I have a few Thai cookery books and had taken a look through them on Thursday and decided to cook Tom Yam Soup, Thai Fishcakes, Green Chicken Curry and hadn't even thought about dessert at this point. Cost me a fortune for all the ingredients but we didn't end up going out (Mr W's back has been playing up and he was in agony on NYE :( so not a problem.
I went to Tesco on Friday afternoon and thought I'd get some tropical type fruits and think about dessert later. Got a mango, lychees and passion fruit. Turned out to be the best course and a complete after thought!
I got up on Saturday after a couple too many rums on Friday and set about finding a recipe for coconut cake - I had an epiphany in the shower, I was going to make a coconut cake, a coconut rice pudding, and use the tropical fruit that I'd bought. Found one and set about making it - took me a while to get going by which time I needed to be at the butchers so was a little rushed. Came home, had a shower, and began cooking in earnest around 1:30pm.
The Tom Yam Soup is quite easy - chicken stock, some lovely fresh ingredients (lemongrass, kaffir limes leaves, chilli, spring onions, lime juice, spring onions, coriander, fresh tiger prawns...). My mother-in-law very thoughtfully bought us a kaffir lime tree a few years ago and although it's not looking amazingly healthy, it still keeps on supplying us with fabulously fragrant leaves. Must have a look into re-potting/changing the soil. It is well worth getting one as it is hard to get fresh lime leaves in Manchester and they are expensive if you can. The frozen ones are not worth it.
It was nice but lacking a bit of acidity, more lime juice next time!
For my Thai fishcakes, I had to blend cod loin (you can use other white fish such as bass - do not call it 'seabass', Mr W gets most upset as we don't have fresh water bass over here) with curry paste and some other bits and pieces including nam pla (fish sauce). If you want the recipe let me know, it's a beast! I don't recommend blending fish and fish sauce with a hangover, I almost wretched a couple of times. Once blended I refrigerated until I was ready to make patties rolled in flour. You then deep-fry in vegetable (or peanut) oil until golden brown. I served them with a pickled cucumber salad, delicious!
I used Ken Hom's Thai Green Chicken Curry recipe, a tried and tested and certifiably good one! I added green beans and fresh chilli to it, plus Thai aubergines. I served this with Thai jasmine rice, in a timbale :)
It was soooo tasty! It was well worth all the prep time.
For dessert, I sliced my coconut cake, made a mango and passion fruit coulis (just cut some mango up finely, scraped the seeds out of a passion fruit and put in a pan with some sugar, then strained through a sieve), a coconut rice pudding with glutinous rice served with some fresh mango and passion fruit, and a toasted coconut and passion fruit cream (whipped cream mixed with passion fruit seeds and toasted dessicated coconut). I dressed the plate with some kiwi fruit and lychees. I am not a dessert person but this was wonderful, so refreshing after the previous courses but with some creamy indulgence. Fabulous! I just forgot to add the physalis (or whatever they are called - the decorative fruits).
We ended up staying in and playing Monopoly and Chess, rock 'n' roll! A good night was had though, thanks to the food, and some rather nice wines.
I also used my wedding sarong from my brother's Indonesian wedding as a table cloth, I hope they don't mind but it went beautifully with my Thai theme and better to use it than relegate it to a wardrobe somewhere. We were careful not to spill anything on it.
You may wonder about the strange set up of the table, with us sitting side by side, but it's because we have a TV on the opposite side and we are quite ignorant whilst we're eating ;) You didn't think we 'talked' did you??!
Anyway, Happy New Year everyone, hope 2012 is a healthy and prosperous one!
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