A SE Asian Feast

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This is my entry for this week's Weekend Herb Blogging round up.  The blogging event was started by Kalyn from Kalyn's Kitchen. The host this week is Simona from Briciole.

A few years ago when we were in California Paul and I decided to sign up for a cooking class offered through Ramekins in Sonoma. Because we love Thai food we elected to take a cooking class offered by Kasma Loha-Unchit. She has taught Thai cooking classes in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1985. She grew up in Thailand and learned the art of cooking from her mother. After working for many years as a marketing analyst in the Bay area, she wanted to return to her cultural roots, and she chose cooking and working with people as her life's work.

She was an excellent instructor and we learned a great deal about Thai cooking from her. Here is a pic of Paul and I preparing the duck curry with pumpkin . . .

Paul and I have been craving Thai food so we decided to cook up a feast on the Sunday. We called mom to see if she was hungry and she was over in record time!

We started with soft spring rolls:

Vietnamese really, hence the SE Asian title.

This was followed by a coconut curry soup with chicken and mushrooms:

For the main course we enjoyed a green pork curry, a spicy stir fried chicken dish, and steamed jasmine rice.

The curry featured tiny Thai eggplants (ma-keua puang), which because they are so difficult to track down, are often replaced with peas (YUCK). We managed to find the tiny egg plants at the Asian market so the dish was perfect and authentic!

Gkaeng Kiow Wahn Moo

• 2 cups or 1 14-oz. can coconut milk
• 2-3 Tbs. green curry paste
• 1 lb. pork, cut against the grain of the muscle into bite-size strips about 2 x 1 x 1/4 in.
• 1/2 lb. small, round Thai eggplants (ma-keua bprawh), cut in halves or quarters, or substitute with 2 long Asian eggplants, cut in bite-size chunks
• 1/2 cup small pea eggplants (ma-keua puang), or substitute with shelled fresh peas
• 2 kaffir lime leaves (bai ma-gkrood)
• Fish sauce (nahm bplah) to taste
• 2 tsp. palm sugar, or to taste
• 1/2 to 1 cup fresh Thai sweet basil leaves and flowers (bai horapa)
• Slivered chillies, to desired hotness

Do not shake the can of coconut milk before opening, so that the cream remains on top. Spoon about 2/3 cup of this thick cream into a medium-size saucepan and heat over medium to high heat. Reduce until smooth and bubbly and until oil begins to separate from the cream. Add the curry paste and fry in the cream for a few minutes to release the aromas. Then pour in the remaining milk.

Bring to a boil and add the pork. Return to a boil, reduce heat and simmer 5-10 minutes uncovered before adding the Thai eggplants and pea eggplants. Simmer a few minutes more, then stir in the peas (if using instead of pea eggplants) and kaffir lime leaves. Season to taste with fish sauce (may not be needed if the curry paste is already salted). Add palm sugar to balance and enhance the spice and herb flavors to your liking. Continue to simmer until eggplants and peas are tender. Stir in the basil and chillies (as desired for added hotness) and cook another minute. Serve hot over plain steamed rice.

Comments

[barb cabot]

Wow! This sounds soo--oo good. Love hot and spicy! Looks very authentic and yummy.

[norris hall]

Hi Jerry
Hi. See if you like these Thai cooking videos
www.thaifoodtonight.com
It's got about 30 recipes each one with a cooking video to go along
It's like an online Thai cooking school

[gail hecko]

Jerry, that looks delish. Wish I lived close enough to run right over for dinner like your Mom. She's one lucky lady!

[Jerry]

Barb - Kasma was a great instructor and we bought her cookbook which provides a wonderful overview of techniques and ingredients. It has been interesting to try and find the necessary ingredients at times!

Norris - that is agreat site. Thank you for sharing it with me.

Gail - mom deserves some good meals cooked for her after all she did for us while we were growing up! I wished you lived closer as well because you'd make one hell of a dinner guest!

[Sandi]

I am a happy pixie with a spicy Thai dinner.
I adore the picture of y'all! Paul is doing all the work while Jerry is posing.

[Jerry]

Sandi - if you look closely you'll notice the cut up duck, opened canned cream of coconut, prepared herbs, and sliced tomatoes in front of me. You have confused posing with me thinking 'my god, how long does it take someone to chop up a flipping pumpkin!'

[Simona]

I know very little about Thai food and I love when I read posts that tell me how Thai dishes are made. This is lovely.

[Jerry]

Thanks Simona - Kasma was great a great instructor. One of the things she did so well was to show us how to balance the layers (sweet, salty, heat, etc.) in the dish.

[Kayte]

Great photo of the two of you...the Thai food looks great, too. Enjoy your blog immensely...thanks for posting always!

[Kalyn]

Fun seeing a photo of you guys. I love Thai food so your Thai feast sounds great. I've heard of these tiny eggplants but haven't tried them. Never seen them any where here either.

[Jerry]

Kayte and Kalyn - I don't normally post people pics but it seemed to fit here, LOL

I would imagine that the special eggplants would be impossible to find unless you had a sizable thai community in your area. Happily we do!

[Laurie Constantino]

I absolutely love green curry, and this looks like a good one. (Nice looking spring rolls too!) I've only seen seed packets for those tiny eggplants, never in the flesh. What do they taste like? Regular eggplant?? I'd love to try them.

[Jerry]

I would ahve been more pleased with the spring rolls had they all been the some size! LOL I think that practice makes perfect.

The eggplants don't have a normal eggplant flavour in my opinion - they have a sharper , more bitter taste (which goes quite well with the sweet heat of the curry).