Nice Thai

This year I want to go on holiday again and last month I found a bargain 10-day holiday to a country I've always wanted to visit: Thailand. 

Currently, the political violence in Bangkok is so bad that holiday insurers won't cover anyone who willingly enters the country. So, as the combination of violence and volcano prevent me from experiencing the real thing, I must at least continue to enjoy its cuisine in the UK. 

So far I've managed to perfect just two humble dishes (three if you count the fragrant rice). Having sampled one particular dish in Bristol's Teohs and in Tampopo, I know its sticky, shrimpy, nuttiness is like gold dust for my tastebuds. So I'm grateful that on a sickly day at the beginning of this year I watched former Masterchef finalist (Digger) Dean Edwards (from here in Bristol nonetheless) cook a simple, healthy pad thai on This Morning. 

It's a recipe I've now mastered, and holds the crown as my fella's favourite. I've found tamarind paste hard to track down, so instead I use some block tamarind which I soak before use - the longer the better (around 6-8 hours) - then sieve into the recipe. This ingredient gives a definite unique sweetness to the recipe which it misses if the fruit is omitted. The key to pad thai however, I feel, is in the garnishes: plenty of dried red chilli flakes, finely chopped peanuts and luscious green coriander.

The second is a Thai green curry - but skinny. Collecting dust on my recipe book shelf is Cook Yourself Thin - with recipes taken from the Channel 4 series by a bunch of posh, albeit slim, girls with lots of neat ideas on how to eat well without feeling cheated. 

The secret of their recipe was to poach the prawns in (light) coconut milk and load it with green veg. This way, there's no oil in the recipe and the fat from the coconut milk is counterbalanced with about 3 of your 5-a-day. The real revelation from this recipe though, is that it taught me how to cook perfect fragrant rice. Who knew the trick would be to cook it so little? The magic is in the steam created from the initial boil, which then slowly cooks the rice to perfection as your curry bubbles away on the stove. The fluffy sticky (but not stodgy) rice is almost as satisfying as the incredible smell of lemongrass which wafts out of the pan as you lift the lid. It's been foolproof so far - I've never looked back.

Nx

Update: since writing this post, the recipe has been removed from the This Morning website. Here's my weathered, well used and well loved copy (click to enlarge).