pomelos have light, yellow flesh, some with a tint of pink, not pink like the variety available in the US. Thai pomelos are also sweeter and less bitter. It's common to serve a plate of pomelo after a meal in place of dessert.

One of the things I remember that fascinated me about adults is their ability to peel a pomelo. My aunt would peel the thick skin off by going around with a knife while keeping the peel in one piece. Then she would peel the white fluff away from the fruit. She’d separate each section like you would with an orange. Each section's outer skin gets peeled off again, leaving with just the large plump pulp still attached like a section of an orange.

We eat pomelos as fruit and also add them to salad. The peel the would usually go on my head while I paraded around the house with my new hat!

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Royal Mee Grob Recipe

Mee Grob comes as a snack and also a main couse. Mee Grob as a snack is also know as หมี่กรอบชาววัง, Mee Grob, the royal recipe. The common theme from the various palace recipes is that the ingredients are of highest quality, often hard to source and used generously. The palace recipes are optimized for the best flavor and presentation, not preparation time, labor efficiency or cost. This dish is more elaborate than the Mee Grob you normally see with rice. Since it has pork and shrimp, this Mee Grob is best to eaten right away.

The noodles are rinsed and let dry before frying, giving them the fried spring roll texture. Crispy fried beaten egg, pickled garlic, bean sprouts and Chinese chives add different textures and flavors to Mee Grob . The lime cuts the strong flavors of tamarind and sugar and brings refreshing citrus flavor. If you can get ahold of som sah (seville orange), the zest gives it a unique flavor, telling you, you have the real Mee Grob.

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Yum Woon Sen Recipe

Yum Woon Sen or bean thread noodles salad is a popular dish in both inside and outside Thailand. The combination of ingredients and seasonings make this dish delicious. I love how the bland noodles absorb the hot spicy sour dressing while the peanuts add the nutty, crunchiness to the salad. When you hit the dried shrimp, it packs with saltiness and flavor. Chinese celery and cilantro bring in freshness. I keep going back and forth, a little bit of this and and a little bit of that.

Many Thais view bean thread noodles as a diet food. I don't think it works for me. Yum Woon Sen is so good that I keep eating it. That's totally ineffective!

I recommend this dish for pot luck or party because it stays delicious at room temperature for a few hours. You can prepare all the ingredients ahead of time and mix the dressing at the last minute.

You can adjust Yum Woon Sen to have more or less ingredients. Many people like to add ground pork and tomatoes to yum woon sen. You can dress it up by adding cooked large shrimp like many restaurants do, too. I like mine simple with just dried shrimp for protein.

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Vegetarian Pumpkin Curry Recipe

Pumpkin is a great ingredient that gives rich creamy mouth feel without being fatty. This vegetarian pumpkin curry is creamy, slightly sweet yet spicy, full of Thai herbs and spices.

We cook a big pot so we can eat it for a few days, served with jasmine rice. The curry tastes better on the second day because the spices have marinated the pumpkin while the pumpkin dissolves a little to thicken and sweeten the curry sauce.

I'd recommend this vegetarian pumpkin curry to vegans as well.

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Rad Na Recipe

Rad Na is a popular Thai lunch and is also a comfort food for me. I guess it is the warm gravy and the soft noodles.

There are several versions of Rad Na. Your choice of noodles ranges from thick flat rice noodles to thing vermicelli to fried egg noodles. The meat can be pork, chicken or seafood. The most common Rad Na is Rad Na Moo or Pork Rad Na. A good Pork Rad Na has tender pork with soft chewy noodles and plenty of gravy. Another version that I also enjoy is with the baby Chinese broccoli, which gives the milder and more tender taste.

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Garlic Pepper Ribs Recipe

Garlic Pepper Ribs are a comfort food that takes me back to my childhood. It's a dish that my mother made quite often. When there are so many hot dishes on the table, adults often rely on garlic pepper ribs to feed kids. However, it's not just for kids; I still love it.

With just ribs and a few common ingredients, you can make this simple dish. Even the pan drippings taste great mixed with steamy rice.

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Mee Grob Recipe

Mee grob is Pad Thai’s distant cousin; the ingredients are similar, but the balance is more toward the sweet, sour and crunchy, with a hint of citrus.

There are two ways you can have mee grob, as a snack or as a part of the meal. As a snack, mee grob is served is with bean sprouts, Chinese chives and pennywort, sprinkled with fried beaten egg and pickled garlic.

However, the mee grob that is part of a meal is made with simpler ingredients and aimed at long storage. Mee grob, in an air tight container at room temperature, will stay fresh and crunchy for at least 2 weeks. In a cool, dry climate, it can stay good for a few months.

When I was a kid, my grandmother made her mee grob in a large batch and kept it in a special pot in her kitchen. Unbeknownst to her, every time I walked by I would sneak a few bites. I found out later that my cousins were doing the same thing!

At Ampawa Floating Market, Thailand, I found one of the best mee grobs, made with som sah, a type of orange that I believe is Seville orange. If you're visiting, I'd recommend buying a lot and bringing it back home.

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