Sweet Asian Eggplant

Another great eggplant recipe. I'd like to say it's spicy, but it's also sour and a little sweet. It's a melt-in-your mouth eggplant dish you'll want to make over and over again.

1 Eggplant

2 tablespoon Brown sugar

2 tablespoon Apple cider vinegar

2 tablespoon Soy sauce

1 teaspoon crushed pepper flakes

1/4 cup Onion (chopped finely)

4 cloves of Garlic (minced)

Slice the eggplant into 1/2 inch slices.

Put a tablespoon of oil in a non stick pan and fry the eggplant slices till they get soft. Should take about 5 minutes. You don't want to overcook the eggplants at this stage, as it will be cooked in the sweet soy, sugar sauce again.

Once the eggplants have been cooked set it aside. Gather all the ingredients.

Heat up 3 more tablespoons of oil and saute onions, garlic, and crushed pepper.

Add brown sugar to caramelize the onion.

Add in brown sugar and vinegar.

Now gently place the eggplant slices in one layer and cook for about a minute. Gently flip over and give it another minute.

 Be very careful when taking out of the frying pan as the slices will be quite soft. You want the slices ot be soft but not mushy. They should hold their shape.

Stack and serve hot with a side of Jasmine rice.

Thai Green Curry

This is going to be another one of my pictorial endeavors. This is time it's Thai green curry. Will be posting the amounts soon. For now, gawk and enjoy.;)

How much you use is up to you. Can use more veggies if you want. Just make sure to gather all the ingredients together as the process goes pretty fast.

I have used lime leaves, red bell pepper, snow peas, baby corn, bamboo shoots and chinese long eggplants. Add carrots if you like.

Heat oil in a wok.

Add green curry paste and lime leaves. You want to fry these for about a minute so that the flavor of the lime leaves and the curry paste can come out and make beautiful chemistry in your wok.

Now add coconut cream. When you open an unshaken can of coconut milk the cream rises to the top. You just want to take the cream off gently and stir fry it for a few minutes. Don't get rid of the watery coconut milk though. That we shall use later.

I added the cream a little at a time.

Now add in your thinly sliced boneless chicken breast meat.

Keep stirring.

Now add baby corn and bamboo shoots.

Closely followed by eggplants.

And bell pepper. Use any color you like.

Give a quick stir to mix everything together.

Now add the coconut milk. Told you, we'd add it later.

Quick stir again.

Now add fish sauce.

Cover it up to let everything cook.

And snow peas. The snow peas cook really fast. So the trick is to add it when you are nearing the end. Afterwards add handfuls of Thai basil leaves. 

And serve the green curry in a vessel of your choice. 

Thai Flavored Whole Fish

I absolutely LOVE cooking whole fish. Although I mostly make fish curries, sometimes it feels good to have something a little different. The fish here is deep fried and then cooked using Thai ingredients that provides for an amazingly light yet flavorful sauce.     


I've used croaker for this recipe but feel free to use any white fish of your choice like tilapia or snapper. 


Recipe


Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 30 min


Juice of 1 lime

Rice flour (Use corn starch or regular flour if you don't have rice flour on hand)
salt
1 cup oil for deep frying


Sauce:
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon Sriracha (thai chili sauce)
1 tablespoon sweet chili sauce
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1/2 teaspoon dark soy sauce (dark soy sauce is a sweeter, thicker version of regular soy sauce) (optional)
2 green chillies (don't slit the chillies if like your food less spicy )
1/4 cup water 
1/2 cup basil leaves 


Clean the fish really well and pat dry with a paper towel. Put 2-3 deep gashes into each of the sides of the fish at an angle. Make sure the gashes are at least an inch apart from each other or the fish will break when frying. Now rub the juice of one lime and salt (according to taste) on the fish and leave it to marinate for 10 minutes. Don't forget to rub some juice on the insides as well. 

 After marinating, sprinkle enough rice flour to gently coat the fish, shake off excess flour and deep fry till the fish is cooked completely. A perfectly fried fish will have crispy skin and the slashes will open up.

One great tip about frying fish- never flip the fish too early otherwise it will stick to the pan and break. Give each side 3-5 minutes before flipping over gently. 

Dry the fish on paper towel after you've fried it and heat up 1 tablespoon of oil in a pan large enough to hold the fish. Put all the other ingredients except for the basil and cook for 2/3 minutes. Add a small amount of water (about 1/4 cup) if the sauce starts to stick to the pot. Stir constantly while the sauce is cooking and taste test to see if it needs more salt. Now, add the fish and cook uncovered for 5 minutes on each side. 

The fish will soak up all the lovely flavors of the sauce within a few minutes and a few minutes before taking it off the heat add Thai basil. Regular basil works fine too but the subtle aroma of Thai basil enhances the flavor so much more that it's worth getting some. 

This fish is best served warm with enough rice to mop up all that delicious sauce.

As always.. ENJOY!! :)

Tom yum soup done differently

Each country has its own version of popular cuisine, modified to suit the taste of her people. Us Bengalis, we have our own style of Thai food that native Thais would never recognize. There’s this thick soup we used to get at restaurants in Bangladesh which, in all honesty could never be called by its authentic name of “tom yum goong” meaning thai soup with prawns.

We Bengali’s take everything a little too far. Our spicy dishes are a bit spicier, and sweet dishes are a tad sweeter than the food you would get anywhere else in the world. This soup is spicier than an original tom yum but if you ask me just as flavorful, if not more . :D

So if you are not afraid of a little heat try making this Bengali tom yum.

Recipe:

6 cups water
6 teaspoons chicken bouillon powder

3 tablespoons tomato ketchup

1-3 tablespoons Sriracha chili sauce

4 stalks of lemon grass

¼ cup of chicken sliced thinly

¼ cup of medium shrimp (peeled, deveined)

3 Egg yolks

3 tablespoons corn flour

½ cup canned mushroom

1teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon sugar

3 tablespoons Vinegar

First peel off the first few outer layers from the lemon grass stalks and chop it into medium sized pieces. At this point feel free to smash the pieces with the back of your knife. This helps release the essential oils that flavor our food. These stalks although not eaten, impart a light lemony scent to the soup. 

Then separate the eggs and add a tablespoon of corn starch for each yolk. Make sure you save the whites for another dish.

And start mixing it up.

It’ll look crumbly in the beginning but have faith.

It’ll come together nicely into a thick paste.

Now, boil some water making sure it comes to a rolling boil.

And add all the chicken boullion powder. After a minute or two of boiling, add in lemon grass and the thin slices of chicken.

Now here comes the tricky part. If you add the yolk corn flour mixture directly into the hot broth you might end up with scrambled eggs as opposed to a thick creamy soup. Which I guess wouldn't taste bad, but we don’t want that for this recipe.

Take a ladel/ spoonful of the hot liquid and slowly pour it onto the egg paste and stir vigorously. 

Add another ladelful and stir again.

Pour the warm egg mixture into the broth mixture. Give it a quick stir and you'll get a smooth creamy consistency.

Add in the shrimp, ketchup, chili sauce, vinegar, sugar and salt and your soup will get a pretty orange hue. Make sure not to cook the soup for too long otherwise the shrimp will turn rubbery.

Sprinkle generous amounts of chopped cilantro and you have Bengali-Thai soup. Enjoy!! :)