EATDRINKTRAVEL

A taste of what's to come....

2007-11-23T05:34:00.000Z

Some of you may be wondering why I haven't been writing about Cambodian food. There are couple of reasons, firstly we were there for just a few weeks and with so many temples to explore I had so little time to do anything else. Secondly, Cambodian food is influenced by its bordering countries and tends to be quite similar but nothing that really cries out - eat me.

So to be honest, I wasn't really that inspired. We didn't have any outstanding dishes to rave about unlike Vietnam and Thailand. I am wondering if that has anything to do with the fact that given the countries most recent devastating and traumatic historical events, namely generations wiped out by the Pol Pot regime, that, maybe some traditonal family recipes and methods of cooking are now lost forever. Travelling around, it was quite evident the majority of the population are under 20.

There are some interesting critters on Cambodian menus but we have both eaten our fair share of grubs and worms and insects on this journey and decided to give those a miss. We were keen to try the fried tarantulas, well Adam was, I was going to sit and watch amusingly but unfortunately, they were a little rarer than we thought and didn't come across any on our travels, not even live ones.

There is one particular dish that we enjoyed - Fish Amok - a mild and creamy coconut fish curry and I shall return at a later date with a recipe.

Sadly, our travels around South East Asia will be coming to an end soon. We have just a few weeks left and have decided to spend them on the most secluded island we could find. We have a bungalow waiting for us on a hill in the jungle overlooking a beach. There are no resorts there. Unfortunately that also means that we may not get the best internet connection. So this maybe the last entry for awhile.

But don't go away for too long, there is more to come. I have some amazing recipes to share that I have been collecting along the way but haven't had time to post. There is so much to explore in Australia in the food department and then of course there is the wine. See you soon.

Here are some more of Adam's beautiful photos of our journey to inspire your travels.

Lao, Thai and Vietnam suppliers

2007-10-23T07:30:00.001+01:00

A few readers have requested where to get certain ingredients for Lao recipes. Most Asian supermarkets in any city will stock most ingredients, if you can't find it just ask, they may be able to order it in for you.

I have been reliably told that beer Lao is available in Oz - so I will get back to you once I have found an address.

Here are a few addresses for the UK.

If you like your sticky rice, you can purchase a Lao conical bamboo rice steamer, basket and pot at any Thai supermarket or try Tawana Supermarket, 18 Chepstow road, London W2. ph: 02072216316

www.thai4UK.com supplies everything for both Lao and Thai food and you can order over the internet.

www.lotusfoods.com has an interesting range of rice, like Forbidden Rice (black rice) and Bhutanese Red Rice and Lao river algae snacks - kaipen (really good toasted with jaewbong)

Good-bye Vietnam

2007-10-21T09:34:00.000+01:00

Well it is farewell to Vietnam and on to Cambodia. It has been an amazing journey from the North to the South. The food has been excellent throughout, Adam and I both agree, we have probably had just a few average meals in a month and that was due to the fact that we were stuck on either a boat tour without a choice of menu or too tired to go in search for something interesting to eat and just settled for second best.

If you do find yourself in Vietnam, the most important tip I can give you is eat where the locals eat, which doesn't include where all the tourists eat. The food will be of better quality, tastier, cheaper and above all else you are amongst it all and mixing with the locals. The menu won't be in English but as long as you have the basic words for duck, chicken, pork, fish and vegetables you can't go wrong - well you can but it will still be tasty.

The worst that happened to us - sitting in a bia hoi and one of the locals came over to share with us some of his grub and, yes, it was literally grub on a cracker, an entire plate of them all soft and chewy. And yes, we couldn't refuse - that would be impolite - so we both tucked in (Adam with relish)and it turned out to be quite tasty actually, and what an experience.

There are a few things I will miss, Hanoi for a start, it is now one of my favourite cities. Look beyond all the hassles and there is a lot of substance and character there, if you do visit give it more time than just a stop off along to Ha Long Bay. Have patience, you will need it, there are many touts and scam-artists but it is all worth it.

Secondly I will really miss all the yoke-ladies, they truly are amazing the way they lug all there wares about, strong, tough women, they add so much colour and character to Vietnam. If you get the chance buy something from them, a cup of tea, a meal, some fruit.

And lastly Bun Cha and Nem Cua Be, Caramel Pork and Bahn Mi would have to be the top dishes we had in Vietnam and they all happened to be in Hanoi too, I am salivating now just thinking about it. (previous blog for locations)

Here are a few of my favourite photos that Adam took of our journey, they may just inspire you to visit.

Treats in Hoi An

2007-10-20T07:26:00.000+01:00

In Hoi An there are three dishes that particularly standout and are quite famous in the region. The first, known as the White Rose (Bahn Bao Vac) its a soft, white shrimp dumpling in the shape of a rose topped with crispy shredded onion and chopped shallots.

The second is a wonton dumpling - similar to those in Chinese cooking but the presentation is different. These are large but thin and crispy topped with vegetables. Ours had carrot, green beans, cabbage and fried onions and ginger. Both come with two dipping sauces, a chilli and a soy sauce.

The last one, and it also happens to be my favourite, is Cao Lau - a delicous noodle curry soup with thin slices of pork, fresh herbs and vegetables as well as squares of pork crackling and rice crackers scattered with pepper. What makes the Cao Lau special are the noodles, they are said to be made with special water from the Ba Le Well. The texture of the noodles is similar to that of the soba noodle they are not as soft as the pho noodle, they are served al-dente.

I have been scouring the internet for a recipe and have found only one, here since you won't be able to find the noodles outside of Hoi An you could substitute Soba noodles. The recipe is quite complex but it is worth it. Let me know how it goes.

Sweet Elixir

2007-10-17T15:37:00.000+01:00

If you have a sweet tooth, you might like to try Che, a sweet soup made from essentially green mung beans. There are many variations on Che available throughout Vietnam.

In Saigon we tried Che in the local market and here it was served with at least ten ingredients all layered colourfully in a glass with ice and spoon. A cross between a cooling drink and dessert. Green mung beans in coconut milk, coconut shavings, bright pomegranate seeds, lotus seeds, sweetcorn and jellies. They are filling and a nice cooling treat after being out in the heat.

In Hue, Che is eaten as a simple sweet soup with different varieties of beans, rice, tapioca, root vegetables, lotus seeds and banana. It is enjoyed in parks and along the Perfume River banks. Its a versatile dessert because its cooling in summer yet can be also served heated in Winter.

We looked all over Hue for the sweet soup but could not find them until our last day when our motorbike drivers kindly offered to fetch us some samples to try. They came back 10 minutes later with 3 small bags of the sweet soups, che dau van - sweet soup of broad beans, a red bean and lotus seed soup and a green mung bean soup. Che is a little unusual simply because of its texture really mixed with extreme sweetness but again if you like your beans and you have a sweet tooth you will love Che.

For some of you, Winter is approaching, you might like to try this on a chilly day, it is similar to porridge - warming, sweet and filling and easy on the stomach.

Che dau Xanh - Sweet Mung Bean Soup recipe

Ingredients : Serves 4-6

225 g Skinned split mung beans, soaked in water for 3 hours and drained
500 ml Coconut milk
50 g Caster (superfine) sugar
Toasted coconut shavings (optional), to serve

Method :

*Put the mung beans in a pan and pour in 500 ml water.

*Bring the water to the boil, stirring constantly, then reduce the heat and simmer until all the water has been absorbed.

*Press the beans through a sieve, or puree them in a blender.

*In a heavy pan, heat the coconut milk with the sugar, stirring until the sugar has dissolved.

*Gently stir in the pureed mung beans, making sure the soup is thoroughly mixed and heated through.

*Serve hot in warmed bowls sprinkled with toasted coconut shavings.

Mung Beans

Buy the bright yellow, peeled, split mung beans for this soup rather than the whole green ones.

Bow Down to the Banh Beo

2007-10-09T15:03:00.000+01:00

A Hue speciality is Banh Beo, a snack usually eaten in the late afternoon, between 4 and 5pm. Banh Beo is served as a trayful of delights - individual dishes of steamed rice flour dough with tiny dried shrimp, spices and pork crackling and served with a sweetened nuoc mam sauce.

Banh Nam is the same but oblong-shaped and wrapped in a banana leaf and steamed.

Banh Loc is made with manioc flour instead of rice flour, so the texture changes from being soft to chewy, it is a translucent parcel of spice, whole dried shrimp and pork wrapped in banana leaf, steamed and served with a stronger and spicier nuoc mam sauce.

Ram is basically rice flour dough both steamed and fried, bite-sized and combined for the contrast in textures, served with a spicy sauce.

If you are looking for a snack in the afternoon and you happen to be on the south side of the Perfume River, Take a stroll to Hang Me - found at 45 VO THI SAU. The lady here will explain how to eat each dish, it's basic but clean and friendly.

Fish Noodle soup

2007-10-09T14:46:00.000+01:00

Inside the walled citadel in Hue, to the east of the citadel there is a special street – Duong Le Thanh Thon. It is special because in the late afternoon it starts to fill up with small roadside kitchens, they all specialise in the same dish – fish noodle soup, and it is so good you will want two bowls.

A lady sits in front of her open kitchen, a large pot of fish soup is bubbling away, with floured hands she takes a plastic cylinder in which she moulds some dough. Knife in one hand, she deftly slices thin dollops of noodles into a pot of salted boiling water.

A few minutes later, the fresh noodles are cooked and drained, tossed into a bowl. A spoonful of whitebait-sized fish fillets already cooked, marinating in a chilli, turmeric and spiced oil, and are added along with a ladle full of the most delicous fish broth and a handful of herbs.

It's rich, warming yet light, completely satisfying. I would choose this simple home-cooked meal over an Imperial feast anyday.

Eat like A King!

2007-10-09T07:31:00.000+01:00

The Nguyen Dynasty ruled Vietnam from 1802 – 1945 from the Imperial City in Hue, and during this period there were thirteen emperors. The Emperor Tu Duc was the longest reigning of the Nguyen monarchs, ruling for thirty-six years. He was particularly known for being a weak ruler and how he spent his time during his reign, focusing on himself and his pleasures - which were numerous.

He enjoyed 16 years of boating, fishing, meditation and poetry, composing thousands of poems on the grounds of his (now) mausoleum. He kept himself very busy with 104 wives and a whole village of concubines. He drank tea made from dew collected from lotus blossoms and he insisted on at least 50 dishes in every meal.

He apparently didn't like eating the same dish twice in a year, so his army of chefs worked tirelessly to create many recipes to suit his wishes. Due to this, Hue cuisine has developed into thousands of dishes and is presented more elaborately than anywere else in Vietnam, here they use many small dishes so the table looks like a king's. Central Vietnamese food is all about seasonal produce as they have four distinct seasons.

The cuisine today in Hue is a combination of Hue home-cooking, tasty vegetarian dishes which stem from the Pagodas and elaborate Imperial dishes handed down through generations of Imperial cooks.

Adam and I visited Ythao Garden, an old colonial villa inside the walled citadel, one of a few that offers a sample of an Imperial menu. Our host greets us dressed in her silk ao dai at the gates of the villa and we are shown to the dining room set out amongst the garden. I am feeling a little under-dressed, as you do when you are travelling. We are shown the set menu for $8 each – there is no other menu available.

Within minutes of being seated out comes the first dish, an elaborate vegetable carving of a peacock decorated with springrolls accompanied with a dish of nouc mam (fish sauce).

Then a light vegetable broth followed by four gigantic steamed prawns with a side dish of salt, pepper and a fresh squeeze of lime. There is no breathing space, next comes Hue's speciality – a pancake filled with pork, shrimp, bean sprouts with a peanut and sesame seed dipping sauce.

We have barely finished our pancakes and out comes a fig salad – finely chopped pork with green figs, peanuts, sesame seeds, mint and coriander to be scooped onto crunchy prawn crackers. The green figs work well with the fattiness of the pork as they have a chalky flavour.

We ask for a break but a few minutes later grilled beef arrives with a beautiful parcel of steamed lotus rice. They are really in a hurry here. Our host slices the parcel open and retreats to a corner along with another four girls all dressed in ao dais sitting at a table giggling and staring at the foreigners. I feel like a caged animal in a zoo.

Our plates are cleared and at last we can have a break, relax and unwind, take our time, soak up the atmosphere, out comes dessert – fruit and a flower vase filled with two stems of green bean cake fashioned to look like fruit, too pretty to eat.

The fig salad was excellent, the rest of the dishes were good but unimpressive but great value for $8 a head. The presentation was creative and elaborate, it takes time to make each fruit and vegetable carving - an army of staff, I should imagine.

However we were so rushed through our dinner, I was really disappointed that we couldn't take our time and enjoy all the hard work to make dinner look beautiful.

So we tried a sample of seven dishes out of a possible 2,500, I get the feeling that Hue's Imperial food has been revived for the tourists and for their tastes, its all about the presentation and the atmosphere but not really about the food, I am sure there is tastier food out there, we just have to go and explore Hue to find it.

Bia Hoi and Bap Xao

2007-10-09T06:43:00.000+01:00

The best way to soak up the Vietnamese street atmosphere is in a bia hoi, quaffing cheap beer with the locals.

In Hanoi it is generally served cold enough to drink on its own however you have the option of asking for ice cubes. Squatting on your tiny plastic stool just above street level, tends to get some great views. While you watch the chaotic traffic, pushcarts will pass you by vying for your attention along with the booksellers. Some sing out, others give you a nod and a wink to order some of their food.

Bap xao is just one of the many tasty snacks you can order whilst drinking at a bia hoi. The vendor wheels his cart over to you, lights his gas flame, out comes the wok. Once hot he adds some oil, garlic, red chillies, tiny shrimp, corn kernels and perhaps a few green herbs. He stir-fries for about 5 minutes and voila!. The sweetcorn kernels are chewy, the garlic and chillies give it that extra punch and the tiny shrimp are salty and add a crunch to the texture. Its the perfect compliment to a beer.

A Right Pig's Ear

2007-10-04T10:56:00.000+01:00

On our first night in Hanoi, Adam and I had an impressive introduction to North Vietnamese food at Chim Sao, which we were lucky enough to be recommended by some local friends. Chim Sao is one of those places to take a group of friends to have a feast, its all about sharing, they have quite an extensive menu and you can have a little taste of everything.

It has loads of character, an old two-storey shop-house beautifully decorated, along with changing art exhibitions and even a singing mynah bird. There is a choice of seating, upstairs around tea tables on cushions on the floor or downstairs on dark wood platform tables.

We met some great people on our Ha Long Bay tour and after three days of rather average food we were all in need of a decent feed so we returned to Chim Sao. The six of us were all up for the challenge of trying some of the more interesting items on the menu.

We started with tai lon muoi, salted pork ears with smoked and pickled bamboo shoots, trung bac thao 'one hundred years' egg , and nom ngo sen tom thit, lotus rootstock salad with shrimp.

Hats off to the guys - they all tried the pork ears and even had a few more slices after the first. Adam being the meat lover decided that there wasn't enough meat and it was just too much gristle to bother with but Steve and Adrian returned for seconds and thirds. I am not sure if they were really enjoying them, I am guessing it was probably more of a healthy male competitiveness.

The 'one hundred year old' eggs came out looking grey, covered in aspic and sliced into wedges with finely diced dried shrimp. They had an unpleasant fishy metallic after-taste, we were all quite unsure whether they were off or they were meant to taste like that.

The lotus rootstock salad was a hit, julienne of lotus rootstock ( it tastes like bamboo shoot, fresh and crunchy tossed with peanuts, sugar, lime, a little finely diced red chilli and tiny dried shrimp.

After the disappointment of the starters we were really hungry and all ideas of trying the more exotic species like tortoise cooked with green banana and tofu, frog or grilled fighting-cock slipped our minds.

Next on our menu was Vit tron khe - duck meat with green star-fruit, cu den tia luoc boiled red root and thit kho tau, pork caramel.

Slices of duck came tossed with julienne of carrot and red chilli, coriander, basil, slices of star-fruit, shallots and sprinkled with chopped peanuts. The starfruit works really well as it offsets the fattiness of the duck meat.

The boiled red root turned out to be boiled beetroot. A simple dish but excellent. It came in big, chunky wedges with a dipping side dish of crushed and blended sea salt, seaweed, black pepper, white and black sesame seeds and garlic.

The pork came out in a clay pot caramelised, all sticky and brown, they cook it in a fish sauce till tender, its salty but a perfect partner with sticky and steamed rice.

Some of our dishes didn't turn up and when asked we were informed that they didn't have it. So why didn't they tell us that when we ordered? It can be frustrating when you don't speak the local language.

We then tried to order some more pork caramel to replace the dishes that didn't show and we were refused and then I insisted with a promise that we would eat all the food. Eventually it turned up an hour after the rice.

I have heard a story that in some restaurants in Vietnam the waiters get charged for the food you don't eat, so sometimes they conveniently leave out a few dishes off your order or tell you they have sold out to discourage you from ordering too much.

We didn't finish two of the starters we ordered and in fact we had to ask them to remove the plates from the table. Vietnamese don't like to waste food. So perhaps our faux pas was to order food we may not like.

All in all we had 8 dishes between 6 people, we didn't get our feast but the food that we did get to eat, all of it was excellent. Do pay a visit here if you get the chance, its good food we payed $5 each including beers all night - just make sure you are prepared to eat it , pigs ears and all.

Pop and Sizzle

2007-09-28T14:27:00.000+01:00

A visit to the 100-year-old restaurant is on the must-do list for everyone that pays a visit to the Old Quarter in Hanoi. The story goes that 100 years ago or so, a Mr Doan opened a restaurant selling his speciality of fried fish (cha ca), and he placed a statue of an old fisherman out front who was known locally as La Vong.

Today the fisherman has gone but Cha Ca La Vong is still operating and serving the best cha ca in town. In fact they have changed the name of the street to Cha Ca Street - it is that legendary. Many other cha ca restaurants have come and gone. Adam and I tried other places that served cha ca but they all paled in comparison, notably since the others use MSG.

The fish at Cha Ca La Vong is quite special, they use a type of pike that is white, firm, fleshy, cut into bite-size pieces and marinated in turmeric and a secret blend of spices. It comes out sizzling in a frying pan steeped in oil and then placed on your table on a clay brazier over red hot charcoal.

An enormous bowl of spring onions and dill is added to the pan, which soaks up the oil and brings the temperature down, allowing the fish to stay hot and to caramelise any last remaining herbs and bits of fish.

You scoop some cold rice noodles into your bowl along with some crispy pieces of fish, basil leaves, a few raw peanuts, spoon in some fish sauce with red chillies, stir it in and enjoy.

The longer it takes you to eat each small bowlful, the crispier the fish. The tastiest part is towards the end where the last bits of fish left in the pan are the crispiest and the spring onions and dill are brown and sticky.

It is so popular here they do a brisk trade - it is not a place to linger, it's a one-dish restaurant and if you don't like fish you won't be offered anything else. The atmosphere is bustling and throughout the meal I kept jumping off my seat, frightened from all the very loud popping sounds.

It is a tradition whilst eating cha ca that when you get your complimentary scented hand/face towel in a plastic packet, you must squeeze the air to one end and pop the packet. I popped my packet and it was so loud, I half expected everyone to turnaround and tell me off but I didn't even get a glance.

Don't forget to pop, its all part of the fun.

SHADY SNACKS at 52 ly Quoc Su

2007-09-27T12:45:00.000+01:00

Under a giant banyan tree, next door to Ly Quoc Su Pagoda in Hanoi is a small eatery offering bahn goi, a tasty snack of fried pastries. One of the last few places I am told you can still eat these on the street.

An old lady sits fanning herself and splayed out before her is a selection of bahn goi, fried pastries, some of them looking like mini Cornish pasties. There are no menus here except for a small sign in Vietnamese on the wall so, unless you can read Vietnamese, just point to what you would like and sit down.

A choice awaits you – sit inside by a cooling fan or sit under the banyan tree by the street. A plate with your chosen pastries arrives along with cold rice noodles, a mound of fresh herbs and a bowl of sweet sauce made with chillies, garlic, sugar, parsley, vinegar and slices of du du (green papaya).

Each pastry is filled with rice vermicelli, woodear mushrooms – the texture is slimy but crunchy and then there is minced pork. Some are enveloped in a crunchy sticky rice flour dough, looking not unlike small doughnuts without the hole, and others are lighter with an added crispness, but they are all equally good.

Just don't have too many if your watching your waistline.

Pho So Good!

2007-09-25T15:13:00.000+01:00

In the 10th Century, Mongol herdsman migrated from China into Vietnam and introduced beef into the Vietnamese diet. Pho (pronounced 'fer') is, simply, beef noodle soup, one of the most popular dishes throughout Vietnam. There is a Pho restaurant or stall on almost every street. Ask any person here and they will have their favourite recommendation for Pho.

Pho begins its life the day before when oxtail, beef bones and scraps are simmered in a large pot for many hours along with a secret recipe of spices and herbs. The recipes varies with each vendor, some recipes have been handed down through generations.

In Hanoi, I am told that Pho Gia Truyen, at 49 Bat Dan in the Old Quarter, has a reputation for producing the best Pho Bo in town. They use purified water with a secret mix of herbs when making their broth, the meat is tender and succulent and they don't use MSG.

It's 9am when we approach Pho Gia Truyen and already there is a long queue out the door. It gives me a chance to check out the place – one central long wooden table and four smaller ones seating about 30 people inside and a dozen or so outside. High ceilings, bare walls and a kitchen counter at the front. The place is full of people, all sharing tables and they seem intensely focused on their Pho, slurping loudly and savouring each mouthful.

Back in line, Adam and I have to decide how we want our beef. We have a choice of raw or well done roast beef or a mix of both. We decide on 'chin' – well done. Behind the counter it looks like chaos but on closer inspection, they are all working in a brisk and methodical way.

Steam rises from an enormous pot on a fire, and one man's sole job for 5 hours is to ladle individual servings of noodles into a wire sieve. He plunges the noodles into the pot for 30 seconds and then places them into a bowl, the next man places some raw beef in his ladle and scoops up some steaming broth to start the process of cooking the beef, he drains the broth back into the pot and places the beef on top of the noodles. The bowl is then filled with the heady broth along with a handful of herbs.

Another lady is in charge of the roast beef. On an old wooden chopping block she deftly slices the beef into thin strips ready to be covered in hot broth.

We pull up some stools and squeeze onto a table. My bowl is filled to the brim, the scent of star anise, ginger, cinnamon and roast beef wafts up in a steamy plume under my nose. I am impressed by the flavour, it is outstanding on it's own, a rich beefy flavour, not too salty. It is perfect as it is but you can add fresh chillies, chilli sauce, lime juice, fish sauce and garlic vinegar if you so desire, or even a raw egg. When the broth is this good you don't need all the added fuss. I prefer mine quite simple with just a few fresh chillies. It is hearty yet light, the perfect breakfast to start the day.

As Adam and I scoff our broth, two young men shuffle in with a heavy side of beef wrapped in netting. They slap it down onto a large butchers block on the floor and begin to trim and prepare the meat for tomorrow's Pho. I really like how they are proud of their produce and they are not afraid to show what they do and how they prepare it whilst you are eating. There are no hidden kitchens here.

It is all on show and it is certainly not for the squeamish, the meat looks so fresh here and the Pho is so good,we will be back.

Follow Your Nose!

2007-09-20T06:42:00.000+01:00

The streets of Hanoi are an assault on your senses. The sights, the sounds and then the aromas. Every so often you will smell smoke wafting by, follow your nose and you will see plumes of smoke and flashing flames. You have found Bun Cha.

Squat on a plastic chair at a table and within seconds a mound of fresh herbs and leaves arrives, along with a plate of cold rice noodles, a bowl filled with a light soup of fish sauce, water, vinegar, sugar, thin slices of du du (green papaya) and a selection of grilled pork. Small pork rissoles, thin slices of pork belly and pieces of pork all bite-size and grilled to perfection over a small tin box of charcoal. Its all good, but you can make it even better, you can add some chopped garlic, chillies and even some garlic or chilli vinegar if you like it even hotter.

There are a number of things that make this dish stand out in the North. Firstly the leaves and herbs come from a local village and that means they are stronger and more fragrant than in the South, the mint particularly stands out. The pork is marinated and the cut is marbled so a little fat can drip onto the hot coals to produce a heady penetrative smoke. The result is a charcoal flavour on the outside, the meat stays tender and juicy, with a smoky flavour throughout.

I have been to only one place in Hanoi for Bun Cha, it is so damn good I don't want to go anywhere else in case of disappointment and it's Dac Kim at 1 Hang Manh, just off Hang Quat in the Old Quarter. Not only do they have excellent Bun Cha but they also have spring rolls filled with minced pork, onion and rice vermicelli cut to just a little bigger than bite-size. You can just about squeeze a piece into your mouth. They come with a light dipping sauce with slices of du du. They are flaky, crispy, meaty and yet light, and simply the best I have ever tasted.

Three Elephants and a pair of Aussies

2007-09-19T11:54:00.000+01:00

Adam and I had a sumptuous dinner last night at the 3 Nagas restaurant and a few too many Beer Lao, on the way home we stumble across the Three Elephants Cafe, aka Tamnak Lao Restaurant. They advertise cooking classes and since we enjoyed our degustation menu of Louang Prabang specialities and this school, unlike others here, doesn't advertise that Jamie Oliver took a class here, we sign up for a full day of cooking.

We pay our $25 each and meet an Australian who along with her Lao family own the restaurant and hold cooking classes. We sit with her for an hour or so and discuss the next day's timetable and what we will be cooking. We receive a copy of their recipe book which includes 12 recipes, information on essential ingredients, Lao people and culture to study.

The next day we promptly arrive for 10am to be introduced to our teachers Neng and Leng and then we hop in a tuk tuk to arrive at the Phousi market for a tour. Neng takes us through the market and shows us some of the ingredients in Laos cooking and what we will be using today. Asian greens, garlic, galangal, Kaffir lime leaves, lime, coriander, lemon grass, tamarind, basil, oyster sauce, soy sauce, fish sauce, shrimp paste, chillies, Chilli peppers, coconut milk, rice noodles, vermicelli noodles, rice, bamboo shoots, woodear fungus, also known as cloud ear fungus, choko and lastly padak, a pungent, fermented fish sauce using fish salt and rice husks. We pass the bamboo stall where you can buy bamboo steamers especially to cook sticky rice, a sort of conical shape and quite comical when we are told that many tourists mistake them for hats, buy them and wear them around town.(In fact we saw a girl wearing one at the airport and I was dying to walk up and tell her tht she was wearing a sticky rice steamer on her head, but Adam and I were chuckling too hard.)

Traditionally each family has their own special recipe for padak and it would be stored in clay jars in their house. The Laos use padak for its protein, flavour and salt content but now shrimp paste is used as a substitute in most households because it doesn't fill their house with a fishy aroma and it also saves time. Concentrated shrimp paste comes in small tins or plastic containers and is also very salty and pungent, smelling of fish and shrimps but once it is combined with other ingredients, the smell is lost and the flavour remains. According to my recipe book - A Lao saying is that when you can dip a raw bean in the shrimp paste and enjoy eating it you are 'truly' Lao.

Back at the school we have a coffee break and then we are ready to start.There is only Adam and I in the class so we have their full attention and a work station each. But it turns out we only get enough ingredients to cook once for each recipe, so we pair off. This should be interesting, Adam and I have never taken a class together.

The first two recipes are demonstrated by Neng and then Adam and I get the chance to share the preparation of each dish and then eat the food we have cooked.

The first dish is Luang Prabang Salad - usually served at all special occasions. It is basically a mixed leaf salad with watercress, tomato, cucumber, crushed unsalted peanuts, boiled egg, a homemade mayo made from hard-boiled egg, and optional fried ground pork. Neng tips us off and winks and says the more pork in this salad the better. This was easy and the mayonaise was most interesting to me as it was made with hard boiled egg yolk. It was nice but if I made it, I would change the presentation and add the mayo at the last possible moment before serving so it doesn't drown the leaves.

Next we cooked Feu Khua (rice noodles with chicken and vegetables), a tasty dish if you get the texture of the noodles right, otherwise it can go horribly wrong. This dish is a great way to use up the vegetables you have in the fridge.
Adam and I breeze through as they are quite simple dishes to make and we finish early so we sit down to eat our dishes and relax while Neng and Leng clean up our station.

The next three dishes in our cookbook are demonstrated, we have a tasting and need to decide on two to cook. We leave out the Oh Paedak (Lao pork casserole), as it is a very easy dish to cook at home. We choose Chicken Larp (Chicken Salad) and Green Papaya Salad, two of our favourite dishes in Lao, they both have intense flavours.

The Chicken Larp is a traditional Lao cold salad made with mince chicken, pork, fish or tofu, banana flowers, kaffir lime leaves, spring onions, shallots, garlic, coriander, lemongrass, rocket, roasted rice powder, chilli powder, fish sauce, crispy fried garlic and spring onion and lemon juice.

The green papaya salad combines the sweet and sour taste that the Laos enjoy so much in their cuisine. The green papaya salad is one of those dishes that you can tweak the flavours to your own liking. Each person has their own favourite combination, sometimes more chilli and less sugar or more fish sauce, you decide. I like my green papaya salad with a less shrimp paste and fish sauce as I find it a little too fishy for my liking, whereas Adam enjoys those flavours and like the added heat of a few more chillies. So we compromise and we sit down to taste our creations and find that neither of us are satisfied with our green papaya salad. It really is one of those dishes that should be made for each individual. The chicken larp was a success. An intensely flavoured salad but each ingredient is essential to get the texture and the 'wow factor' of flavour. Using the same dressing you might like to substitute the green papaya for green beans or cucumber.

Our last dish that we cook for the day, Khua Maak Kheua Gap Moo (Fried eggplant with pork) is one of those dishes that if you are not a fan of eggplant/aubergine, you certainly will be after you taste it. The aubergine melts in your mouth and compliments the saltiness of the pork and oyster sauce.

At last I get a demo on how to cook sticky rice and the famous jeowbong (the people of Luang Prabang say that their recipe is far superior than anywhere else in Laos and their right, I have included the recipe in a previous entry). I have been keen to learn the technique of cooking sticky rice and the ingredients of jeowbong, it is one of the best chilli pastes I have ever tasted and goes with just about anything and stores well in the fridge.

We feast yet again while Neng and Leng clean up. We enjoyed our day and Adam and I survived working in the kitchen together, the dishes were easy to prepare and we could have just followed a recipe and cooked these at home but it was all worth it for the technique of cooking sticky rice and the recipe for jeowbong.

I Love The Smell Of Pigs Blood In The Morning......

2007-09-12T17:06:00.000+01:00

It's 6am, Adam and I are wandering the streets looking for monks in orange robes, if we find them we can observe the sacred morning alms ceremony, where devoted Laos place offerings of food and drink in the monks alms bowls. By doing this they gain merit and the monks get their daily meal.

There are about 32 temples in Louang Prabang and each morning the monks set out on a defined route. We come across a few women lining the street and we find a spot to sit and observe quietly. It soon becomes clear that there are not enough people participating and offering food to the monks and some must go hungry.

We talked to a local woman later and she explains that times are changing here, so many of the women that use to participate, now work so hard, they just don't have the time to get up so early to cook food and then bring the food to the monks. We both feel like we are intruding so we decide to go to the morning food market, I am told that this is the local food market where all the women from the mountains come down to sell their produce. After visiting the evening food market the night before, I am curious to see what the locals are really eating and I am not disappointed.

We turn a corner and the street is lined with women sitting on their bamboo mats each displaying their produce. Some women are selling just one item, others are selling an unusual but small variety, enough for each women to carry down from the mountains.

The first few women are selling fruit and vegetables, violet aubergines – long ones and baby ones, bunches of morning glory, rocket (a smaller variety than ours), pumpkins,dragonfruit, longan, melons, green papaya, banana flowers, sweet tamarind, coconuts and bananas, cucumbers, watercress, lettuce, galangal, ginger, ferns, river weed, green beans, bundles of shallots, a special wood that imparts a special flavour for Or lam stew, palm shoots, okra, kaffir lime leaves, bamboo filled with a sweet dessert of purple sticky rice, coconut milk, coconut meat and banana – a speciality at this time of year.

Baskets of whole grilled fish on bamboo sticks. Dried mackerel fillets, grilled wild birds – splayed in half showing their hearts and all, a foursome of frogs roasted on lemon grass stalks. Buckets of cockroaches, necklaces of baby crabs, grubs and worms, baskets of live frogs. I hear a chicken squawking and a young woman walks past holding a live chicken by its legs that she has just bought from a street vendor, ready to take home for dinner. Small hills of dried squid, barbecued and incinerated bush rat, an enormous catfish, a woman is sitting with frogs in her lap, tying their legs together with ribbons of bamboo.

Varieties of rice in large open baskets, a mountain of soy beans in their pods. In the distance I can see a women with a mound of coffee beans on the ground. She has a mug in one hand and she is scooping them from the bottom of the pile onto the top, many times but on closer inspection the coffee beans are in fact snails.

Rings of edible flowers and then a basket containing one guinea pig (I think). A bucket of live turtles some more okra and sitting right next to it is a snake. There are whole de-feathered duck, chickens and river shrimp. Lastly we arrive at the meat section, women are chopping away. I walk through quickly to avoid the splattering of blood and almost slip over as I gain my balance something catches my eye. I am peering into a bucket of congealed pigs blood, the heady aroma wafts up my nostrils and its time to retire.

This little piggy went to the night market.....

2007-09-05T14:35:00.000+01:00

Just off the main street of tourist central is the night food market. I enter fully prepared because I have read - Ant Egg Soup, The Adventures of a Food Tourist in Laos by Natacha Du Pont De Brie and it has given me a basic understanding of Laos food and what to expect.

Laos food is very rural and is based on what is available at the market that day. The market is usually filled with women from the hills that come down into the village to sell what they have grown, caught or picked in the jungle.

Lao people are poor and to get their daily protein intake they will eat anything that moves, slithers, flies or crawls. So I am ready because things can get pretty wild. Who knows what delicacies are in store for us? The first stall serves up a Lao version of Pad Thai, quite simple - egg noodles tossed in Maggi soy sauce, bean sprouts, a pile of chilli, some ground nuts, all served on a banana leaf, wrapped and secured with a toothpick.

Next we have vegetarian spring rolls made with rice noodle paper with a choice of fresh or deep-fried stuffed with noodles, cabbage and bean-sprouts served with a dipping sauce of freshly squeezed lime juice, sugar syrup, dried crushed chillies, fish sauce and ground peanuts. They come in bags of 6 for 5000 kip. (about 30p to you and me) The rice paper is thin and delicate but keeps the ingredients in firmly, they taste light and crispy, not too oily.

Now it starts to get interesting, there is roast pig, crackling and all, chopped into pieces splayed out on the table. The pigs face is staring up at me, skin only and the full snout of course. On a plate, intestines are coiled high, belly, ribs, in fact the entire pig is here, bits and all. The ladies at the pork stand were all crowding around a large woven platter and chatting away. We were curious to find out what they would be eating, each woman took a green leaf - the size of a betel leaf and then selected a piece of chopped pork, various herbs and condiments from the platter.

The Laotians are so friendly, they noticed us peering at what they were eating and decided that we should join in, so they offered to share their dinner with us. I was handed a large green leaf that tasted quite bitter, wrapped tightly around a chunk of roast pork (which part, I don't know) with a pinch of sliced lemongrass, chopped shallots, banana flower and soft rice noodles and a dollop of sweeet chilli sauce and all bite size and very tasty. Adam was lucky, he chose his own pork piece, leaf and condiments, then wrapped it all up to eat. It was really good and seeing the look of satisfaction on our faces, they all laughed and we were offered some more. The Laos love to share their food. In fact the Lao believe that food eaten alone is not delicous and I would have to agree with them.

There are whole roast ducks stuffed with banana leaves and herbs. The grill section has whole fish, pork belly, quail, chicken and something that looks like eel all skewered with lemongrass stalks and grilled to perfection. Adam tried grilled pork belly on a lemongrass stick, the pork was really sticky and chewy on the outside with an intense musk, and very salty pork flavour.

The dessert stand was filled with various soy or coconut milk jellies, custards and pumpkin in coconut milk.

The Buffalo stand had a variety of buffalo - dried, sticky, or glazed with sesame seeds and alongside, the famous jaew bong - a condiment of red chillies, shallots, garlic and dried buffalo skin. (recipe in previous blogpost)

The curry stand has at least a dozen or so containers of various fish, meat, egg or vegetable curries that you can take away in plastic bags ready to be eaten. We are nearing the end of the market and have seen no signs of bush rat, frogs or even snake. To be honest I am a little relieved but disapponted at the same time. I also feel like a tourist because I have just noticed the locals don't eat here and it is just that - a tourist version of a Lao market. The soft version.

At the end of the market there were two vegetarian buffets layed out on long tables with wooden benches and they were packed with people. I can understand why you would want to eat vegetables after walking through all those displays of roasted meats and flies. The aromas were quite intense and it's hot and humid here, there is no refrigeration and to keep the flies away all the women had long sticks with plastic bags attached and they would wave them around like fans to keep the flies off the food but with not much effect.

Laos food looks great and I am sure tastes amazing but I am erring on the cautious side at the moment. So for 5000 kip you can pile your plate with an assortment of noodles, rice, pumpkin, aubergine, watercress, morning-glory, stir-fried vegetables and spring rolls and, of course, beer Lao. Call me a lightweight but I love my vegetables.

Sun-dried Foods and Jeowbong

2007-09-04T08:38:00.000+01:00

Adam & I have been cycling around Louang Prabang for a few days now and we have come across so many foods drying in the sun outside peoples homes. I am told that Laos food is quite distinct from any other Asian country, and that Louang Prabang's cuisine is the best in Laos. Each family has their own recipes for Louang Prabang specialties. They may only differ slightly but each recipe is highly regarded.

We have seen dried lemon and lime peels, sticky rice cakes, red chillies, bananas, various herbs and fruit skins for teas, and buffalo meat for the Jeowbong', a famous chilli paste only made in Louang Prabang.

Jeowbong is served as a side dish and can be eaten with most Lao dishes. We have tried some Jeowbong spread on seaweed crackers, (but you could spread this onto any cracker of your choice ( rice, sesame, even a pappadam) and we particularly liked it with dried buffalo skin.

Try it on leftover roast chicken in a sandwich. Or spread it over meats and then roast.

If you like chillies you will enjoy this recipe. Compliments of the Tamnak Lao Restaurant where Adam & I will be taking a Laos cooking class tomorrow.

TAMNAK LAO JEOWBANG

Ingredients

4 tablespoons oil

2 tablespoons chilli powder (see recipe below)

3 tablespoons sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

4 tablespoons garlic chopped finely

Keep 1 tablespoon of oil that the garlic will be fried in later

1/2 teaspoon of chicken stock (powder will do)

1 teaspoon galangal powder (see note)

2.5 tablespoons of fish sauce

Chilli powder

1. To make the chilli powder you will need fifty dried red chillies.

2. Pound them in a mortar and pestle until the chillies are powdered and you have 2 tablespoons of chilli powder

Notes: If you do not want the jeowbong to be hot, take the seeds out of the chillies before pounding.

To save energy you may wish to first process the dried chillies in a kitchen blender and then finish off by pounding them.

JEOWBONG

1.Fry the garlic in 4 tablespoons of oil until golden. (Reserve the remaining oil)

There are two ways to proceed from here 1. The traditional method used by the Lao or 2. The Cheat's Way.

Traditional Method

1. Crush the chilli powder, fried garlic, sugar, salt, chicken stock and galangal powder in a mortar and pestle and pound it down until it is very well mixed.

2. Add the fish sauce and 1 tablespoon of the oil that the garlic was fried in and pound to mix well. Note: It should come together as a paste.

3. Put the paste into a saucepan and fry for a few minutes. The paste should have a rich and pungent chilli smell.

4. Put it into a bowl and serve

Cheat's Way

1. Place 1 tablespoon of the oil that the garlic was fried in, plus all other ingredients into a small blender.

2. Blend slowly on a low setting, making sure the jeowbong does not become too liquid.

3. Continue with the Traditional method in Steps 3 and 4.

Notes:

Galangal powder is often sold as Lao powder in Asian supermarkets. If you do not have galangal, replace it with four small slices ginger. Jeowbong can be made without this ingredient.

Jeowbong will keep for a very long time in the refridgerator.

You may like to add jeowbong to other dishes requiring chillies. For example, fry 60g chicken, pork or prawns in 1.5 tablespoons oil with 3 cloves of chopped garlic and jeowbong to taste until cooked through. Add º cup of coriander or parsley, salt and pepper to taste and two tablespoons of lime or lemon juice. Mix with noodles and spaghetti.

Nuts and Crackers

2007-09-04T07:17:00.000+01:00

Walk around the streets of Louang Prabang for a few days and you begin to notice a lot more. For example - the doughnut lady and the grilled banana lady always on the corner of our street. The local children that come up and harass you to buy their jewellery each evening, I am beginning to recognise the same faces and the little tricks they employ to make a sale. I have noticed that there are particular woven baskets for rubbish outside each residence and that tuk-tuks aren't allowed to enter a residential street because they are too noisy. I have even begun to notice the local nutter.

Yes even Louang Prabang has one and he really is special. The first day we arrived he approached us shirtless and with open arms begging for money, he doesn't speak he just uses his hands to signal. The next day he approached us in a flimsy sarong, again shirtless. (The people of Louang Prabang are conservative dressers so this is really inappropriate in Laos culture) The third day he approached us dressed in bright orange monk robes. The fourth day he had a spade a sickle and a piece of wood. Today I saw him walking down the street in full army gear, with a gun in each hand, fakes I hope but I didn't want to stick around to find out, so I veered off the main road and cycled down a small street and came across some crackers of a different kind.

There were at least a dozen mesh wire racks propped on the side of the street with wafer thin crackers lying flat, left to sun-dry. Since it was a scorching hot day, the conditions for sun-drying were perfect, outside their house a family begins the process of preparing some more crackers for drying. We stopped to chat and found that they are home-made with potato, sugar and black sesame seeds.

The process of making the wafers started with an old lady that looked like grandma, she took a small lump from an enormous pile of potato dough, rolled it into a small ball and then passed it to the next person. The next man had a small black wooden press and some rounds of plastic, each ball would be placed between two sheets of film and then pressed between the wood to squash the ball flat into round discs. The disc would then be passed along a few more times to be pressed and flattened some more until paper thin. These paper thin discs would then be placed onto the mesh racks for sun-drying.

Later we found some in the shop at the end of the street for sale, and we bought some to taste. Crispy and sweet with a slight sesame flavour. I found they were satisfyingly crunchy, and great to know that they were locally made and I was helping to support a family business.

Laosing About

2007-08-31T14:48:00.000+01:00

We made it! A two-day slow boat adventure down the Mekong river from the border town of Houxai to Louang Prabang, via the notorious Pak Beng.

After all that worry I had nothing to fear from Pak Beng. Yes, it was lawless - and there were men with guns (more for the tourist protection, I would like to think. But hey, imagine you're in a small town in the middle of a jungle, where the electricity in the entire town is switched off at 10.30pm and there is nothing to do.

You can't read, you can't listen to music, you can't watch telly. You can't stay up late with an enforced curfew, the entire town is in darkness and it's hot.

The thought of going to bed at the same time every night would send me nuts and I think the locals definitely get restless - that's why I understand their need to get absolutely drunk.

One of my rules of travelling is, of course, always do what the locals do - so we did... we got absolutely legless. Adam, David (our newly acquired Aussie travelling companion) and I sat outside on the balcony of our hotel with the hotel's assistant and drank Beer Lao (Fantastic beer by the way).

We listened to all the Laos women singing their traditional songs and then watched them all stumble home up the one-street town, past our building and shouting 'sabaideeeeeeeee' with smiles.

Then the lights went out.

We awoke the next morning to the sound of cock-a-doodle-doos and all the mountains clouded in mist. All the villagers were arriving from the mountains to visit the morning market with machetes in hand (presumably to cut there way through the thick jungle).

We set off for Louang Prabang in our slow boat, an eight-hour journey ahead of us. Adam has described our journey along the Mekong beautifully. If you would like to read it follow the link 'Adam's blog' on the right side of my blog.

Grub's Up

2007-08-27T16:01:00.000+01:00

There was a little surprise in store for us today as we toured The Golden Triangle. We stopped off at Mae Salong, a 1300m mountain, home to the Koumintang (The Nationalists), who were the ruling party of China for 21 years. The Koumintang settled here after fleeing the Communist Revolution of 1949.

Since 1949 they have been cultivating opium, however, in the last 20 years or so the Thai government has been actively working with them to introduce crop programmes to replace opium. Driving through this area today, we could see lush mountains with crops of corn and tea plantations, and no sign of any popppy fields.

We stopped off at The 101 Tea Plantation and had a wander around, starting with a walk amongst the shrubs of oolong tea and then the factory where all the leaves are dryed, sorted and processed.

Next stop, one of the many tea shops. An old Chinese lady is waiting to perform a tea ritual and, of course, sell us some tea. After we tasted each tea the old lady offered a selection of sun-dried candied fruits to cleanse our palate, there was ginger, palm, longan, prunes and my favourite - bursting with flavour - cherry tomato. We tried green tea, oolong, ginseng, jasmine and sticky rice tea.

The tea is served in in a tiny bowl with a tall cup inside. The tall cup inside has a dual purpose. It holds the tea, keeping it hot until you are ready to start the process - when its time, you release the tea by lifting the tall cup, the tea fills the bowl, then you sniff the aroma that remains in the tall cup and then roll the cup in your hands to warm them (great in winter, not so great in summer) and drink your tea.

Our tea lady decided the fruit wasn't enough to cleanse our palates and perhaps we needed something a little more - savoury, like......grubs... yes you read it - bamboo grubs. So right in front of us the old lady lights the stove, heats a small frying pan and dry-roasts some bamboo grubs with a little salt and pepper.

I have been promising that Adam would be my taster for the more adventurous foods and here was an golden oppurtunity. So I dared him. Kudos to him, he popped one straight in his mouth, crunched away and then another and another with a big smile on his face. It looked so easy I decided to have a taste and it was easy. They were crunchy and salty with no distinct flavour and in fact the texture reminded me of the dregs at the bottom of your popcorn that get stuck between your teeth.

Our guide explained they are enjoyed here as a tasty snack that compliments the tea and that Bamboo grubs are also used in a special version of Nam Prik.

Nam Prik is a northern chilli sauce/dip that can be made solely with vegetables like aubergine, or with the addition of meat, ground pork or bamboo grubs. Nam Prik is usually served with a plate of raw, crisp vegetables and pork crackling to dip.

In the grub version, the bamboo grubs are boiled first and then pounded in a mortar and pestle with the chillies to make a paste.

Well, I'm all grubbed out today but if I come across some Bamboo Grub Nam Prik I will be wriggling to try some.

Coconut Whatsits!

2007-08-27T15:54:00.000+01:00

It's my last night in Chiang Mai for awhile and I couldn't leave without mentioning these.

The photos don't do them justice . I don't know the Thai name so I just call them Coconut Whatsits. They are extremely good.

Bite-size coconut milk custards filled with either pumpkin, sweetcorn or chives. They are oh-so sweet, crispy on the outside and gooey-goopey in the middle. The perfect comfort/snack food.

P.S Just found out the Thai name - Kanom Krop - but I think I will stick with the name Coconut Whatsits.

Farewell Chiang Mai

2007-08-27T15:39:00.000+01:00

We are leaving for Chiangrai tomorrow and I'm really sad we are leaving because we have met so many great people here. It feels like home away from home.

I have thoroughly enjoyed studying Ancient Thai Massage at ITM. The teachers kept me laughing throughout and were surprisingly patient with me.

It was hard work trying to squeeze so much information in 2 weeks but I feel confident that after I return for another 2 weeks that I will have the core teachings to take home with me and from there it will be up to me to practice, practice and practice some more.

So all my friends in Oz who will allow me to practice on them , please click on some of mine or Adam's ads and they just might help pay for some of the courses. Cheers!!

Back in a bit...

2007-08-14T12:27:00.000+01:00

Just to let you know that I have just started a Thai Yoga Masssage course and it is quite intense, so my writing will be limited for a couple of weeks. The good news is that you will all benefit eventually - because I need practice. So all those Oz friends - I will need plenty of bodies to practice on.

Adam will still be writing his blog if you're interested. I am never going to catch up to him at this rate. Have you seen how many hits he has?

Has anyone tried out the recipe below?

We went to the Sunday night market at Tha Phae Gate and had a great time exploring. We tried some delicous food. The black bean ice-cream was pretty good. So here are some photos to keep you salivating until the next blog entry. See you soon...

Northern Food

2007-08-10T11:02:00.000+01:00

Chiang Mai, Capital of the North, has it's own style of food but not without Burmese and Laos influences. A Northern Thai meal is quite informal, dishes are placed on the table in no set order, to share and to eat as you prefer.

Glutinous rice – Khao Niaow (sticky rice) - is at the centre of each meal with the addition of various side dishes. A soup, a curry (gaeng), a spiced salad (yaam) or stir-fry (padh), spicy chopped meat (laab) or chilli sauces (nam prik).

In one hand you roll some sticky rice into a ball and then dip into your selected dish to soak up the sauce. A selection of chillies and condiments to enhance the flavours. Plates of fresh herbs and fresh or steamed vegetables complete your meal. Dessert is usually fresh fruit.

Adam & I are keen to try some Northern dishes after tasting the khao soy and we find a restaurant that specialises in Northern food. We try to emulate the full Thai dinner experience but because its just the two of us we are limited on the number of dishes we can order. So we choose one curry – A Chiang Mai Pork - as well as a vegetable dish – Stir-Fried Morning Glory - to share, and a sticky rice each.

Chiang Mai Pork Curry (Kaeng hangleh muu), is a Northern-style spicy thick soup without the addition of coconut cream. Kaeng translates as 'with spicy gravy'. This curry is made with pork belly, very tender and spicy but with an Indian curry flavour.

The pork is cut into large chunks with slivers of ginger and chopped garlic. This dish originated in Burma where they serve it with bananas (kai), but other recipes add santol (wild mangosteen) or pineapple squares. Our curry came without the addition of sweet fruit, thankfully. I only really like fruit in savoury dishes where it is a little too spicy and the sweetness cuts through this. It was spicy but not that spicy.

Stir-fried Morning Glory (Paad Pak Boong) comes in a gravy style sauce. All the Stir-fried vegetables here always seem to arrive in an oyster sauce with whole crushed cloves of garlic. If you think the garlic may be overpowering, it's not - the garlic (kra-tiaw) here is smaller, milder and sweeter. I have also found out that Morning glory is also known as Gai Laan in Chinese.

The Khao Niaow – sticky rice - comes in gorgeous individual bamboo woven baskets with a lid to keep it steaming hot. Sticky rice is the perfect accompaniment to anything spicy and juicy, it soaks up the juices and with a spicy salad like laab or tom sum it softens the punch of chilli. It goes well with our pork curry, the meat is so tender it falls apart. In fact, it is so good I have included a recipe.

RECIPE

Kaeng Hangleh Muu – Chiang Mai Pork Curry

Ingredients for curry paste

1 tbsn coriander seeds
2 teaspoon cumin seeds
2 dried long red chillies (about 13cm long)
½ teaspoon salt
1 lemongrass stalk, white part only, finely chopped
2 Asian shallots (tiny red shallots), chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 teaspoon grated turmeric or a pinch of ground turmeric
1 tsp of shrimp paste
½ teaspoon ground cassia or cinnamon

To make the curry paste

Dry-roast coriander seeds in a small frying pan for 1 minute until fragrant, then remove from pan.
Repeat with cumin seeds.
Grind them both to a powder with a mortar and pestle.
Remove the stems from the chillies and slit the chillies lengthways with a sharp knife. Discard seeds.
Soak chillies in hot water for 1-2 minutes or until soft. Drain and roughly chop.
Using a mortar and pestle, pound the chillies salt, galangal, lemongrass, shallots, garlic and turmeric to a smooth paste.
Add shrimp paste, ground coriander, cumin, cassia and mix until the mixture forms a smooth paste.
Alternatively use a small food processor, blend all ingredients into a smooth paste. Add a little cooking oil as needed to ease the grinding.

Curry Ingredients

500g pork belly cut into cubes - or a healthier option would be stewing pork (cooking time will be longer)
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 tablespoons curry paste
4 Asian shallots, smashed with the blade of a cleaver or rolling pin
4 cm piece of ginger, peeled and shredded
4 tablespoons roasted unsalted peanuts
3 tablespoons tamarind puree
2 tablespoons fish sauce
2 tbsp palm sugar

To make Curry

Blanch pork cubes in boiling water for 1 minute, then drain well.
Heat oil in a wok or saucepan and fry garlic for 1 minute.
Add curry paste and stir-fry until fragrant.
Add the pork, shallots, ginger and peanuts. Sir briefly.
Add 500ml (2 cups) water and the tamarind puree and bring to a boil.
Add fish sauce and sugar, stir, put lid on, turn heat down and let simmer for 1.5 hours or until the pork is tender. (less fatty cuts of meat will take longer to tenderise)

This recipe serves 4 . Serve with sticky rice or steamed rice and stir-fried greens.

If you try the recipe at home, leave a comment to let me know how it turned out for you!

In Search of Khao Soy

2007-08-10T10:43:00.000+01:00

A friend who had recently visited Chiang Mai suggested we try her favourite dish – Khao soy. So here we are on our first evening in Chiang Mai at the local Sunday food and craft market near Tha Phae Gate inside the old town.

It's chaotic, the market street stretches for miles, stalls lining each side of the street and there are hordes of people here. Every 100 metres or so there is an entrance to a temple's courtyard where all the food vendors have set up shop with group tables and child-size step seats to squat on and have a quick bite. A sort of open-air food court, really.

But there is not just one - there are dozens, each courtyard has at least 10 kitchens, each serving up their speciality, some of the dishes are obvious to identify, other dishes not-so. I am overwhelmed by the choice of food here, a sensory overload.

We pause at at a stall watching 2 women shouting orders at each other (in Thai of course), one scooping handfuls of soft noodles into a styrofoam bowl which is then passed to the next woman who ladles steaming soup from one of three enormous earthenware pots, then a handful of deep-fried noodles are placed on top with a wedge of lime. People are queuing at this stall , so I order a soup with chicken to share with Adam. We squat on the tiny chairs at the group table and watch the man sitting opposite. There are various condiments he chooses from the table to add to his soup – 2 heaped teaspoons of dried crushed chillies, 2 heaped teaspoons of sugar, lime juice, fresh herbs, beansprouts and pickles.

Now it's our turn. I always taste first before seasoning. It's rich and creamy, thin slices of chicken breast are cooked-through and tender, the soup is yellow from the turmeric and mildly spicy. The contrasting textures of the soft egg noodles and the crunch of the deep-fried noodles makes this a really satisfying dish. Adam squeezes some lime, we taste again and its almost quite perfect, the acid from the lime juice cuts through the heaviness of the coconut cream and balances out all the flavours. We add a few sprigs of Thai basil and mint, a handful of fresh beansprouts, some pickled cabbage and a sprinkle of dried chilli, to make it extra special.

The man sitting opposite winks and smiles and says 'Khao soy good!?'

Khao soy so great!

The Dreaded Lurgy

2007-08-07T06:54:00.000+01:00

Apologies to everyone who is reading this on a regular basis. Adam caught the dreaded lurgy and then I caught it, so for the past week we have had no smell, no appetite and no get-up-and-go to do anything but watch commercials in Thai and bad movies. They have two movie channels here and the programmer prefers to choose really bad horror films, some of them in English, some of them in German or French with English subtitles. So yeah, we have both been in boredam-land for a week but are now recovering and getting ready to explore and write some more, see you soon......

Dolphin Friendly

2007-07-31T13:05:00.001+01:00

So, our time has come to an end here and I feel very sad because I am going to miss all my new friends at Dolphin. I am going to miss O's mango dacquiris and his card and toothpick tricks. And not to hear Mi's warm friendly greetings each day and cheeky charm is heartbreaking.

Kim and Giet are the owners of the bar at Dolphin, they have created the perfect atmosphere in a magical setting. It feels like home here. I came here to relax, wind down and soak up the sun, sea and fresh air, and I have.

I was going to go on and on about the beautiful wooden salas set back in a tropical garden with a sand floor and all the beautiful statues, textiles, candles, butterflies, toads and geckos too but my words just won't cover it, not even the pictures portray the beauty here. You will just have to come and stay here and see for yourself. A tropical paradise.

I'm In Heaven At Undersky

2007-07-31T13:03:00.000+01:00

Finally, the best restaurant on the beach has re-opened. Our first night there Adam and I shared a Whole Grilled Snapper with Undersky Special Coconut Curry sauce. It was delicous and the sauce was so good I thought there wasn't enough served with the fish.

The next day we choose a papaya salad and a Yam Undersky Salad with Cashew Nuts. Both were excellent but I would have to say that the the latter is one of the best salads I have ever tasted. Stir-fried chunks of squid, cubes of barracuda, succulent prawns and small pieces of chicken tossed into a salad of long green beans, tomatoes, onions, spring onions, carrot, finely sliced slivers of lemongrass and roasted cashew nuts all tossed in a dressing of chillies, palm sugar, fish sauce, garlic and lime juice.

Undersky has an extensive Thai menu, in fact the largest on the beach. I highly recommend their coconut shakes, Adam and I have been trying to limit ourselves to one a day. They taste so good they can't be healthy and I think I have the secret fattening ingredient. I will have to experiment when I get home and then I will share the recipe with you.

Morning Glory

2007-07-31T13:01:00.000+01:00

No its not what you think, mind out of the gutters please.

It is morning and I have a hangover and instead of my usual bowl of tropical fruit and yoghurt, I decide I need something fried. I have the Morning Glory Hash brown at Dolphin - Morning Glory (Paak Boong) is chopped and added to a courgette/zucchini and potato hash brown with bacon bits. It comes out plate-size, crispy on the outside and soft and steaming in the middle. They say it contains plenty of iron. 'Makes me strong,' says Mi, our friendly barman from Krabi.

It doesn't have a strong flavour, but it is noticeable; an herbaceous, spinach flavour. It is also known as water spinach, water morning glory or water cabbage and is used as a vegetable regularly throughout SE Asian cooking. It looks like long stems of tall grass and is a dark green colour. It is great in vegetable stir-fries and broths.

Fruits of Thailand

2007-07-31T12:45:00.000+01:00

Yes, it is a mangosteen (mahng-koot). You may have seen the juice of mangosteen appear on health-food stores shelves - 'it's the new pomegranate', I read somewhere in a London health magazine. But in SE Asia it is known as the 'Queen of Fruits'and I understand why.

The flavour is oh-so sweet and the texture is soft and buttery, it just melts in your mouth. It is the size of a mandarin, with a purple, leathery skin; beneath the skin is another protective coating, a deep red peachy flesh that conceals the edible fruit which looks almost like a small garlic bulb in size and shape.

How to open a mangosteen? Well dig your thumb into the leathery skin and then twist a little and peel off, revealing some of the white bulb, you can continue peeling but its best just to pry it free with your mouth, since they are so juicy. Don't forget to remove the small blak seed the shape of an almond. They are easy to lose in all that sweetness.

I could see mangosteen working with roast pork chops and, instead of the traditional apple sauce or caramelised pears, you could use a few slivers of mangosteen. You should be able to purchase these at your local Asian food market.

Fruits of Thailand

2007-07-30T07:56:00.000+01:00

Has anyone guessed what the fruit is at the top of my blog?

KFC - Koh Phangan Fried Chicken

2007-07-21T08:36:00.000+01:00

We are in paradise, a great place to stay on a beautiful beach, there is one thing missing though, good food. All the beach-front restaurants catering to Western palates serve up substandard food at inflated prices.

There is one that stands out above the rest and that is 'Nice Beach' , friendly staff and a small Thai menu covering all the basics. Red and green curry, fried rice with cashew nuts and a variety of soups and noodles. We have eaten here everyday for lunch and dinner, along with everyone else that is staying on this beach. In need of a change of scenery and menu Adam & I go in search for some authentic local food to wake-up our jaded palates.

Along the back-streets of Thong Noi Pan Yai we discover a roadside food stall, popular with the locals. Today's special is Fried Chicken Wings and Papaya Salad.

Small, crispy, brown chicken bits are scooped out of a large blackened wok filled with hot oil. They are offered to us for a taste and they are delicious – hot, crunchy and salty. After this the chicken wings are removed from marinating in a batter and placed in the wok.

While the chicken is cooking, the lady asks if we would like a papaya salad and since the last one I ate was in Bangkok, I am keen to try another to see what the regional differences are. We stand there watching the preparation. (see photos)

2 garlic cloves in their skins and 2 chillies are thrown into a large mortar and pestle, pounded, then out comes a small tub of fermented whole baby soft shell crab. I am asked if I would like one of these and I am feeling a little adventurous, so she takes the claws and legs off one and this is added to the mortar and the the rest of the body is thrown in, again this is softly pounded.

Next comes a few long green beans chopped too half a fingers length, more pounding, a heaped teaspoon of palm sugar, a generous splash of fish sauce, a large handful of green papaya (grated into spaghetti length strands), one tomato roughly sliced into wedges, then a pinch of salt and the juice of a lime or two and the rind and tossed well and sprinkled with a few roughly chopped peanuts.

A mound of crunch papaya salad with whole baby soft shell crab comes to our table The first mouthful of salad has a few legs of raw crab. Its salty, tangy, crunchy and there is a slight sea flavour, presumably from the crab. Its fabulous but I can't bring myself to finish the crab purely because its not cooked. I pick it out and the flavour is still in the salad, so no loss there.

The fried chicken arrives piping hot with a golden brown crust, a hint of chilli and tender chicken.
It's all finger-lickin' good here! We take a bag of chicken bits to go. We snack on them later, they are cold, have lost their crunch and it suddenly dawns us that we have been eating chicken giblets...

Som Tum Yum Yum

2007-07-21T08:30:00.000+01:00

(Apologies for any confusion, due to technical difficulties this entry precedes the last)

After 1 taxi, an overnight train, a bus, 2 boats, and a jeep we have arrived in Thong Nai Pan Noi, a small beach on the Northeast side of Ko Pha Ngan. And since my last meal was over 17 hours ago, I have an appetite. We have lunch at Baan Panburi, too expensive for us to stay there but certainly affordable to eat in their restaurant. A terraced restaurant on the beach, with a choice of seating – recline on a sala, take a table on the beach or sit on the terrace.

The menu seems to be like all other menus along the beachfront – it caters for tourists. Five pages of Western food and then finally two pages of Thai dishes. It bothers me seeing tourists not eating Thai food. I could rant and rave for hours on this subject but I won't. So I choose the Som tum salad, which also is the name for a papaya salad, I have yet to find out if there is another name for the carrot salad.

A mound of freshly grated carrot, a few raw slightly pounded crisp long green beans, a few slivers of orange tomatoes, a couple of wedges of lime skin, roughly chopped cashews and peanuts, all tossed in a tangy, garlic, spicy dressing. I have awoken, my mouth is bursting with flavours, I could scare not only vampires but any beast away.

Happy Snapper

2007-07-15T13:37:00.000+01:00

Our first evening on the beach, there are a dozen restaurants to choose from yet everyone is eating in just one, the Baan Panburi, so we return for dinner.

Adam chose the chef's special - A prawn Curry cooked in a fresh coconut. The style of curry is called Kaeng Phanaeng which translates as curry thick and savoury with peanuts. A whole shaved coconut appears with a square lid cut open from the top, inside is a thick creamy coconut curry, medium-spiced, a hint of peanuts, fat juicy prawns and slivers of fresh coconut, adding an interesting jelly texture. A lovely curry but quite rich with so much coconut cream.

In addition the the menu and the chef's specials there is a bbq beach hut with a selection of seafood on display from the day's catch. Red snapper, white snapper, tuna, barracuda and even shark.

If you are wondering what the difference is between the red and white snapper, white snapper has more flesh to eat. So since I am not paying by weight, I choose a whole white snapper to be grilled on the bbq for 200 baht (£3-4) and it arrives with a plate of rice served in the shape of a heart, a carrot and cabbage salad and a small bowl of spicy dressing. The dressing is made from lime juice, chillies, garlic, fermented fish sauce and palm sugar. Salty, sour, sweet and spicy, strong but all in harmony, it complements the fish and plain rice. I enjoyed the dressing so much I ordered another bowl - who cares about the ring of fire.

An Oasis in Soi 16

2007-07-10T14:49:00.000+01:00

If you want to escape the heat and chaos of Bangkok then Shanti Lodge is the place, an oasis of tranquility.

Take your shoes off at the door, step inside and cool your feet on the clean stone floors. Everything you need is here. 600-800 baht (ฃ10) will get you a basic room for 2 people in Bangkok but what makes the Shanti Lodge special, are the extra touches that make you feel at home.

Our double room was 700 baht - a carved wood bed with Thai Silk bedspread, a silent and clean air-conditioning unit, and an optional fan, a safe, a selection of books, ornaments on the walls – butterfly chimes, dimmer lights (always important to get the atmosphere right), a sparkling mosaic tiled bathroom, handmade painted pottery sink, clean dark wood floors.

On the second floor, an open terrace with beds, here you can have a Thai Yoga Massage for up to 2 hours for 300 baht ( a fiver). Adam & I both indulged on our first night staying here, our knotted muscles, stress and tension released and we both ended up in a meditative state. Highly recommended, don't forget to leave a tip, those ladies deserve it.

There is a laundry service, internet, luggage storage and clothing shop. Speak with friendly and informative Yuan, the manager of both Shanti Lodge, Bangkok and Shanti Farm, Phuket for 20 years or so now, who can help with all your onward travel plans and arrange visas. Yuan has some stories to tell and will also update you on all the tourist scams to avoid.

On the ground floor is the Shanti restaurant, a lovely open space yet private with sneaking views to watch the hum of street life. Ceiling fans keep you cool and the mosquito coils keep the mozzies away. The Shanti mainly caters for vegetarians, ( a few meat and seafood dishes available) priding itself on the careful preparation of good produce. All fruits and vegetables are soaked and washed to remove pesticide residues and they use organic food where possible.

My first meal was a soothing and restorative soup (usually eaten at breakfast time), perfect after a long flight and a massage. A flavoursome broth filled with finely diced vegetables, tofu, red rice, fine slivers of ginger and sprigs of coriander.

I can highly recommend the phat thai (you may know it as pad thai or pat thai), a Thai version of a fry-up, subtle tamarind and lime, silken egg noodles, crisp bean sprouts, egg, succulent prawns and on the side roasted, crushed peanuts, dried crushed chillies and lime to tweak the flavours to your own desire.

The Shanti has managed to relieve our tensions, nourish our souls, and prepare us for a long journey ...

Food For Fun

2007-07-08T15:46:00.000+01:00

Hot, hungry and smelling of eel water we hatch a plan to head for Siam Square, (Shopping Plaza Mecca), an excuse to escape the heat and purchase some well-needed walking sandals. We discover 'Food for Fun'

A food hall with around 20 kitchens, preparing one-plate dishes, representing regional food from all over Thailand. On arrival you receive a card, peruse each kitchen, select what you want to eat. Your card logs each dish and the price, and you pay on the way out.

A variety of soups, red and green curries with pork, chicken, squid or fried fish, Massaman Curry, Beef Rendang, spicy omelettes, stuffed mussels, noodle and rice dishes, carrot and papaya salads. And even stir-fried ox genitals.

It was difficult to choose but in the end we both picked relatively unexciting dishes. (Adam will go there eventually, I promise)

Adam chose a green curry with fish and got a green curry with pork (as you do when you don't speak Thai), it was served with steamed rice and a bowl of clear broth with shallots. I chose Stir-fried Kale with Crispy pork. It was very hot and garlicky, but sadly no crispy pork, the crispy was left in the wok.

Mouth on fire, I grabbed a lemongrass drink to cool down. I have only tasted lemongrass in cooking so I was curious. It tastes like it smells, a little overwhelming if you use too much. The drink was refreshing but a little sickly from the use of sugarcane syrup, too sweet for me.

It would have been a great introduction to regional food, all menus were translated into English but unfortunately didn't also name where it was from, so we missed out. With full tummies, we jumped into a taxi and fell asleep for 30 minutes stuck in Bangkok traffic.

Bangkok Bites!

2007-07-08T15:29:00.000+01:00

36 hours in Bangkok and I amazingly have just been bitten for the first time, and while the mosquitoes are feasting on me I begin my search for a feast in Banglamphu.

This morning while trying to find the river boat pier we got lost and stumbled into the local food market, and it truly was alive. Adam and I got caught up at the fish stand, splashed by eels attempting to escape from vats of water and slipping on fish guts. There was a vast selection of fish but the only one I recognised was the frisky catfish.

We passed stall after stall with various cuts of chicken, pork, duck and their bits. Next came the frogs, displayed in all sorts of positions - a few wore their hearts on the outside. Men squatting over the floor with old-fashioned juice presses, freshly squeezing baskets of limes. Women pounding garlic and chillies, making pastes for their special sauces. The final stalls displayed an abundance of chillies, wild leaves and herbs.

It was a small, exciting market and a great introduction to local food. Now all we have to find is someone to cook us some food.

The Countdown has Begun...

2007-06-25T11:47:00.000+01:00

Yes, Adam & I are now counting down the days - 8 if you're interested, until we leave for a warmer climate. The momentum is building now, particularly after our farewell party at The Victoria in Camden (A big thank-you to Ian & David who looked after us and all our guests and made our night a very special one).

It has been an emotional rollercoaster, leaving your home after 10 years is not an easy journey. The unknown always scares me, but I am up for the challenge. London, what can I say, I didn't warm to her in the beginning (New York was by far the best city) but slowly over the years like an Ivy plant, wrapped her tendrils around my heart and I will be extremely sad to say goodbye.

I am going to have to pry Adam's fingers from the terminal gate with a crowbar. No seriously, we really are looking forward to returning home.

On a lighter note, for all you foodies out there, watch this space, for the next 6 months , I will hopefully be tasting some amazing food and meeting the people who specialise in cooking it, trying to find out those secret ingredients and family recipes and a few cooking classes along the way. Adam will be my taster for the more exotic ingredients he has an adventurous palate, an iron stomach and loves those specialty items (vegetarians be warned).

First Stop, Bangkok!