The Green House Supermarket

We got an impromptu tour around the amazing complex behind Sharjah’s Green House Supermarket recently. The old supermarket, which used to be off Gamal Abdel Nasser Street, has now been closed down and moved to the front of the Green House Warehouse in the Sharjah Industrial Area. It's not a million miles from the London Dairy Ice Cream factory, in fact.

What do you mean, you thought it came from London? Next you'll be telling me you didn't know it was made with palm oil - cheap saturated vegetable fat used as a substitute for the more expensive cow-derived cream.

The Green House Supermarket is an occasional pleasure for me, a wander around this eclectic collection preparatory to a night's mega-Thai cookup and a freezer-packing session. The Green House stocks the strangest and most amazing variety of things, from extension leads through to mothballs as well as a brilliant array of Asian foods and utensils. From heavy granite pestles and mortars through blue-patterned Thai ceramics, woks and dim-sum steamers to black sticky rice, Thai curry pastes, bean curds, fresh lotus root and frozen frogs, the Green House has got the lot.

But the fresh vegetable section is where this place really wins out – Thai hot basil, peppercorns, chilis, kaffir limes, garlic flowers, pandan leaves, Thai coriander root and crisp, succulent pak choi and banana flowers are laid out in boxes, all air-freighted from Thailand. And they’re all draw-droppingly fresh, vibrant green and crunchy. The pak choi alone is worth the trip.

The Green House is actually the front end of a high quality food distribution organisation that not only supplies the UAE’s Thai restaurants with speciality ingredients, but also supplies supermarkets and hotels with a range of French and European foodstuffs. I hadn’t realised how extensive this side of the business was until we swung by and Sarah got spotted by the lady in the supermarket – who turned out to be the mother of a child Sarah had taught and half of the the husband and wife team (he’s Greek, she’s Thai) behind the operation.

As a consequence, we got treated to an unintended (and delightful) whistle-stop tour ‘round the back’, huge freezer rooms packed with boxes of food, cool rooms stacked with French cheeses, pallets of extra virgin olive oil, yoghurts and creams, milks and sauces, specialty flours and salts in a maze-like succession of rooms, walk-ins, cold stores and freezers.

It’s an impressive operation – but the most impressive bit for me remains the amazing fresh Thai vegetables, herbs and spices. Spinneys can barely manage to keep the fresh local herbs it sells from being a wilted mess and yet Green House brings them in from Thailand and manages to keep them so fresh you could just close your eyes and be in the street markets of Asia.

So if you want to create a Thai dinner party that has everyone gasping at your brilliance, buy great fresh ingredients - and you'll not find fresher than here. People travel from as far away as Al Ain to shop at this odd, poky little emporium of all things Thai.

You can find the Green House Supermarket by driving up Sharjah’s ‘main drag’, Al Wahda Street and turning right directly after the Crystal Palace Showroom – it’s down the road 100 yards or so, just in front of the Alena Warehouse. Alternatively, follow this handy Google Map link or find it here on Wikimapia! If, after all that, you're still lost, call 'em on 06 5332218.

The author asserts he has received no emolument from the proprietors of the establishment eulogised in this piece. Honest.

Prawns with Tomatoes, Chilies and Pepper

Sorry, I have been adrift in the bush with no internet connection. More about that later.

I nicked this Thai recipe from the Seattle Times. It is quick and defintely a keeper. It also was scoffed up before I could get a picture. (camera was still in my luggage) Try it, you will like it.

Ingredients.

60 ml of vegetable oil

30 ml minced garlic

2 red bird's eye chilies, chopped

1 teaspoon of tomato paste

12-16 jumbo shrimp, peeled, deveined, with tails on

3 tablespoons of sugar

1 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper

75 ml Asian fish sauce

100 ml fish stock or water

1/2 ripe tomato, diced

1 spring onion, sliced

1 small handful of cilantro leaves, minced

Then do the following:

Place the oil, garlic and chilies in a wok over medium heat; stir-fry until fragrant, 30 seconds. Add the tomato paste, shrimp and sugar. Toss to combine. Add the pepper, fish sauce, fish stock and tomato. Increase the heat to high; heat to a simmer. Cook until shrimp are cooked through and turn pink, about 2 minutes.

Transfer the shrimp to a serving platter; cook the sauce to reduce, about 2 minutes. Pour over shrimp. Garnish with spring onion and cilantro.

Makes: 4 servings

Som Tam

Green papaya salad – a great Thai staple and a surprisingly easy dish to make. It’s often served blisteringly hot and I prefer things much milder, so do feel free to double the chili count in the recipe below if you like food that makes you sniff uncontrollably. I’ve messed around a lot with various sugars: the Thai version uses palm sugar but if you can’t get hold of it (ie: if you don’t live near Sharjah’s Thai-Tastic Green House Supermarket) then just use jaggery. You’ll find jaggery in pretty much every supermarket in the Emirates – it’s a soft, brown unrefined sugar from India and has the same deep, caramel richness as palm sugar. Similarly, you’ll find long beans in pretty much any supermarket, but certainly Spinneys’ Sri Lankan freshies section. If you can't get long beans, though, just use ‘dwarf’ or ‘French’ beans – you’re aiming for around 50g of bean in all!

The key to this recipe is the pounding of it. If you’ve got a nice, heavy granite Thai pestle and mortar, you’re laughing. If you don’t, then there’s another reason to head off to the Green House Supermarket! (You’d think I was being paid to plug ‘em, wouldn’t you?) If you really don’t have access to a large pestle and mortar, then you’ll have to use a strong bowl, a substantial wooden spoon and a lot of ‘oomph’ to crush, bruise and generally bully and be damnably horrid to the ingredients.

Now last, and not least, to yer papaya. Again, Spinneys (and many other supermarkets, particularly the likes of Lal’s) sells green papayas, which are basically unripe papayas. You’re looking to skin this, halve it and scrape out the seeds and then slice it as finely as you can, ideally using something culinary and dangerous like a mandolin. The Thai traditional method is just to hack away at it with a sharp knife. Whichever potentially lethal way you decide on to turn that hard papaya into delicate strands, watch your fingers!

Ingredients

• 1 green papaya, julienned
• 1 bird’s eye chilli, quartered
• 50 g jaggery or palm sugar
• 2 cloves garlic, quartered
• 6 long beans, chopped in 2cm lengths
• 6 cherry tomatoes, quartered
• 30g roasted peanuts, chopped
• 2 tsp nam pla
• 3 tbsp lime juice

Put the chilli and garlic into the mortar and crush it like you would crush your worst enemy. Imagine you're a hood in Layer Cake or Lock Stock. Give it some welly. Be brutal, mean and generally beastly until it’s all pulped. Now add the jaggery, fish sauce and lime juice and give that a quick smack around the head too, to mix it all in. Add the beans and give them a quick slap around the ear to teach 'em some respect.

Add the papaya and give it a series of hard presses to bruise it, stirring it to ensure it gets an even, and sound, warning. Don’t go too far, or you’ll go and kill it. You’re not meant to be as brutal as the first crushing: the idea is to let the other ingredients infuse and mix together with the papaya. But don't be a pansy about it, either, or it'll think it can mess you about any time it wants.

Now add the tomatoes and press them, again going lighter than last time: just a hint of trouble just in case they think they can get away with that sort of thing in your manor. Mix it all up well, decant into your chosen serving dishes and you’re away!

This, of course, is a neat salad to serve alongside a couple of piping hot and aromatic chicken patties!

Thai Chicken Patties

A Thai-style starter of dubious provenance (ie: originating in Sharjah), ideal with a green papaya salad, these hot, sour little patties have a kick but are truly tasty. The recipe calls for minced chicken: I prefer to chop a couple of largeish chicken breast finely to achieve this, but I’m just being perverse - you can always buy it minced. Don’t forget to wash the lime in warm water and give it a quick scrub to remove the wax before you grate it.

Ingredients

• 300g chicken, minced
• 2 tsp light soy sauce
• 1 lime, juice and grated zest
• 2 cloves garlic, grated
• 2” ginger, grated
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp fresh peppercorns, finely chopped

Mix all of the ingredients together and leave to marinate for as long as you can, ideally an hour or so. Shape and squeeze into eight balls, flatten and fry off in a little oil for 3-4 minutes each side. Serve, 2 to a plate with a wee pile of green papaya salad!

Thai Red Chicken Curry

Is there anything in the world to match the sheer variety of Thai food? It zings and pops, crackles and splashes: a brilliant orchestration of freshness, flavour and texture. And yet we always seem to come back to the 'old staples' - this being one of them. But damn, it's good.

There are commercially available curry pastes available in most supermarkets: they come in a little tub. I tend to use the Thai ones rather than Ainsley Harriott's ThaiTastic Taste Experience Red Curry WonderTM. If you can get to Sharjah's amazing Green House Supermarket, then you can buy home made curry pastes. But if you're really hardcore about that curry, you'll make your own paste.

If you like your red curry ball-breakingly hot, then increase the amount of curry paste to about 1 tbsp per chicken breast. I don't, this is a relatively mild curry that nevertheless will definitely let you know you're eating a Thai red curry! If the heat ever gets too much, some coconut milk will help out.

Ingredients

• 4 chicken breasts (approx 1kg) cut into 2cm cubes
• 8 tsp red curry paste
• 1 tin coconut milk
• 2 tsp nam pla
• 2 tsp soy sauce
• 8 cherry tomatoes
• 10-12 chunks fresh pineapple
• 4 tbsp vegetable oil

In a wide-bottomed pan, fry off the red curry paste in the oil over a high heat, then add the chicken, stir frying it to mix the paste up and also whiten the chicken. Slosh in the coconut milk and stir it in to heat up. Add the tomatoes. Let it be for a minute or so until it's starting to bubble, then turn the heat lower (not minimum, but not far off it) and cook for 8-10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the nam pla, soy sauce and pineapple and cook for a further five minutes. Serve with plain boiled rice and somethingcool, crisp, sharp and white.

Thai Red Curry Paste

This is a little fiddly to make, but should store very nicely in the fridge for a couple of weeks at least and freezes like a dream. I use the dried 'kashmiri' chilis you can get at Spinneys' spice section. If you can't get hold of kaffir limes, substitute with ordinary limes. Fresh galangal is often available at Spinneys, but if you're lucky enough to live in Sharjah, you can drop into the Green House Supermarket, just off Gamal Abdul Nasser Street. This company imports the fresh Thai ingredients for the UAE's Asian restaurants and they always have plenty of treats on sale: garlic flowers, pandan leaf, banana leaf, kaffir limes, pea aubergines and everything else you'll ever need to make great Thai food. They also sell a range of home made curry pastes, incense, fantastic crockery and frozen frogs. I never used the frogs, though.

Ingredients

• 15 dried red chilis, soaked
• 2 stems lemon grass, chopped
• 8 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 red onion, chopped
• 1 tsp coriander seed
• 2 tbsp chopped fresh galangal
• 1 tsp chopped fresh ginger
• 2 tsp shrimp paste, toasted
• 2 tsp kaffir lime zest
• 2 kaffir lime leaves, torn
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp pepper

Toast the shrimp paste by spreading it thinly on foil and then grilling it until it dries out and starts to whiten and toast at the edges. This does smell rather rich, incidentally, so do have fans on and doors closed. Toast the coriander seed until it starts to smoke and get all aromatic.l Throw everything into a blender and whizz it, possibly adding a little lime juice just to get everything moving. You're looking at achieving a thick, red paste.

Thai Rice Noodle Salad with Minced Pork

I am calling this dish a Thai pork salad even though I have no idea if it is or not. It is a total invention, something I played around with over the weekend for a quick-fix lunch dish and it worked well enough that I thought I would share it with you the lucky readers.

Ingredients:

400g minced Pork
100g dried thin rice noodles
Half a smallish Chinese cabbage, shredded
200g sugar snap peas or mange tout
1 tsp sugar
100ml chicken stock
1 tbsp sherry
Small handful of salted cashew nuts roughly crushed in a mortar & pestle.
Handful fresh mint
Handful fresh coriander

For the paste:

1 onion, peeled
3 cloves garlic, peeled
2cm square knob of fresh ginger
1 Thai birds-eye chilli
Handful of fresh basil leaves
2 stalks lemongrass, tough outer leaves peeled off
1 tbsp groundnut oil
2 tbsp water


And then you need to:

Chuck all the paste ingredients into the whizzer and blend to as fine a paste as possible.

Put the noodles in a large bowl, cover with boiling water and after ten minutes drain and set to one side.

Blanch the sugar snap peas for about 2 minutes, drain and refresh in cold water. Drain again and set to one side.

In a large frying pan or wok heat 1 tbsp groundnut oil over medium heat and tip in the ‘curry’ paste. Cook quite gently for about ten minutes or so.

Add the ground pork and cook, stirring occasionally.

Add the cabbage, stock, sherry, sugar and cook for about ten minutes to reduce the sauce a little. Add the sugar snap peas and warm them through.

Arrange the noodles on a large platter.

With a slotted spoon place the cooked pork on top of the noodles. Scatter the fresh herbs over the top followed by the crushed cashew nuts. Serve either hot or cold, it matters not! Make sure you have a pot of nam pla (3 tbsp fresh lime juice, 3 tbsp fish cause, 3 tbsp water, 2 Thai chillis chopped, 1 tbsp caster sugar) handy as a condiment.

Matsaman Curry Paste

Matsaman or massaman is a traditional Thai curry, often made with stronger meats such as duck and lamb. The full curry recipe is here. This should make enough curry paste to cook up a four-man Thai matsaman or even massaman curry. You can, of course, use nam pla (fish sauce) instead of the shrimp paste.

Ingredients

• 10 dried chilis
• 3 tbsp oil
• 100g onion, diced
• 4 kaffir lime leaves
• 6 cloves garlic, diced
• 1 tsp coriander seed
• 1 tsp cumin seed
• 1 tsp cardamom seeds
• 1 tsp cloves
• 2 tsp black peppercorns
• 2 blades mace
• 1 tbsp chopped galangal
• 1 tbsp ground cinnamon
• 1 stick lemon grass, chopped finely
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp shrimp paste

Dry roast the whole spices in a pan until they start to crackle and pop. Leave them to cool for a bit and then grind them. Put the ground spice in a pan over a high heat along with the chilli and the shrimp paste and as soon as things start to smoke, remove from the heat for a second then add the oil and then the onion, garlic, lemongrass and galangal. Stir fry for two minutes, then leave to cool. Whizz, adding a little more oil if necessary, to form a thick paste. Freeze until you need it.

Black Pepper Chicken

Or Kai Tod Kratium Prik Tai if you prefer...

This is a nice little Thai number, quite subtle (a shame for those who like their Thai food reeking of nam pla - I don't) and yet warm and gingery. It's nicer if you use chicken breasts with skin on and fry them over a higher heat skin-side down to start. If not, don't fret - it's still nice!

Halve the quantities and serve it up sliced alongside a duck or lamb and baby tomato red curry, something beefy (stir fried in spice, onion and pak choi) and some vegetable noodles and a sticky rice steaming on the table for a nice mixed main course if you want to be deadly flash!

Ingredients

• 4 chicken breasts
• 4 tsp roughly crushed black pepper
• 2 sticks lemongrass, sliced finely
• 4 cm fresh ginger, grated
• 4 cloves garlic, grated
• 4 tbsp light soy sauce
• 2 tsp sugar
• 4 tbsp white wine
• 1 tsp fish sauce (nam pla)
• ½ cup coriander leaves, chopped
• ½ red chilli, deseeded & chopped

With the lemon grass, you're only slicing up the fleshy bulb end of the stick, don't bother with the reedy top end. Roll the raw chicken breasts in the crushed black pepper to coat them. Mix the other ingredients in a bowl, then pour this mixture over the chicken breasts. Leave the chicken breasts to marinate for at least an hour, ideally longer, then pan fry them over a medium to high heat, basting with marinade and turning after 5-6 minutes and cooking to finish for about the same time. Take off the heat, cover and leave stand for a further 4-5 minutes to relax before serving.

Serve, sliced to present, with rice and a crunchy, Thai-spiced salad or take the 'flash' option above and serve it up as part of a mixed Thai main course!

Nahm (David Thompson at the Thai Kitchen, Dubai)

Nahm

The Halkin, Berkeley Square

Bookings: res@nahm.como.bz

Review: The Nahm's chef/owner David Thompson cooks as a guest chef at the Park Hyatt Dubai's Thai Kitchen

Sorry this took a while coming, but we’ve been so busy with other stuff on The Fat Expat that it’s getting hard to squeeze things in these days!

Nahm restaurant in London’s Belgravia is host to the world’s only Michelin-starred Thai Chef, Australian David Thompson. So when we heard the news that Thompson was to be visiting Dubai and cooking at the Park Hyatt’s truly fantastic Thai Kitchen restaurant, we made the booking on the spot. The Thai Kitchen is already home to exceptionally good food thanks to its team of Thai cooks and lady chef Khun Supattra who cracks a smart soup ladle. Watching her do so in the restaurant’s four cooking stations is part of the fun of it all for me: a happy diner, but a poor conversationalist during these visits.

It was worse than usual when we went for a night of Thompson’s food: I was speechless most of the time, the silent one in a party of four.

Miang Som: a crab meat and pomelo soong on a betel leaf. A soong is a stuffed leaf, typically a chicken or pork stuffing mixture (coming to this blog soon, a chicken soong recipe that will transform dinner parties. Promise) is presented alongside a selection of tasty and aromatic leaves and herbs. In this case, a small cascade of crab, pomelo and other bits and bobs carefully placed on a betel leaf in just the right quantity to allow the leaf to be pursed around the mixture and the lot lifted to the mouth. And there it explodes: crunchy and sweet, spice and coconut, crab and the betel leaf (sadly, only narcotic in a foodie kind of way). Layers of flavours and textures in a single mouthful.

We had worried about this: what if Thompson’s food was rubbish? We’d dined at a one-star chef’s table in Sri Lanka and spent most of the meal laughing at the pretension and stupidity of it all. Was this going to be a let down, too? Is it really three or nothing?

And so that first mouthful was a moment of astonishment. Food simply shouldn’t be that good. It was wrong. It was so wrong that I didn’t want to let the other one go and shamelessly placed another order.

And then the rest came, an onslaught of flavours and textures in the small portions that make the Thai Kitchen such fun (you’ll possibly get through 8-10 dishes in a two-person evening there and walk away with plenty change from Dhs 500 including great wine) but with a finesse and delicacy that managed to eclipse the Thai Kitchen’s food. And the Thai Kitchen’s food is never less than stunning.

The food was a constantly surprising procession, smiles breaking out as the table sampled, and talked about, each dish. You couldn’t help it: they were worth talking about.

An aromatic dish of tender beef in cumin; velvety sweet scallops with garlic and deep green, aniseedy and hot holy basil; a crisp dish of deep fried chicken with a sweet, deep plum sauce and more. It was a bewildering array of fine food, dish after diverse dish surprising, delighting and just generally impressing.

Thompson’s deftness of culinary touch is as remarkable as his ability to hit a strange kitchen and get that kitchen working with him rather than against him (no easy task, being a guest chef in an already excellent kitchen. Thompson had brought one of his team). His stature in Thailand, where he teaches Thai cookery, probably helps.

A highly memorable meal and one that certainly begs for a follow-up visit to Nahm itself. An outstanding night's entertainment and food. But I still remember that betel wrapped soong more than anything else…

Thai Style Marinade for Chicken

This is a great marinande for chicken and goes fantastically well on a BBQ. It is a bit fiddly but really worth doing.

4 stalks lemongrass, crushed and chopped
4 kaffir lime leaves, chopped
2 tsp lemon zest
3 garlic cloves chopped
3 spring onions chopped
3 tbs chopped coriander
1 tsp ground coriander powder
2 thai chillis, chopped
3 tsp brown sugar
2 tbsp fish sauce (nam pla)
2 tbsp light soy sauce
3 tbsp fresh lime juice
1 tbsp peanut oil

In the food processor whiz up the lemongrass, garlic, spring onions, lime leaves, fresh and ground coriander, brown sugar. Add the rest of the ingredients and give it a good mix.

I prefer to use chicken thighs with this recipe as they are the easiest to cook on the BBQ. However, you can of course use legs and / or breast. If you are using chicken breast lightly score the flesh to allow the marinade to seep in.

Put the marinade in a large freezer bag, add the chicken, squeeze as much air out as possible and them marinade for AT LEAST 4 hours, but preferably overnight.

Larb Gai, Thai Chicken Salad

This is similar in flavours to the Thai Beef Salad and is a lovely fresh tasting salad that is very simple to make.

Ingredients: serves 4 as part of meal

2 chicken breasts, minced or chopped fine
4 cloves garlic, very finely chopped
Small knob ginger, peeled and very finely chopped
2 (or more) Thai chilli, chopped fine
4 Lime leaves, left whole
1 red onion / shallot, quartered
1 stalk lemongrass, chopped very fine
3 tbsp good quality chicken stock


1 small cucumber, seeded and cubed
4 or 5 cherry tomatoes, quartered
Small handful beansprouts, cleaned and blanched in boiling water for about 1 minute
Small handful fresh coriander, chopped fine
Small handful celery ‘leaves’, chopped fine
1 or 2 spring onions, chopped fine
Small handful fresh mint, chopped fine

3 tbsp fresh lime juice
3 tbsp cold water
3 tbsp fish sauce
2 tsp caster sugar

1 tbsp toasted rice, roughly powdered in a mortar and pestle
5 or 6 leaves of romaine lettuce, washed and roughly torn into large pieces


Toast rice in dry wok until brown. Pound to rough powder in mortar and pestle
Blanch bean spouts in boiling water for 1 min, drain.
Put spring onion, celery leaves, cucumber, mint, coriander, tomatoes, half of toasted rice, in a big bowl.
Make nam pla by combining sugar, lime juice, water and fish sauce.
In wok heat 1 tbsp groundnut oil. Gently fry onion, ginger, chilli, garlic, lemongrass, lime leaves. When very fragrant, add stock and chicken and cook until all done.
Take off heat and put in bowl with salad ingredients.
Add nam pla and mix well.
Lay lettuce leaves along bottom of large shallow plate / bowl. Spoon chicken mix on top. Place bean sprouts to one side and sprinkle rest of toasted rice all over.

The Thai Kitchen

The Thai Kitchen
Thai Food
Park Hyatt Hotel, Dubai
Bookings: 04 602 1234

Dubai and Tokyo are the only two cities in the world with all three Hyatts, the 'Regency', 'Grand' and boutique 'Park' branded properties. And Dubai's Park Hyatt, although it suffers from being on the 'wrong side of the creek' is certainly a stunner: dazzling white, mediterranean exteriors together with funky nouveau Arabesque interiors , amazing service standards and very high production values all round make this an exceptional hotel even in a city of five star hotels.

Having heard bad things of the Thai Kitchen, we approached it with caution. And got the surprise of our lives. It's a must-do evening out: we've been back time and time again.

The restaurant itself is down on the creekside level, which means its next to the pleasant and uber-funky seafood bar by the creek - great for a drink before dinner. It's darkly decorated but well-enough lit, laid out in the 'eat among the kitchens' style and so pleasantly noisy with plenty of watch-the-chef theatre verité going on. The staff are great. But the food... oh the food.

The menu is extensive and incredibly inexpensive (about Dhs 30, or $9, for each item in the mains, for instance), but then the waiter will warn you that the portions are tiny. So you order a lot of things. Given that every one of them is distinctive and delicious, the act of dipping in and out of the array of dishes scattered on the table (arguably too small for this kind of thing) quickly becomes a shared delight, with lots of 'Try this one' stuff going on. Pretty soon you're caught up in a whirl of salty soys and fragrant, citrus lemon grass; astringent kaffir lime and dark palm syrups, red and green, sweet basil aniseed and narcotic coconut.

But the biggest surprise of all comes last with an average two persons and good wine slipping in at under $150.

“Pad Thai” - Fried Noodles Thai Style

I think pad thai is probably as close to a national dish as you can get in a country such as Thailand, it is available everywhere from hawker stall to five star restaurant. Pad thai is often served in a sort of thin omelette case which you peel open to reveal the noodles inside but that is far to fiddly for me! These noodles are usually offered with a choice of chicken or prawns and quite often will be served with a small pile of crunchy bean sprouts, a small spoon of sugar, a lime wedge and some crushed peanuts on the side.

This is a very fast dish to cook, as is often the way with SE Asian food, it is the preparation that takes the time.

You will need (serves 2):

• 100g Rice noodles (look for those that are thin and flat, rather like linguine)
• 1 onion chopped biggish pieces
• 2 cloves garlic chopped fine
• 1 cm square knob of fresh ginger chopped fine
• 1 Thai chilli, chopped fine
• 100g Prawns or chicken (cooked) as you wish
• 25g, Cashew nuts, roasted
• 2 Spring onion, chopped into fine strips
• A few leaves of fresh mint and fresh coriander
• 1 egg
• 100g Firm beancurd, cut into ½cm squares
• Small handful of beansprouts

Sauce:

• 2 tbsp fresh lime juice
• 2 tbsp tamarind juice (see note below)
• 3 tbsp fish sauce (nam pla)
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 tsp paprika powder
• 2 tsp caster sugar

For the prik nam pla

• 2 tbsp fresh lime juice
• 2 tbsp fish sauce (the nam pla of the title)
• 2 tbsp cold water
• 2 heaped tsp caster sugar
• 3 or 4 finely chopped thai chillis

And then you need to:

Put dried noodles into large bowl and cover with boiling water. Allow to stand for 15 mins, drain and put to one side.

Wash bean sprouts, blanch in boiling water for 1 minute, drain and refresh under cold water.

Mix together the ingredients for the sauce

Mix together the ingredients for the prik nam pla, making sure the sugar has dissolved.

In the wok or a small frying pan heat over medium heat about 1 tbsp groundnut oil. When hot add chopped beancurd. Fry for about 5 mins on each side until lovely and brown. Don’t throw these around too much, just leave them to cook away and then turn them over every so often with a palette knife. When cooked drain on kitchen paper and set to one side.

Heat wok over medium high heat, add 2 tbsp groundnut oil and when hot throw in onions, garlic, ginger, chilli. Stir for about 1 minute.

Add noodles and quickly stir. Add cashews, prawns/chicken, fried beancurd, bean sprouts and stir to mix.

Add sauce ingredients and continue to stir to make sure everything is coated. Then make a sort of well in the middle of the noodles and add the egg. Let to set for a little bit and then mix into the noodles. Keep stirring.

Add spring onions, mint and coriander, quick mix then tip out onto a big shallow dish. Sprinkle some more chopped coriander leaves on top, and serve immediately. For those who like it spicy add some of the prik nam pla for the authentic Thai afterburn.

Thai Pepper Soup

This is a spicy hot soup, rich and lemony with the taste of fresh green pepper corns. A Thai supermarket should be able to do the fresh green pepper corns, which will freeze just fine although they lose some of their bright green colour and crunchy texture.

Ingredients
Garnish

• 1 red pepper, finely diced
• 2 tbsp coriander, finely chopped
• ½ red chilli, finely diced
• ½ carrot, finely diced
• 3 spring onion greens, finely chopped

Soup

• 1 litre good vegetable stock
• 125ml white wine
• 4 tbsp light soy sauce
• 1/2 large red chilli, chopped finely
• 1 strand fresh pepper (1 tsp corns)
• 1 kaffir lime leaf, torn in shreds
• 1 lemon grass stalk, bashed and knotted
• 3 spring onion whites, chopped lengthways into matchsticks
• 1 clove garlic, chopped

To prepare the lemon grass, hold the thin end and give it a series of damn good whacks on the kitchen worktop: it should mush the bulbous end and generally make a mess of things, although lemon grass is so fibrous it'll hold together. Now just twist it into a knot and pop it in the soup: the bashing releases all the oils in the grass.

Mix garnish ingredients together and then divide between four soup bowls. Heat the soup ingredients together in a pan for 5-10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove lemon grass and pour into bowls. Serve immediately.

“Yam Neua” or Thai Beef Salad.

I love ‘Yam Neua’, there is something about the combination of the warm meat, the cool, crisp vegetables and the delightful assault on the senses of the tastes of sour, sweet, salt and the heat of the chilli. There are probably as many variations on how to make this salad as there are cooks and I thought I would share with you my own version. To put this salad together is a work of great simplicity, though a little time consuming, but it is really worth giving it a go.

Ingredients (serve 4):

750g Beef filet
50g, Celery ‘leaves’ (not the main big stalks), chopped fine
50g, Fresh coriander, chopped fine
50g, fresh mint, chopped fine
3 spring onions, chopped fine
1 large cucumber
1 romaine/cos lettuce
Toasted rice, crushed. (optional)
Ground pepper

For the dressing:

3 tbsp fresh lime juice
3 tbsp Nam Pla/fish sauce
3 tbsp cold water
2 fresh Thai chilli, chopped fine
2 tbsp good beef stock
1 tbsp caster sugar



Okay, first of all the beef. You need a very lean cut here, and fillet is the obvious choice, You could opt for topside or silverside which I think has slightly more flavour. My favourite cut, rib-eye, has too much fat and wouldn’t be suitable.

The celery leaves are crucial here and really give an intense flavour so do try and buy a bunch of celery stalks that has a lot of the leaves on them. You want the leaves and their thin stalks for this salad, not the big thick stalks of celery.

A lot of recipes call for the use of shallots. Personally I find the taste too onion-ey and so prefer to use spring onions instead.

Toasted rice is very simply uncooked rice which you brown over a medium high heat in a dry frying pan. The rice will brown (do watch it and don’t let it burn) and gives a wonderful nutty flavour. Adding the rice is optional but I really like the combination of something slightly crunchy and giving a lovely nutty flavour. I would recommend including it if you can be bothered.

Nam Pla (also called nuoc nam which is the Vietnamese equivalent) is fermented fish sauce and is used as a flavouring and condiment all over South East Asia. I have seen this stuff being made and it is not pleasant I can tell you, but it tastes great!

Try and buy Thai (Birds Eye chillis) if you can find them, green or red it doesn’t matter. Be warned these little bastards are very hot but deliver the authentic amount of kick.

I get a bit boring about stocks. MAKE YOUR OWN. Stock cubes are abhorrent, almost 100% salt and ruin food. Making stock is the easiest thing in the world to do, make a batch, freeze it in ice cube trays and you have your very own delicious stock cubes. If you use shop bought stuff in this recipe it would be awful because nam pla is incredibly salty and combined with all the salt in the stock cubes it would be mouth puckeringly bad. If you don’t have your own home made stuff leave it out of the dressing, it’s not a big deal.

Anyway, here we go. Start off by washing, chopping and combining in a bowl the celery leaves, cucumber, mint, coriander, spring onions. Don’t chop the celery leaves and cucumber too small, you want them to be easy to pick up with chopsticks. The herbs should be chopped quite fine though. Quite a good trick with the cucumber is to use a cheese slicer and slice the cucumber length-ways so you get nice long wide ribbons of the stuff.

Place the beef in a shallow bowl and pour 1 tbs of nam pla over it. Also liberally grind fresh black pepper over both sides. Leave to stand.

Toast the rice in a dry frying pan until brown. Grind in mortar and pestle until a coarse powder.

Make dressing by combining 3tbs each of lime juice, nam pla and cold water. Add 2tbs of proper beef stock (cold) and 1tbs caster sugar. Stir until sugar dissolves. Add to the dressing 2 (or more if you are a nutter) very finely sliced Thai chillis. If you don’t use rubber gloves doing this please do not pick your nose or rub your eyes!

Heat a cast iron griddle until very hot (or heat a normal grill) and throw the meat on it. Quickly sear both sides, remove and leave to rest on a chopping board. I personally prefer my beef very rare, others of course don’t, but I would suggest for this recipe you try and leave the beef a little pink in the middle at least. For a steak about an inch (2cms) thick I wouldn’t cook it more than 1 minute either side. You can test the ‘doneness’ of a steak by prodding it with tongs (do not pierce it with a knife or fork). The firmer it feels the better done it is.

On a large plate, or very shallow bowl, place a few whole leaves of crisp lettuce, breaking the ‘spine’ so that they sit flat (romaine (cos) is best for this but iceberg would also do). Pile the chopped salad ingredients on top of the lettuce. Slice the beef into thin strips along the grain as finely as you can and place on top of the salad. With a spoon pour the dressing all over the beef and greenery and then sprinkle liberally with the ground toasted rice. Top with a couple of leaves of coriander and / or mint if you fancy.

Matsaman Curry

Matsaman is a rich, heart-attack inducing but unbelievably moreish classic Thai curry with a round, satisfyingly warm flavour that just begs you to keep eating until you're at the Mr. Creosote stage. The combination of the spice and coconut flavours with the rounder texture and flavourrs of lamb, cashew nuts and potato is a real winner.

It’s widely thought to originate from the near east: the spices used in the paste are certainly a warmer, more Indian mixture than found in many other Thai dishes – cloves, mace, coriander, cassia - and the name of the dish is thought to derive from ‘Musulman’, an archaic version of ‘Muslim’. Which may even explain why it gets to me so much: I’m probably marginally more susceptible to a good old Indian curry than HMHB, whose time in Asia has rendered him something of a, well you know, jungly fellow…

I’ve assumed you’re using fresh cilantro type coriander in this recipe but if you can get hold of fresh Thai coriander, use four stalks and roots, chopped, instead.

You can find fresh Thai vegetables at the amazingly eclectic little Green House Supermarket just off King Faisal Street in Sharjah – and they also sell fantastic home-made matsaman paste as well as some nice commercial ones. The supermarket is actually an offshoot of the company that flies in most of the fresh ingredients for the UAE’s Thai restaurant businesses and always has a fantastic selection of fresh Thai herbs and vegetables, curry pastes and freezers full of frogs and stuff – telephone 06 533 2218 to get their location. Lal’s also sells matsaman paste. And if you feel particularly authentic and adventurous, you can make your own using this recipe!

There are some substitutions. Firstly, I tend to use jaggery instead of palm sugar, which is the traditional sugar used in Thai recipes: jaggery's easily available in the Emirates and comes in more convenient lumps than palm sugar tends to. Alternatively use about 3 Tbsp date syrup. Coriander roots can be got from specialist Thai shops but you can use coriander leaves instead.

If you haven't used tamarind before, then soak a good fist-sized chunk of pressed tamarind in about 1/2 cup of boiling water, stirring until it cools, then strain it to give the pulp. If you want to omit the tamarind, then go ahead. It's highly likely that nobody will notice, although you may not sleep properly that night, plagued as you will be by the guilt of the frustrated purist.

Ingredients

• 1kg lean lamb leg, cubed in 2-3cm cubes
• 600g potato, cubed in 3-4 cm cubes
• 1 tin coconut milk
• 1 rounded tbsp matsaman curry paste
• 4 cloves garlic
• 4 inches or so of fresh ginger
• 6-8 coriander roots with stems, or ½ cup chopped fresh coriander
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• ½ tsp ground cumin
• 2 tsp ground coriander seeds
• 8 shallots, whole and peeled.
• 100g jaggery
  
• 75g cashew nuts
• 4 tsp fish sauce
• 4 tbsp tamarind pulp
  
• Flavour neutral oil, sunflower or whatever. About 4-5 tbsp.
• 3 or 4 lime leaves, torn
• 3 or 4 bay leaves

Peel the garlic and ginger and whiz these in a hand blender along with the coriander root. (If you’re using leaves, just chop these and add later on during cooking when it’s all in the pan and starting to boil up) – or just grate them with a fine grater.

Put about 1 tbsp of the oil in a frying pan and brown the lamb cubes over a high heat and reserve them – you’ll have to do this in relatively small batches, a handful at a time, to stop them losing their moisture. Add more oil as needed between batches.

Now fry up the potato, covering the pan and giving the cubes a toss every now and then to stop them sticking. About 10 minutes should do it, taking the heat down a bit once they’ve browned along the edges.

When the potatoes are cooked up, reserve these and then use the pan, again at a high heat, to fry off the cashew nuts, tossing them occasionally until they’re nicely highlighted with brown.

Heat about 2 tbsp of oil in the frying pan and then add the matsaman paste, stirring it until it combines with the oil and starts to bubble. Add in the whizzed fresh spices and the dry spices and give these a couple of minutes and a stir around to heat up, then add the lamb, shallots and potato. Stir these around until they’re covered in spice, then add in the coconut milk, the lime and bay leaves. Bring to a boil, give it all a stir and then take the heat down to medium, stirring occasionally to stop the coconut milk splitting. Add in the date syrup and, if you like it a tad spicy, add in a couple of birds eye chilies, split down the middle.

At this point you can take the heat off if you’re making it for a party and then reheat for 10 minutes, again with the occasional stir, when you’re ready. If you want to add tamarind and fish sauce, do it here. About 4 tsp fish sauce and 4 tbsp tamarind. If you’re cooking it up there and then, give it about 10 more minutes over a medium heat with the occasional stir, adding the cashew nuts near the end. You can also throw in a handful of coriander leaves at the end as a garnish.

That’s it! Serve with rice. You can garnish it with a drop of coconut cream if you’re feeling particularly lavish…