Salad of White Turmeric, Salted Prawns and Pork
(yam khamin khaao goong khem ; ยำขมิ้นขาวกุ้งเค็ม)

Here is a dish with a modest name that has been part of Thai culture for at least couple of hundred years. Traditionally Thai salads are divided into three main categories based on the dressing type. The most popular salads are those with with clear dressings made of lime juice, fish sauce, crushed chilies and a touch of sugar.

The first Thai restaurant in London was opened during the 1960’s by HRH Princess Jurairat Nasiriman (1910-2000) (พระเจ้าวรวงศ์เธอ พระองค์เจ้าจุไรรัตนศิริมาน), the granddaughter of HRH King Mongkut (Rama IV). Princess Jurairat chose to offer this salad on the menu and named it “Salad of Thai Milkweed Flower”. (Other names: Cowslip creeper, Telosma Cordata).

This fresh and tasty salad is so vibrant and easy for us to enjoy, it takes in the very basic flavors, sweet, salty, hot and sour and wrap them in a creamy coat of reduced coconut cream. The milkweed flower buds retain their crunchiness and their pleasant fragrance with only a gentle and very quick blanching in sweet boiling water.

When the age-old question “what is for dinner” pops up, I bet that many of us will prefer recipes with just few ingredients found on supermarket shelves, short on preparation and cooking time. A difficult request from an ethnic oriented food website. However, today I will surplus that request and bring you a recipe that beside a spirit of enthusiasm requires virtually no culinary skills to prepare.

A Thai twist on the good ole’ fried eggs. We will take this prehistoric dish another notch! With a simple spicy lime and fish sauce dressing we will jazz it up into an energetic dish that is uniquely remarkable and captures some of the essence of Thai food – the mixing and playfulness in the use of flavors.

The whole point of salting fish as a preserving method to the Thais goes back way before refrigeration and that is why slated fish is so deeply rooted in the Thai cuisine.

The salting process produces a new ingredient that is different and equally good to the original. The method is simple, the clean fresh fishes are rubbed with plenty of salt and let to dry in the sun.

Best quality fish is the sole factor of a great final product. That is why I was so excited the other day to find at the market a rare offering of salted queenfish (ปลาสละเค็ม ; bplaa sala khem). These fast predators are not commercially fished. Praised for their superb quality meat this game fish offers a challenge to catch both to the fisherman and the foodie alike.

In this straightforward and rewarding stir-fried dish, I am using boiled salted duck egg, available from Asian markets, as my flavoring assistant. During stir-frying, the egg yolk dissolves to a velvety sauce that softly coats the squids, and complimenting their ocean’s flavor. The alternate reds and greens strips of the vegetables emerged from the buttery yellow sauce are tempting for a taste.

The original version uses three egg yolks – a bit too much for a health conscious person like me. Therefore, I am using only one whole egg, both the egg white and the egg yolk. I tune down the white’s sharp saltiness with an additional portion of sugar, and compensate for the color lost by adding a spoon of commercial chili sauce to improve. The resulting is a well-balanced dish with the right texture that stands up in this healthy version against its original with a winning smile….