Let's imagineer some themes

Ladies and gents, behold the Head Spa! It's a wonderous device with which to spa your head. It looks like an excellent piece of imagineering equipment. And the guy looks peacefully deep in thought, and that's my excuse for posting it. Let us peacefully ponder themes for future meals and pray for the day when we too may have spas for our heads.

Still on the table are Goth Night and Indian (Not India Indian but Indian as in whitey-stole-their-land Indian) Night. I also suggest Guilty Pleasures Night (stuff we love even if it isn't high-brow), Ina Garten Night (for the ladies), Cajun Night and Corned Beef-n-Cabbage Night.

-Sarah

Bangkok Nights

We're up!

So, it begins. On-line at least. We began this supper club with a horrifying experiment called "Cold War Thanksgiving" (which I'll let the girls talk about, since they have the grisly photos). Now it's grown into a fully documented weekly date.

It's how we pass our slow mornings at work. It's what we read about on Mondays and Tuesday nights, scouring the piles of cook books and legions of webpages at our use. We might as well have a record of the amazing dinners that we expose each other to every Wednesday.

So I guess I'll start.


Pork Panang with Basil

That's actually a picture of Chicken Panang, not mine from last night. But it's the recipe that I started from. We were feeding 10 people last night, so I had to made a pretty big batch. I started with about 5lbs of Boneless Sirloin Pork Chops. Here's what you'll need, per 1 lb of meat.







1 lb of Pork, Chicken, Beef, or whatever
1 Tbs Veggie Oil
2-3 tsp Red Curry Paste (it's just easier to buy)
1/2 cup of Coconut Milk
1/4 cup of Water
1 Tbs Fish Sauce
1 tsp Sriracha
Juice of 1/2 a Lime
1/2 Cup of Frozen Peas

This stuff couldn't be easier to make. Just trim the pork into bite sized pieces, cross grain is what I prefer. While you're doing that, heat up your oil in a good sized Dutch Oven until it moves easily. Put your curry paste in the oil and give it a quick stir to make it release it's aroma and get your house smelling good. When the red has broken down to look kind of like the picture, add your pork, Use long tongs to flip and move the pork around until it looks inviting.

Throw your water, Coconut Milk, Fish Sauce, and Sriracha in the pot. Let it come to a near boil, then reduce it to medium-low and simmer for about ten minutes. Juice your lime and and your basil. I wanted to fry the Basil first, but didn't get a chance so it got washed out in the sauce a little bit. Right at the end, add your peas and serve while they're nice and shiny green. Serve over steamed Jasmine Rice with plenty of sauce.

This also makes for amazing leftovers.

So that's it to blogging food? Easy. You guys log on, and play with it. I'll try to set something up so we have a bulletin board of sorts, so maybe we can abandon the mass e-mails every week? Give it a try, I think you'll like this system.

-m@

Tom Yum Goong Soup

With the weather being frightfully dreary and bitter for the past...oh I don't know...it seems like a lifetime now, soups have become a popular choice for one of the courses. Now, I can't consider a Thai meal authentic without tom yum goong, or I suppose I WON'T consider a Thai meal authentic without it because, frankly, it is my favorite soup of all time. Like most Thai dishes, it combines the perfect amount of every irresistible flavor (spicy, citrus, tangy and savory) imaginable to create a cure all for your woes and ailments. I think Caterina summed up the special qualities of this soup perfectly when she described it as her cure for the common hangover (lets just say this soup has an uncanny ability to "exercise the demons" still partying in your head...and colon... from the night before).

This soup if shockingly easy to make mostly because this is one instance where I take advantage of prepared seasonings. It is cheating, I know, and the soup really isn't difficult to make from scratch, but good luck finding kafir lime leaves when you need them. I highly recommend Por Kwan's tom yum paste (aka Hot and Sour paste) because it has come the closest to replicating the color and flavor that I've seen in Thai restaurants. Just use two heaping spoon fulls (no precise measuring necessary) per 3 cups of boiling water. Now, my favorite thing about tom yum soup is the flavor of the lemongrass and while the paste does provide that flavoring, I absolutely insist on adding more. This time around I was fortunate enough to find fresh lemongrass stalks, but I have used jarred in the past. If using fresh, just cut them into 2-3inch long segments and smash them much like you would when crushing garlic. Add additional ingredients starting with quartered onions, straw mushrooms (I'm not a mushroom connoisseur, so I occasionally just use whatever is cheapest), sliced green onions, and tomatoes cut into large chunks (I buy tomatoes that are on the small side and quarter them...remember to squeeze the seeds out as they are bitter and not very attractive floating around in soup). Once these ingredients have been added you can pretty much just let the soup simmer on the stove until you're ready to serve (just beware the the tomatoes will eventually disintegrate, as mine did, which doesn't effect the flavor any, you just won't have chunks of tomatoes anymore). Throw in the shrimp (with the shells on because shells = flavor), let them turn pink, which takes about 2 minutes and then bowl up.

-Chavis