Thai-Style Salmon Cakes

After taking a break for the last month to wrap up the semester and not worry about taking decent shots of our meals, I'm ready to start posting again.  While posting regularly is not terribly difficult, it's so much easier to not post at all.  It's analogous to following an exercise routine: the first couple of days you slough off you feel guilty, but the longer you go without following the routine the easier it gets.  Then you wake up one day and find yourself needing to catch your breath after bending down to pick up your paper.

Tod mun pla, fried fish cakes, are a popular item on Thai menus. Fresh, light, and bursting with flavor, they are a nice way of starting off a meal or as an accompaniment to cocktails.  While tod mun pla are fried, these salmon cakes, which are adapted from Cindy Pawlcyn's Big Small Plates, are grilled.  Intended to be served as appetizers, we had them as the main course for a recent dinner. 

These are less aggressively spiced than typical tod mun pla.  There is no Thai curry paste added to the fish.  As much as I enjoy salmon, I think these might work better with halibut or cod.  Salmon is such a rich fish that it overwhelms these somewhat.  I was afraid they would end up sticking to the grill, but they were quick and easy to cook with no sticking problem whatsoever.  We used Boston or Bibb lettuce to wrap the patties, but you could use Iceberg if you wished.

Thai-Style Salmon Cakes

printable recipe

adapted from Big Small Plates

4 ounces haricot verts, or young green beans

1 pound skinless salmon fillets, pin bones removed

1 stalk lemongrass, outer layers peeled, and white inner section minced

4 small shallots, peeled and minced

1-inch piece of ginger, peeled and minced

3 to 4 TBS minced cilantro

2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced

2 kaffir lime leaves, central vein removed, thinly sliced

1 1/2 tsp sugar

1 1/2 tsp fish sauce

pinch of salt

pinch of freshly ground black pepper

Bibb or other lettuce leaves
nuoc cham
finely grated carrot
finely grated daikon
fresh lime slices

Cut the haricot verts into 1/8 inch slices.  Blanch in boiling water for 30 seconds.  Drain and place in an ice bath.  When the beans are cold, drain them and dry on towels.

Cut the salmon into 1/2-inch pieces.  Chill.

Mix the minced lemongrass, shallots, ginger, cilantro, garlic, lime leaves, sugar  and fish sauce in a small bowl.  Chill this mixture for 30 minutes.

I prefer to chop the salmon into fine pieces with two knives; otherwise, pulse briefly in a food processor.  You want to make sure you don't end up with a smooth paste.  Gently mix the salmon with the chilled herb mixture and the blanched haricot vert slices.  Season with salt and pepper. 

Form the salmon mixture into small patties about a half inch thick with a one and a half inch diameter (1,25 cm x 3,75 cm). 

Brush the patties with oil on both sides and grill over  hot coals for a couple of minutes on each side until nicely caramelized.  They can also be pan fried in a nonstick skillet for 3 to 5 minutes each side until golden brown.

Serve with lettuce leaves to wrap.  Top with finely grated carrot, daikon and nuoc cham.  Squeeze fresh lime on top if you wish.

Ahi Larb

If you've read this blog before, you are probably aware that I have a special fondness for ahi.  Good, fresh tuna is a taste that's hard to beat.  While many Americans have an aversion to raw fish and will only eat seared ahi, I especially like raw ahi.  Served as carpaccio or tartare, it makes a wonderful appetizer.  This version of larb could also be served as an appetizer or, with sticky rice, as part of a Thai meal. 

In the US, larb (or laab) is found in virtually every Thai restaurant.  Usually, larb gai--chicken larb--is what is on offer, made with cooked chicken, lime juice, fish sauce and herbs.  Other meats may also be used for larb.

My first exposure to larb was about 25 years ago when teaching some Lao students in Sacramento.  I was occasionally invited to their houses for celebrations and they always had plenty of food.  Larb was something that was always served, but very often the larb they made was with raw beef.  Although I like raw beef, my wife won't touch it, so I generally avoid beef these days.  This ahi larb is my attempt to create something like I used to have at the Lao parties.

The primary requirement for this dish is the availability of sashimi grade fresh ahi.  The lime juice "cooks" the fish, so its best to make the larb just before serving.  It is a simple, quickly prepared dish that may be served with lettuce, Belgian endive, Vietnamese sesame crackers, or sticky rice.  Increase or reduce the number of chilies to adjust the level of heat in the dish to your taste.

Ahi Larb

1/2 pound sashimi grade ahi tuna, chopped in a small dice

1-4 red Thai chiles, seeded and minced

3 small shallots, peeled and minced

2 TBS fresh lime juice

1 1/2 TBS fish sauce

1/2 tsp sugar

3 TBS minced rau ram (daun laksa)

1 TBS minced mint

black pepper, to taste

2-3 TBS roasted rice powder

In a medium bowl, mix the ahi with the other ingredients.  Press into a small bowl and invert the bowl onto a serving platter.  As an appetizer, guacamole is a nice accompaniment with sesame crackers and Belgian endive spears.

Tofu Fried with Basil

Now, my favorite way of having tofu is probably tahu telor.  I think that dish, which is similar to a Spanish tortilla with tofu rather than potatoes and then served with bean sprouts and a tangy peanut sauce, is impossible to top when it is cooked right.  That's not to say that I don't like stuffed tofu, or salt and pepper tofu, or ma po tofu, or countless other ways you can prepare tofu.  However, I don't generally like dishes in which tofu's role is an ersatz meat.  Spaghetti and tofu ragu would be better without the tofu; tofu is simply a distraction from the other ingredients rather than a complement.

Chicken fried with basil is a dish you'll find at every Thai restaurant outside of Thailand.  Gai paht kra prao, pad thai, and gai yang seem to be the holy trinity of dishes on Thai menus.  It's a dish that comes together quickly and is a flavor powerhouse.  Although I don't generally favor the substitution of tofu for meat, there are dishes where it works.  This is one.  That's because what really makes this dish is the combination of garlic, peppers and basil in a salty-sweet sauce.  It works with chicken, pork, shrimp, or tofu.  The tofu is not the star of the dish, but it doesn't detract from it.

Daring Cooks Pork Sate

The January 2010 DC challenge was hosted by Cuppy of Cuppylicious and she chose a delicious Thai-inspired recipe for Pork Satay from the book 1000 Recipes by Martha Day. This month's Daring Cooks' Challenge called for pork sate. Although Indonesia's sate is well known, the recipe identified the challenge's sate as Thai. Sate in Thailand actually appears to have immigrated north from Malaysia, and as it moved north from the Muslim influence of the south, pork (taboo to Muslims, of course) became an acceptable meat.

In Indonesia, which has some 216 million Muslims out of a total population of around 240 million, pork sate is not usually found outside of Bali and Chinese communities. Although in Bali pork sate is now served with peanut sauce because that's what tourists expect, most Indonesians eat pork sate with sambal kecap--a sauce of kecap manis, lime juice, garlic, shallots, and chilies. I must say that I also prefer sambal kecap with pork sate. Peanut sauce somehow doesn't complement the pork sate. In the photo, peanut sauce is on the left, sambal kecap on the right.

I'm having a hell of a time getting photos, what with the shorter days and my teaching schedule. As a result, I thought I'd wait until there's more light to do a proper posting on sate babi (pork sate) as I know it. For the challenge, I used a marinade from a cookbook I picked up in Indonesia many years ago for a generic meat sate (beef, lamb, or goat). I much prefer Sri Owen's first cookbook, Indonesian Food and Cookery, even though she had to make many compromises when she wrote it because of the difficulty of finding Indonesian ingredients at that time.

I served the sate with a peanut sauce and sambal kecap, but I think I was the only one in the house who actually tried the peanut sauce. It just doesn't belong with pork sate.


Sate Daging (recipe adapted from Indonesian and Thai Cookery by Sri Owen)

3 shallots, thinly sliced
2 cloves of garlic, pounded to a paste in a mortar
1 TBS coconut vinegar
2 tsp coriander, ground
1/2 tsp cumin, ground
2 TBS light soy sauce
2 TBS vegetable oil

1 lb pork shoulder, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
8--12 bamboo skewers, soaked in water several hours

Mix all the ingredients for the marinade in a bowl. Add the meat and stir well. Marinate for at least two hours.

Skewer the meat and grill over a hot flame for 6 to 8 minutes, turning several times. Ideally, you should grill over charcoal, but a gas grill is ok.

Thai-spiced Chicken Toast Rounds

I'm a whore.

Let me rephrase that.

I'm an ESL teacher for a school district that has looted its own adult education program to mitigate budget cuts the state legislature has forced on the district's K-12 program. As a result, there has been a 26% cut to the adult education program, eliminating scores of part-time teaching positions, although not a single administrative position has been cut (despite closing down one school). In order to preserve administrative positions, there has been a Byzantine reshuffling of administrative oversight so that the ESL department at my school is not done by the principal who is actually based at my school, but instead is handled by the principal of the closed down school who is now based at a high school that was closed down several years ago. Honest. Although this principal was successfully sued by a former vice-principal for, in part, asking him to alter data to get more funding, she still wields power in the district. Under her direction, our department has been told to forget the curriculum that has been developed over many years and to focus on EL Civics, a federally funded program that is so poorly managed that it practically invites fraud. So instead of focusing on teaching my students what they truly need to learn, I teach them to pass the assessments. Ka-ching!

In other words, I'm a whore.
But I'm not a cheap whore. As a friend of mine has been heard to say, "You can call me an asshole, but you can't call me a cheap asshole." In other words, I have my standards.

All of this is to explain my entry to be one of six Nature's Pride "Bread Ambassadors." Should my entry be accepted, Nature's Pride will cover the cost of my hotel room and travel expenses to the Foodbuzz Blogger Festival in San Francisco. Although it probably isn't the wisest strategy to announce my entry by proclaiming I'm a whore.

In truth, I bought my loaf of Nature's Pride Healthy Multi-Grain Bread. I do have a coupon for it, but I didn't want to feel cheap, so I bought my loaf. And it was good. It's a very fresh tasting, springy loaf with a natural nuttiness. I made a wonderful chicken salad sandwich with it. Alfalfa sprouts, shredded leftover gai yang with pepper coriander paste mixed with just enough mayonnaise to bind it together, and tomato slices. Truly delicious, but not worthy of an embassy posting.

Still, it got me thinking. So I decided to use some of that Thai flavor to make an appetizer akin to shrimp toast. Instead of frying the toast, I adapted the method Susana Foo uses in her cookbook to make shrimp toast. This produces a tasty, crisp toast that is not saturated with oil as the traditionally fried toasts are. To be honest, I prefer the fried version, but the baked version is very delicious and probably much healthier for you.

I used chicken breast because that seems like what most Americans prefer, never mind that it lacks the flavor of thighs. The breast does make a nice farcé that is easily piped onto the toast rounds. Taste the chicken mixture by frying a spoonful before baking and adjust the seasoning as needed.

Thai-spiced Chicken Toast Rounds

(makes 50 1 3/4 inch appetizers)

10 slices of Nature's Pride Multi-Grain Bread or Country Potato Bread

1 pound of boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut in 1 inch pieces
1 egg white, lightly beaten
5 shallots, peeled and chopped
5 cloves of garlic, peeled
3 TBS cilantro roots or 4 TBS cilantro stems
2 TBS whole white pepper, finely ground
2 TBS fish sauce
1 1/2 tsp sugar
2 TBS olive oil
6 fresh water chestnuts, peeled and diced
2 TBS diced red pepper
2 TBS finely chopped garlic chives

1 bunch of garlic chive buds, blanched in boiling water for 20 seconds, shocked in ice water and drained
2 TBS black sesame seeds

Using a 1 3/4 inch diameter biscuit cutter, cut five rounds from each slice of bread (you may not get five perfect rounds, but it should be close). Bake the rounds on an ungreased baking sheet in a 250 degree oven for 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and increase the oven temperature to 400º F.

In a food processor, finely chop the garlic, shallots and cilantro roots or stems. Add the chicken, pepper, fish sauce, sugar, oil and egg white. Pulse until you have a fairly smooth paste. Transfer the paste to a bowl and stir in the water chestnuts, red pepper and garlic chives. Fry a teaspoon-full and adjust seasonings as needed.

Brush one side of the toast rounds with olive oil and place on a baking sheet, oiled side of the toast down. Using a pastry bag, or plastic baggie with the corner cut out, pipe the chicken paste onto the top of the toast rounds.

Cut the tops of the garlic chives with the buds to a length of about 2 inches. Tie these into loose knots and place on top of the chicken topped rounds. Sprinkle with black sesame.

Bake in the 400º oven for 8 to 10 minutes. Best served warm, although they may be served cold.

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Thai Basil Claypot Rice

Moo Paht Bai Graprao--Pork Fried with Basil is one of my favorite Thai dishes. I also like the basil fried with chicken or shrimp. It's a comforting dish that comes together quickly. Many times when I don't have anything specific in mind for dinner I'll to a quick stir-fry with basil. It's something that comes together in a few minutes and makes a great leftover to bring to school the next day.

I'm also fond of claypot rice. My wife makes a version her mother made with minced pork, garlic and choy sum which I like very much but which she keeps as a closely guarded secret. Like the stir fried basil dishes, claypot rice is a dish that comes together easily and makes great leftovers.

Since I couldn't get my wife to part with her mother's recipe, I decided to do a mash-up of Thai basil pork and claypot rice with mushrooms. While I don't think it's quite as tasty as my wife's claypot rice, it was delicious, quick and comforting. A great one-dish main for a busy school night.

Thai Basil Claypot Rice

12 ounces pork, diced (you could easily substitute boned, skinless chicken thighs)
8--12 dried shitake mushrooms, soaked in water 30 minutes, diced
2 shallots, finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 inch piece of ginger, peeled and minced
2--4 thai chilies, thinly sliced or minced
2 TBS fish sauce
1 TBS kecap manis (sweet soy sauce)
1 TBS water
2 cups rice
3 cups chicken broth
1 cup Thai basil

Mix the pork, mushrooms, shallots, garlic, ginger, chilies, fish sauce, kecap manis and water. Marinate for at least 15 minutes.
Put rice in claypot. Stir in chicken broth and bring to boil. After a minute or two of boiling, place pork mixture on top of rice, cover and simmer for about 15 minutes until all the liquid is absorbed and the rice is cooked. Add the basil leaves and stir the meat and basil into the rice. Remove the claypot from the heat and let the rice stand for five minutes or longer before serving.

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Lemongrass-Kaffir Lime Leaf-Pepper Jelly

Thai-style sweet chili sauce is a pleasing accompaniment to fried foods such as stuffed chicken wings and spring rolls. The combination of heat and sweetness along with the sharp twang of vinegar in the background really sparks the taste buds. I wanted to come up with a jelly that would make someone think of Southeast Asia when tasting it. I didn't want something that was merely incendiary hot; I wanted something more nuanced.

The method and ingredients for making pepper jelly differ little from those for making a Thai-style sweet chili sauce. The basic ingredients are chilies, vinegar, and sugar. Puree, boil, and steep. For the jelly I strained the solids and added pectin to make the liquid jell.

The jelly can be served on a cracker with cream cheese or brie. It could also be used as a glaze to grilled pork or chicken. Heated, it liquefies and could be used as a dip for stuffed chicken wings, or crab rangoons that Wandering Chopsticks posted about recently.

Lemongrass-Kaffir Lime Leaf-Pepper Jelly
2 or 3 stalks of lemongrass, pale whitish part only, bruised and sliced
6 to 8 kaffir lime leaves, julienned
1/2 cup red jalapenos, or other chilies of your choice (I chose jalapenos because they provide a nice amount of heat but aren't overwhelming), chopped
3/4 cup vinegar
3 cups white sugar
1 3 ounce package of liquid pectin


Mix lemongrass slices, lime leaves, chilies, vinegar and sugar in a saucepan. Heat and stir. Bring to a boil, then remove from heat. Using a blender or immersion blender, puree cooled mixture. Let sit for half an hour or so. Strain solids out using a sieve. Bring liquid to a boil and simmer five minutes. Remove from heat and stir in liquid pectin. Pour warm liquid into warm sterilized jars. Process in boiling water for five minutes. Makes 3 half-pint jars.

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Thai Me Up Chicken Corn Cellophane Noodle Salad

I somehow stumbled across the Paper Chef challenge yesterday and thought I'd give it a go. Apparently modeled after the Ironchef series of TV fame, the idea is each cook must prepare a recipe from four ingredients selected by the previous Paper Chef winner. The ingredients are revealed the first full weekend of the month and the challenge must be submitted by noon the following Tuesday. It turned out that I had the four ingredients required for this month's challenge, so I thought I'd see what I could do. This month's ingredients were corn, chicken, almonds, and fish sauce. This combination suggested to me a Thai or Vietnamese style salad although I also considered fried rice. Cellophane noodles are frequently used in Thai salads and have the wonderful quality of absorbing and distributing the dressing to each bite of the salad. This salad could be served as lettuce wraps or, as I have done, simply on top of several leaves of romaine lettuce.


Chicken and Corn Cellophane Noodle Salad

4 chicken thighs, skinned, boned, and cut into 1/2 inch dice
2 red peppers, roasted, peeled, and cut into 1/2 inch dice
2 ears of corn, shaved, about 2 cups of kernels
6 to 8 green onions, cut into 1/2 inch lengths
1/2 cup slivered dry roasted almonds
6 kaffir lime leaves, finely julienned
1 2 ounce bundle of cellophane noodles soaked in hot water until soft, drained, then cut in 2 inch lengths
3 TBS oil

1 TBS kecap manis (Indonesian sweet soy sauce)
1 TBS fish sauce (I prefer 3 Crabs, a Vietnamese brand)
2 cloves of garlic, minced

Marinate chicken in kecap manis, fish sauce and garlic for several hours or overnight.
Stir fry chicken in hot wok with 2 tablespoons of oil until just cooked. Remove chicken to a clean bowl. Add another tablespoon of oil to wok, then green onions. Fry about 20 seconds, then add red peppers and corn. Cook for two to three minutes over high flame, stirring constantly. Add chicken back to the vegetables and stir to mix thoroughly. Turn off heat and stir in almonds and lime leaf slivers. Fold in cellophane noodles, then pour dressing over and mix well. Serve several tablespoons full on individual iceberg lettuce leaves or on top of a plate lined with romaine lettuce.

Dressing

2 TBS Thai sweet chili sauce
1 TBS fish sauce
juice of 1/2 a lime
1 1/2 tsp finely minced ginger
2 TBS water
sugar to taste

Mix ingredients together in a jar and shake well.

Thanks to Kristina of Former Chef for hosting this month's challenge.