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Archive for January, 2011

~Visiting Home~

Posted in Pranee's Culinary Tales, Thai Salad Recipe, tagged on January 31, 2011| 4 Comments »

Visiting Home: Four Fish Dish

I left Seattle on January 25 and was excited about visiting home during Chinese New Year. I wanted to record my family traditions and later all will explore food and culture in many provinces around Phuket. This trip is unlike other trips: my focus is on the Southern Cuisine. For 3 weeks my itinerary is planned to make the most with recipes from the villages. After spending 5 days in Bangkok and Amphawa experiencing  the incredible regional foods, I am now with my family in Phuket. I arrived at my family home just around noon and my favorite foods are already waiting for me at the table.

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My mom waited for me in her kitchen with my favorite foods: fish four-way, fried salted croaker and fried fresh turmeric croaker and then steamed Thai mackerel (Pla Tuu) in tamarind sauce and sour curry with croaker, fuzzy melon and taro stem. When I am at home in my mom’s kitchen I eat simple foods.

I am so happy to be home again.

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~Iyara Thai Cuisine, Pranee’s Restaurant Review~

Posted in Pranee's Restaurant Reviews, tagged , , , , , on January 18, 2011| 2 Comments »

Iyara Thai Cuisine

A friendly Staff

I have to give credit to my students for introducing me to the Iyara Thai Cuisine restaurant in Redmond. I took their recommendation seriously because the more I talked to them, the more I realized how serious they were about the Thai dining experience. They had mentioned their favorite Thai restaurants throughout America, including Pok Pok, and other renowned Thai restaurants, some of which are owned by people I have taken workshops with at various food conferences.

They said that Iyara may not be as good as the Pok Pok Thai restaurant in Portland in terms of the ambience, menu and creativity, but it is their favorite when it comes to authenticity close to their home in Redmond.

A week later, two Thai friends and I had lunch together at Iyara Thai Cuisine in Redmond. It is in a convenient location, with plenty of free parking spaces on the street. It has a casual setting; we started with soup, Suki nahm, and then used our fingers to enjoy the rest of our meal of Isaan food (the food from Northeastern Thailand).These were our choices from Iyara’s menu:

Suki nahm: Thai-style hot-pot in a bowl with crystal noodles, chicken and prawns, egg, napa cabbage, and green onion with a chili-bean curd sukiyaki sauce. $10

Sai grog kra prow: grilled homemade pork and spicy basil Thai-style sausage. $7

Muu ping: grilled pork sirloin skewer marinated in garlic, coconut milk, fish sauce and sugar. $7

Som tum and kai todd: deep-fried marinated half Cornish game hen, crispy shallots with a small green papaya salad and sticky rice. $11

Sticky rice $2

Chinese doughnut and pandan custard for dessert.

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Iyara is a great place for you if you love Som Tum (shredded green papaya salad). It is offered with three options. The standard one has lots of crushed peanuts, salted crab and Thai anchovy sauce.

There are many more dishes that I would like to return and check out. All are a rustic style or street foods of Thailand; these are the owner’s new menu items and a concept that they are working on. There are also plenty of standard Thai dishes if you have friends who may not be as adventurous as you are.

For all of you that love to explore new flavors, please check out Iyara Thai Cuisine. I hope that one day Thai foods in America will be as good as in Thailand, then we won’t need to travel to Thailand or Portland to savor the dishes.

Kin Hai Aroy: Bon Appétit

Iyara Thai Cuisine
16421 Cleveland St., #E
Redmond, WA 98052
(425) 885-3043

Menu: http://iyarathai.com/iyarathaimenu.pdf

Website: http://www.iyarathai.com/


Pranee’s Thai Restaurant Review is a fun read to help students enjoy the Thai dining experience. I believe that eating Thai foods is a part of learning about Thai food and the Thai culture as well.

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~Spiced Rum Kabocha Mousse Recipe~

Posted in Recipes, Thai Cooking School: How to series, Thai Dessert Recipe, tagged , , , , on January 13, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Comfort Me with Kabocha & Rum

I amuse myself in the kitchen every year by discovering new ways to use Kabocha, my favorite squash. Seeing snow on the ground meant no going out today, so I decided to get into the kitchen to play with the Kabocha puree that I made the other day.

I was thinking of a decadent dessert that did not require any cooking on the stovetop. I had classic cream cheese in the fridge and many basic staples in my kitchen, so I started from there. After finding the right ratio between the puree and the cream cheese, I added enough sugar to make a good balance. Then I added spiced rum, one tablespoon at a time. Spiced rum is a Caribbean rum that has an amazing blend of spices, caramel and other natural flavors. I may get a little carried away in my recipe below with the Sailor Jerry Spiced Rum, but when it comes to rum, the amount to add is very personal. At this point, there was still something missing from the recipe, and when I went through my spice rack, the nutmeg was yelling at me. Adding it did the trick—nothing more or less was needed.

While watching the snow melting away, my hand was busy spooning away this decadent dessert. It is pumpkin-creamy, sweet, with rummy-coconut and aromatic nutmeg. Just a perfect way to pamper oneself with comfort—a decadent dessert. Winter will be here for a while.

Pranee’s Spiced Rum Kabocha Mousse with Coconut Cream

Spiced Rum Kabocha Mousse

Serves: 6

8 ounces classic cream cheese
1½ cups Kabocha puree (see note)
⅓ cup evaporated cane sugar
¼ cup Sailor Jerry Spiced Rum, divided
¼ to 1 teaspoon nutmeg
6 tablespoons coconut cream (the thick top layer from a can of coconut milk)
6 Kaffir lime leaves or mint sprigs to garnish

Use an electric mixer to blend cream cheese in a large bowl until soft, about 30 seconds. Add Kabocha squash puree, sugar, 3 tablespoons rum, and nutmeg; blend on medium speed until well-blended and smooth, about 1 minute. Chill mixture in the fridge at least 3 hours before serving.

To make spiced rum coconut cream topping, whisk coconut cream and 1 tablespoon rum in a small bowl for 10 seconds. Set aside in the fridge.

To serve, place equal amounts of the mousse mixture into 6 glasses. Garnish the top with coconut cream and lime leaves or mint sprigs.

Pranee’s Tip on Making Kabocha Puree

A medium size Kabocha squash will yield 3 to 4 cups Kabocha puree. To prepare Kabocha pumpkin puree for dumplings or pie, simply remove the skin and seeds and then cut into 1-inch chunks. Steam about 15 minutes, or until tender. Use a ricer to make a fine mash.

More recipes on this blog with Kabocha pumpkin:

Thai Pumpkin Custard, nam tao sangkaya (recipe and slide show)

Stir-fried Kabocha Pumpkin with Pork (recipe and vedio)

© 2011  Pranee Khruasanit Halvorsen
I Love Thai cooking
Pranee teaches Thai Cooking classes in the Seattle area.
Her website is: I Love Thai cooking.com .

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~Kabocha Pumpkin, A Queen of Squash~ (via Pranee’s Thai Kitchen)

Posted in Recipes on January 13, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Spiced Rum Kabocha Mousse will be posted soon. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy reading the old post about the Kabocha pumpkin before cooking with it soon.

~Kabocha Pumpkin, A Queen of Squash~ Kabocha Pumpkin Kabocha is a hard skinned variety of  Japanese pumpkin and winter squash. It has an amazingly sweetness, dense and silky texture and almost fibreless with dark green thick skin and bright yellow-orange flesh. This variety is preferred for Thai cooking and Thai people incorporate it in soup, curry, stir-fry and dessert dishes. Buttercup squash o … Read More

via Pranee’s Thai Kitchen

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~Pomalo Salad with Crab Recipe, Yum Som Oh Phu~

Posted in Pranee's Thai Cooking Videos, Recipes, Thai Cooking School: How to series, Thai Gluten Free Recipe, Thai Recipe for Kid, Thai Salad Recipe, Thai Side Dish Recipe, Thai Vegetarian Recipe, tagged , , , , , , , on January 6, 2011| 3 Comments »

You say Pummelo, I say Pomelo, and Thais say ”Som Oh”

One of my goals for the New Year is for my blog readers to learn light and easy Thai cooking and some new exotic ingredients. Thai cuisine has been famous for many centuries and I want people to have a more in-depth knowledge of it.

Pomelo, Thai Grapefruit - The Flower Market in Bangkok

One way that I hope I can deepen your culinary skills is simply by showing you some of the techniques that Thais use to handle their ingredients, methods learned from our families, our communities and our ancestors.  I hope the instructions in my video demonstration will help you to open your pomelo.

Pomelos tastes so great by themselves, you don’t need to cook them. I created this simple fun recipe on New Year’s Eve to provide a zing to welcome the year 2011.

Best wishes to you all.

I love pomelo. It is in season around New Year’s time, but you can enjoy it every week to give a zing to your life. There are so many way to create a wow moment with pomelo. My favorite recipe is from Phuket, Thailand, and is made with shrimp, tamarind sauce and caramelized shallots. It is a great dish for teaching my students about the layer of flavors and textures that can be found in a Thai salad.

Yum Som Oh, Pomelo Salad with Crab

For my blog visitors, I think learning to open a pomelo is challenge enough, so I am keeping this recipe simple (which is also how I cooked during this past week). This recipe is prepared like a crab or shrimp cocktail rather than the traditional pomelo salad from Thailand.

Pomelo Salad with Crab

Yum Som Oh Khup Phu

ยำส้มโอกับปู

Serves: 6

1 pomelo (prepared as shown in the video above), about 2 cups
1 shallot, peeled and sliced
1/4 cup chopped cilantro, plus 6 cilantro sprigs for garnish
1/2 cup cooked crab meat or cooked shrimp
1 tablespoon palm sugar or brown sugar
1 tablespoon tamarind concentrate
2 tablespoons lime juice, about 1 lime
1 tablespoon fish sauce, or more as needed
1/8 teaspoon chili powder

Place pomelo, shallot, cilantro and crab in a medium size salad bowl. Whisk sugar, tamarind concentrate, lime juice, fish sauce and chili powder until well-blended, then pour over pomelo. Fold all of the ingredients together gently with a salad spoon and serve in a nice glass. Serve at room temperature or chill. Garnish with cilantro sprigs.

Vegetarian option:

Omit crab and use a few pinches of sea salt instead of fish sauce.

© 2011  Pranee Khruasanit Halvorsen
I Love Thai cooking
Pranee teaches Thai Cooking classes in the Seattle area.
Her website is: I Love Thai cooking.com .
 
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