Tom Kha Kai

Tom Khai Kai is one of my favorite Thai dishes. Since there are a number of Asian grocers in Cambridge, I decided to finally try my hand at making this coconut milk based soup. There are Tom Khai Kai pastes where one only needs to add water, meat and desired vegetables, but making the soup from scratch was my goal. I chose a recipe from ThaiCusine.com that was not complicated and included the ingredients that I expected to find.

I only had difficulty locating one ingredient: nam phrik pao (black chili paste). I asked for help locating the paste at the store, but I was only pointed to a shelf. There was a paste that I thought might be the correct one, but the name was only in Thai though the list of ingredients was in English. Since I wasn't aware of the other ingredients in nam phrik pao besides the black chilies, I opted to use a chili paste that we already had at home. I later learned that my hunch was correct, and I should have bought the paste which contained tamarind, shrimp paste, garlic and other items as well as the black chilies.

It was when I was putting the ingredients in the pot that I realized that there didn't appear to be as much liquid as I thought. I then remembered that I thought chicken broth could also be used in this soup. Since we didn't have any, I added some water and some vegetable stock powder to the dish. I think it helped, although it may have added to the overall saltiness of the soup. We liked the soup, but, since my husband is very sensitive to salt, I think that I'm going to explore a different recipe next time. I've already located a promising sounding one, which includes the straw mushrooms that I love and added to the recipe below, at RecipeGullet.com.


Tom Kha Kai (from ThaiCuisine.com)
1. 2 cups (16fl oz/500 ml) coconut milk
2. 6 thin slices young galangal (kha on)
3. 2 stalks lemon grass (ta-khrai), lower portion, cut into
4. 1-in (2.5-cm) lengths and crushed
5. 5 fresh kaffir lime leaves (bai ma-krut), torn in half
6. 8 oz (250g) boned chicken breast, sliced
7. 5 tablespoons fish sauce
8. 2 tablespoons sugar
9. 1/2 cup (4 fl oz/125 ml) lime juice
10. 1teaspoon black chilli paste (nam phrik pao)
11. 1/4 cup cilanto / coriander
12. leaves (bai phak chi), torn
13. 5 green Thai chilli peppers (phrik khi nu), crushed


Method

Combine half the coconut milk with the galangal, lemon grass, and lime leaves in a large saucepan and heat to boiling. Add the chicken, fish sauce, and sugar. Simmer for about 4 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked, and then add the remaining coconut milk. Heat just to boiling. Place the lime juice and chilli paste in a serving bowl and pour the soup over them. Garnish with cilantro leaves and crushed chilli peppers.

Saturday Night Cooking

Gluten-free apple cinnamon cake, corn chowder soup and roast chicken with rosemary, thyme, onion and garlic. M* and I didn't set out to spend a few hours in the kitchen, but after a trip to the Whole Foods-like Waitrose, we felt inspired with our bags of high quality groceries.

First, the GF apple cinnamon cake. This recipe was actually for muffins, but we don't have muffin tins here and couldn't bring myself to spend $38 on a 12 count muffin tin. The recipe was from the cookbook "Gluten-Free Baking Classics" by Annalise G. Roberts. Gourmet magazine published a few of her recipes and her brown rice flour mix in November 2005. Thanks to her, I made irresistible chocolate chip cookies that people didn't realize were not made with wheat flour and thin-crust pizza that a friend said was the best pizza she had tasted in Los Angeles-she moved to LA from NY about 18 years ago. So how was the apple cinnamon cake? I'll let the photos tell the story.

(Sat night left, Sun night right)

With M* no longer in classes (he's still finishing a few projects), he took a break and made his yummy corn and bacon chowder. The recipe calls for two cans of cream corn, but no one at Waitrose had heard of it before. They do sell it in the UK, but maybe Waitrose is too upscale. M* just pureed some corn in the blender instead. Other ingredients include potatoes, bay leaves, celery and celery leaves, vegetable broth, chili pepper, milk frozen corn, onion. Simple recipe with pleasing results.

Roasting chicken in the oven is pretty basic, and I have taken the CI recommendation to rotate the chicken from one wing side up to the other wing side up and finally to the breast up. Having a v-rack is recommended to keep the chicken off the bottom of the pan, but I've just been approximating this effect by making an aluminum foil grid on the bottom of the pan. I didn't have time to brine the chicken, so I just created a rosemary, thyme and garlic paste and rubbed into under the skin. I also put a bit of onion and rosemary inside the chicken. Chicken was really yummy, and it made great chicken broth when we cooked it down the next day.

I still have to master using the thermometer. After the chicken had been in the recommended time, I tested the temperature, and it was certainly above the suggested level. However, I thought the chicken could have really used another 10-15 minutes. I hate cutting into a dish, only to have to have to put it back in the over. I'm still not sure if it was my temperature-taking technique or the super-cheap Tesco thermometer that was the problem.

Roast Chicken with Root Veggies

Recipe from Cook's Illustrated. I wanted to try brining a chicken, and it was really easy. Only thing was recipe called for two chickens to be brined and then cooked at one time. I don't have a pot truly big enough to brine one chicken to their specifications let alone two let alone an oven big enough to cook two. I will buy a real stockpot, but in the meantime I cut down the sugar and salt in the brine to 1 cup each from 1 1/2 cups because I could only fit about 10 cups of water when the recipe called for 16. Kept the garlic at two heads (yes, heads not cloves) and bay leaves at six. Basically just brine the chicken for an hour or so, cook and then use the same pan to cook the root vegetables under very high heat. Root vegetables are really up to you. We used potatoes, fennel, sweet potatoes and onions. I threw in some leeks that we had to use at the very end so that they wouldn't overcook.

Cauliflower Pakora

From Hungrymonster.com. I made this before, and, while tasty, the batter did not come close to covering 2 pounds of cauliflower. It was thick as the recipe said it would be, but I was even wondering if it was too thin. When I dipped the cauliflower in the batter and thoroughly coated a piece, it seemed as though I was left with 1/4 cup less batter. The first few pieces where thoroughly coated, but the rest were partial at best. I'm not 100% convinced that one needs to do the frying of each batch in two stages. Because my pieces were so delicately battered, moving them in and out of the pan two times caused some batter to flake off.

However, M* loved, loved, loved this dish. He was eating it as fast as I was taking it out of the hot oil. Could it be because deep frying makes everything taste better? I liked it, but I wanted each piece to be thoroughly coated. My unhappiness had only to do with presentation.

I bought a smaller cauliflower head this time, so we'll see what happens.

update - Well with about half of the called for cauliflower, double the amount of yogurt and double the amount of chili powder, M* and I really enjoyed this dish again. I'm still struggling with the batter not fully adhering to the cauliflower. It often just stuck to the bottom of the pan - and some fell off during the process of taking the florets out halfway through the process. I think that I will try another recipe or use elements of another recipe next time. I do like this recipe because it calls for yogurt and besan (chick pea flour) only, as I can't have any gluten containing flours. In general this recipe is very easy - although I have yet to master the disposing of all of that oil. I did save it once, after straining out the pieces of fried dough. I'm not comfortable reusing it more than once though. I should probably get passed that.

Easy Split Pea Soup

From Epicurious. I made this a month or so ago with a smoked ham hock that I bought from the local butcher. It was a massive ham hock that yielded plenty of meat that I trimmed off and added to the soup. The hock was so large that it made it impossible to add the 8 cups of water to the pot. I had to add 1 or 2 cups later, after some had evaporated off. A large stock pot didn't come with the furnished flat, but I think it's a necessary investment. Cambridge in winter is definitely a prime soup location.

I didn't add any additional salt, but the ham hock provided more than enough - too much actually. M* and I are both salt minimalists. I also didn't puree the soup, as I like it chunky. I just let it cook for an extra hour or so. Didn't have the marjoram, so I added thyme.

Today, I used some leftover back bacon that M* had bought while I was gone, instead of the ham hock. This time all 8 cups of water fit in the pot since I didn't use the volume hogging hock. Left fat on the bacon - as pork fat is good, good, good. Substituted 1/2 of the butter with olive oil - but I didn't measure and I may have overdone the total butter/oil amount. Once again I didn't use marjoram - added thyme, garlic and bay leaves.

One of the reviewer comments on the Epicurious site mentioned using turkey instead of pork - may try that next time. Another comment mentioned adding miso at the end to bring out the smoky flavor, if making it vegetarian. Since I am not using the smoked ham hock this time, I'm going to add some Spanish paprika towards the end. It's supposed to have a smokier flavor than other paprikas. Oh, almost forgot - I threw in a potato that we had to help thicken it. M* loves his potatoes.

update - If I was going to use bacon again, I would trim off the fat or put it in a sack or something. The bacon fat had separated from the bacon - and it was hard to decide what was bacon fat and what was a garlic pieces that I hadn't cut all that small. Also, if one wanted to puree any amount of the soup, the bacon should be kept in a bag as well. It had come apart to the point that it was too hard to pull the pieces out. I guess I could have pureed it with the bacon in it, but that just kind of weired/ grossed me out. The paprika was a nice add to the soup. In general, it was muy tasty.