A THAI COOK BOOK

by

Ray Storey

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Morning Glory

2. Somtum

3. What doesn't kill makes you strong

4. Frog Pen

5. Lod Dee

1. Morning Glory

When I first came to Thailand I had a chuckle while reading the menu every time I went to eat at a restaurant.

Like restaurants everywhere, Thai restaurants all carry the staple dishes; in Australia it is likely to be things like rack of lamb chops, porterhouse steak and tirimasu [Give me a break!]; in Thailand one can expect every restaurant will have chicken green curry, fried rice with crab meat...and pad puk boong fie daeng.

What's so funny about that? nothing really! It's the English name for the dish that makes me chuckle...morning glory. He he he! There I go again!

[Morning Glory, of course, is the name we give to that glorious involuntary stiffy that turns the bed sheet into a tent as we wake in the morning after a long, languid sleep.]

This has got to be one of the simplest, but most delicious, dishes.

Ingredients are:

Large handful [better make that a couple] of the vegetable called puk boong, rinsed and perhaps torn coarsely.

Several fresh, crushed red chillis.

Several crushed cloves of garlic.

Quarter cup of oyster sauce.

Tablespoon of cooking oil.

Cooking Instructions:

1. Bung a wok on a large roaring gas ring.

2. Tip in the cooking oil.

3. Fling in the chilli and garlic, and get it moving so it doesn't burn. Count to 20.

4. Splat in the oyster sauce.

5. Heave in the vegetable; move it around for a few seconds so it is all covered with the sauce. As soon as the tips of the leaves have gone limp...

6. ...tip it into a serving bowl; rush it to the table; step quickly back from the table to avoid being doused in uncontrolled gushes of salivary gland excretions from the diners.

pak boong basically means "vegetable known as boong". It is some kind of water weed. It has long straight hollow stems, each with about 2 to 4 long thin delicate leaves on it. It is dirt cheap; a fat bunch of fresh vegetable will cost about 4 or 5 baht in the local market. It is very versatile; can be eaten raw, served in soup, included as the green substance in vegetable curries, or stir fried, as described above.

Preparing chillis:

Method #1....drop a handful of small red chillis into a mortar, and pestle 'em till your eyes smart.

Method #2....tip a handful of the little buggers onto a preparation board and smack 'em once with the side of a meat cleaver.

Preparing garlic:

Place a handful of unpealed cloves onto a preparation board and smack 'em once with the side of a meat cleaver.

Every Thai kitchen has at least one mortar/pestle, made from wood, terra cotta or granite.

Likewise, every kitchen has a meat cleaver...it is actually the chef's knife of choice for everything. I once even saw a cook use the enormous tool to delicately clean the food gunk out from under his thumbnails.

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Today we were on the road, on a mission; we didn't get to our first meal until after mid-day, and even then it was a side thought; we stopped at a roadside stall, and purchased a couple of inexpensive but attractive terracotta vases...hand-painted in the tiny workshop behind the stall.

The lady who sold us the vases also ran the roadside restaurant at the next stall. Suddenly we were hungry, so we sat down and ordered. I went for the stir-fried crispy pork with green vegetable served with steamed white rice (khao suay = beautiful rice). 

The lady covered her mouth with the back of one hand and asked Na "This old farang husband of yours...I suppose he can't handle spicy food?" "He can eat same same, just like Thai person", Na responded.

In about two minutes the food reached my table; immediately I noted the main ingredient was clearly crushed red chillis. The food was delicious...but a little painful! I ate most of the chilli, but still set aside 15 complete but crushed chillis.

My lips were still burning when we were 60 kilometres down the road.

2. Somtum

Small talk

I am eating lunch at the Lebanese restaurant in the basement of the Ploenchit Plaza building in Sukhumwit. I am with some work colleagues, two of whom are Thai guys who have...a little reluctantly... agreed to eat with us.

Their reluctance has nothing to do with either the extreme unrest in Lebanon at present, or the reputation of the restaurant; in fact, the restaurant is a well presented, well run place, serving quite authentic middle-eastern style food at an acceptable price. The problem is that the food is...well...ummm...not Thai.

Generally speaking, Thais are very passionate about food...Thai food, that is! Thai food is delicious, very fresh, very aromatic, very spicy. For the main part, Thai food uses only a small variety of spices...chilli, garlic, lemon-grass, sweet basil, lime, ginger and galangal are easily the most common. Food served with much variance from the norm in terms of texture, aroma and taste, is generally regarded with some suspicion. [I feel that it is predominantly the aromas of Indian cooking that causes Thais to be frequently luke-warm about anything Indian.]

We sweat over the menu for some time, but eventually make our orders. The drinks arrive quickly...three lime juices and one orange juice. I particularly like the lime juice drink from this restaurant...lots of fresh squeezed juice, with a little ice and water, and just a dash of corn-syrup to take away the extreme edge that can induce a spasm in the throat muscles. Our Thai friend sips his lime juice, and experiences a full-body spasm! On recovering, he attracts the attention of a young Lebanese waiter [perhaps a newcomer, who is doing a refugee stint in Bangkok until the bombs stop re-arranging the landscape in his Beirut suburban neighbourhood].

"Some more sigh-rupe", he says to the waiter.

"Huh?", says the waiter to him.

"Some more sigh---rupe", he repeats with more emphasis on the second syllable, and tapping the side of the glass to complete the message.

"...errrrr...huh?"

I can see the problem. "My friend would like a little more corn-syrup in his lime juice, please; he likes it sweet."

The glass is whisked away to the kitchen where, very likely, a Thai waiter provides an education in Thai culinary subtleties..."you do it like this mate...fill glass with ice; now fill in the gaps between the ice with 50% water, 49% sigh-rupe, and a dash of lime-juice...he'll go after that like an Aussie at a cold beer".

The food arrives. My sigh-rupe loving Thai friend has chosen a crumbed, deep-fried chicken breast with french-fries from the "International Cuisine" section of the menu. He sniffs at it, then takes an exploratory small portion, chews slowly and evidently discovers an unaccustomed quality of "extreme bland". He ignores the excellent fresh Lebanese condiments on the table (dishes of pureed garlic, and crushed green chilli), reaches for the pervasive International condiment (glass bottle of ketchup) and commences to wrestle and squeeze the bottle energetically in a vain attempt to persuade some of the horrible thick gunk to re-situate itself on or near his crumbed chicken breast.

After watching for a while, with some amusement, my other Thai friend takes the bottle and says "here, let me show you how to do that". He inserts the handle of a stainless steel table knife into the bottle, up-ends the bottle and proceeds to coax about 50% of the contents out of the bottle and onto the chicken where it sits like a volcano cone with molten lava covering its slopes.

The Thai friend struggles on gamely with his chicken breast. I am working on the fatouche, and enjoying it immensely.

"Do you know what is the most classic Thai food?", asks chicken breast man? Before anyone can answer, he tells us.

"Somtum....you know, green Papaya salad...that is the number one food for Thailand." He addresses my non-Thai friend, "What is the classic food of your country?"

And so my English friend tells his excellent story of the life-cycle of the roasted leg of lamb; it goes pretty much as follows:

1. On sunday...a leg of lamb (immature sheep) is roasted, and so the main meal for the day is roast lamb.

2. On monday...slices of meat are cut off the now cold leg, and eaten with vegetables.

3. On tuesday...some cold meat is cut off the bone, diced and recooked with vegetables to make a stew.

4. On wednesday...the remaining scraps of meat are removed from the bone, minced, recooked, then made into a pie which is cooked for a third time with mashed potato on top, and this dish is called a "shepherd's pie".

5. On thursday...the bones are boiled in water to make a broth for soup.

6. On friday...fish is eaten, as some kind of a Christian religious ritual.

7. On saturday...the family is off at the market shopping for a fresh leg of lamb, so they just snack on tea, scones, strawberry jam and cream [ok...I made this bit up because my friend didn't have an entry in his story for saturday].

This life-cycle was pretty much the routine for me as a child in rural Victoria, Australia, even though I am about 3rd or 4th generation Australian, from English and Scottish ancestors. There would be an occasional departure from this routine for beef, or chicken or [rarely] fish.

So...here is Ray's description of somtum:

INGREDIENTS

1. One raw, green [immature] papaya, peeled and shredded.

2. One decent handful of small, red chilli (#1)

3. Several cloves of garlic, unpeeled

4. 2 or 3 small tomatoes, quartered

5. 2 or 3 whole limes, quartered

6. Quarter cup of dried shrimp

7. Cup of rotted fresh water crab (or rotted fish) (#2)

8. Quarter cup of fish sauce

9. Half cup of [secret recipe] somtum sauce (#3)

10. Quarter cup of roasted peanuts

PREPARATION

1. Throw ingredients 2-10 into a large mortar, and pestle enthusiastically for 30 seconds or so (#4)

2. Heave in the shredded papaya and pestle a bit more

3. Taste. If the skin immediately blisters and peels off your tongue, then add a teaspoon of sugar, and pestle a bit more

4. Empty mortar onto a large ceramic dish, place in the middle of the floor of the verandah; invite everyone to squat around the bowl and "dig in". (#5)

That, folks, is the genuine article, Isaan style! Enjoy!

NOTES

#1. It is advisable to use red chilli. Green ones taste the same, but you cannot see them so easily, and so risk forking a whole lot of them into your mouth, and suffering untold pain.

#2. I am allergic to crab, so cannot tell you what rotted crab tastes like. I can tell you rotted fish tastes about as bad as it smells. If you can't summon the courage to try either, then here is a work-around...substitute the rotted aquatic creatures with raw green beans, broken into bite size pieces, and be sure to let your Thai friends understand you have done this because you are allergic to sea-food (they won't believe you for a second, but will allow this face-saving gesture).

#3. No-one can tell me what this is. I suspect it is the liquid remains of rotted aquatic critters. I believe it may be acceptable to substitute it with fish or chicken stock, and a double shot of fish sauce.

#4. Thai cooks have a pestle in one hand and a wok tool in the other; they pestle twice, then scoop once to mix up the pulverised material...repeating for about 30 seconds. Remember to shut your eyes while performing this operation or the fumes will dissolve your eye-balls.

#5. Must be ceramic...metal or plastic will dissolve and so cause you to lose face. Verandah is best as there is more likely to be a decent flow of air, and so neither you nor your dinner guests will be overcome by the fumes...if you must eat in-doors, then set up the biggest fan you can and activate the turbo-boost function.

3. What doesn't kill makes you strong

I can't recall the source of that quote now...it either came from my maternal grandmother's lips that time she and I had a particularly intimate moment when I fell backwards into the extensive cactus garden at her back door and she spent an hour removing Golden Orb spines from my young body with pointy-nose plyers, or I read it in episode #993 of The Phantom comic.

....eerrrr...I digress....

Most weekends, Na and I take a luxurious two hour traditional Thai massage from our two favourite professionals (Pet and Aung) over the road at the neighbourhood massage parlor, set up by a Chinese Thai businessman whom I have introduced in another story.

We have become quite friendly. The three ladies babble on, as though it were a sewing circle [or the Thai equivalent.... betel-nut circle], speaking Thai with a bit of Khmer mixed in. I can't pick up much of the story as they (a) talk too fast for me, and (b) happily talk over the top of each other in a manner suggesting there are three pairs of ladies having simultaneous one-on-one conversations. So...I rest back and concentrate on being unaffected by the cloud of female pheromones gathering in the confined massage room.

My interest is piqued after a particularly dense period of intercourse so, as soon as the ladies all pause for breathe at more or less the same instant, I ask Na "What are you all taking about?"

"Well", Na responds, "now my Mum is gone, but I need some medicine for inside [touching her abdomen gingerly]. I don't know any person who can take [get some] for me. Pet say [she] can tell from when [she] massage[d] my foot that I have a problem inside [another gingerly touch of the aggrieved place]...and [she] say[s] [she] know[s] the plant and see [saw] some when [she] come [came] to work today...tomorrow she take [will bring some] for me."

"Good on old Pet", I say, but I am none the wiser about which part of the story caused all three ladies to laugh uncontrollably at one point.

Anyway, good old Pet was serious about the offer, and so I immediately knew what the plastic bag of green stuff was, when I arrived home from work next evening and saw it on the table.

Later, just before bed, we each try a mouthful of the raw leaf and stalk; the taste is fine...just a little sour, but not unpleasantly so.

Ten minutes later, and we are both clutching at our throats. It feels like I have swallowed a wood rasp which has stripped off the skin all the way from the base of my tongue to my stomach. Water provides no relief...milk does...thank Buddha!

Now we can speak comfortably again. I say to Na "How long does this stuff take to work?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well...can I sleep well all night, or will I have to run for the hong narm [toilet] in the middle of the night?"

Na is laughing! Now, she has stopped, and can speak again. "Not for meeting [bowels], Ray; this medicine for help lady if everything feel not quite right in there!"

This green stuff has powerful genetic survival and propogation instincts; it is a vine; I notice tonight that several short sections of vine have somehow detached themselves, escaped from the plastic bag, found their way onto my balcony and embedded an end into the soil intended for sustaining my balcony pot plants. Having observed the power of the mare barn [maid] "sisterhood", I would not be surprised to hear other sections have appeared in balcony pots all over the apartment complex.

We have some other examples of up-country jungle medicine in the apartment. For example, in one kitchen cupboard there is a plastic supermarket bag stuffed full of wood chips; they look like they would be seriously useful if I owned a charcoal BBQ, as I could use them for kindling; apparently they brew into a wondrous, hugely bitter tea which is ingested in large quantities and affects a cure for everything from in-grown toe-nails to pancreatic cancer.

4. Frog Pen

Thais eat many species of gop [frog].

There is a species that lives in the rice fields. It spends a lot of time underground, where it hibernates away the long, hot, dry months then emerges, when the ground is softened by the heavy rains, to perform an orgy of eating and lurv before retiring again as soon as the ground surface begins to harden once more.

In season, this large frog is readily available in Bangkok food markets; Isaan rice farmers welcome the season as an opportunity to augment their meager earnings from the rice harvest with a quick cash crop.

Na's family eats frog. I have tried it, and can pronounce it as a very acceptable occasional alternative to chicken, fish and pork. There are numerous ways to prepare frog, but the most common one up-country seems to be as follows:

1. Skin the frog.

2. Gut the frog, removing a few inedible bits.

3. Remove the head and legs [for use in a secondary dish, such as a spicy soup] . 4. Stuff the body cavity with a mix of rice and herbs.

5. BBQ the frog.

6. Serve with steamed or sticky rice, and a spicy sauce.

This year, Na's Dad got the idea that he might make a fortune out of frogs. He built a small enclosure, complete with shallow pond and water-weeds. He goes out into the rice fields at night, with a large bag and a head-mounted flashlight. When the bag is full of frogs he returns home, empties his catch into the enclosure then retires to dream about his rapidly increasing frog-wealth.

My first awareness of this innovative wealth-enhancing scheme came about when I walked past the enclosure and was scared witless by the sudden violent splashing and plopping noises inside it. When I had recovered my heart, which had leaped out of my chest and was dashing off up the lane, I cautiously peeked into the enclosure and discovered there was more frog than water in the pond.

I little later I found Na. "What are all those frogs in the shed out in the yard?", I asked.

"Frogs? What frogs?"

So I took her out to the enclosure and showed her the frogs.

"Oh...those frogs are for eat. Maybe we will have some tomorrow."

"Your family is going to eat ALL those frogs? There are hundreds of them in there!"

"Maybe", she replied, giggling a little.

Later that day, and Na raised the subject of the abundance of frogs in the backyard...it seems she made enquiries...

"My Dad catches the frogs, and sells them. They go to Bangkok, for people in Bangkok to eat."

"Ahh! I have seen them at the market in Bangkok. Your Dad catches them and sells them? How much is he paid for each frog?"

"Businessman from Prasat pays 5 baht for one frog."

"Wow! There are many frogs in the shed...that is good money, and not hard work to catch them. How many frogs did your Dad sell already?"

"He not sell any frogs yet. He has to find out about the businessman who will buy them...then he will sell them."

"Ok. But he will need to sell them soon, because frogs need to eat or they will die."

Big smile. "No problem, Ray. My Dad already buy BIG bag of food for frog, and he feeds them every day." She leads me to the storage area in the kitchen part of the house, and shows me the 50kg bag of fish pellets. "See", she says, "No problem."

Great concept! Lots of frogs...easy to catch...just missing a little bit of business and logistical detail. Hmmm! I wonder how this will turn out? Na's Dad is adding 50 to 100 additional frogs to the enclosure nearly every night. It's a big bag of frog food, but there's a hell of a population of frogs expecting a square meal every day.

I think I will just keep a low profile on this matter, and see how it pans out. At least no-one has come up with the bright idea that maybe I could fling half a ton of frogs in the back of the car, as I am returning to Bangkok in a few days.

5. Lod Dee

It's 6:00pm.

The Boy and I are in the soi [lane] to buy some food for the evening meal. We have already had the conversation, and settled on BBQ pig's ear, plus a little bit of BBQ chicken wing, and some khao neo [sticky rice] to eat with it.

This afternoon I prepared a bowl of fragrant raspberry jelly, so the Boy will probably have a helping of that to complete the meal...perhaps I will join him, as I feel about ready for a sugar fix.

I notice another itinerant foodcart twenty or thirty metres further up the soi. It's the tall, thin, handsome Indian-looking guy, who comes here some evenings and prepares roti.

"You want some lod dee?" I ask the Boy.

"Yes please. I want lod dee sai khai, pleeeeese."

So we place our order "ow lod dee sai khai song krub"...that's "Can we have two roti with egg, please mate?"..., and stand near the cart to watch the preparation; I keep one hand on the Boy's shoulder, so I can prevent him from getting too close to the cart and perhaps catching a drop of hot oil on the face.

I am not certain, but feel the vendor is Indian, and has lived in Thailand for a long time...perhaps all his life. There is a shadow that indicates a thick forest of facial hair...except that he is always clean shaven. He has a long, thin, farang nose. His skin is VERY dark. He speaks Thai fluently, English well, and Indian fluently as well.

He is tall, and his cart's working surface is low [clearly manufactured for a much shorter Thai man or woman]; he has to bend over deeply, and this does not look like a comfortable working position.

He bends low, reaches into the cupboard beneath the stainless bench-top. The gas is turned up and the concave cooking plate begins to sizzle almost immediately. With a wok tool, he scoops a small quantity of cooking oil from the open can in one corner of the workbench and dumps it in the cooking plate. He scoops a small knob of rice dough from a plastic ice bucket and drops it on the workbench. A few drops of cooking oil are drizzled onto the rice dough from the wok tool. With the fingers of both hands he squashes and stretches the dough into a paper thin sheet about the size of A4 paper. Lifting it from the work bench, he lowers it immediately into the shallow pool of bubbling cooking oil in the cooking plate, where it absorbs the oil and cooks quickly. Now he has taken a fresh egg, broken the shell on the edge of his bench and dropped both white and yoke onto the thin, browning sheet of rice dough. Now he takes the wok tool, breaks the egg yoke and smears the egg all over the rice dough sheet, using the flat bottom of the tool. In seconds the egg has cooked. He folds the four corners of the sheet inwards, so the sheet is now a double thickness, and with the cooked egg between the layers. Now, with a corner of the wok tool, he scoops a large knob of bright orange coloured ghee from another tin, and drops it onto the sheet. Immediately he turns the sheet over, so the ghee is trapped under the food. He takes two sheets of previously cut butchers paper, lays them on the bench, lifts the roti from the cook plate and drops it on the paper. Now he takes a can of sweetened condensed milk, with four small holes already punched in the lid, upends it and drizzles contents in a zig-zag pattern all over the roti. Now he takes a plastic shaker and dusts the roti with granules of sugar. Paper and roti are rolled into a sausage, and the ends of the paper are folded in to complete the neat package.

All this is repeated. The two paper wrapped sausages are placed in a small plastic carry bag, and held out to the Boy; he is ready with his 20baht note.

"korp khun krub " we chorus to the vendor, and move away...already salivating, as we have done this before and know the treat is delicious.

Now to the BBQ food vendor for pig's ear and sticky rice, and we will have our evening meal organised.