Thai

Eggplant Curry with Tilapia and Shrimp

May 11, 2010 by greg 1 Comment

Hello dear cooking blog. I have to tell you about an experiment I made tonight that turned out pretty darn good. Oh, certainly there are ways to make this even better and some of them would up the calories and fat, but this was quite satisfying.

You may know that I am trying to cook light and healthy and take off some of this winter blubber. It is possible to cook healthy but still have tons of flavor. I stopped by my local Asian grocery on the way home from work and happened to find some of those small little round purple eggplants. So I grabbed some. All the way home I was trying to figure out how to make a curry without the fat. I came up with this.

For my curry paste, I made a purée of one onion, 6 cloves of garlic, 2 tbsp of ginger and a couple of thai chilis. This was simply thrown into a hot pan along with a tbsp of oil, a tbsp of curry powder, salt and pepper.

I cooked the paste down for about 5-6 minutes with constant stirring until most of the water from the onion had been cooked out and it began to brown a bit. This gives great color and flavor. You want to cook out the raw onion bitterness. This paste will help thicken my sauce. If I had thought ahead, I would have also thrown in a couple of the raw shrimp into the purée. This would have added another level of flavor to the overall dish. This is a great trick to do in dishes where you want the flavor of ingredients that you really don’t want to stew for a long time.

Once the paste was cooked out I added a cup of water and 6 small eggplants cut into quarters.

The eggplant and sauce mixture was cooked covered for about 15 minutes until the eggplant became very tender and the sauce thickened a bit. About 3 oz of tilapia and 4 oz of peeled raw shrimp were added to the pan. This was covered and cooked for just a few minutes until the seafood was cooked through.

I think the dish turned out great. You could make this even better if instead of water added to the cooked paste you added a can of coconut milk! I thought about it but I didn’t want the added fat tonight. That would take this dish over the top! If I do this again I would also add some fresh curry leaves when I throw in the eggplant and finish it off with some fresh cilantro leaves and a squeeze of lime. Oh, some Thai basil would be a great last minute addition too.

Filed Under: Thai Tagged With: curry, light and healthy, shrimp, tilapia

Chicken Satay

January 15, 2010 by greg 4 Comments

Finally we come to the end of our New Year’s Eve feast. We’ll finish in Thailand with some chicken satay. I marinated some thinly sliced chicken breast in yogurt seasoned with curry powder, turmeric, garlic and ginger for about 5 hours. The chicken was skewered and cooked in my grill pan. I served it with a Thai peanut sauce made from creamy peanut butter, soy, sesame oil, sriracha chili oil, rice vinegar, a pinch of sugar and some water.

Filed Under: appetizer, Thai Tagged With: chicken satay, New Years Eve

Spicy Watermelon Soup

July 4, 2009 by greg 4 Comments

At a friends house several years ago I had a soup that just knocked my socks off. It was orange in color and the flavor was interestingly savory with a kick of heat. We all had fun trying to figure out what the base of the soup was. When my host revealed to us that it was made from watermelon I was blown away. I couldn’t imagine that watermelon could make such an interesting savory soup. I am having some friends over for a 4th of July cookout tonight and I thought I would make this soup or at least a variation on the theme. Searching the web I found just the recipe that my friend used over on the Epicurious web site. You can see it here. I did make a few changes to that recipe but what turned out was a wonderfully delicious and refreshing soup.

Ingredients:

~6 cups of chopped seeded watermelon

Zest and juice from two limes

3 tbsp of caramelized onions (I had them prepared for burgers later)

2 tbsp chopped fresh ginger

2 tbsp chopped garlic

1 tsp Thai hot and sour soup paste

2 Jalapeño chilis, seeded

Salt and pepper to taste

The watermelon was puréed in a blender until smooth. A heavy bottomed pot was heated and a bit of olive oil was added. Into the pot was added the chopped garlic, chopped ginger and the soup paste. This was sautéed for about 30 seconds until the aromas were rising from the pan. The lime zest was added and about 1/3 of the watermelon purée was poured into the pot. The mixture was heated to a simmer and cooked for about 5 minutes. Salt and pepper was added to taste. The hot soup was placed into a blender with the chopped peppers and lime juice. This was blended and the rest of the watermelon was added. After blending until smooth the soup was strained through a fine strainer.

The combination of cooked and fresh watermelon marry perfectly in this dish. The heat comes through and the Thai soup paste gives another dimension to the flavor profile. I added the soup paste in part because I did not have lemongrass on hand and that is one of the ingredients in the paste. I absolutely adore the bright orange color that cooked watermelon takes on. This could be served warm but I plan to serve it cold. Either way it is delicious.

Filed Under: Thai Tagged With: soup, watermelon

Cellophane noodle salad with Thai peanut sauce

March 22, 2009 by greg 6 Comments

This noodle salad was perfect to take to a party this evening. Inspired by Thai cuisine, this dish used Korean mung bean cellophane noodles. These are usually used in the Korean dish called chop chae but instead I made a Thai style salad. I cooked the noodles until tender and cooled them under running cold water. The salad contained grated carrot, cucumber and green onions. The Thai peanut dressing was made from 3 tbsp natural creamy peanut butter, 2 tbsp rice vinegar, 1 tbsp fish sauce, 4 cloves garlic, and 1 Thai chili pepper. The sauce was pureed in the blender until good and smooth. This was tossed with the noodles and vegetables. It was quite a hit at the party!

Filed Under: Korean, Thai Tagged With: cellophane noodles, peanut sauce, salad

Meatballs with an Asian influence

March 15, 2009 by greg 1 Comment

No, it’s not spaghetti and meatballs with a tomato sauce. It’s better! This dish has flavors of Vietnam and Thailand. The noodles are Japanese udon noodles. I love their silky texture. The meatballs were made using sirloin roast and pork loin ground together with garlic and green onions. The meat was seasoned with some soy sauce as well and bound together with an egg and bread crumbs. The meatballs were cooked on a sheet pan in a 375 oven just until cooked through. I had plenty leftover that I used for a pizza. I’ll post more on that tomorrow.

To create the sauce, I started with garlic and ginger in a hot wok and stir fried some finely julienned carrots. To the pan I added a teaspoon of Vietnamese sour soup paste. This is a blend of spices that gives a tangy kick to the dish. More soy sauce went in along with some milk that had a little bit of corn starch stirred in for thickening. To give it a bit of Thai nuance, I added a tablespoon of creamy peanut butter. Yes, this is a spicy, tangy peanut sauce. I added enough water to keep it liquid as it cooked. I added the cooked meatballs to the sauce and simmered them for a few minutes. Meanwhile my udon was boiling. Once it was cooked to almost done I threw the noodles into the sauce and cooked them for another minute or two and coated everything with the sauce. I finished it off with some lemon juice at the last minute to give it even more tang.

Filed Under: asian, meat, Thai, Vietnam Tagged With: meatballs, udon

Eggplant Curry with Tilapia and Shrimp

Chicken Satay

Spicy Watermelon Soup

Cellophane noodle salad with Thai peanut sauce

Meatballs with an Asian influence

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