Yam plaa - crispy fish salad

My nephew bought me a Thai cookbook for Christmas, one I haven't seen before.  It's called ... hold on ... The Little Thai Cookbook - and there's some great recipes in it.  I love reading cookbooks so am thoroughly enjoying working my way through this one.

When I find any recipe in any cookbook I like the sound of, or that I've eaten before, I then think through if there's any changes I'd make or what else I could make with it. 

So, with just a very few Tiniest Thai changes, this absolutely delicious crispy fish salad has shot to the top of my current home-alone favourites - when I'm cooking just for me, this is EXACTLY what I usually want to eat. 

It's spicy + sour and crunchy + salty, full of flavour and texture 

And the basic salad and dressing is so simple to adapt to other toppings if you're not in a crispy fish kinda mood.  

I've made it with a chicken, prawn and red pepper topping, stir fried in a little soy sauce and also with prawn and squid. 

I absolutely love hot and sour salads and hope you give this a try

So, crispy fish salad for one ... you'll need .. 

a piece of white fish (I had cod)

1 tspn salt

1 garlic clove

1 red bird eye chilli (or more if you have milder chillies, or want it spicier!)

1/2-1 tablespoon fish sauce

juice of one lime

1 tspn sugar

1/4 red onion, cut into chunks

2 spring onions, sliced

3 or 4 cherry tomatos, halved, or 1 tomato, chopped

1 carrot, julienned or diced

small handful each of fresh mint and coriander leaves, chopped

a tablespoon peanuts, chopped (or use other nuts, I toasted almond flakes today, but peanuts are best!)

cooking oil 

Heat the oven to gas mark 4, 180C.

Rub the salt all over the fish and get all the other ingredients together.

Put the fish on a rack over a baking tray and pop in the oven for 20 mins.

While it cooks, start the dressing by roughly chopping the garlic and chilli then crushing into a paste with the mortar and pestle. Don't pulverise it but do be aware that you're going to be eating whatever sized bits of chilli and garlic you end up with, so adjust to your taste! 

Add the fish sauce, lime juice and sugar and stir to dissolve the sugar.

Chop and prepare all the salad ingredients and put into a big bowl. 

Tip over half the salad dressing, stir or scrunch (with clean hands!) to combine - and set aside.

Take the fish out of the oven and flake with a fork, or with your hands, until it has the consistency of large breadcrumbs.

Pour quite a lot of oil into a wok and heat until a tiny piece of fish dropped in sizzles on hitting the oil.

Then add the fish 'breadcrumbs'.  Leave to cook in the very hot oil for 30 seconds and then stir, and leave again.

Mine took longer to cook than I'd thought it would and actually I'll leave it longer next time as it's so good when it's really crispy!

Keep cooking and stirring (very carefully) then remove the fish with a slotted spoon and drain on kitchen paper or strain into a bowl (and then dispose of the oil when it's cold).

Put the salad onto a plate, add the crispy fish (or other topping) and mix.

Pour the remainder of the dressing on top and mix again - before eating ... 

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Fish Tacos (tiniest-thai-style)

I don't think I'd even ever heard of fish tacos until this year ... and then some of my online friends in the States were mentioning them - and my only thought was a bit 'ewww ... weird ... not sure about that at all!'. 

But I was kind of intrigued too and started mulling over this fish taco concept.  And then last week I caught the fish taco recipe part of a Jamie Oliver programme ... and ok, having seen them, I actually couldn't wait to try them myself. 

So I found the Jamie recipe (and his Everyday Super Food book is now on my birthday list) and today, dear reader, I made it.  Kind of.  

I used it as inspiration but because I had slightly different ingredients and I wanted to make it a little bit 'Tiniest Thai' I did change it around a bit. Of course I did! That's how I cook (and live). 

And I have to say, it's a great recipe and a totally delicious dish.

What I love is that it's really easy and that I can see how I can make it a bit different every time, now I know what I'm doing.

There's a few stages in making it so it does take a little time, but each stage is super-easy and then you just combine it all at the end. 

So this is how I made my fish tacos.  

It makes four tacos so up to you if you think this is enough for four people, or two or just one (yes it's that good I can see how this could happen!).

Get the ingredients together.

I found the easiest way of putting the dough together was to just put it all in a measuring jug - the 60ml water, 100g plain flour (Jamie used wholemeal; I only had white) and a pinch of salt. 

Knead the dough for a minute or two and then set aside. 

Then you need the ingredients for the salad part - Jamie uses red cabbage, coriander leaves, red wine vinegar and orange juice.  

I just used what I had and made a Thai-style dressing instead:

half a white onion, sliced finely 

one courgette, julienned (is it a verb?)

one carrot (julienned)

half a handful coriander leaves, chopped 

All scrunched up with a very scant tablespoon of fish sauce and the juice of half a lime. 

Next I prepared the fish filling of:

half a red pepper and half a yellow pepper, diced into 1cm pieces

2 spring onions, chopped

1-2 little red chilles (Jamie's version doesn't use chillies)

2 pieces of sea bass, sliced into 2cm (ish) pieces.  (Jamie's recipe says haddock with the skin on, but I had sea bass in the freezer - I also took half the skin off as it was kind of peeling off when I cut the fish into pieces).

1 tablespoon light olive oil.

Put it all in a bowl and mix.

Now for the delicious salsa bit!

Jamie's recipe used a couple of kiwi fruits but my local shop didn't have any - it did have mango which I thought would work well (and I was right!). 

2 kiwi fruits or around half a mango

1 green chilli, cut in half (de-seed if you like - Jamie does, I don't) 

Put into a frying pan and cook over a medium heat for 2-3 minutes, turning once or twice until it's slightly charred. 

Then put in a blender with a handful of coriander leaves and the juice of a lime and blend until smooth. 

NOTE: this is absolutely delicious.

Even if you never make the fish tacos, do please, please make this salsa sauce. It's really really good and would be great with grilled fish, or meats, or honestly, just about anything. 

OK, now let's make some fish tacos ... 

You've got the salad made, the fish mixture ready, the salsa sauce done and the dough there to make tacos ... so let's start with the tacos themselves.

Take the dough, halve it and halve again so you have four small balls of dough and then roll them out until thin.

Put a non-stick pan over a medium heat and when hot, add a taco to the pan and cook for a minute or so each side until it starts to bubble. Remove to a plate and put in a very low oven or cover with a hot clean tea towel. 

This was my first time making tacos and whilst I could use a little practice, they were still ok and tasted good! 

When the tacos are cooked and left to keep warm, return the same pan to the heat and add the fish mixture.

Stir fry for around four minutes until cooked through. 

Now it's time to build the tacos. 

Add the fish mixture, some salad, the incredible salsa sauce and a drizzle of natural yogurt. 

And that's it!

I topped them with a little coriander and added some lime wedges.

Serve immediately and then just start planning how you're going to change up the recipe for the next time you make these. 

I'm absolutely certain there will be a next time too! 

Do let me know if you make these - and if you made any changes to the recipe ... 

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Pasta with lemon

Super-easy, super-quick lemon sauce for pasta and fittingly for today, a sunny day in June, it is sunshine on a plate. Best with long thin pasta like tagliatelle, spaghetti or linguine - but I make it with penne sometimes too.

A good lunch or easy supper, this goes well with a quick salad and it's also easy to add prawns or grilled chicken to make it more substantial. And lemon linguine alone makes an elegant first course.

My favourite sort-of-French-dressing uses:

3 tablespoons olive oil

4 tablespoons white vinegar

1 garlic clove, skinned and squashed (not chopped)

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

Method (if you can call it that!) - put it all in a jar and shake, and add more of any dressing ingredient as needed to balance and until you're happy.

I put the jar into the fridge after using and every day just add more vinegar and/or oil as it gets more and more garlicky ...

The original recipe for the pasta with lemon is from Mireille Guiliano's 'French Women Don't Get Fat' and while her recipe serves four, this has been modified and serves two.

if adding prawns, I find it easiest to throw them in with the pasta for the last minute or two to heat or cook.

Make the sauce during the last few minutes of your pasta cooking, or when it's cooked, as it's very quick.

You'll need:

2 lemons

a good slosh of olive oil

around 100g-150g creme fraiche

approx 60g Parmesan

salt and pepper

Grate the zest of the lemons and halve one of them so you have it ready to squeeze into the sauce and grate the cheese.

In a saucepan, warm the olive oil and add the zest. Cook over a low heat for a couple of minutes.

Add the creme fraiche and bring to the boil, then squeeze in the juice of one lemon and bring to the boil again.

The easiest way to juice a lemon is to squeeze a half over your closed hand so your fingers catch the pips.

Cook for a couple of minutes, then add the grated Parmesan, season to taste and cook for another minute.

Combine with the cooked pasta and serve immediately.

Yep, sunshine on a plate and super-quick too :)

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Spicy stir-fried squid

In my mind I'm at the fishing port of Ban Phe, whiling away the time before the ferry to Koh Samet by having a a very spicy squid dish and squinting in the sun.  An afternoon on beautiful Samet can't really be beaten - silver sand, perfect sea, a cold beer and a Thai massage on the beach under the trees before the speedboat back to the mainland.  Day dreams.

In reality, it's been a really hectic day and I haven't had time to go to the shops so need a store-cupboard dinner - and I want it fast too! Frozen squid rings are a store-cupboard staple for me as they defrost quickly in a bowl of water, changed a couple of times as the ice comes off them, and are then also so quick to cook.

This easy recipe uses the nam prik pao (chilli paste in oil) recipe as well as fresh chillies, just to layer up the heat.  You could make it without the chilli paste too, just add more chopped fresh chillies. You can of course make it with less, but I like this dish fiery hot.

Don't leave out the fresh mint and coriander - they make this simple dish something much more special.

Cook your rice first so that it's ready, as the squid cooks so fast. To save both time and washing up, I just threw some chopped green beans and broccoli in with the rice for the last few minutes' cooking time rather than cooking the veg separately.

Quantities for this dish are really up to you, but to serve two I used:

cooking oil

two cloves of garlic, chopped

one large milder red chilli and two birds eye red chillies, sliced

a 300g bag of frozen squid rings, defrosted

a tablespoon of  nam prik pao chilli paste

a teaspoon of sugar

half - one tablespoon fish sauce to taste

two spring onions, sliced

a handful each of coriander and mint leaves

Chop and slice the garlic, chillies and spring onions, and tear the leaves of the herbs into small pieces so that everything's ready to go.

Heat a wok or frying pan and add the cooking oil, swirling to cover and when hot add the garlic and chopped chillies and cook for about 30 seconds over a fairly high heat.

Add the squid rings and cook, stirring, for a minute then add the chilli paste and cook for a further minute.

Turn the heat down a little to medium and add the sugar, fish sauce and spring onions - and cook, still stirring, for another minute until the sugar dissolves.

Take off the heat and stir in the mint and coriander leaves, and serve immediately with rice and green vegetables.

Let me know if you make this and if you liked it!

Update:

I just made this again without chilli paste but with another couple of fresh birds eye chillies and it was much hotter with just fresh chillies! My eyes are watering and I'm a chilli freak. I also used a mix of prawns and squid and yes it was hot but it was also super tasty - the mint makes it really interesting. This is a very good dinner.

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Pla neung manao - steamed chilli lime fish

Now this is what I want (what I really, really want) for dinner - something like this:

A whole steamed fish with chillies and garlic in a lime sauce, brought steaming and simmering to the table in a fish shaped serving tray ... one of my very favourite dishes.

But ... I don't have a fish shaped dish, or even a whole fish- and I need to make dinner with what's available at my small local supermarket.

It's surprisingly easy to make a very delicious version using white fish fillets and steaming the fish in parcels of foil in the oven. And with all the warming chillies, this is as perfect for a midweek winter supper in London as eaten on the beach in Thailand!

To serve two, you'll need

2 fillets of white fish

2-4 garlic cloves

4-6 bird eye chillies (it IS a spicy dish, but obviously use chilli to your own taste)

2 tablespoons fish sauce

the juice of 1-2 limes

1 teaspoon sugar

1 tsp stock granules or 1/2 a stock cube

coriander to garnish

rice and steamed green vegetables to serve

1. Pre-heat the oven to Gas 7 / 220 C / 425 F

2. Tear off two large pieces of foil and place a fish fillet diagonally across each.

3. Chop the garlic and chillies finely and spread over the fish.

4. In a small bowl, mix together the fish sauce, lime juice, sugar and stock cube (don't worry if the stock cube/granules don't dissolve as they will do as it cooks).  Tuck the ends of the foil up to start creating the parcels and pour the sauce equally into each parcel around the fish.

5. Crimp the edges of the foil together, creating a parcel bigger than the fish so there's room for it to steam inside, and place on a baking tray in the pre-heated oven.

6. Cook for 15-20 minutes until cooked through.

7. Serve sprinkled with coriander and slices of lime, alongside rice and green vegetables.

Do try this! I want everyone to know how easy it is to make a simple version of pla neung manao at home.

Let me know what you think ...

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Tod mon pla - Thai fishcakes

Working on a recipe to recreate my favourite tod mon pla is an ongoing labour of love.  I make them obsessively, trying things out and changing ingredients and quantities, then stop for a while before taking up the challenge again.

Having needed a break from the last round of experimenting, I haven’t given them a go for a couple of years.  I’ve previously tried making them with egg and with coconut milk, I’ve used different fish, I’ve even made a non-fish version with pork as well as made endless variations of the cucumber and peanut sauce.

I love the little slices of green beans hidden in tod mon pla, but for a while couldn’t work out how to get them to be slightly more well cooked, still with a bite, but not crunchy.  I now blanch the sliced beans before using.  An added benefit of blanching green vegetables is that it means they stay a really bright green, which is a great trick for keeping green veg in stir fries looking fresh too.

It may well be my life’s work to refine these hot morsels of deliciousness!  Here’s where I am with them today.

Makes 8 fishcakes.

1/2 lb / about 225g white fish

1 tbspn red curry paste

1 tsp fish sauce

1 green chilli

1 tsp sugar

zest of 1/2 –  1 lime

squeeze of lime juice

handful of coriander leaves, chopped

a few green beans, sliced in very fine rounds

oil for frying

Put a pan of water on to boil for the green beans.  

Then put all the fishcake ingredients (except the beans!) into a food processor, if using, or mortar or other heavy bowl for pounding if not.

Mix or pound until smooth – but be careful if using a food processor as it will come together really quickly and you don’t want it pureed.  Turn the mixture out into a bowl.

As soon as the water comes to the boil, drop in the slices of green beans for around 20 seconds, drain and rinse in cold water to stop them cooking any further.

Add the beans to the mixture and combine.

Then just roll into eight little patties – squeezing out any juice – and flatten.  They can be cooked straight away or, as I did, popped in the fridge for half an hour or so to firm up a little more.

While they firm up, make the cucumber dipping sauce.  Quantities are up to you! The only things I think you really need for this are:

cucumber

green chilli

carrots

rice or white wine vinegar

sugar

peanuts

Today I also used a spring onion and a piece of ginger.

Chop all the vegetables really finely (or get the food processor to earn its keep again).

Combine approx two parts vinegar with one part sugar, but do keep tasting until you like it, perhaps adding a little more sugar, and stir until the sugar is completely dissolved. Add the chopped vegetables and top with crushed roasted peanuts, either as they are, or toasted in a dry pan first.

Today, I also added a splash of soy sauce at the end.  So just experiment and see what you like.

Back to the fishcakes …

Heat a wok or frying pan and then add quite a bit of vegetable cooking oil, around 3 tablespoons, as they should be almost deep fried.

Add the fishcakes to the hot oil, cooking in batches if need be, and cook for 1.5 – 2 minutes each side.

Drain on kitchen paper and eat immediately with the cucumber dipping sauce.

And then please let me know what you think in the comments box below!

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Fried prawn balls

I've been cooking so much recently (which I have loved) that I’ve now got a lot to catch up with here and lots of recipes to share. Can’t wait!

Will start with these little fried prawn balls I made a few nights ago – and I think everyone liked them. Well, they ate them! These are good served with a cucumber dipping sauce or with sweet chilli sauce.

They’re also really useful as once cooked you can just shallow fry -as I’ve done here – for a snack or starter, or use in noodle dishes or in soups and curries. Or once cooled they will keep in the freezer for a couple of months to use another time.

You can fry them as they are or thread onto wooden skewers (soak the skewers in water for half an hour before using).  I didn’t have any skewers the other evening so used wooden toothpicks with just two prawn balls on each –  and actually thought they looked so cute it’s my favourite way to serve them.

These take a little time and have a few stages in the process of making them – and generate a few pans to wash up – but are really simple and it’s well worth giving them a try!

To make about 20 small prawn balls you’ll need:

a small piece of pork or a tablespoon or so of pork mince (optional but it’s good to have a bit of fat in them)

a packet of raw prawns (approx 200g), defrosted if frozen, and de-veined

zest of one lime

a small handful of coriander leaves

half a red chilli, chopped

one garlic clove, minced

1/2 teaspoon white pepper

1 teaspoon soy sauce

one egg white

plain flour

If it’s not already minced put the piece of pork into the food processor first and give it a quick whizz to mince.

Then add all the other ingredients except the flour …

Pulse to combine thoroughly and then add the flour straight in, a little at a time, and pulse again.

Add flour until the mixture starts to hold together. It takes quite a bit of flour so just add it steadily bit by bit and pulse each time.

Put a saucepan of water on to boil and whilst waiting for it to boil make the fish balls.

Using two teaspoons, make little scoops of the mixture into balls and set aside until the water is boiling.

Then drop the fish balls into the water one at a time and when they’re all in wait for the water to return to the boil – which will take a minute or two – and boil for a couple of minutes.

Drain …

… and then either cool before freezing or using in other dishes, or thread onto bamboo skewers/toothpicks to fry.

Heat oil in a pan and fry until golden, turning a few times. It will take probably a good five minutes.

And then serve with some sweet chilli sauce and eat. And that’s it!

Hope you like these – let me know in the comments.

 PS. The step-by-step pictures that look like they were taken on my phone … they were!

The two gorgeous shots were taken by my photographer friend Viktoria Kuti – and very many thank you's Vik.  (viktoriakuti.com)

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