That’s a ‘larder’ Thai

April is a big month in Thailand as the country’s most famous festival, Songkran, takes place.

An important event on the Buddhist calendar, this water festival marks the beginning of the traditional Thai New Year, with Songkran coming from a Sanskrit word meaning ‘passing’ or ‘approaching’.

Held over two days from 13th to 15th April, celebrations usually involve crowds of people roaming the streets throwing or squirting water at everyone and anyone. Social distancing may put a dampener (sorry couldn’t resist) on that this year, but one thing’s for certain, there will still be lots of amazing Thai food consumed to mark Songkran.

Not that you should need an excuse to eat Thai food that is!

One of the great beauties of Thai food is that it’s not too difficult to make and in the current climate, chances are that you have already got everything you need in the larder (yes, that’s what I still call it!) to be able to knock something up.

That’s because many Thai dishes can be made with ten base ingredients, namely:

1. Tinned coconut milk
2. Fish sauce
3. Limes
4. Curry paste
5. Garlic
6. Onion
7. Chillies
8. Herbs, such as lemongrass, basil and coriander
9. Meat or vegetables (depending on if you are a carnivore or veggie!)
10. Rice

I am willing to bet that most of you have already have these sitting in your cupboards (modern terminology), fridges or freezers, and even if you may not have fresh herbs of spices, chances are that you have the ground versions of chillies, coriander etc.

So, there’s really no reason for not cooking Thai and in reference to last week’s blog, it’s also great for batch cooking as well.

Here’s my Thai ‘larder’ recipe:

Thai inspired fishcake with sweet and sour mango dip

Sweet and sour mango dip:

• 2 x ripe mango (diced into squares)
• 1 x red chilli (finely diced)
• 2 x limes juiced
• 1 x garlic clove
• 50g sugar

1. In a small saucepan add all the ingredients and cook until thick, allow to cool.

Thai Fishcakes:

• 1 x tin of tuna
• 2 x tins of salmon
• ½ a stalk of lemon grass (chopped very fine)
• 3 x gloves of garlic
• 20g piece of peeled fresh ginger or (ready-made puree)
• 1 x red chilli (more if you like it hotter)
• 4 x lime leaf (finely chopped)
• Hand full of basil leaves
• 1 x tsp of salt
• 30g mayonnaise
• Half a lemon squeezed
• 2 x large eggs
• 70g breadcrumbs
• Olive oil for shallow frying

1. In a food processor add all the ingredients apart from the tuna, salmon and breadcrumbs. Blitz the ingredients to make a fragrant, fresh and zingy puree.
2. Then add the tuna and salmon and give a blitz just to mix the fish with the puree. Leave to stand and infuse for 5 minutes, then add the breadcrumbs. This is to soak up any extra moisture and allow you to pick up and form the mix in small fishcake patties. Leave the mix to firm up for another 5 minutes.
3. Taking small handfuls of the mix roll into a ball then flatten turning them into little patties, place them on a plate ready to fry.
4. Put a frying pan on a medium heat and adding enough olive oil to shallow fry the patties. Cook in batches so not to overload the pan and cook for about 4 minutes either side till golden brown and cooked through.
5. Serve with the mango dip and crunchy peanuts.

About Chris Brown

Sous Chef of SK Foods.

Your food. Our Passion.

View all posts by Chris Brown | https://www.skfoods.co.uk