Thai Galloping Horses - Ma Hor

Ok, kids…Ready for some of the most intriguing and delicious Thai food you’ve ever tried? This is one of those recipes where you completely control that delicate balance of hot/sour/salty/sweet for which Thai food is so well known.  And as an added serendipitous surprise, the recipe (called Ma Hor) is named after your mom! How could you NOT try it?

This recipe is modified (via Australian Gourmet Traveller--best cooking magazine in the world, IMHO) from David Thompson’s book, Thai Food (or Thai Cookery if you couldn’t wait to order the book when it was released in the US, and ordered it from Australia. It’s the same book either way). If you like Thai cuisine, both his Thai Food book and his Thai Street Food tome are the authoritative books on the subject. Supplement it with Chef McDang’s Principles of Thai Cookery and you’ve got the wide spectrum covered at a high level.

Ok, it can be a bitch to find quail if you don’t have an Asian grocery. Seattleites, I found it frozen at Uwajimaya for about 8 bucks for 4 semi-boneless quails. Yes, it’s a little bit of work to remove the meat from their tiny little bodies, but this dish is seriously worth the effort. If you can’t find quail or you’re a lazyass, you can substitute chicken thigh meat for the poultry in this recipe. If you’re going to do that because you’re a lazyass, you can also substitute a cup of Mrs. Butterworth’s mixed with a can of tuna for the fish sauce caramel, and a 7-11 package of corn nuts for the fried peanuts and shallots. And then you can fuck off. How dare you shortcut your mother's namesake dish?!?!?

Not kidding, this recipe was our hit of the summer. I’ve made it as an appetizer a few times and it instantly disappears from the serving plate every time. You can make the meat and caramel mixture (up through step 3 below) ahead of time and reheat it once you want to serve it on the pineapple slices. Just be sure to add the last half of the fried items and garnishes at the end (step 4) so they don’t get soggy. It’s how your mom would want it.

Ma hor (Galloping horses)

Serves 12

Cooking Time Prep time 40 mins, cook 20 mins (plus cooling)

2 tbsp peanut oil

150 gm each coarsely minced pork and minced quail (see note)

150 gm  peeled medium uncooked prawns, coarsely chopped

165 gm  crushed light palm sugar

125 ml (½ cup) fish sauce

80 gm each fried shallots and fried garlic (see note)

50 gm  roasted unsalted peanuts, coarsely crushed

1  pineapple, quartered, core removed, thinly sliced

To serve:  julienned long red chilli, kaffir lime leaf and coriander leaves

Coriander and garlic paste

8 coriander roots, scrubbed

8 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped

½ tsp white peppercorns

2 tbsp peanut oil

1. Heat one-third of oil on the flat plate of a barbecue, cook pork until cooked through (2-3 minutes), season to taste, remove, drain on absorbent paper, set aside to cool. Repeat with quail and prawns, cooking separately.
2. For coriander and garlic paste, pound coriander, garlic and peppercorns in a mortar and pestle to a fine paste. Heat oil in a frying pan over high heat, add paste and fry until fragrant (1-2 minutes).
3. Add palm sugar and fish sauce to coriander and garlic paste, simmer until slightly thickened (4-5 minutes). Add pork, quail and prawns and stir until reduced (3-4 minutes). Stir through half of each of the fried shallots, fried garlic and peanuts and set aside to cool slightly.
4. Top pineapple slices with pork mixture, scatter with julienned chilli, lime leaf and coriander and serve with remaining fried shallots, fried garlic and peanuts.

Note You will need to order minced quail from your butcher. If it's unavailable, you can mince it yourself, or substitute coarsely minced chicken thigh. Fried shallots and fried garlic are available from Asian grocers.

The Perfect Pad Thai

There are certain recipes I’ve spent years trying to make just…right: The perfect Bolognese (I’m about 95% of the way there), a flawless souffle (Thanks to Jerry Traunfeld, I’ve got that one down) and Pad Thai. I’ve made good Pad Thai. I’ve even made what I think is great Pad Thai. This is the recipe I think makes flawless Pad Thai. I tested it last week for David, and made it again for friends this weekend. It. Is. AWESOME.  Seriously, I think it is as good as the best Pad Thai I’ve had in any restaurant or even in Thailand.

The author of this book, is Thailand’s tv food celebrity. Born into the royal family, Chef McDang has cookbooks, tv shows, and lucrative consulting gigs for Thai food companies. His cookbook is broken out into basic Thai ingredients and dives deep into the spice pastes that form the core of Thai cooking. He discusses the regional differences and how they affect food, and then provides recipes to demonstrate the basic cooking techniques of boiling, grilling, salads, dips, stir-frying, deep-frying, steaming, curries and (my bane) desserts. In addition to the Pad Thai recipe, I’ve also made his Pad Grapao Nuea (Stir-Fried ground beef with chili, garlic and Thai holy basil) and it came out perfect. Again, as good as anything I’ve had in a restaurant or during my visits to Thailand.

A couple of notes on sourcing the ingredients: You need to have a good Asian grocery near you, or you will need to buy some of the more esoteric items (pickled turnip, pickled garlic, Thai chile sauce—not the sweet one) from internet sources. In Seattle, I found everything at Uwajimaya with the exception of the sweet pickled turnip, which I bought at Viet Wah. The base sauce recipe starts at about 6 quarts, and you reduce it down by half—it makes enough to last a while. The reduction took me a couple of hours, but then actually making the Pad Thai was an exercise of about 10 minutes. It’s well worth that initial time investment. You can use any protein in place of the shrimp. Because this was made as part of an asian meal already including a different shrimp preparation, I seared scallops instead.

If you’ve ever wanted to make Pad Thai, give this recipe a go. You won’t be disappointed. The measurements are metric, as this book was originally published in Thailand. Although a US Version has not been released, I found mine on Amazon.

Pad Thai Goong Sod

Adapted from The Principles of Thai Cookery, by Chef McDang

Serves 4

Ingredients:

60ml vegetable oil

3 cloves garlic, minced

250g prawns, peeled and cleaned (or other protein)

150g white bean curd, diced small

80g sweet pickled Chinese turnip (daikon), finely chopped

30g dried shrimp

300g dry Thai rice stick noodles (Chantaburi), soaked in cold water until strands are white, drained

230ml Pad Thai sauce (Recipe below)

2 eggs

150g bean sprouts

70g chives, cut into 1 ½ inch lengths

50g unsalted, toasted peanuts, chopped

Chili powder (for garnish), as required

4 lime wedges (for garnish)

Preparation:

1. In a wok, heat 2 Tbsp of the oil over moderate heat. Add garlic and stir-fry until fragrant. Add prawns and stir-fry until pink but not cooked. Immediately take out of the wok and reserve.
2. In the same wok, add a little more oil, then add white bean curd and dried shrimp. Stir-fry until bean curd browns.
3. Add the noodles and stir-fry to soften. Add Pad Thai sauce, a little at a time. Stir-fry to mix quickly. The noodles will soften further and absorb the flavors of the sauce. Taste.
4. If the flavors are not intense enough, add a little more sauce and allow it to seep into the noodles. Add the pickled Chinese turnip and more dried shrimp. Stir-fry to incorporate these ingredients.
5. Move the noodles to once side of the wok. Add the cooked shrimp and a little oil to the bottom of the wok. Raise the temperature and crack the eggs into the bottom of the pan.
6. Cover the eggs with the noodles. Reduce the heat a little and allow the eggs to cook.
7. Toss all the noodles together to spread the eggs. Mix in the bean sprouts, the chopped Chinese chives, and peanuts.
8. Serve the Pad Thai, garnished with fresh bean sprouts, Chinese chives, banana blossom and a lime wedge. If you like peanuts, add a few more to the side of the plate.

Pad Thai Sauce

Ingredients:

300g pickled garlic

100g fresh garlic, peeled and chopped

170g fresh Thai chile peppers

3 cups chili sauce (I used the Taste of Thai brand, but any chili sauce will work)

1 cup pickled garlic juice

1 kg palm sugar

375ml distilled vinegar

3 cups tamarind juice

3 Tbsp salt

½ cup fish sauce

3 liters water

Preparation:

1. Place all the ingredients in a food processor and blend until smooth.
2. Transfer the mixture to the saucepan, stir to mix well and bring the mixture to a boil.
3. Reduce the heat and simer in order to allow the sauce to evaporate and thicken. Once the liquid is reduced almost by half and tastes sweet, sour and slightly salty, allow it to cool. Once cooled, transfer to an air-tight container and refrigerate ready for use when making Pad Thai.

Sauce will be enough for 12-15 servings.