Issan Road-kill & Other Family Favourites.

[Cuban]

Sorry to disappoint if you were expecting me to reveal that I truly harvest pick-up flattened animals from the roadside: but to add interest to a simple home made burger one day, I shaped some seasoned minced pork meat into the rough outline of a flattened frog. Carefully fried without breaking off the limbs and laid in a sandwich on a bed of cooked KaNa leaves and fried onions. At first glance it looked like I was extending my menu far beyond what even the village natives eat.

The mustard that livened it up, along with the onions, was thought to be the frog's internal organs spilling out by a few relative/neighbors that were milling around the kitchen that morning. When news of my bizarre choice of breakfast reached my wife later she gave me a short lecture on the dangers of eating road-kill and that some parts of the toad that I had been seen to eat should be removed before cooking.

She soon realised that my frog was not what it appeared to be, but the joke still works from time to time. This started me thinking about the standard meals that we eat 80% of the time as I do crave a burger most weeks. Of the dinner menus that we can call on from both Thai and Western cuisine I guess we seldom breakthrough way less than 20% of our collective ranges. Our often-repeated dishes are those family favorites:

Tapioca Pudding

I adore milk based puddings, and making the perfect tapioca pudding in Issan has eluded me for some time, but repeated testing as lead to the following method:

Place a few crushed sticks of cinnamon in a suitable container, pour in hot water and leave to stand overnight. Strain the water, add some sugar then mix well with some tinned condensed milk in a medium sized bowl. Add enough tapioca pearls, small are my choice, stir then leave to stand overnight in the fridge to allow the tapioca to swell.

Place in a pan, bring to simmer, then heat gently for about 10-15 minutes, stirring as required. Add more water or water & tinned milk mixture if it seems too thick.

Rough crushed roasted peanuts as a topping works quite well I think. And other variations have been explored by adding the sweet flavoured syrups like Salsa or Pineapple jam etc. On some colder evenings I would have liked to have this warming treat standing by, but I tend to make it once a week and leave in the fridge as a chilled dessert during the day.

This leads me to what I call Turkish Milk Pudding, using a rice flour with water and tinned sweetened milk, sugar, flavoured with vanilla or cardamom. Jaggery (palm/cane sugar) in place of refined brown sugar is a tasty and health aware option. If the bag of pistachio nuts lasts long enough I'll top the set pudding with those but often resort to crushed roasted peanuts. Personally I like it with cinnamon and lemon, but a Thai lime is an oft substitute here. (I picked up some tapioca flour last week with the intent of using this next time.)

I have had many Thai desserts made from black rice, although I've not explored using local black rice yet for these desserts, does black rice flour exist anyone?

Custard

Not something I have particularly looked for but found a Thai brand (Winner 30 Baht for 300g) in a local supermarket, made up thick and then chilled served as a cold set pudding is good on a hot day. Also served hot with sliced short fat bananas, yummy. I have played with making a butterscotch syrup from brown sugar, tinned sweetened milk and a little water to line the bottom of whiskey glasses that I then fill with the custard. But if we have some honey laying around a small amount works well instead.

Pumpkin Curry

Very much my wife's signature dish, I have said that I could eat this every day without fear of boredom, it is fantastic. In a pan blend enough chilli paste with coconut milk (freshly pressed or tetra-pak) to suit your chilli tolerance. Add chunks of peeled and de-seeded pumpkin (Fuk-Torn), kaffir-lime leaves, chicken or pork is the default options here but any variation works. (I think she puts some other stuff in there too.) I want to try a beef one soon, but the best we have achieved was a few months ago using the 'melt in your mouth' well cooked pork rib meat that I made from a pig we slaughtered. As my wife makes this dish she adds some KaNa leaves shortly before serving, when I am re-heating leftovers the next day I tend to add a lot more green leafy vegetables.

A few other Thai Visa members attended a BBQ night in July where we served this particular dish with my ribs (as below) and all left full and very happy.

Pork Ribs

Always a subject of hot debate to create the perfect BBQ ribs, and many extol the virtue of direct radiant heat and basting with a custom special sauce to combat the meat drying out. This really does not work for me at all. My keep it simple method of using a large water filled pot on an open wood fire into which I put a side of ribs cut to fit. Then add sliced garlic, oyster sauce and maybe some sliced onions and a small amount of chilli depending on who is eating later. Yes, the flavor of the meat is leached into the water as it boils then simmers, over time the pork fat is rendered from the meat but remains in the pot while the water evaporates over the period of two to three hours or so. When I cook like this, the objective is to have the meat just at the point of falling from the bone when the water has gone. This leaves a fantastic fatty sauce that fries the meat just before serving. Tender, sweet and full of flavor.

Pancakes

I admit I don't generally cook these just for us but roll them out when we have guests or at BBQ time. Although out of season while I write this thread, fresh mashed soft Durian flesh works very well with a splash of lime juice.

Bread (no oven available)

This is another topic that is beyond a few sentences here, but in short I have settled on a yeast raised dough, knocked back once then kneaded a second time and left to rise again in the shallow frying pan with a little oil under the dough. I find on a typical day (34 degrees) this is ready to be cooked within an hour after resting in the fly-proof cupboard found in houses across the country.

Cooking on a low gas (or wood-ember fire - but requires closer monitoring) with a lid on the pan does achieve a satisfactory bread with a good crisp crust, although a loaf it is not. Typically the result is similar to fat Italian ciabatta about 4-5cm thick, any fatter I fear it will not cook in the middle without burning the outside. I flip the bread during cooking, pancake style if being watched by the Thai family at the time. The crust is very good but the 'flesh' inside could be better - it's my motivation to experiment with oven building one day.

Sometimes during the second coming rising I have blended in some fried, sliced and chilli seasoned onion to create a nice crispy onion-bread.

Typically I will make one for me to eat during the day as a farmer's sandwich with sliced tomato and olive oil if I have some left, and a few 'loaves' that disappear during the evening as my wife supplements a more typical multi-dished Thai supper. My sister in law often asks when I am making bread again.

Fried Chicken (...& The 'Issan' Onion Bhaji)

A topic worthy of it's own thread (I'm currently writing this topic up), but in short at the moment I like mine with a nut/bean enriched crumb coating.

On cooler mornings here out in the wilds of the countryside I have taken to a quick warming breakfast of fried chicken with sticky rice, much quicker to prepare than the normal local option of grilled 'Gai Ya' or rice porridge ('Jok' with pork and or egg).

I've worked through a few variations of fried chicken; a simple seasoned flour dusting, seasoned flour & water (or egg) batter dip to end up with the following version:

De-boned chicken leg or breast cut thin enough to allow quick cooking, covered in a chilli sauce (I use one based on chilli, oyster sauce, vinegar, sugar along with sesame seeds and oil). I don't allow the raw chicken to stand in the sauce overnight as the vinegar seems to make the flesh a little tough after cooking.

The coating is made from cooked mashed peas (UFC tinned are fine but I use personal imported dried peas), rubbed together with flour, salt, black and or white pepper and a little more of the chilli sauce to a consistency of course breadcrumbs. I have also experimented with crushed roasted peanuts as well as an alternative. This crumb mixture adheres well to the wet meat. Then quickly shallow fry in oil, to attempt reducing the oil load in the finished product I've changed from using a conventional frying pan to a wok with a little oil in the bottom of the bowl. The immersion into hot oil starts the cooking process, after a few moments I turn the piece of chicken over to expose the other side to the oil. Then move the piece out of the oil up to the side of the wok to finish cooking and hopefully crisp-up without burning or drawing in too much oil as I have found with deep and shallow frying. (...and yes, I did have the oil hot enough - cool oil leads to oil soggy fried foods.)

I must be doing something right, as this is a popular dish among my Thai relatives when they see me cooking.

As a follow through to this recipe I had some of the spicy pea crumb mixture left over a week or so ago. (Not planning to repeat this meal too often I didn't want to put it in the fridge, although if you do you can liven it up the next day by adding a little more flour.) I added some water, various spices to hand and finely sliced and semi cooked onions to create an Issan version of the Indian Onion Bhaji.

Sorry to write so much and jump around the menu a bit, but I wanted to inspire others here to write about the dishes that they make every day.

If nothing else try something I've mentioned here and reply with your thoughts/ experiences.

Bon app้tit.

[j0hnga1t]

taking about Isaan road kill, I was just visiting my future mother-in-law and for lunch on the the last day I was there, they had rat meat. Granted they were field rats that ate rice and greens as opposed to the scavenger type in Bangkok, but they were rats none-the-less. And of course they also prepared a dish of deep fried critters (beetles, crickets, etc...). Luckily I'm chinese so I wasn't too grossed out by this. I do after all eat chicken feet and pigs intestines

[Cuban]

Granted they were field rats that ate rice and greens as opposed to the scavenger type in Bangkok, but they were rats none-the-less. And of course they also prepared a dish of deep fried critters (beetles, crickets, etc...). Luckily I'm chinese so I wasn't too grossed out by this. I do after all eat chicken feet and pigs intestines.

I have a friend that says roasted rat caught from amoung the fields of sugar cane are nice, I am happy to take his word for that. I have been entertained at a Chinese restaurant where I was given Shark's Lips and Ducks Feet, the feet were wonderful compared to the thick rings of condom rubber that were served in place of the other item.

Pig's inside parts - everyone the world over likes a sausage - no one really cares what part of the pig they are eating.

[tutsiwarrior]

duck tongues are a popular item in chinese restaurants...not bad, I haveta admit...

what about Suphan road kill? I posted this some years ago but bears repeating...on a country road with the wife and her baby brother at the wheel we were following a truck with tanks of fish and they hit a bump and a big one plopped onto the road; they immediately went into synchronization without a word exchanged...the van stopped, the wife jumped out and retrieved the fish...

she then displayed the prize and with my extremely limited thai remarked 'pla...' they then shouted triumphantly 'PLA CHON!'

cooked up and on the table that pm...we could've afforded a dozen with the change in my pocket, but...there you are...

[endure]

Sorry to disappoint if you were expecting me to reveal that I truly harvest pick-up flattened animals from the roadside: but to add interest to a simple home made burger one day, I shaped some seasoned minced pork meat into the rough outline of a flattened frog. Carefully fried without breaking off the limbs and laid in a sandwich on a bed of cooked KaNa leaves and fried onions. At first glance it looked like I was extending my menu far beyond what even the village natives eat.

The mustard that livened it up, along with the onions, was thought to be the frog's internal organs spilling out by a few relative/neighbors that were milling around the kitchen that morning. When news of my bizarre choice of breakfast reached my wife later she gave me a short lecture on the dangers of eating road-kill and that some parts of the toad that I had been seen to eat should be removed before cooking.

She soon realised that my frog was not what it appeared to be, but the joke still works from time to time. This started me thinking about the standard meals that we eat 80% of the time as I do crave a burger most weeks. Of the dinner menus that we can call on from both Thai and Western cuisine I guess we seldom breakthrough way less than 20% of our collective ranges. Our often-repeated dishes are those family favorites:

Tapioca Pudding

Completely off topic but when I used to work for P&O Bulk Division the dream voyage was to get the 'tapioca boat' trip. Once a year they sent a 150,000dwt bulker into Bangkok to be hand loaded with tapioca. It took 6 weeks. Unfortunately I never got on that trip and had to pay my own way

[endure]

Granted they were field rats that ate rice and greens as opposed to the scavenger type in Bangkok, but they were rats none-the-less. And of course they also prepared a dish of deep fried critters (beetles, crickets, etc...). Luckily I'm chinese so I wasn't too grossed out by this. I do after all eat chicken feet and pigs intestines.

I have a friend that says roasted rat caught from amoung the fields of sugar cane are nice, I am happy to take his word for that. I have been entertained at a Chinese restaurant where I was given Shark's Lips and Ducks Feet, the feet were wonderful compared to the thick rings of condom rubber that were served in place of the other item.

I've had rat in Lamphun. It tasted a bit like chicken. I've also had dog curry which had a very strong dark taste. Didn't like it much.