Food, Wine and Travel ... With Recipes: TableConversation.com

A Class at the Blue Elephant

Cooking schools are a dime a dozen in Thailand, but there's a really good one at the Blue Elephant in Bangkok, judging by the one lesson I had.

How could you find a better teacher than Nooror Somany Steppe, founder, director and creative chef of the Blue Elephant restaurant group, which has grown to 12 branches extending from Europe through the Middle East to Asia?

Visiting the Bangkok location is like stepping into Asia's colonial past. The building has the same tropical, exotic feeling that permeates the Raffles in Singapore.

More than a century old, it opened as the Bombay Department Store, became the Japanese army command center during World War II and has now been totally restored.

Classes take place there daily. Students go to the market to learn about ingredients, watch how the dishes are prepared, then cook the day's menu themselves and sit down to eat it.

My class was a special one-dish demo for the group of Thai restaurant owners and chefs (at right) with whom I was traveling. 

We started with blue mai tais from the Blue Bar (above). Yes, there's lots of blue at the Blue Elephant. It's the royal Thai color.

Then we watched Steppe make tom som pla salmon, a sweet, sour, slightly spicy salmon soup. It looked easy, and I had no trouble reproducing it at home.

Dinner after class showed off the Blue Elephant's royal Thai cuisine. The food was exquisite, because that is what makes it royal--beautiful presentation combined with beautiful taste.

Some dishes were classic Thai. Others were updated, like Steppe's  creamy tom yum goong (hot and sour shrimp soup), which she modeled on a French bisque and served in a shot glass. 

Beside it, another shot glass held a single betel leaf wrapped around a mixture of white and pink pomelo, dry shrimp, green mango and pickled lettuce, topped with coconut sauce.

Then on to starters such as steamed flower-shaped dumplings and golden taro dumplings stuffed with shrimp and chicken. Then came  chicken-coconut soup served in a young coconut.

Main dishes included prawns in sweet tamarind sauce and Northeastern style grilled beef with a sauce of dried chiles, accompanied by sticky rice. The rice had been formed into slender rolls and fried. Golden brown, chewy and crisp, they were irresistible.

A snow fish souffle was lightly seasoned with basil and kaffir lime leaves. Rather than a western style souffle in a little casserole, the delicate Thai souffle had been spooned into a length of bamboo and topped with coconut cream and red chile strands.

There was much more, ending with a trio of desserts that included pandan-flavored coconut ice cream, a steamed mung bean cake and foi thong, or golden egg threads cooked in syrup. 

Thai wines aren't yet up to western standards, but those we drank at the Blue Elephant were quite good. They are made for the restaurant at Siam Winery in the Chao Phraya delta, near the Gulf of Siam.

The red is made from a varietal called Pokdum, which is a cross between Muscat Bailey and Golden Queen. The white is a Malaga Blanc, and the rose blends Malaga Blanc and Pokdum.

I wish I had had one of those wines to drink with the tom som pla salmon (photo at right) that I made at home. 

The Blue Elephant Cooking School and Restaurant, 233 S. Sathorn Road, Yannawa, Bangkok, Thailand 10120. Tel: (66-2) 673-9353.  

TOM SOM PLA SALMON
From the Blue Elephant, Bangkok

1 cup salmon in 2/3-inch chunks
1/4 teaspoon Thai shrimp paste (kapi)
1 teaspoon cilantro stems, including any roots that may be attached
4 small shallots
1/4 teaspoon black peppercorns
1 1/2 cups fish or chicken stock
1 tablespoon finely slivered gingerroot
2 tablespoons fish sauce
5 teaspoons tamarind liquid (tamarind paste diluted with water)
2 teaspoons Thai palm sugar (or light brown sugar)
1 green onion, cut into 1-inch lengths, including some of the green top
1/4 cup cilantro leaves

Prepare the salmon and set it aside. 

Wrap the shrimp paste in a small piece of foil, place in a small skillet and roast over high heat just until fragrant (this will reduce the strong aroma). If you cannot obtain shrimp paste, leave it out, but it does add an interesting nuance.  

Place the cilantro stems in a heavy mortar and pound until crushed. Add 2 small shallots and pound until pulverized. Add the peppercorns and shrimp paste and pound to a paste. Scrape out of the mortar and set aside. There will be about 1 tablespoon paste.

Place the stock in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Crush the remaining 2 shallots and add to the stock along with the pounded paste, gingerroot, fish sauce, tamarind liquid and palm sugar. Bring to a boil and simmer 1 minute. 

Add the salmon and bring to a boil. Do not stir after the salmon is added. Simmer 1 minute, until fully cooked. Add the green onion and remove from heat.

Pour the soup into a heated bowl and garnish with cilantro leaves.

Makes 1 large serving or 2 first-course servings. 

 

Try Tuna Salad, Thai Style

Now that all the glorious holiday food is gone, it's time to cut back and eat tuna salad.

This is not punishment but a good thing, because you'll really want to eat the one you see in the photo. It's a Thai salad, seasoned with lime juice, fish sauce and cilantro. 

The recipe is from "Thai Cooking in a Sufi's Kitchen" by Alima Ravadi Quinn of the Emerald of Siam Thai restaurant in Richland, Washington.

Alima gave me a copy when we were touring Thailand together last fall.  She's put in plenty of easy, practical recipes, photographs of each dish and bits of inspiration from her Sufi philosophy.

Printed in Thailand and available at shops such as Asia Books in Bangkok, her book can be ordered online. People without much experience in Asian cooking will find it easy to work with. Most of the recipes don't require anything more obscure than basic curry pastes, fish sauce, coconut milk and lemon grass.  And some require no special ingredients.

The book is $17.95 plus $4.50 for shipping and handling. For information on how to order, go to http://www.sufichef.com.

THAI TUNA SALAD
From "Thai Cooking in a Sufi's Kitchen"

2 (6.5-ounce) cans solid white tuna, packed in water, or 1 (12-ounce) can
4 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 1/2 tablespoons fish sauce
1 small onion, sliced
1/4 cup chopped green onion
1/4 cup cilantro, chopped, optional
1/2 teaspoon ground hot chile
1/4 teaspon black pepper

Drain the tuna well. Place it in a bowl and separate it into flakes. Add the lime juice, fish sauce, onion, green onion, cilantro, ground chile and black pepper and mix well.

Serve on lettuce or with hot steamed rice or rice crackers.

Makes 4 servings. 

 

A Place Where Cats Eat Too

If you love cats, there is one restaurant in Bangkok where you must eat. It is P Kitchen on Soi 18, which branches off Sukhumvit near the Asok exit from the sky train (BTS).

There is actually a tiny 4 after the P, so I suppose the correct name is P.4 Kitchen, but I never heard anybody call it that.

P.8 might be a better name, because that is how many cats I have counted while eating there. The cats are not in the restaurant, which is open-air (I felt a few sprinkles of rain one night), but next door.

A fence comes right up to the tables, and this is where they assemble. As you eat, they stare at you, and a cat who wants food knows how to exude devasating appeal. If you're heartless, you'll ignore them. If not, you'll toss a few bites over the fence.

The reason they are so determined is that the food at P Kitchen is very good. A small, family-run place, it turns out dishes that would cost a lot more, and perhaps not be as well prepared, at more pretentious places.

Western tourists eat there because they stay in the neighbohood, as I did, but the food has not been altered to please them.

One of the best dishes of my entire trip was P Kitchen's yam pak boong grob, or crispy morning glory with minced pork and shrimp.

Pak boong and morning glory are names for a long-stemmed green that crosses cultures in Asia. In this dish, it is lightly coated with lacy batter, like tempura, and fried until the batter becomes crisp. And it stays crisp, no matter how long it takes you to eat.

The minced pork and a few whole shrimp are in a bowl of spicy sweet sauce for dipping.

With this, I drank the fresh juice from a young coconut, then scraped out the tender flesh for dessert. The price for both was a little over $3.

Another time I had asparagus stir-fried with shrimp. Cut into short lengths, this Thai asparagus was slim and crunchy, nothing like the fatter spears in California markets. I also ordered crispy catfish salad.

Can you imagine such a fresh and interesting seafood dinner for $7? And this included fresh limeade (nam manao) and rice.

I've attempted to copy another P Kitchen dish that I liked very much, pork in lemon (actually lime) sauce with garlic and chile.

The pork was served like a salad over raw cabbage with lettuce underneath. Thais usually add a dash of sugar to such dishes, but this was not sweet, just fragrant with fresh lime juice balanced with fish sauce.

I stir-fried the pork, but I suspect the P Kitchen cook might have boiled it and then added the seasonings. That's what I'll try next time.  

P.4 Kitchen, 11/3 Sukhumvit Soi 18, Bangkok, Thailand 10110. Tel: 02-6634950. Open 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. Closed Sunday.

PORK WITH LIME, GARLIC AND CHILE
Adapted from P.4 Kitchen, Bangkok

1 pound lean pork
1/2 small head cabbage
2 leaves lettuce
5 tablespoons lime juice
3 tablespoons fish sauce
2 teaspoons sugar
2 tablespoons oil
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tablespoon thinly slivered fresh red chile or 1 serrano chile, thinly sliced
White pepper
Mint sprigs

Cut the pork in very thin strips (less than 1/8-inch-thick) that are 1 1/2 to 2 inches long.  This is easy to do if the pork is partially frozen. Set aside.

Cut the cabbage in half lengthwise and remove the core. Now cut crosswise in 1/2-inch slices. Separate the cabbage layers. Line a serving plate with the lettuce leaves, then top with the cabbage.

Combine the lime juice, fish sauce and sugar in a small bowl and stir to dissolve the sugar.

Heat a wok over high heat. Add the oil and heat until very hot. Add the garlic, then immediately add the pork and stir-fry until cooked through and no pink color remains, about 5 minutes depending upon the heat and thickness of the meat.

Stir in the red chile, then add the lime juice mixture. Cook and stir about 1 minute, until the meat absorbs the flavors. Taste, check the seasoning and add more lime juice and/or fish sauce if needed. The taste should be bright with lime and not overly salty.

Sprinkle lightly with white pepper and turn out onto the cabbage. Garnish with mint sprigs.

Makes 4 servings.

 

The Answer to a Guessing Game

A few weeks ago, I posted a Thai guessing game. The idea was to guess the identity of a Bangkok restaurant's variation on one of the most popular Thai dishes in the United States.

Only one person got it right (congratulations, Anjali).  It was rad na. Here, that means soft wide rice noodles topped with Chinese broccoli and a thick, Chinese style gravy. 

At Patara, the ingredients are the same, but the preparation is radically different. There, sheets of fresh rice noodles are cut into squares, deep-fried and stacked, looking like crisp layers of filo pastry. Thin strips of beef and chunks of gai lan in a delicate sauce are spooned over the top.

Like this surprising rad na, Patara's food raises Thai cooking to a level that I hadn't seen before--traditional, yet imaginative and modern. 

Some of the dishes came from the first Patara, which opened in London in 1990. The Bangkok restaurant is in lively Thong Lor, far up a lane that branches off Sukhumvit 55.

The building is a refurbished Thai house. Inside, the look is contemporary but accented with antiques and Thai touches such as the Thai style day bed in the bar.

That bar produced the best cocktail that I had in Bangkok, the Lychee Pirinha, a blend of lychees, lime juice and rum. The long list of bar specialties includes a green mango margarita and a Bangkok martini infused with lemon grass and kaffir lime.

The Lychee Pirinha came from London, as did skewered lamb with panang curry sauce. That dish was introduced  to Bangkok with trepidation, because lamb isn't favored in Thailand. It turned out to be a hit, nonetheless. The taste brings to mind India, but the curry sauce is Thai. 

Stir-fried lettuce, new on the menu when I was there, was as simple and distinctive as the rad na. Placing a cover on the  intensely hot wok held in smoke that gave an edgy taste to the lettuce. 

Tiny appetizer dumplings were tinted with natural colors. Pork satay came wrapped in betel leaves. And soft shelled crab topped a green mango salad.

Big river prawns that looked more like small lobsters were speckled with green peppercorns and fried garlic, a different  interpretation of garlic pepper shrimp from others I saw in Bangkok, and very different from anything I've had at home.

And I had a rare chance to taste Thai primrose blossoms in a sweet and spicy salad. This dish is seasonal, and very few restaurants serve it, said Vitoon Sila-On of S&P, the restaurant group that includes Patara.

Founded by his mother, Patara Sila-On, S&P has grown to 100 or more restaurants and 200 bakery shops. Patara is expanding too. The latest branch opened recently in Beijing.

S&P food is more traditional than Patara's. In an S&P branch that looks out on the Chao Phrya river, I had very good green curry with beef, fried fish in sweet and sour mango sauce, garlic pepper spareribs, Chinese broccoli with salted fish and sticky rice with durian.

Patara is more upscale and innovative, as in dessert the night that I was there--young coconut ice cream with such typical Thai toppings as millet, lychees, jelly cubes and beans. In the midst of these sat a chocolate square with the restaurant name.

Only a small lighted sign on Sukhumvit 55 indicates the lane that leads to Patara.  My cab driver made several turns before he found it. To solve this problem, you can take the sky train to the Thong Lor exit, and the restaurant will send a tuk-tuk to pick you up.  

Patara Fine Thai Cuisine, 375 Soi Thong Lor 19, off Sukhumvit 55, Bangkok, Thailand. Tel:  0-2185-2960-1. Open for lunch and dinner daily.

Both S&P and Patara have published cookbooks. Patara's "In the Mood for Thai" explains how to make such dishes as the lamb with panang curry and the primrose salad and has an excellent section on Thai ingredients.  

One of the simpler recipes, easy for western cooks, is salmon steamed with black bean topping. 

PLA SALMON NUNG TAO SEE
Salmon in Black Bean and Fresh Ginger Crust
From Patara restaurant's cookbook, "In the Mood for Thai"

1 tablespoon Chinese black beans
1/2 cup warm water
3 tablespoons oil
1 1/2 tablespoons finely chopped ginger
1 tablespoon finely chopped garlic
1 tablespoon finely chopped small hot chiles, or to taste
3 tablepoons vegetable or chicken stock
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 pound salmon steaks, lightly dusted with flour
Parsley sprigs and fine strips of red chile for garnish

Soak the beans in 1/2 cup warm water for 10 minutes. Squeeze out and reserve the water, then chop the beans.

Heat the oil in a wok. Add the ginger and garlic and cook until fragrant. Add the chopped beans, chiles and the stock. Continue to stir-fry.

Stir in the sugar, pepper and 2 tablespoons of the bean soaking liquid. Cook until reduced and thick.

Place the salmon on a heatproof plate lightly coated with oil. Spoon the black bean sauce over the salmon and coat thoroughly.

Place on a rack in a steamer over boiling water. Cover and cook 7 minutes, or until the salmon is cooked through.

Remove the salmon from the steamer. Divide into 2 portions and place each on a heated  plate. Garnish each with a parsley sprig and red chile strips.

Makes 2 servings.

 

Good Dish Bad Dish Good Wine

The other day, I attempted to make gaeng hung lay for the first time, and it didn't turn out well.

This Burmese-influenced curry from northern Thailand tastes very different from the better known red and green Thai curries.

Depending upon the recipe, spices such as cardamom, star anise, cinnamon, cloves, mace and turmeric are involved.

I've read that one can replace hung lay curry paste with red curry paste, which is easy to get in Los Angeles. And a spice seller at Or Tor Kor, the big market near the Chatuchak weekend market in Bangkok, pulled out yellow curry paste when I asked for hung lay seasonings.  In either case, the flavor would not be the same.

Fortunately, I didn't have to substitute, because I had the real thing--hung lay spices and curry paste from Chiang Mai. And I followed a Chiang Mai recipe.

The curry didn't fail. It just didn't taste right. It was so spicy-hot that it annihilated the subtle spice flavors that make this dish interesting.  

This was not nice, because I was making the curry for a birthday dinner--mine. The guests courageously ate it, diluting the intensity with steamed rice.

The rest of the dinner was fine. Green beans with red curry paste were more sweet than hot. A crisp, sweet and spicy Thai cucumber relish was a great success.

And the wine was perfect. It was Lucien Albrecht Cremant d'Alsace Brut Rose, a sparkling rose made from Pinot Noir grapes. This convinced me that sparkling wines are ideal with Thai food.

Here is the recipe for the relish. Serve it the day you make it, because it doesn't keep well. The cucumber becomes mushy if refrigerated overnight.

THAI SWEET AND SOUR RELISH

3 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 small serrano chile, thinly sliced
1/2 cucumber
2 small shallots
8 cherry tomatoes, quartered
1 tablespoon chopped cilantro

Combine the vinegar, sugar, fish sauce and the chile and stir to blend.

Peel the cucumber and cut it in quarters lengthwise, then crosswise in 1/8-inch-thick slices.

Cut the shallots in half lengthwise, then crosswise in thin slices.

Combine the cucumber, shallots, tomatoes and cilantro in a bowl. Add the dressing and stir. Cover and marinate at room temperature  2 hours. Stir before serving.

Makes 1 1/2 cups, about 4 servings. 

Easy, Quick: Thai Rice Soup

Rice soup for breakfast is an Asian thing.

My hotel in Bangkok offered it as one of two Thai options. (The other was an omelet accompanied by a sweet, spicy dipping sauce.)

I liked it so well that I came up with my own version--for dinner, not for breakfast.

It's so easy, you can put it together in 15 minutes, as long as you have cooked rice on hand. And if you have to cook the rice, it doesn't take much longer.

You can dress up rice soup with a variety of garnishes, but my hotel kept it simple, and so do I. What it has to have is a generous dash of pepper, not a pinch. This aromatic spiciness makes it interesting.

My hotel added diced pork.  I put in chicken, and it would be delicious with shrimp or fish.

The recipe makes one big bowl. For me, that's a complete meal, with a simple plate of sliced cucumber and cherry tomatoes on the side.  But you can divide it into two servings, then eat it with something more substantial--like Thai takeout.

THAI RICE SOUP
Khao Tom

3 tablespoons jasmine rice
2 1/2 cups water
1 tablespoon oil
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 cup ground chicken
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 slice gingerroot, cut in half
Salt, if needed
1 green onion, white part and some of the top, chopped
A few cilantro leaves, chopped

Combine the rice and 1 cup water in a small saucepan. Cover and cook until the water is absorbed and the rice is tender. Set aside.

Heat a wok over medium high heat. Add the oil and heat.  Add the garlic and cook until golden, then add the chicken and cook and stir until no longer pink.

Add the pepper, fish sauce, ginger and 1 1/2 cups water. Bring to a boil. Add the cooked rice and bring to a boil again. Taste and add salt if needed.

Turn into 1 large or 2 medium soup bowls, removing the ginger if desired. Top each serving with green onions and cilantro.

Makes 1 large or 2 medium servings.