Our second day of Asian Cuisine found us briefly touching on the cuisines of Thailand, Vietnam and India. If it seemed scandalous to spend a only a few hours last week talking about Chinese cuisine, then it seems even more blasphemous to cover all three of these countries in the same amount of time, but I’ll take what I can get for now. For our purposes, it does make sense to combine these three countries into one day’s discussion…to some degree there are similarities in the cuisine of these nations (heavy usage of chili peppers, garlic, ginger, fresh vegetables and similar wok-derived cooking devices) and their influences (for example, the cuisine of China has influenced all three of these countries).
Tom Yum Goong (Hot and Sour Thai Shrimp Soup):
This soup begins with chicken stock that has been flavored with lemongrass and Kaffir lime leaves. It gets its heat from Thai chilies and that ubiquitous of Thai condiments, nam prik pao, a somewhat sweet chili paste. The sour component is provided by cider vinegar.
Vietnamese Spring Rolls:
A mixture of rice vermicelli, carrot, red pepper, cabbage, mint and cilantro, wrapped up in banh trang rice paper wrappers. They were garnished with deep fried peanuts and served with a dipping sauce made from garlic, vinegar, water, sugar, nuoc mam (Vietnamese fish sauce) and lime juice.
Curried Lamb Pastries with Raita:
I made this dish, which was very similar to the samosas that you might find on the menu of your local Indian restaurant. I began by making the dough, which consisted of flour, ghee (clarified butter), a little bit of canola oil and turmeric, to provide the dough with its yellow hue. I combined the ingredients in a bowl until they formed a ball, then kneaded this dough by hand for about 5 minutes until the right texture had been achieved. I next portioned the dough into small balls then allowed it to rest (to relax the gluten strands) for an hour. While the dough was resting, I assembled and pre-cooked the filling (ground lamb, onions, a few jalapeno peppers, cumin, curry powder and baked potatoes) and the accompanying raita (a dipping sauce made from plain yogurt, finely diced cucumber and red onion, cumin, salt, pepper, fresh mint and cilantro and lime juice).
I flattened out the dough balls into discs, placed some of the filling in the center, then closed the dough around the filling. The dough packages were dropped into the deep fryer and cooked until they were golden brown on the outside. I unfortunately made my dough balls a bit too big, meaning that there was quite a bit of excess dough surrounding the lamb filling. This posed a problem when it came time to fry the dough packages, as the outside reached the perfect golden brown stage a bit before the inner-most part of the dough had a chance to fully cook. As a testament to the great flavors in the dough, the filling and the raita, none of my classmates really seemed to mind the occasional bite of slightly raw dough. Besides that, I was very happy with these.
Pla Chien (Fried Fish in Tamarind Sauce):
Fish fillets were sauteed until golden brown and crispy on the outside and covered in a sauce made from lots of fried garlic, soy sauce, sugar, nam pla (Thai fish sauce) and tamarind paste. The flavor of the tamarind is complex, sort of like an orange, but with a lot more depth and tartness to it. It also possesses certain smoky, slightly sour and tart flavors that seem to go well with just about anything.
Pad Thai:
Arguably one of the most recognizable dishes from Thailand. It’s made with rice noodles, eggs, fish sauce, lime juice, bean sprouts and Thai chilies and is usually slightly sweet.
Goanese Pork Vindaloo:
Pork tenderloin was cut into cubes and placed into a marinade consisting of ground, toasted cumin seeds and black mustard seeds, along with onion, ginger, cider vinegar, cinnamon, cloves and garlic, all pureed together. After marinating, the pork was cooked along with tamarind paste, thinly sliced onion and some additional spices until the meat was tender. It was served with basmati rice and was really good. It was however, nowhere near as spicy as I was expecting it to be…I’m wondering where the recipe that we used in class came from. It was my impression that the terms vindaloo and heat go hand in hand.
Seafood Satay on a Sugarcane:
Fish and shrimp were minced together in the food processor, combined with Thai yellow curry paste, Thai chilies and shredded coconut, then formed into ‘balls’ around segments of fresh sugarcane. They were deep fried and served with a peanut sauce.
Kadhai Murgh:
Kadhai is the name of the cooking vessel traditionally used to cook this dish; it looks a lot like a wok, but with a flatter base. Murgh is the Indian word for chicken. This dish was flavored with tomatoes, ginger, coriander, red chilies, garlic, fenugreek (vaguely reminiscent of anise or fennel) and garam masala (a mixture of various spices that can vary widely depending on what region of India one is in but generally includes cinnamon, cloves, cardamom seeds, black pepper and cumin). Like the pork dish, this was also really good and had a lot of well developed and complex flavors going on and wasn’t as spicy as I was expecting (this time I was misled by the bright red color of the dish…note, I also don’t automatically expect all Indian cuisine to be hot).
Various breads and chutneys:
Soft, “Afghan Style” naan (a general term for an unleavened flat-bread) on the left side and a more crispy, fried bread on the right. Chutney is a generic term for condiment and it is usually served with bread or along with the main dishes; they can be hot or mild and sweet or sour or a little bit of everything. Today we made banana-tamarind, coriander-coconut and sweet mango chutneys.
Let the feast begin:
For my first plate of food, I made sure to sample everything…it all looked so good.
My second plate of food looked pretty similar to the first. I’m not really sure how I’ve managed to lose weight after going through nearly 30 weeks of culinary school, especially considering that I eat like this a few times per week. I’m certainly not complaining. My secret…when I gorge myself on a meal like this at around 2pm or so, it usually is enough to last me through the end of the day, so I’m basically just combining lunch and dinner into one massive afternoon binge-session.
