Thursday 25 February 2010

Jon & Simon's Thai Cooking Class

Go to the market, seeking out only the freshest and juiciest produce. You might very well end up with the following:

7 chicken feet
Cabbage and Morning Glory
Fine rice noodles
1 medium, ripe pineapple
3 limes
Bunch of fresh coriander
2 large stalks of lemongrass
Ginger or galangal
4 cloves garlic
3 large shallots
6 assorted red and green chillies (you should deseed and be careful!)
Thai red curry paste (go easy with this!)
Coconut cream
Peanuts (crushed, to garnish)

Right, let’s make Chicken Feet Red Curry Noodle Soup with Pineapple! First you need to make the base of the soup: a great stock and a flavoursome curry. The chicken stock is made very simply by frying off 7 chicken feet in some vegetable oil until slightly brown (with burnt edges here and there if you are cooking on a hob that has no midpoint between high flame and zero, i.e. like us tonight!). Add water and bring to the boil for a couple of minutes, then let this pan of chicken feet simmer until the water turns to a dark brown. If you feel the need, add a few drops of fish sauce to create that extra tang!

Meanwhile, squirt some vegetable oil into a wok and chuck in chopped shallots, garlic, ginger, lemongrass and chillies and allow to brown.

Follow up with the addition of red curry paste (but not too much: consequences can be severe! Take it from us!) and then pour in coconut cream. The result is a warming yellow curry sauce, which begs to be eaten! But not yet, because the work is not yet done. Chop limes into halves and squeeze in the juice to taste. Once this concoction is complete and still brewing, the chicken stock can be tipped in to the mix, and then this can be transferred to a larger cooking pot.
For the final delight of our gorgeous grub, the wok can be reused to fry up some cabbage, “morning glory” (a vegetable that the Thais love) and some fine, fresh rice noodles. For the real deal, pineapple chunks should be added here! Once this has been fried to satisfaction, chuck this into the bubbling cauldron previously created, wait a minute, garnish with coriander and crushed peanuts, then serve! This is REAL Phuket food: we know, as we made it in Phuket: There’s no taste on earth like it!

If I were you, finally pop down to the Seven-Eleven for some milkshakes to quench the thirst…

1 comment:

  1. You could easily compete with Jamie Oliver with the "chuck it" and "Squirt it" approach!!
    Can I be your manager, or advisor, or taster perhaps?
    Hope you're having a lovely time.
    xxx

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