Easy Thai Food And Cooking Recipes For Beginners

Mention Thailand to anyone who has been there for a short holiday at some point, and the conversation will invariably turn to the thai food. I guarantee the next sentence in the conversation will either include mention of thai green chicken curry or pad thai. (If it doesn’t that is because the individual has been to Thailand more than once!). Don’t ask me why, but these two dishes seem to sum up the thai experience for many.  Personally i am not a massive fan of either, on the curry front i would rather devour a panang or massaman, and on the pad thai front once in a while is fine as consistancy seems to be an issue – i am yet to have the same result each time, sometimes oily, invariably different sized noodles and resulting texture – ok, i am just getting nit picky but you catch my drift.

Because i am not a massive fan i was not really going to bother recording how the good lady creates this curry….i just don’t see the day when i will go “i have a hankering for green curry, let’s do it”, the other problem is that getting the vegetables in blightly just ain’t that easy. It’s one thing picking them in the backgarden in Isaan at whim, but quite another traipsing around oriental food outlets in the UK in the forlorn hope you’ll find a small, invariably expensive, tray of  jet lagged eggplant.

So why is this post even here? Well my wife turned up, eggplant in hand, beaming from ear to ear after a succesful foray and i just didn’t have the heart to say no…and anyway i know what’s good for me..

So onwards, this is a pretty easy curry recipe to knock up…..if you have the right ingredients. I am not going to claim the authenticity of the recipe as the more highbrow amongst you will claim we should have made our own curry paste. (Incidentally i did at one time ask how she made the paste assuming this was how things were done, and was met with a look of incredulity followed by the question “how do you make that ketchup you put on your burgers?” hmmm, fair point – turns out everyone buys the paste fresh in Thailand, you can even get the common thai brand name pastes in Uk mainstream grocers these days – much like i can get my ketchup in Thailand!). If you want to read more about the in’s and out’s of thai curry pastes check this post out at shesimmers.com.

This curry can be done mild or spicy, just alter the amount of curry paste you use. The green colour is from the chili in the curry paste so you can see from the above photo that our’s was on the mild side. I think this curry is really about the eggplant. Maybe my taste buds deceive me but the white eggplant has a taste i find very reminiscent of a mild liquorice/aniseed flavour, i could be mistaken but that’s how i find it. Anyway, if you need to impress someone with thai cooking this is the ideal meal as it seems pretty hard to do wrong and everyone has heard of it. This is how it goes:

Ingredients (serves 2)

Chicken Breast 400g
Coconut Cream 21/2 cups
Green Curry Paste 2 Tbsp
Vegetable Oil 1 Tbsp
Palm Sugar 1.5 Tbsp
White Egg Plant 200g
Small Egg Plant 100g
Sweet Basil 1/2 cup
Red Chili 2no
Fish Sauce 2 Tbsp

Preparation (5 minutes)

Slice the chicken into strips.
Cut the white egg plant into quarters.
Slice chili into strips

Cooking (15 minutes)

1. Add the vegetable oil and curry paste to a high sided pot and heat on a low heat. Cook the curry paste for two to three minutes until you can smell it.
2. Add 1 1/2 cups of coconut cream into the pot slowly stirring as you go, blending the curry paste with the coconut cream.
3. Once the curry paste is blended add the chicken to the coconut cream and stir whilst cooking for three to four minutes until the chicken begins to change colour.
4. Once the colour of the chicken changes add the remaining coconut cream and bring the pot to a simmer.
5. Allow the coconut cream and curry paste to simmer with the chicken for a further minute then add palm sugar and the fish sauce. Stir in.
6. Add both the white and small egg plant into the pot, simmer for five minutes until the vegetable softens.
7. Add the basil and chili to the mix, turn off the heat, mix everything together and serve.

Thai stir fry beef in oyster sauce, known as “neur pad num mun hoy” in Thailand, is another one of those stir fry recipes that is actually remarkably easy to throw together, even for the inexperienced.

It takes a relatively short time to prepare and cook so is a good dish to add to the arsenal if you don’t have loads of time available for cooking but want to eat good, fresh food prepared at home.

This thai dish isn’t overly spicy or particularly aromatic but it has a nice combination of flavours that bring a bit of life to the dish and make it and interesting eat.

I don’t class it as one of my favourites, i don’t really find mushrooms that enthralling, but it makes a nice change and it demonstrates that thai cooking isn’t all about hot spices, sweet and sour or aromatics. Put it like this….if your not into foreign food this dish would probably pass muster. Saying that, the dish isn’t bland so you shouldn’t get the idea it is boring, just different.

Ingredients (2 people)

Beef (rump, sirloin, frying) 400g
Plain Flour 1 tbsp
Light Soy Sauce 2 tbsp
Garlic 3 cloves
Vegetable Oil 3 tbsp
Straw Mushrooms (200g drained weight)
Dried Mushroom (3-4no)
Oyster Sauce 1 tbsp
Cane Sugar 2 Tsp
Ground Black Pepper 1/2 tsp
Spring Onion 3no
Red Chili 1no

Preparation

Cut the beef into stir fry strips, cover with flour and light soy sauce and leave to marinade for 15 minutes.
Chop and dice garlic cloves.
Add dried mushrooms to warm water for 2-3 minutes then slice into strips.
Open a can of straw mushrooms, drain and wash with fresh water.
Cut red chili into strips.

Cooking (8-10 minutes)

1. Add vegetable oil to a medium hot pan, add garlic and stir fry for a couple of minutes until the garlic smells.
2. Add the mushrooms to the oil and garlic and stir fry for 1 minute.
3. Add the beef strips and stir fry the whole mix until the beef turns brown (4-5 minutes)
4. Add oyster sauce, sugar and ground black pepper to the mix and stir fry for a minute.
5. Add spring onion and red chili to the pan and stir fry for a further minute.
6. Take off the heat and serve.

Stir fry chicken with cashew nuts thai style, is another nice easy thai dish that anyone can make. It does take a little more preparation than other thai stir fry dishes as you have to prepare the cashew nuts and dry chili initially before the main event, but we are only talking a few extra minutes of effort overall.

In terms of taste, this dish is a filling chicken dish with the odd mouthful that has an assault of heat on your taste buds (hmm, nice). The cashew nuts definitely add volume to the dish and the dish is colourful with lots of texture thanks to the spring onion, onion and red chili’s.

I can’t help but think without the chili this dish would be a little uninspiring – still if people don’t enjoy spicy food this dish could be toned down easily to suit.

Rather than being a special occasion dish the good lady treats this as a mid-week staple. I guess it’s something about the volume the nuts add to the dish with the non to aggressive chili that makes it a good midweek fit.

Ingredients (Serves 4)

Chicken Breast 300g
4 tbsp of vegetable oil
3 cloves of garlic
Half a large onion
Half a cup of cashew nuts
Dry full chili’s 5-6no
Spring Onion 3no
Fish Sauce 1.5 tbsp
Thick soy sauce 1 tbsp
Salt 0.25 tsp
Red Chili 1no

Preparation (15-20 minutes)

Slice the chicken breast into small slices.
Chop and dice the garlic.
Slice the half onion into shreds.
Slice the red chili into strips.
Take the cashew nuts and fry in a saucepan with the vegetable oil on a medium heat for 5 minutes until they change to a yellow colour.
Fry the dry chili for half a minute to make crispy.

Cooking (9-10 minutes)

1. Add 2 tbsp of oil to a medium hot frying pan.
2. Add the garlic to the oil and fry until you can smell the garlic.
3. Add the chicken to pan and stir fry for four or five minutes until it changes colour.
4. Add in the onion, cashew nuts, dry chili, spring onion, and stir fry for thirty seconds.
5. Add fish sauce, thick soy sauce, salt and red chili stir fry for 2-3 minutes.
6. Serve with jasmine rice.