Mackerel With Kapi Sauce ( Nam Prik Kapi & Pa Tu Tod )

Mackerel is a very underrated fish, it's cheap, its full of useful fish oils and has plenty of flavour. This is one of the ways we eat it, with a Kapi sauce made from shrimp paste.

Ingredients
300 gms Mackerel Fish
1 Teaspoon Salt
1 Tablespoon Thai Shrimp Paste
5 Bird Chillies
2 Garlic Cloves
1 Teaspoon Dried Shrimp
5 Small Green Aubergines
1 Tablespoons Lemon Juice
3 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
2 Tablespoons Water
2 Tablespoon Brown Sugar
A Large Thai Mortar
Assorted Vegetables for Steaming

Preparation
1. Clean and chop the mackerel into halves, sprinkle with salt then grill until cooked.
2. Make the Kapi sauce by pounding chillies with garlic and shrimp paste. Then add the dried shrimp, small green aubergine, lemon juice, fish sauce, brown sugar, and water and pound a few times more, just to mix.
3. Steam the vegetables.
4. This dish is normally served with Thai Rice, steamed vegetables, the mackerel and the kapi sauce. When you eat it, you take some of the mackerel and sauce, together with some vegetables onto your rice plate and add a spoonful of the sauce.

Chicken & Seaweed Parcels ( Miang Sa Rai Gay Kome )

Christmas is coming, although we don't celebrate it as much as we celebrate the Thai new year. Everyone in the west is wrapping parcels and in the Appon household we're wrapping chicken and seaweed parcels instead.
These parcels are wrapped in rice paper with a filling of chicken, onion and seaweed. You can see one cut open in the front of the photograph. Either serve them with the sauce poured over the top, or use the sauce as a dip for the parcels.

Ingredients
200 gms Chicken Breast
600 ml Water
1 Tablespoon Salt
1 Teaspoons White Pepper
4 Medium Onions
100 ml Oil
Seawead Sheets
Rice Paper

Ingredients for Sauce
2 Tablespoons Chopped or Crushed Peanuts
2 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
1 Teaspoon Salt
4 Tablespoons Palm Sugar
100 ml Water
1 Tablespoons Dried Flaked Chillies
1 Tablespoon Chopped Coriander Leaves
1 Tablespoon Lemon Juice

Preparation
1. First the sauce: Put 100ml of water into a small saucepan, add the palm sugar and bring to the boil.
2. Add fish sauce, salt, flaked chillies and boil for 1 minute.
3. Remove from the heat and add the chopped peanuts, coriander and lemon juice and leave the sauce to cool.
4. Next we will cook the chicken, put a saucepan of water on to boil. Add the salt and pepper.
5. Add the chicken breast and boil for 10 minutes, until it is cooked. Dice the chicken finely.
6. Put oil in a frying pan, slice the onions finely and fry them until golden brown.
7. Cut the seaweed sheets into thin short strips.
8. Soak the rice paper in warm water until it is soft. This takes only a few minutes. When you add the rice paper into the water, drop it in sheet by sheet, to keep the sheets separated. Don't just throw the whole packet in, in one go!
9. Take a sheet of the softened rice paper, put a little chicken, a little onion and a little seaweed and place them in the centre of the rice paper. Fold over the edges to wrap up the filling.
10. Serve the parcels with green salad vegetables, and the sauce.

Barbecued Honey Chicken ( Gay Yang Nam Piuk )

A classic honey glazed chicken recipe, but eaten the way we eat it in Thailand. With the burnt barbecued flavour coming from the soya sauces balancing the sweetness of the honey.

Ingredients
500 gms Chicken Legs
2 Tablespoons Honey
3 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
1 Tablespoon Dark Soy Sauce
3 Garlic Cloves
1/2 Teaspoon White Pepper
2 Tablespoons Oil

Preparation
1. Clean and score the meat with three lines.
2. Chop the garlic and put into the chicken, add all the other ingredients together and marinade for 30 minutes.
3. Grill until cooked.

Chicken Feet & Spicy Noodles ( Kao Noom Jean Nam Ya Tin Gay )

Yum chicken feet. In Thailand we make efficient use of all of the chicken, including the feet! Provided you're not put off by the fact they're chicken feet, they quite crunchy and add an interesting texture to the curried noodles. To us they're a treat! Typical of the Isan region of Thailand, they are eaten with masses of fresh green salad vegetables.

Ingredients
500 gms Rice Noodle
400 gms Chicken Feet
500 gms Soft Meat Flat Fish
20 gms Dried Red Chillies
20 gms Red Onion
20 gms Garlic
20 gms Kasay
20 gms Lemon Grass
10 Kaffir Leaves
50 gms Chopped Spring Onion
3 Tablespoons Old Fish Sauce
1 Tablespoon Salt
3 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
1/2 Teaspoon Sugar
2 Litres Water

Preparation
1. Boil the water, add the old fish sauce, fish sauce, salt, sugar, dried chillies, red onion, garlic, lemon grass, kasay and kaffir leaves and continue to boil.
2. Clean the chicken feet carefully, clean the fish too, remembering to gut it. Add to the boiling pan and simmer for 1 hour.
3. Remove the chicken feet and fish from the pan and set aside.
4. Strain the liquid from the pot into another pan. Take the chillies, kaffirs leaves etc. you strained out into a Thai mortar and pound them to a pulp.
5. Add the pulped seasonings back into the strained sauce-pan.
6. Remove the meat from the cooked fish, pound that too and add that to the sauce pan. Be careful to remove all the fish bones.
7. Finally put the chicken feet back into the pan and cook for a further 20 minutes.
8. In a separate pan of boiling water, cook the noodles for 3 minutes, rinse with cold water.
9. Serve some of the noodles, together with some chicken feet and sauce.

Spicy Tumeric Chicken ( Gay Kor Ka Mean )

The chicken in this dish is boiled not fried, the flavour comes from the seasonings. So this is a healthy, low fat way to eat chicken.

Ingredients
50 gms Chicken Breast
2 Tablespoons Salt
1/2 Teaspoon White Pepper
Water to Boil
40 gms Chopped Pickled Bamboo
10 gms Mints Leaves
1 Teaspoon Lemon Juice
1 Tablespoon Fish Sauce
1 Tablespoon Toasted Rice (Pounded or Chopped)
1 Tablespoon Dried Flaked Chillies
1 Teaspoon Ground Tumeric

Preparation
1. Boil the water, add the salt and white pepper.
2. When the water is boiling, add the chicken breasts and simmer for 20 minutes.
3. Remove the chicken and shred it into fine strands.
4. Add the chopped pickled bamboo, lemon juice, fish sauce, toasted rice, flaked chilli, mint leaves and tumeric in and mix it.
5. Heat over a low heat for 1 minute.

Chicken Feet in Red Sauce ( Ka Gay Num Dang )

Before you skip this recipe, you can use pork thigh instead of chicken feet if you really can't cope with chicken or duck feet. But they really add a firm crunchy texture.

Ingredients
150 gms Chicken Feet
350 ml Water
2 Tablspoons Salt
1 Teaspoon White Pepper
100 gms Green Chinese Cabbage

Ingredients for Red Sauce
2 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
2 Tablespoons Oyster Sauce
2 Tablespoons Red Wine
2 Tablespoons Chilli Sauce
2 Tablespoons Ketchup
1 Tablespoon Dark Soy Sauce
1 Tablespoon Sugar
1 Teaspoon Salt
2 Tablespoons Oil
4 Garlic Cloves

Preparation
1. Into a saucepan, put the water, salt and white pepper and bring to the boil.
2. Add the chicken feet, boil for 30 minutes then remove from the water, keeping the water in the pan.
3. Clean the chinese cabbage and soak in the hot water the chicken feet were cooked in for 2 minutes (to soften and partly cook them). Remove and place on a plate.
4. Remove the bones of the chicken feet so that only the meat and skin remain.
5. To make the red sauce, put oil into a frying pan, chop the garlic and fry for 20 seconds to release the smell.
6. Add all the other red-sauce ingredients, and stir over the heat for 1 minute.
7. To serve, pour the red sauce over the chicken feet and vegetables.

Grilled Chicken in Dark Sauce ( Gay Yng Sauce Dum )

This chicken has a strong almost burnt flavour from the dark sauce, serve with rice and salad vegetables and you have a wonderful dish. After yesterdays complex 3 layer sweet, I thought this simple dish would make a pleasant change.

Ingredients
200 gms Chicken Legs or Wings
2 Tablespoons Dark Soy Sauce
2 Tablespoons Oyster Sauce
2 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
2 Teaspoons Salt
2 Teaspoons Sugar
1 Teaspoon White Pepper
1 Teaspoon Black Pepper

Preparation
1. Clean and chop the chicken, mix with all the ingredients and marinade it for 1-2 hours.
2. Grill under a medium grill until the chicken is cooked, occasionally basting the chicken with the dark sauce. (Allow 30-40 minutes depending on the size of the chicken pieces to cook).

Boiled Chicken in Spicy Sauce ( Guy Op Sea Eaiw )

Saying this chicken is boiled is not the full story, it is first pan fried to get some flavour from the browning, then simmered slowly in a stock, and finally served up with a delicions spicy dark sauce. It's healthy chicken but with an unhealthy taste!

Ingredients
500 gms Chicken Breast with Skin
1-2 Coriander Root
2-3 Garlic Cloves
1/2 Teaspoon Peppercorns
3 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
2 Tablespoons Butter
500 ml Water
1 Chicken Stock Cube

Preparation
1. Clean the chicken breast and add the light soy sauce.
2. Into a mortar, mix the garlic, coriander root, peppercorns and pound until ground up. Add this to the chicken, mix it well together so that the chicken is covered and leave to marinade for 30 minutes.
3. Put the butter into a pan, fry the chicken in this starting skin side down until the skin is browned, then turn it over and brown the other side. The aim is to just add some flavour, not to cook the chicken.
4. Place the chicken, water and stock cube in a saucepan, bring to the boil, then turn the heat down to simmer. Simmer until the water has reduced by half.
5. During the last 10 minutes of cooking you can use this stock to cook side vegetables like baby corn, carrots or mushrooms if you are serving these too.
6. Remove the chicken, slice, place in a serving bowl with some of the stock and the following sauce.

Ingredients for Sauce
5 Chillies
1 Garlic Clove
1 Teaspoon Sugar
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
1 Tablespoon Dark Soy Sauce

Preparation
1. Mix chillies, garlic, sugar and salt in a mortar and pound it until the mixture is ground up, then add the dark soy sauce.
2. You can spoon this sauce over the chicken, as I've done for the photograph, or if some of your guests don't like spicy chilli, you can serve it as a side sauce

Gloopy Chicken Stew ( Koa Lurng Op Gai )

This is a thick gloopy chicken stew, that's very accessible to western tastes, by that I mean it's not spicy. This is a good starter dish if you're new to Thai cuisine.

Ingredients
200 gms Chicken Legs, Breast
70 gms Pork Bone
40 gms Chopped Carrot
50 gms Champignon or Mushrooms
40 gms Peas
40 gms Corn
5-6 Medium Onion
3 Garlic Cloves
2 Coriander Roots
1 Teaspoon Black Peppercorns
2 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
1 Tablespoon Dark Soy Sauce
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
2 Teaspoons Sugar
2 Tablespoons Cassava Starch
1500 ml Water

Preparation
1. Chop the chicken leg and breast into pieces.
2. Boil the water, pound the garlic, coriander root, and black peppercorns in a Thai mortar and add to the boiling water.
3. Add the chicken pieces, and the salt, light and dark soy sauces, and sugar. Simmer until the water has reduced to one third.
4. Add all the remaining vegetables, cover with a lid and boil for 10 minutes.
5. Mix the cassava starch with a little water, and pour it into the pot, stir until it thickens.
6. Serve with yellow rice.

Ingredients for Yellow Rice
100-200 gms Rice
1 Teaspoon Tumeric
Water
1-2 Slices Ginger

Perparation
1. Rinse the rice.
2. Into a saucepan, place the rice and add enough water to covers the rice by about 2cms, add the tumeric, mix together.
3. Add the slices of ginger.
4. Boil the rice over a medium heat until the rice has soaked up all the water and is cooked through.

Stuffed Chicken Legs ( Nong Gai Eur )

These look like chicken drumsticks, but they are stuffed with a mixture of pork and flavourings, and are more like sausages with the chicken skin used as the sausage skin. Chicken legs that taste like pork.

Ingredients

5-6 Chicken Legs
2 Garlic Cloves
2 Coriander Roots
1/2 Teaspoon Peppercorns
100 gms Pork Mince
20 gms Chopped Carrot
20 gms Chopped Spring Onions
20 gms Chopped Baby Corn
20 gms Mushrooms
20 gms Grass Noodle
2 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
2 Tablespoons Oyster Sauce
1/2 Teaspoon Sugar

Preparation
1. Clean the chicken legs, fold the skin back carefuly, so as not to damage it. Chop off the end of the leg bone, so that you have only the end of the leg bone with the skin still attached to it. You can save the chicken meat and bone for other dishes.
2. Pound the garlic, peppercorns, and coriander root to grind them, mix with the pork mince, add light soy, oyster sauce, and sugar and mix. Leave it for 30 minutes to let the flavours blend.
3. If the noodle is dried, soak it for 15 minutes to soften it.
4. Into a blender, blend the vegetables, and noodles to break them up, mix into the pork mixture.
5. Stuff the chicken leg skins with this pork mixture to fill them, seal the end by threading through a toothpick.
6. Grill at 170 degrees celsius until cooked, serve with coriander leaves, mint, sweet basil, roasted peanuts and chillies.

Thai Chicken Saté ( Gai Sate )

This is a classic dish that I never tire of. It consists of 3 parts, the marinated chicken, the peanut sauce, chilli spicy sauce and optionally salad.

Ingredients for 4 People
400 gms Chicken Breast
100 ml Condensed Milk or Coconut Milk
1 Tablespoons Thai Yellow Curry Paste
1 Teaspoon Salt
2 Tablespoon Light Soy Sauce
1 Teaspoon Ground Black Pepper

Preparation of Chicken
1. Slice the chicken breast into strips.
2. Mix the yellow curry, salt, light soy sauce, pepper and condense milk into a bowl and marinate the chicken for 20 minutes or longer.
3. Thread onto wood skewers.
4. Roast in the oven at 180 degrees Celsius for 10-15 minutes.
5. Alternatively grill for 10-15 minutes under a high grill.

Ingredient For Peanut Butter Sauce
200 gms Unsalted Peanuts
2 Tablespoons Sugar
1 Teaspoon Salt
1 Tablespoon Chilli Paste
1 Tablespoon Soy Sauce
150 ml Water

Preparation for Peanut Sauce
1. Blend the peanuts with salt, sugar, soy, and chilli paste in a food processor until the peanuts form a smooth sauce.
2. Add the water into the peanut mix and blend again.
3. Place it in a sauce pan and bring to the boil over a low heat, cook until the sauce browns and reduces to thick.

Ingredients for Sour Spicy Sauce
50 ml Water
50 ml Vinegar
2 Tablespoons Sugar
1 Teaspoon Salt
3 Chillis
100gms Cucumber
1-2 Coriander Leaf Sprigs

Preparation For Sour Sauce
1. Boil the water with the vinegar, sugar, and salt until the sauce thickens and becomes a little sticky.
2. Let the sauce cool.
3. Chop the chillies, cucumber and coriander, into small pieces.
4. Add the chopped vegetables to the sauce.

Chicken Donuts ( Donuts Gai )

Another one of my recipes that looks like one thing while being another. These are pineapple rings wrapped in seasoned chicken coating and baked brown.

Ingredients
200 gms Chicken Mince
2 Garlic Cloves
2 Coriander Roots
1 Teaspoon Ground Pepper
1 Tablespoon Light Soy Sauce
1 Tablespoon Oyster Sauce
1 Tablespoon Dark Soy Sauce
Pineapple Rings

Preparation
1. Pound the garlic, coriander root, and ground pepper together.
2. Mix with chicken mince and all the sauces and leave for 30 minutes.
3. Press the meat over the pineapple ring, and bake in a 190 degree oven until golden brown, 10-15 minutes is sufficient.

Fresh Spring Rolls ( Por Pie Sod )

A simple dish of spring rolls made with rice paper and filled with noodles, meat and vegetables. This makes a complete meal all in a one, you take a parcel, dip it in the sauce and eat. As you can see in the photograph, I slice them in half so that people can see what's inside each parcel.

Ingredients for 4 People
20 Sheets Rice Paper
100 gms Pork Mince
40 gms Glass Noodle
2 Tablespoons Maggi Sauce
1 Teaspoon White Pepper
1 Tablespoon Oil
Green Lettuce
Mint Leaves
Coriander Leaves

Preparation
1. Soak the glass noodle for 15 minutes.
2. Heat oil in a frying pan.
3. Fry the pork mince, white pepper, Maggi sauce and stir fry until the pork is cooked and any excess water boiled off.
4. Add the glass noodles and mix/fry for approximately 30 seconds. Set aside and leave to cool.
5. Clean and slice the lettuce, mint leaves and coriander leaves.
6. Soak the rice paper in warm water for 30 seconds to just soften it. Don't soak it too long or it will disintegrate.
7. Assemble the parcels, take a sheet of rice paper, some of the pork and noodle mix, some of the lettuce, coriander and mint and wrap the ingredients up in the rice paper.
8. Serve with a sweet peanut dipping sauce.

Ingredients for Sweet Peanut Sauce
1 Tabespoon Chopped or Pounded Peanuts
3 Tablespoons Sugar
2 Teaspoons Salt
1 Tablespoon Chopped Coriander Leaves
100 ml Water

Preparation
1. In a saucepan, place the water and sugar and bring to the boil.
2. Add the salt and chopped peanuts and leave to cool.
3. Add the coriander.

Turmeric Curry Pork Chop ( Mu Aorp Kamin )

Another way to serve pork chops, in Thailand we don't eat much beef, it's mainly pork, chicken and seafood. We too can get sick of pork chops, so we have plenty of different ways of eating them!

Ingredients
400 gms Pork Chop
1 Teaspoon Green Curry Paste
1 Teaspoon Turmeric Powder
50 ml Coconut Milk
50 ml Water
2 Tablespoons Chopped Onion
1 Tablespoon Chopped Garlic
3 Tablespoons White Wine
50 ml Milk
2 Teaspoons Salt

Preparation
1. Clean the pork, add the white wine, salt and milk and leave it soaking for 2 hour.
2. Then mix all the other ingredients in a frying pan. Cook over a medium heat and when the pan is hot, add the pork, cover and cook for 20 minutes.

Pork in Young Coconut Sauce ( Mu Op Sauce Ma Prow On )

This pork is filled with plenty of flavours, it is one of my favorite ways to serve pork. For this dish, you need either the flesh & juice of young green coconut or if you can't find that, get young coconut in a can in it's own juices. Old brown coconut won't work for this recipe.

Ingredients
300 gms Pork Meat
50 gms Young Coconut Meat With Juice
2 Tablespoons Ketchup
2 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
2 Tablespoons Oyster Sauce
2 Tablespoons Chilli Sauce
2 Tablespoons Lemon Juice
2 Tablespoons Red Wine
1 Teaspoon Salt
1 Tablespoon Sugar
1 Teaspoon White Pepper
2 Tablespoons Water

Preparation
1. Clean the pork meat and slice it into 8x4 cm strips.
2. Mix the pork with all ingredients and marindate overnight in the fridge.
3. Empty the pork and sauce into a saucepan and simmer slowly until the pork is cooked through and the juice reduced to half it's volume.
4. Serve with Thai fragrant rice and chinese cabbage.

Pork Noodle Parcels ( Maing Mu Nam Tuock )

A typical Isan/Lao recipe, Nam Tuock (pork neck) is normally eaten with sticky rice, but here I've used it with rice paper to form parcels. Also inside the parcel are vegetables and rice noodles to bulk it out, giving a good balance between meat, vegetable and noodle.

Ingredients
10 Pieces Rice Paper
150 gms Pork Neck (Or Pork With Fat)
1 Tablespoon Toasted Sticky Rice Pounded
1 Tablespoons Dried Flaked Chillies
2 Tablespoons Lemon Juice
2 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
20 gms Rice Noodles
20 gms Onions
20 gms Carrot
20 gms Coriander Leaves, Chopped
20 Mint Leaves, Chopped

Preparation
1. Slice the pork meat thinly and dry fry in a frying pan until cooked.
2. Slice the onion and carrot, and add to the pan.
3. Add the toasted rice, flaked chilli, lemon juice, fish sauce, and stir fry for 2 minutes.
4. Boil the rice noodles in a saucepan for 3 minutes, then rinse with cold water and set aside on a plate.
5. Soak the rice paper in warm water until it's just soft, then remove from the water.
6. Make the parcels by placing some of the pork mixture, the noodles, and some coriander leaves and mint leaves into the centre and roll up the parcel.
7. Serve with the spicy dipping sauce.

Ingredients for Spicy Sauce
5 Bird Chillies
2 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
2 Tablespoons Lemon Juice
1 Teaspoon Sugar
1 Garlic Clove

Preparation
1. Chop the chillis and garlic, and pound in a Thai mortar to break them up.
2. Add all the other ingredients and pound just to mix them.

Pork Bi Tua Casserole ( Mu Op Bi Tua )

This is a pan cooked casserole with a bundle of bi-tua leaves for flavouring and a little tamarind water for sourness. This is a very accessible Thai recipe. Bi Tua is a leaf that gives dishes a tangy sweet taste, Rosdee is a pork stock powder available in packets, if you can't find it use pork stock cubes.

Ingredients
1-2 Bi Tua Leaves
200 gms Pork Cubed (A cheap cut will do)
50 gms Cubed Carrot
50 gms Button Mushrooms
50 gms Small Onions (Peeled)
1 Teaspoon Rosdee (Thai Pork Stock Powder)
2 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
1 Teaspoon Sugar
100 ml Tamarin Water Or Lemon Juice
150 ml Water
1 Teaspoon Butter

Preparation
1. Clean the pork and chop it like the small cubes and put into a large saucepan.
2. Add the butter, and cook to quickly brown off the pork.
3. Add all the remaining ingredients, and bring to the boil. The Bi Tua can be tied up in a bundle so it is easier to remove later.
4. Simmer until the liquid has reduced to half.

Slow Cooked Pork Ribs & Pineapple ( Mu Op Sapparod )

A wonderful dish of slow cooked pork ribs in a pineapple & wine sauce. The pineapple does more than flavour this dish, the acidity of the pineapple softens the ribs as they cook, so the meat practically falls off the bone. Mirin sake is a brand of japanese spirit, if you can't get hold of it, use white wine.

Ingredients
300 gms Pineapple
500 gms Pork Ribs
3 Tablespoons Oil
2 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
2 Tablespoons Oyster Sauce
3 Tablespoons White Wine Or Mirin Sake
2 Tablespoons Sugar
2 Tablespoons Ketchup
600 ml Water

Preparation
1. Clean the pork ribs, chop into 4-5cms pieces, if you don't have a cleaver, get your butcher to do this.
2. Cut the pineapple into similar sized pieces.
3. Put the oil in a pan and preheat.
4. Fry the ribs just to brown the outside and make the fat a little crispy.
5. Put all the ingredients into a saucepan, bring to the boil, then simmer over a low heat until the water has reduced by more than half. This takes an hour or so.

Stuffed Spicy Oranges ( Ma Hur )

Another dish idea from Krua Klai Baan forum, I thought was worth translating for you. If you read Thai, that site is definitely worth a visit. (But keep coming back to my site please!).

Ingredients
1-2 Medium Oranges
150 gms Pork Mince
50 gms Shrimp (Mince)
10 gms Chopped Coriander Leaves
1/4 Teaspoon Salt
1/4 Teaspoon Sugar
1 Tablespoon Light Soy Sauce
1/4 Teaspoon White Pepper
2 Garlic Cloves

Preparation
1. Fry the pork mince, until the fat has come out, chop the garlic, add to the frying pan and fry for 30 seconds more.
2. Add all the ingredients except the oranges and fry for a further 1 minute.
3. Peel and segment the oranges, cut down the back of each segment and fill with the mince.
4. Grate some of the orange peel, and slice some chillies finely and garnish.

Pan Cooked Sweet Thai Ribs ( Sy Krong Mu Aop )

If you don't have an open barbeque grill, this is the perfect way to cook ribs on the stove top. It's cooked in a boiling pan, sort of part-boil part-fry. It has a suprising semi-sweet, creamy rib taste, and is perfect to serve with rice. For this recipe its better to have cross cut ribs, ribs cut into short lengths, so that the sauce coats more of the meat.

Ingredients for 2 People
600 gms Pork Rib
3 Garlic Cloves
1 Teaspoon White Pepper
1 Teaspoon Salt
2 Tablespoons Sugar
3 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
100 ml Coconut Milk
50 ml Condensed Milk
100 ml Tamarind Water
3 Tablespoons Oyster Sauce
3 Tablespoon Red Wine

Preparation
1. Pound the garlic in a mortar into a fine pulp.
2. Cut the pork ribs into short lengths.
3. Mix all the remaining ingredients together in a bowl to form a sauce.
4. Marinade the pork ribs in the sauce for at least 10 hours in the fridge.
5. Put all the mixture (including the sauce) into a boiling pan and simmer slowly for approximately 2 hours, until all the water has evaporated and only the oil remains.
6. The ribs are then ready to serve.

Cinnamon Pork Thigh and Rice ( Koa Ka Mu )

A more traditional cut of pork, the thigh, is used in this dish. It is boiled with its skin until the meat is very soft and the fat almost jellied, and scented with spices like star-anise and cinnamon. The meat is so soft it practically disintegrates when you stick the fork in it. The Mirin Whiskey is a white cooking spirit from Japan, any other strong alcohol can be substituted.

Ingredients for Family
500 gms Pork Leg With Skin
10 gms Ground Cinnamon
2-3 Star-anise
4 Garlic Cloves
2 Teaspoons Black Pepper Corns
2 Coriander Roots
4 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
2 Tablespoons Dark Soy Sauce
5 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
2 Tablespoons Salt
80 gms Sugar
1 Chicken/Meat Stock Cube
2 ltrs Water
2 Tablespoons Mirin Whisky
3 Tablespoons Oil

Preparation
1. Clean the pork leg. If the pork has hairs, burn the hair over a hot flame and scrape them off with a knife.
2. Pound the garlic with the black pepper corns and coriander root in a Thai mortar.
3. Fry the pounded garlic mix in a frying pan till the garlic smell is released.
4. Add the light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, sugar, Mirin whisky and pork leg.
5. Fry the skin of the pork leg, turning it to make sure the whole skin has been fried for a few minutes. Cover with a lid and fry for 5 more minutes.
6. Boil water in a large sauce pan, add a meat stock cube to the pot, together with salt and fish sauce and leave it to simmer and for the cube to dissolve.
7. Add star-anise and cinnamon into the pot and the fried pork and other fried ingredients, simmer for 2 hours.

Steam Sweet Sour Pork ( Mu Nuing Sabparood )

A typical stock sweet and sour sauce served over pork and rice. It's difficult to get excite about this recipe, since I can't eat pineapple due to an allergy! Whenever my friends eat recipes with pineapple in them, they always make an exaggerated 'yum' sound to rub it in.

Ingredients
100 gms Pork Mince
2 Garlic Cloves
1 Coriander Root
1/2 Teaspoon White Pepper
2 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
2 Tablespoons Oyster Sauce
1 Tin Pineapple Rings

Preparation
1. Pound the garlic and coriander root together, mix with the pork mince. All the remaining ingredients except the pineapple and press into small ball shapes.
2. Cut the pineapple into small pieces and wrap the pork around the pineapple.
3. Steam for 5-10 minutes to cook the pork.

Ingredients for Sauce
150 ml Pineapple Juice
50 gms Pineapple
2 Tablespoons Soy Sauce
1 Tablespoon Sugar
1 Tablespoon Corn Starch

Preparation
1. Blend the pineapple with the juice, warm in a saucepan, add the soy and stir.
2. Mix the corn starch with a little water, pour into the sauce and stir and heat until the sauce thickens.

Spicy Noodles & Sweet Sesame Pork ( Lab Woon San Mu Wan )

This is crunchy sweet pork on spicy glass noodles. The sweetness of the pork is to balance the spiciness, and the crunch of the sesame seeds balances the softness of the noodles.

Ingredients
100 gms Glass Noodle
1 Tablespoon Chopped Coriander Leaves
1 Tablespoon Chopped Spring Onion
1 Tablespoon Chopped Mint
1 Teaspoon Dried Flaked Chillies
1 Teaspoon Sticky Rice
1 Tablespoon Fish Sauce
1 Teaspoon Lime Juice

Preparation
1. Dry fry the sticky rice to brown it, in a clean dry frying pan.
2. Pound the toasted sticky rice in a Thai mortar. This is a common flavoring and I usually have a jar of toasted sticky rice pre-made.
3. Boil the glass noodle in water for 2-3 minutes.
4. Drain and mix with the other ingredients.

Ingredients for Sesame Pork
200 gms Pork Meat ( Cubed )
100 gms White Sesame Seeds
50 gms Black Sesame Seeds
30 gms Palm Sugar
1-2 Tablespoons Soy Sauce
1-2 Tablespoons Oil
1 Teaspoon Chicken Stock Powder

Preparation
1. Toast the sesame seeds lightly in a dry frying pan to just colour them a little. Set aside.
2. Mix the pork and stock powder and leave for 30 minutes.
3. Mix everything except the sesame seeds in a frying pan.
4. Cook over a medium heat until the pork is cooked and the sugar coasting is sticky.
5. Drop the cooked sticky pork cubes into the sesame seeds to coat them.
6. This is better served sliced, for the photograph I left it in cubes.

Ingredients For Char Siw Sauce
200 ml Water
2 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
1 Teaspoon Salt
1 Teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
1 Tablespoon Sugar
1 Tablespoon Peanuts
1 Tablespoon Cassava Starch (Or Corn Starch if you can't find Cassava)

Preparation
1. Boil the water in a sauce pan, add the light soy sauce, salt, cinnamon, and sugar. Simmer for 2 minutes.
2. Mix the cassava starch with 3 tablespoons of cold water add to the sauce pan and mix. Simmer for another minute.
3. Pound the peanuts in a Thai mortar (or chop them to make them smaller) and add to the sauce.

Candied Pork & Sticky Rice ( Kao Niew Mu Ping )

This pork is sweet, shredded pork fillet and is a good contrast to balance spicy food.

Ingredients
200 gms Pork Fillet
40 gms Palm Sugar
10 Tablespoons Light Soy sauce

Preparation
1. Cook the pork for 10 minutes in boiling water, leave it to cool, then shred it with a fork into fibres.
2. Boil the light soy sauce with the palm sugar until the sugar has dissolved.
3. Add the pork, and stir over the heat to boil off the soy and caramelize the sugar.

Southern Style Pork Bone ( Gar Doog Mu Hung Le )

This dish is typical of the south of Thailand, a spicy chilli rib dish.

Ingredients 1
30 gms Big Dried Red Chillies
30 gms Small Red Onion
30 gms Garlic
30 gms Lemon Grass
30 gms Coriander Root
1 Teaspoon Salt

Ingredients 2
300-400 gms Pork Bone
1 Tablespoon Fish Sauce
200 ml Water
2 Tablespoons Oil
2 Tablespoons Sugar

Preparation
1. Chop all the ingredients from the first list, pound together to form a paste. Mix into the second lot of ingredients and leave for 30 minutes.
2. Bring the pork and sauce to boil, then turn down the heat and simmer for 1-2 hours. Add a little water if it dries out.
3. For best results, leave it overnight and recook it the following day

Pork Noodle Rice Paper Parcels (Nam Nuang)

This is 'show food', food to impress guests with. Each guest assembles their own parcel of ingredients to eat, wrapped in rice paper and either dips the parcel into the sauce, or drops a spoonful or two inside the parcel. It can be a little messy but is definitely fun! The sauce and pork can be prepared ahead of time, only the rice paper must be prepared just before serving. The sauce is normally served slightly warm. In the above photograph you can see a typical parcel in the middle of the plate.

Ingredients for Family
300 gms Pork Mince
4 Garlic Cloves
1 Teaspoon Black Peppercorns
2 Tablspoons Oyster Sauce
1 Tablespoon Light Soy Sauce
1 Teaspoon Salt

Ingredient For The Sauce
70 ml Water
70 ml Tamarind Water
3 Tablespoons Sugar
2 Tablespoons Peanuts Pieces
1 Chicken Stock Cube
1 Teaspoon Salt

Side Dish Ingredients
3 Garlic Cloves
8 Bird Chillies
1 Lemon Peeled and Sliced
100 gms Rice Nooddle
10-20 Rice Paper Pages

Vegetable to Serve With
Many salad vegetables can be substituted, but the mint leaves are particularly important for this dish.
200 gms Green Lettuce
50 gms Mint leaves
50 gms Coriander leaves
50 gms Sweet Basil leaves

Preparation for Pork Mince
1. Put the pork in a large mixing bowl.
2. Pound the peppercorns and garlic together in a mortar.
3. Add to the pork, together with the light soy and oyster sauce.
4. Mix the ingredients until thoroughly mixed and place in a fridge for 30 minutes.
5. Form the pork into long thin sausages, and place on a backing tray.
6. Cook at 200 degrees C (Medium) until the pork is cooked.
7. Cut it into bite sized pieces and set aside.
8. We call this 'Nam Nuang' in Thai, it is the part that the whole dish is named after.

Preparation For The Sauce
The peanuts can be prepared earlier as they are used for many Thai dishes. They are peanuts fried in a dry pan to gently brown them, then pounded in a mortar to form smaller pieces suitable for cooking and for sauces like this one.
Tamarind water is water added to sour tamarind, the tamarind is squeezed so that its juice sours the water, and the tamarind pulp is removed (and kept for future use), only the sour water is used in the sauce.
1. Mixed the water and tamarind water together in a pan and bring to the boil.
2. When the water is boiling, add the chicken stock cube and dissolve it.
3. Add the salt and sugar. Stir over the heat until the sugar begins to darken and caramelize and the sauce becomes thicker. This takes typically 10 minutes.
4. Remove from the heat, add the peanuts and stir into the mixture.

Preparation For the Side Dish Vegetables
1. Slice the garlic
2. Slice the chilles
3. Slice the lemon removing the skin.
4. Boil the rice noodles for 3 minutes, remove from the heat and place in cold water. Roll the noodles up into parcels to make them easier for your guests to eat.
5. Soak the rice paper pages in warm water for 3 minutes until just soft. Add the pages one by one to the water to keep them separate. This should be done just before serving, if the rice paper is left in the water too long they will become too soft. After soaking remove them and place on a plate, or let your guests remove them from the water themselves. You can always soak more rice paper if needed, so experiment a little first