Fried Spring Rolls (Po Pia Tod ปอเปี๊ยะทอด)

By on June 30, 2011 in She Fries, She Thais, She Veges


Recipes for these fried spring rolls (Po Piah Tod[1] ปอเปี๊ยะทอด) vary so greatly that you’re not likely to find two family recipes that are identical. It’s fairly safe to say, though, that the ones most commonly found in the central part of Thailand usually contain glass noodles or mung bean threads (wun sen วุ้นเส้น), bean sprouts, and wood ear mushrooms. This recipe from my aunt’s kitchen is quite typical in that way. What I love the most about her fried spring rolls – something I don’t always find in other versions – is the aroma of the quintessential garlic-cilantro root-peppercorn paste.

Good spring rolls must taste good on their own, in my opinion. Poorly-made, bland fillings that exist just to live off of the charisma of crispy spring roll skins and flavorful dipping sauce are too underachieving to be worth the calories.

Yes, I’m looking at you, cheaply-made $6.99 lunch special spring rolls, stuffed to the gills with cabbage-heavy filling whose raison d’être, apparently, is to keep you tubular. Continue Reading →

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Thai Iced Tea with Lime (Cha Ma-Nao ชามะนาว)

By on June 27, 2011 in She Deglutenizes, She Thais, She Veges


Thai Iced Tea with Lime (Cha Ma-Nao ชามะนาว) is a staple at anything from the lowliest of khao-kaeng (rice-curry[1]) stalls to school cafeterias, to little posh cafés, to sit-down family restaurants. People like it, apparently.

While pairing wine or beer with Thai food can be tricky sometimes, and soda doesn’t always work (try drinking coca-cola with anything spicy that contains lemongrass and/or galangal — yuck), Cha Ma-Nao — ordinary as it may seem — hardly, if ever, fails. The combination of Thai tea and lime juice seems to go with just about any Thai dish.

Thai Iced Tea with Lime (Cha Ma-Nao ชามะนาว)
Makes a little over 1/2 gallon
Printable Version

4 cups room temperature water
4 cups very cold water
1/2 cup Thai tea[2]
1 1/2 cups sugar (more or less depending on your taste)
3/4 cup freshly-squeezed lime juice
Ice

  • Put 4 cups of room temperature water in a pot and bring it to a boil. Turn off the heat.
  • Add the tea and let it steep for 15-20 minutes.
  • After 15-20 minutes have passed, add the sugar to the tea and stir until it’s completely dissolved.
  • Add the cold water to the mixture to bring the hot tea to room temperature.
  • Strain the sweetened tea into a large pitcher.
  • Stir in the lime juice.
  • Serve over ice.

    • [1]Speaking pars pro toto, of course, since any given rice-curry stall always offers more than just rice and curries.

    [2] If you’re afraid of using a product that contains artificial food coloring, replace Thai tea with the same amount of black tea and 2-3 pieces of star anise. It won’t taste the same, of course, but — I promise you — it will still be delicious.

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    Pad Thai Recipe (ผัดไทย) – Part Three: The Notable Ingredients and Garnishes

    By on June 25, 2011 in She Deglutenizes, She Fries, She Stocks a Thai Pantry, She Thais


    I have proposed in the first part of the Pad Thai series that the best pan to use to make Pad Thai is a wide, flat-bottomed pan with a nonstick surface, short rims, and great heat retention ability. In the second part of the series, I have proposed that the best rice noodles to use in Pad Thai is flat rice noodles between 2 to 5 millimeters in width (measured before soaking). In the same post on the noodles, I’ve also cautioned you against blanching or par-cooking the noodles prior to stir-frying for that is the surest way to get your noodles to clump up and your Pad Thai completely ruined.

    In this post, I will be making comments and suggestions on the ingredients and garnishes that help make your homemade Pad Thai that much closer to the most common version found on the streets of Bangkok. You may not have seen some of these ingredients before in all the versions of Pad Thai which you have had outside Thailand. But I can assure you that none of these ingredients is foreign to most Pad Thai enthusiasts in the motherland. And this is undoubtedly a yawn-inducing post to them for, you see, Pad Thai is such an ordinary food that is found everywhere in Bangkok, and these common ingredients are found right along with it. Everywhere. Every day. Almost all the time. Continue Reading →

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