thai-style coconut ice cream

Thai coconut ice cream is one of my favourite Thai food discoveries. Most days on my walk home from the BTS station after a long day at work I pass a street vendor selling this treat with all the various, uniquely Thai toppings such as sticky rice, roasted peanuts, corn and all sorts of candied sweet-bits. I have to muster all my will power to not indulge every day!

Whenever I discover something I've not had before I have a real desire to figure out how I can make it for myself. I take great satisfaction in this process so after much searching on the internet I've come up with this recipe for a Thai-style coconut ice cream. I make no claims that this is an authentic method but it is pretty tasty and with a deliciously creamy texture. If you can get hold of it, you should try serving with some cold sticky rice on top and some roasted peanuts. It seems like an odd idea to Western tastes at first but it really works, I promise! 

Thank you to She Simmers for the inspiration with this recipe. That website is an endless inspiration for all my Thai food experimentations at the moment. Check out the She Simmers ice cream recipe here. 

Ingredients
3 cups full fat coconut milk
2 teaspoons unflavored gelatine powder
2 tablespoons cornflour
1 3/4 cups of sweetened condensed milk (I used a 388ml can)
generous pinch of salt

1. Mix the coconut and condensed milk together in a large sauce pan. In a small bowl blend the cornflour with a little of the milk mixture until you get a smooth paste then stir through the rest of the milk and add the powdered gelatine and salt. 
2. Put the pan over a medium heat and bring to a gentle boil, whisk regularly until the cornflour and gelatine is fully dissolved. 
3. Remove from the heat and place over an ice bath while giving it a good whisk to speed up the cooling down process.
4. Once the mixture has cooled pour the mixture into an ice cream machine if you have one and churn it according to the manufacturer's instructions. 
5. If like me you don't own an ice cream machine all is not lost. Pour the mixture into a freezable container with a lid and pop the cooled mixture into the freezer for about 30 minutes. After it's been in there for a while, scrape the mixture into a large bowl, give it a good beating with a whisk then pour it back into the box. Repeat this process 3 to 5 times or until it is frozen throughout and has a creamy consistency without any large ice crystals.
6. Serve however you wish. It's great in a Thai style ice cream sandwich with brioche style bread or topped with roasted peanuts, chopped up water chestnuts, dates and some sticky rice. Whatever takes your fancy. 

chocolate banana bread

Before I arrived in Thailand I was often thinking about what food I might miss from home with cheese, proper fish and chips and good quality baked goods always pretty high on my list. What I wasn’t prepared for was the abundance of excellent and delicious baked cakes, breads and pastries that seem to be available everywhere. This sweet, enriched bread recipe is inspired by Thai flavours and ingredients and happens to be almost entirely vegan if you used a vegan chocolate. It is essentially an enriched dough with the egg replaced by banana and the coconut oil and milk replacing dairy butter and milk. This chocolate banana bread makes a delicious treat breakfast or is good with a cup of tea of coffee any time of day.



Ingredients
2 medium bananas (approx. 1 cups mashed banana)
200ml coconut milk
55ml coconut oil
380g/3 cups bread flour
2 tsp fast action yeast
200g dark chocolate cut into rough chunks
generous pinch of salt
50g palm sugar (or brown sugar)

1. Mash together the bananas and stir in the coconut oil then place into a large mixing bowl along with all the other ingredients apart from the chocolate and bring together into a rough dough. 
2. Turn out onto an oiled surface and kneed for a few minutes then place into an oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap then leave in a warm place to rise for around 2 hours. You may need to adjust the flour or moisture level at this stage but do this with care adding a spoon of flour or water as needed. 
3. After the first rise add in the chocolate chunks and gently fold the dough over them creating before turning out on to a baking tray lined with parchment or a loaf tin. I quite like the free form style with this bread but feel free to shape as you wish. Sometimes I mix the chocolate chunks through the dough making sure it is evenly spread or, as I have done in this version I have kept most of the chocolate contained in the centre of the dough so you have yummy almost solid chocolate centre to bite into. I was going for the kind of bite you get with a good pain au chocolat. 
4. Cover with plastic wrap and leave for another hour or so until it has risen to almost double the original size. 
5. Pre-heat the oven to 230C then place a roasting pan filled with some water in the bottom of the oven to create some steam during the baking process. 
6. Place the bread in the oven, reduce the heat down to 200C and bake for about 30-40 minutes or until you have a golden crust. 

Pad See Ew - Thai rice noodles with pork and soy sauce

As you probably know, we've recently moved to Bangkok for my work. Having found an apartment to live in that has a proper kitchen with gas stove and oven, a rarity in Bangkok, it means we have the luxury of being able to cook many things from scratch at home. Setting up home in Bangkok has been a fun experience and a main focus for my husband and I since we got here. You can read about our adventures here. Once we had our own wok, one of the first dishes I wanted to try out was Pad See Ew. This has been one of my favourite Thai dishes since we visited Thailand last Christmas. I first learned to make this dish on a cookery course at SITCA along with chicken Penang curry and an awesome fried prawn salad. I'll post my versions of those recipes in coming weeks and I can thoroughly recommend the SITCA cooking courses if you ever find yourself in Thailand. They're a good enough reason to visit Koh Samui on their own.

One of the things I love about living in a new country is the variety of ingredients and produce you can buy in the markets and grocery stores. Being able to buy real fresh wide rice noodles is wonderful and so much nicer than having to use reconstituted dried rice noodles. Don't get me wrong, dried rice noodles, just like dried pasta, have their place but for some recipes such as this Pad See Ew, fresh noodles really are the best thing to use if you can get them. If you are struggling to find fresh rice noodles where you live, buy the widest dried ones you can find and soak them for a couple for hours in cold water before using. This is something I only learned in recent years and it has hugely improved my success with noodle cookery. Also, before you fire up your wok you will need to get everything prepared - things will move fast once you start cooking.

rice noodles in sweet dark soy

Ingredients for about 2 servings
about 200g dried rice noodles soaked in cold water for at least an hour
OR
400-500g packet of fresh, wide rice noodles
1 pork loin chop or similar
2 eggs
handful of baby sweetcorn, cut widthwise in to small pieces
bundle of tender stem broccoli, chinese cabbage or other green veg of your choice
1 large carrot, peeled, halved and cut on the diagonal into bite size pieces
1 tbsp dark, sweet soy
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tsp fish sauce
1 tsp regular soy
1/2 tsp ground white pepper
1 tsp palm sugar
1 tbsp cornflour or baking soda
1 cup chicken stock (you may use all or none of this depending on the moistness of your noodles)
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
2 tbsp vegetable oil
Lime wedges, sliced spring onions and chilli flakes for serving

stir fry sauce

1. In a large bowl separate the rice noodles if needed and add in the dark sweet soy and mix so that the noodles have a thorough coating. 
2. Beat the eggs together in a small bowl.
3. Thinly slice the pork, place in a bowl with the corn flour and massage it together with your hands until the powder is completely covering the meat. Place the finely chopped garlic on top then set to one side.
4. Mix together the oyster sauce, white pepper, fish sauce, palm sugar and regular soy. This will be your stir fry sauce. 
5. With all your ingredients prepare and ready to go heat your wok so that it is very very hot. This is the key to your success with this recipe. 
6. Once your wok is super hot add the oil and ensure you have an even coating over the base of your wok, then add the beaten egg and cook through. Next add the pork and garlic and kepp moving until it is cooked through.
7. Next chuck in the prepared veggies and stir for about a minute. 
8. Now you need to add the rice noodles. Try to keep everything move but don't worry too much if there is a bit of sticking on the bottom of the wok - this is all extra flavour, just make sure you scrape it up with your wok paddle. 
9. Pour in the stir fry sauce and give everything a good mix. You may need to add a little of the stock at this stage. Add it a little at a time while keeping everything else moving until your noodles are cooked through and have absorbed enough liquid. You don't want the finished dish to be gloopy but you want  the noodles to be properly cooked. This stage will probably take 3-5 minutes.
10. Turn out into your serving dishes and add the spring onions, chilli flakes and lime juice to your taste.

egg and pork

adding the veggies

now the noodles

add the stir fry sauce and keep it moving

add the stock as needed until everything is cooked through

yum

thai feasting - part 1 bangkok

I was lucky enough to be able to spend a couple of weeks over Christmas and New Year in Thailand. It was the perfect way to escape the usual pressures and expectations of this time of year and to get some sunshine too. It has taken me a while to get round to posting about my adventures and I will explain why soon. I've recently been checking out this website called Import Food. It's got lots of great videos and excellent recipes too. Well worth an explore if you're interested in learning more. Enjoy!

Whenever I go somewhere on holiday I always try to seek out new tastes and ingredients in an attempt to better understand the flavours that make up country's food. In a short trip I was never going to completely get to grips with all of Thai food. Instead I decided to set myself the challenge of seeking out the best pad thai I could find and to indulge in the kinds of street foods that I can't get back in London.

Pad thai quest part 1

Pad thai is the national street food dish of Thailand. On most street corners you can find a cart dishing it out. Like most national dishes, everyone has their own way of putting it together but this video recipe from SITCA is a great place to start. This recipe also seems to come close to the dishes we ate. We started our search at Thip Samai because it is recommended in numerous food and travel blogs as serving 'the best' so we had to give it a go. This was going to be the pad thai by which all others were going to be measured so it made sense to start at the top. Thip Samai serves numerous variations on the standard dish but we went for the 'superb pad thai'.

Once you've place your order you're brought a selection of accompaniments. We got banana flower, bean sprouts, spring onions and lime segments. On the table were already pots of crushed peanuts, chilli sauces and chilli flakes.

Here's the pad thai when it arrived. I loaded mine with extra peanuts and chili flakes because I'm a bit of a chili fiend given half the chance. I was particularly taken with the presentation of the dish with the noodles carefully wrapped in a fine omelette. 

Now, perhaps unsurprisingly I'm a bit of a greedy person so a little later I was after something else to eat. Close to our hotel in Bangkok was a busy little market stretching the length of the street with numerous tasty treats on offer. If in doubt in a new country I'll go for something I've never had before and I couldn't resist finding out what 'coconut egg' was. During the rest of our time in Thailand I never found another stall serving these curious little things but it's definitely something I want again. They were crunchy, crispy gooey, sweet but a little savoury all at once. A very special little thing. I've done a some internet research since returning and I think it was Khanom Buang. Check out this page for more info. This is a neat video showing how another lady makes them.

Our next culinary stop was at one of the ubiquitous roti pancake carts in the same market. Normally when making crepes and pancakes you start with a batter and pour it out on to a hot griddle. Not with these glorious beauties. The stall holder started out with a little ball of dough and deftly pulled it out so that it was transparent and paper thin before putting on the griddle. Here's a lovely video of a stall holder in action. The skill of the food stall holders in Thailand is incredible. The speed and skill they repeatedly demonstrate is awe inspiring.  I couldn't resist the classic banana and nutella combo topped off with a drizzle of condensed milk. Yum!