Stir fry recipe-Stir fried Chicken with cashew nuts and chilli

Another stir fry recipe and one of the famous Thai foods. Actually stir-fried chicken fried with cashew nuts and chilli is not authentic Thai food. We adopt this dish from Chinese cuisine, but it seems that many people have confuse and misunderstood that this stir fry recipe is Thai. I think the reason is that this dish is easy to cook and many Thai restaurants abroad serve it. Anyway, if you love this dish, here is an easy recipe for you to cook.

Stir-fried chicken with cashew nuts and chilli

1 cup Chicken breast, slice
2 tbs. Sugar
1 tbs. All purpose flour
1/2 tbs. Soy sauce
1/2 tbs. Cashew nuts
5-6 Dried chilli
3 cloves Garlic, crush
1/4 cup Oil
2 ts. Shaohsing wine (optional)

1. Marinate chicken breast with sugar, soy sauce and all purpose flour. You can add some Shaohsing wine if you have.
2. Put oil in the wok. Fried the cashew nuts with low heat until cooked. Take them out.
3. Sliced dried chilli 1 cm. (about 1/4 inch.) and fried for 1-2 minutes. Take them out.
4. Fried crush garlic for about 15 seconds. Add marinated chicken and fried until 90 percent cooked. Add fried dried chilli and fried cashew nuts. Cook until the chicken is done. 

You can also add some sliced spring onion, mushrooms or sliced bell pepper. This dish, like most stir-fried recipes, should not leave until cold. You should eat them while they are still hot. If you leave it for too long, the cashew nuts will not be crispy. I would suggest you to prepare all the ingredients and just cook about 15-30 minutes before serve. Enjoy!

Photo: 
- http://nkfood.igetweb.com

Eggs with Thai tamarind sauce

Eggs with Thai tamarind sauce is a Thai dish that is not spicy. In fact, not all Thai food are spicy. Some of them may be moderate hot (for my tounge) as Panang. This eggs with Thai tamarind sauce is not spicy at all. It is sweet, easy for kids to eat.

Eggs with Thai tamarind sauce

6 Eggs

2 cloves, Garlic, sliced

5 tbs. Oil

6 Shallot, sliced

1 tbs. Palm sugar

1 ts. Tamarind paste

4 tbs. Fish sauce

1/4 cup Coriander

1/4 cup Water

1. Boil the eggs for 4-5 minutes (hard-boiled eggs) and peel.
2. Put 3 tablespoons of oil into a pot or a wok. Wwait until the oil is hot. Fry the eggs for 2-3 minutes.
3. Put another 2 tablespoons of oil into a wok. Fried all the sliced shallot. Pick them up but leave the ooil in a wok. Fried the garlic until it turn yellow (just a few second). Pick them up but still leave the oil in a wok.
4. Making Thai tamarind sauce by lower the temperature. Add fish sauce, tamarind pastes, plam sugar, and 1/4 cup of water. Stir until all the ingerdients throughly mix together.
5. Half cut the eggs. Top with fried shallot and fried garlic. Pour Thai tamarind sauce on the top. Decorate with coriander.

This sweet and sour taste of the dish can get along with any ingredient that is greasy. Think about sweet and sour pork in Chinese cuisine! The sour tastes would reduce the grease of other ingredients. The sweetness is flavor a dish cooked with oil like frying. (Again, think of donut.)

The reason we separately fry shallot and garlic is because shallot hold more water, hence it would take longer time to be cooked than garlic. 

The recipe for eggs with Thai tamarind sauce use tamarind paste. It is an ingredient using in many Thai dishes. If you love cooking Thai food you should find one in your kitchen. 

Photo:
- http://g41act.multiply.com/recipes/item/50/50 

Where to buy tamarind pastes –Thai tamarind concentrate

Tamarind paste (or in Thai-Makham Peak) is one of the most important and versatile ingredients in Thai cuisine. Thais use tamarind paste in many recipes. For example eggs with tamarind sauce, shrimp with tamarind sauce, pad Thai, pork rib with tamarind sauce etc. We also use it for dipping recipes or curry pastes. Some add tamarind paste in Massaman curry to make the flavor more umami. We use Tamarind paste to make tamarind juice, a best beverage in my opinion in any hot summer days. Ancient Thai used it to polish silver utensils or to wash slime of squid. It also a medicinal fruit employed by many Asian traditional herbalists as a laxative. Some Thai girls even use this food ingredient as a mixture for making scrub and face mask! You can easily see how useful tamarind paste in Thai culture.

Thai tamarind concentrate

Since tamarind is a seasonal fruit, it is hard to find in the out of season. Even you have found one the price would be so high, hence Thai usually buy or make it in a paste form to keep it at the time of year when tamarind is not available.     

Thai people buy tamarind pastes from their local market. Some of them make it themselves. However, if you live abroad where tamarind is hard to find, I would suggest you to use Thai tamarind concentrate. I used it before when I was abroad. Thai tamarind concentrate contains no preservatives or artificial flavor. The color is also the natural color of tamarind paste. It’s cheap and easy to use. The taste is really good. Real one.

Some may ask what the difference between tamarind pastes and tamarind concentrate. These two products are almost the same and interchangeable except that tamarind paste usually has light brown color while the tamarind concentrate usually has dark brown.

The flavor of tamarind paste is too unique that you may find some substitute ingredients but, trust me, nothing can truly sub for it. It would not be real taste. So I would suggest you to buy one for your kitchen. Where to buy tamarind pastes or tamarind concentrate? Any Asian store near your house or buy it from Amazon.com via the link below. On orders more than 25 dollars they also offer you free super saver shipping! The deliver is, according to one customer review, faster than expect. They have only one size but since tamarind paste can keep in a refrigerator for months, this is not a problem. You just put some salt (may be a bag of salt to avoid contamination) over the paste to prevent the changing of tamarind paste color.

PS. You may wonder how Thai woman use tamarind paste as a face mask. This is the in recipe I got. I have to tell you that I have never use it, but if you interest, you can try it yourself. Just mix tamarind paste with 3-4 tbs. of milk and 1tbs. of honey. Mask you face for only 5-10 minutes and wash out.

Another chicken satay peanut sauce recipe

I have post a peanut sauce using peanut butter as an ingredient. This is another easy chicken satay peanut sauce recipe that use curry pastes from Masaman curry and red curry.



Chicken satay peanut sauce

 1/4 cup Masaman curry paste

1/4 cup Red curry paste

1/2 cup Peanut, roasted and grounded

1 cup Coconut milk

2 tbs. Fish sauce

2 tbs. Palm sugar

1. Boil coconut milk until it has some oil on the surface.
2. Fried Masaman curry paste and red curry paste with coconut milk
3. Add roasted and grounded peanut
4. Flavor with fish sauce and palm sugar

As I said in the previous peanut sauce post, you can use this sauce as a dipping, sandwich spread, or topping. If the taste of this chicken satay penut saucde recipe is too spicy for you, just lower the quantity of the curry pastes. Enjoy!

Photo:
- http://www.zabzaa.com/

Recipe for cucumbers and onions in vinegar

This is the recipe for cucumbers and onions in vinegar or what Thai call "Ajad". It's a side dish with many Islamic dishes Thai cuisine adopted. Satay, Indian curry (Kang Kari) etc.

 

Cucumbers and onions in vinegar

10 Cucumbers, sliced

5-6 Shallots, sliced

5 Goat chili, sliced

½ cup Vinegar

½ cup Water

1/3 cup Sugar

1 tbs. Salt

1. Just boil vinegar with sugar and salt
2. Wait until the temperature cool down. Add cucumbers, shallots, and goat chili

Easy, eh? The word "Ajad" believe to be derived from "Ajar" in Java-Malay language. It's a common side dish eat by many Asian countries that adopted Islamic culture ie. India, Indonesia, Malasia, but the ingredients are a little bit different. Beside Islamic dishes, this recipe for cucumbers and onions in vinegar can go together with authentic Thai food like fish pancake (Tod Man) 

Photo:

- http://makerfood.blogspot.com/2010/08/1.html

Easy Thai peanut sauce recipe

Here is an easy Thai peanut sauce recipe. This recipe is not an authentic Thai but is the adapt version by using a common ingredient in many western house, peanut butter.



Thai peanut sauce

1 tbs. Peanut oil

8 Shallots, chopped

8 cloves Garlic, chopped

1 tbs. Ginger, chopped

4 Red goat chili, chopped

1 cup Peanut butter

400 ml. Coconut milk

1 tbs. Soy sauce

4 tbs. Palm sugar

3 tbs. Fish sauce

1 Kaffir leaf

4 tbs. Lime juice

1. Fried shallot, ginger, garlic, and goat chili with peanut oil for 5 minutes.
2. Lower the temperature and add all the left ingredients and cook for another 10 minutes.
3. Bring the kaffir leaf out.

That’s it! This easy Thai peanut sauce recipe is not so spicy but kid of sweet in the taste. May be your kid would love this dipping.

When I was a child and my mom bought satay from any street food vendor, the sellers usually sell satay with bread. Bread could get along with this sauce very well! You can use this sauce as a sandwich spread for a quick meal inthe morning. With additional decoration, this sauce can also be use as a topping for canape.

I have another version of an easy Thai peanut sauce recipe that use curry pastes as ingredients. I will post it in the early upcoming month.

Photo:

- http://topicstock.pantip.com/food/topicstock/2012/01/D11621030/D11621030.html