Taste of Thailand

The above pic is the curry chicken I attempted to make from Taste of Thailand. I took all the pics with my camera phone, but as you can see, it looks a lot better than the one I made at home. lol I think mine was sort of close. I think. :P

We went to Taste of Thailand a few weeks ago and every time we go there, the food is always great! I think this is my favorite Thai restaurant in the cities. We usually go to the one in St. Paul on Selby and Snelling. We ordered the usual: curry with spinach and chicken and their spring rolls. We decided to order their pad thai this time and tried their beef salad as well since I've recently grown fond of the Thai beef salad. I'm going to try to make it one of these days. The only complaint I had was that there wasn't enough of it! I wished they would've added more lettuce and less onions. It was very good though. It tasted similar to the one I had at Amazing Thailand, but the portion at Amazing was much bigger. I used to think ToT's spring rolls were the best even though they make them really plain. I think it is the sauce that makes it so good. I prefer the sweet/peanut sauce over the hoisin sauce at Vietnamese restaurants. I have ordered pad thai from ToT before, and don't remember it to be all that great, but for some reason this time was really good!

I haven't done my usual blogging-cooking for a while now. I've been mostly just making meals that I know by heart and haven't tried experimenting anything new recently. I've been so busy with everything: being a mom, wife, work, school, and trying to find ways to make additional income. I actually have a few other blogs out there, but they're more personal blogs. Anyway, maybe when the winter comes, I will cook more since there's less to do outdoors.

Pad thai:


Beef salad:

Curry Chicken with Spinach

I have found a great Thai cooking book. I have tried four recipes so far, and so far, so good. It has great pictures as well. I was anxious to try out their curry recipes as the ingredients seemed like it would taste good. I was right! This was the best curry I've made at home so far. I was trying to make the same chicken curry from Taste of Thailand. I love that dish. They serve the curry with spinach. Spinach?? Yes, spinach. It's actually quite tasty with the spinach. I actually could just eat the curry with the spinach and skip the chicken, but it probably won't fill me up as much. So, I adapted this recipe I found and tried to make it similar to the one at Taste of Thailand's. I think it's pretty good. When I have more time, I am going to try to make my own curry paste from scratch. I have made this dish twice now with red and green curry. Both are good. I know the picture doesn't look good, but the dish was good IMO. My husband loved it and licked the bowl. He wants me to make curry everyday for him, but coconut milk is very fatty. The original recipe called for only one tablespoon of palm sugar, but my husband likes his curry sweet so I added 2 or 3 more tablespoon. You can start out with one and then adjust, but I liked it at 3 or 4 tablespoons. Sorry, I didn't write down what I did exactly since I made this two weeks ago.

Ingredients:
1/4 cup of coconut cream
2 tbsp red curry paste (Maesri brand)
12 oz skinless chicken thigh fillets, sliced
1 3/4 cups of coconut milk
2 1/2 tbsp fish sauce
3 tbsp of palm sugar

1 bag of baby spinach (can't remember what mine was...4-9 oz?)

Chopped Roasted Peanuts


Method
1. Put the coconut cream in a wok or saucepan and simmer over a medium heat for about 5 minutes or until the cream separates and a layer of oil forms on the surface. Stir the cream if it starts to brown around the edges. Add the curry paste, stir well to combine and cook until fragrant.

2. Add the chicken and stir for a few minutes. Add nearly all of the coconut milk, the fish sauce and palm sugar and simmer over medium heat for 5 minutes. Reduce the heat to medium low and continue to cook the chicken for an additional 10 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, boil a pot of water on high heat to blanch the spinach. Prepare a large bowl of ice cold water on the side. When the water is boiling, pour the baby spinach in pot and boil for about 30 seconds. Immediately pour the spinach into a colander to drain the water, then transfer the spinach into the ice cold water to stop it from cooking. Transfer the spinach into a colander to drain the remaining water and set aside until ready to eat.

4. The spinach is put into the curry chicken when it is ready to eat. Serve on a plate with some rice. Top the curry dish with the chopped roasted peanuts.