Stir-fried Pork with Chili

Ingredients

Preparation Method

• Heat a wok over high flame and add the vegetable oil. When hot, add the garlic and stir-fry until its fragrance is released.
• Add the pork and stir-fry until it browns. Add the chillies and onion. Stir just to mix, then season with the fish sauce and sugar.

This can be quite a mild dish. I like to add a little cracked pepper to spice it up a bit more.
 

There are indeed a great many versions of this dish, since the Burmese origins of the name imply an improvised dish, put together with whatever was on hand. Pork is always the meat used in Thailand, but you should be able to substitute chicken or beef with good results.

Burmese pork curry

Curry Paste

Ingredients

Preparation Method

• Make the curry paste by pounding all the ingredients together with a mortar and pestle to form a thick paste. Of course, you can do it the "easy way" and use a food processor.

Burmese Pork Curry

Ingredients

Preparation Method

• Sprinkle the dark soy sauce over the cubed pork.
• Mix in the prepared curry paste with the meat, and allow to marinate about 1 hour.
• In a large pot, brown the pork over low heat. Add the water, cover the pot and simmer until liquid is reduced.
• Add ginger, garlic and curry powder. Continue simmering until pork is tender and liquid is evaporated.
• Season with the tamarind juice. The taste should be a balance of sour, salty and spicy. If necessary, add salt.

To be completely authentic, Burmese Curry should be served with sticky rice.
 

Curry Pastes on sale in a Chiang Mai market.

The Thai word gaeng literally means “liquid”, although it is generally translated to curry. This is not surprising, since Thai curries are traditionally mostly liquid, with small portions of meat and vegetable for flavor, allowing a little meat to go a long way for families on a budget. Were it not for their spiciness, we might well be calling them stews.

Thai curries appear to have evolved over many centuries. The Mon—among the earliest settlers of Thailand—probably introduced the basic idea of blending spices into a paste and then combining them with coconut milk, meat and vegetables. The spices originally used are believed to be mainly black pepper and ginger. The arrival of the Tais (a Chinese ethnic group from which most Thais are descended) and other Chinese ethnic groups around the first millennium then introduced additional ingredients, but it wasn’t until the 16th century that the Portuguese arrived with the chili pepper, now an essential ingredient of most Thai curry pastes.

We don’t know much about Thai curries before the arrival of Westerners, as few of the early visitors to Siam (the country’s previous name) recorded their impressions of the food, although many of them apparently arrived with their own cooks and stuck to their own cuisine. The Abbé de Choisy, who accompanied the first French embassy to Siam in 1685 mentioned a meal only once. On 25 October 1685, he recorded:

"Tables had already been laid with a magnificent buffet, and many gold and silver vases. Gilded enamel is not held in esteem here. We dined at length. The Kings’ [King Louis XIV of France and King Narai of Siam] healths were drunk to. There were Japanese-style stews, which I found good, the Siamese ones better, the Portuguese ones detestable."

Two hundred years later, we get another opinion on Thai food, also from a western diplomat, this time British. Sir Enest Satow C.M.G. was Minister-Resident in Bangkok from 1885 to 1888. He visited Chiang Mai in January 1886 and his comments on his first dinner with the King’s Chief Commissioner in the north, Phaya Montri Suriyawong, are worth quoting at length for their insight into the Victorian viewpoint on the world:

"Of all places in the world where an evening suit was unlikely to be needed I thought Chiang Mai was one of the most improbable. Great was my horror then when I received a formal invitation to dine with Phaya Montri, and learnt that as the chief would be there, a tail-coat was expected of me. Luckily I had a black morning coat amongst my baggage, and my host was induced to accept it as a substitute for the garment prescribed by our etiquette. He has a pleasant private residence in the city, built of teak, and surrounded by a pretty garden. The drawing-room and dining-room were completely furnished in simple European style, and the dinner was provided by a Chinese cook. One of the best dishes was Siamese curry, which I prefer to all others that I have tasted. The predominant flavor is derived from lime peel, and it is very pungent, owing to the free use of chillies, but there is nothing in the world that comes up to it, not even the prawn curry of Ceylon. Phaya Montri is a man of taste, and his veranda was hung round with ferns and orchids. He is fond of bric-a-brac, and had already collected some fine Buddhist bronze statuettes, several of which were extremely ancient. His spittoons of silver repoussé work eighteen or twenty inches in height were magnificent, and cigars were brought round in a gold box such as Chinese workmen of Canton are famous for."

I got the original recipe for this off the Internet many, many years ago, and I don’t think I’ve changed it too much. This is a really easy recipe, as it basically just takes "one of everything" – one whole onion, a whole bell pepper, a whole can (standard can size of 15.5 ounce or 425 gram) of corn, another of beans (I prefer black beans, but pinto beans are good). The ‘secret’ to getting the taste right is probably the salsa. Use a "fresh" salsa (not taco sauce) made with chopped tomatoes, onions, chilies, etc.

Prepared vegetarian burrito filling

Ingredients

Preparation Method

• Heat a large skillet over high heat. Add the oil and sauté the onion and bell pepper until soft.
• Stir in the sweet corn, beans, salsa and seasonings. Mix well and allow it to come to a simmer, then remove from heat.
• For the best taste, store the filling in the refrerator overnight before using. The mixture will keep in a tightly covered refrigerated container for at least a week.

Prepared vegetarian burritos (with cheese)

Serving Suggestion

Warm up some of the filling in a microwave. Using a non-stick skillet, heat up a soft flour tortilla. Spoon one or two tablespoons of the filling onto the tortilla. Add some cheese, lettuce, sour cream or whatever is your taste, and roll up the burrito.

Alternatively, you can add one or two tablespoons of the mix to rice as it’s cooking. It works best if you add it 5 to 8 minutes before the rice is done.

Among gourmets, Kampot pepper is becoming increasingly prized for its strong yet delicate aroma and taste. As with fine wine, it’s all about the climate and soil. Modern mass cultivation began in the 1870s, when the Sultan of Aceh burned his Indonesian plantations to keep them out of Dutch hands and moved production to Kampot. So, the people around these parts have generations of experience in raising pepper.

The tiny flowers of the pepper vine. These will be pepper berries in five to six months.

Any of the tour operators around Kampot or Kep can arrange a trip to a pepper plantation, where of course you can buy pepper in bulk at really good prices. You will also find Kampot pepper in the town’s market, in several shops and restaurant, or you can visit the FarmLink office in town. FarmLink operates as a farmers cooperative, selling Kampot pepper to the world with full traceability.

Onions on sale in the market.

Onions are among the most ancient of cultivated vegetables. No one is quite sure when or where they were first cultivated. They were mentioned in first dynasty Egyptian texts dating back to 3200 B.C. In later years, we know that bread, beer and onions were the important rations to the highly valued artisans who decorated the tombs in the Valley of the Kings.

Although Egypt was the first to record onions, many think that cultivation first began in ancient Iran and Pakistan. One of the reasons it’s hard to know for sure is that there are hundreds of varieties of wild onions spread throughout temperate climates all around the world.

A bushel of fresh galangal in the market.

In the fresh markets such as the Muang Mai wholesale area in Chiang Mai, the baskets of galangal stand out, due to their white roots which will often have the pinkish stalks of the plants still jutting straight up from the tuber. Most market vendors leave the stems on the root. Although the stems are pink where they emerge from the tuber, they transition to green where the stalk breaks through the earth into the sun. The texture of galangal is harder and more woody than ginger. In taste, it has a pungent spiciness that is quite unique. The taste can change, becoming more pungent as the root ages.

The name "galangal" is apparently an Arab corruption of the Chinese word for ginger. Arab traders introduced the spice to Europe around the ninth century. In Thai, galangal is called ka. Some English language recipe books also refer to it as "Laos".

According to contemporary research, galangal contains high concentrations of a powerful antioxidant flavonol dubbed galangin that is capable of modulating enzyme activities and suppressing the genotoxicity of chemicals. The research concluded that galangin is a promising candidate for chemo-prevention of abnormal growths.

Traditional medicine, both eastern and western, uses galangal to relieve gas, indigestion and stomach pain. Like ginger, it may be useful in treating seasickness. One recent study found it to be nearly as effective as nitroglycerin for certain types of heart problems.

Bunches of shallots on sale in the market.

You will see shallots in a variety of sizes, from small round bulbs the size and color of cherries, to larger bulbs that could even pass for small onions. The smaller ones are a bit more pungent and good for grinding into curry pastes, while the larger ones are easier to slice for salads and sauces.

Garlic, and some dried chilies.

I sometimes wonder if the abundant use of garlic is due to its wide availability, or if it’s availability is due to high demand. Garlic is the traditional second crop of northern farmers. Once the rice crop is harvested sometime in the cool season, around October to December, the farmers will typically plant a second crop. What is planted for the second crop traditionally depends mostly on how much water is still available for irrigation. Garlic requires a bit more water than other possible crops, but since it is such an essential ingredient as much as a quarter of the land around Chiang Mai was used to raise garlic as a second crop.

You almost never see fresh-picked garlic on sale in the markets, even the wholesale ones. Instead, the spice vendors will have great piles and baskets of garlic that has been partly dried on sale. The wholesale markets will often have great conical stacks of bunches of whole bulbs that have been bound or twisted together by the stalks. All stalls will have baskets full of separated cloves, usually in various sizes. The type most favored by Thais comes in very small cloves. This type has a very thin skin. Thai cooks will often simply crush the cloves with the flat blade of a cleaver and throw the whole thing into a stir-fry. It is certainly efficient, although it can be a bit of a surprise to western diners.

You will also see baskets full of very large cloves of garlic. It will come as no surprise that Thais call this "elephant garlic." Elephant garlic is almost never used in cooked dishes. Instead it is often used in salads, dips and as an accompaniment to meat snacks such as raw pork sausage or Chiang Mai sausage. Another type of garlic has small bulbs consisting of just a single clove. This type of ‘pearl’ garlic is mostly used for pickling, and that is the only form that you usually find it in the markets.

Pickled Pearl Garlic

Garlic is one of the oldest herbs in use. Its use was recorded in Babylonia as early as 3000 B.C. It was found in the tomb of Tutankhamen, while in Asia, it was mentioned in traditional Chinese medicine books starting around 500 A.D. Traditionally, garlic was used to treat colds and the flu, as well as chronic coughs such as bronchitis. It was also used for skin problems such as acne, and in Ayurveda medicine, garlic is considered an aphrodisiac. In addition to these traditional uses, modern medicine has found garlic useful in slowing arteriosclerosis, and reducing the risk of additional heart attacks in myocardial infarct patients.

Spicy Pork Salad

Larb is generally classified as a salad by western standards, mainly because it is almost always served at room temperature and with fresh vegetables like cabbage or long beans. This point makes it a good dish for a diner party, since it can be prepared in advance and simply set aside while you make other dishes that need to be served hot.

This version of larb is really the northern-eastern ("Isan") variation on the traditional recipe. It’s perhaps the most liked of all the regional variations, and is the most palpable to Western tastes. One of the key ingredients of Isan style larbs is roasted rice, which is used as a sort of binder. To make it, dry-roast uncooked rice in a pan until it begins to brown, then grind it in a mortar and pestle.

(4 – 6 Servings)

Ingredients

Preparation Method

• To make roasted rice, stir some uncooked rice in a hot dry frying pan until it begins to brown. It may puff up a little. Then grind the rice to a powder with a mortar and pestle or a food processor.
• Drizzle four tablespoons of the lime juice over the ground pork. Allow it to marinate for a few minutes. Drain the pork and brown it in a hot skillet.
• As soon as the pork is lightly browned, add the roasted rice, pepper, coriander, shallots and one or two tablespoons of lime juice.
• Once the pork is cooked through and the shallots are soft, remove the pan from the heat and allow to cool. Larb should be served at room temperature, or just slightly warm. Sprinkle the mint over the larb just before serving. Note: if the larb is too hot, it will turn the mint black.