Drew's Thai dinner: Kaffir Lime & Green Papaya

a Thai table of pungent spices and and seductive color

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Champagne cocktail 'Tipsy Violet'

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shrimp chips and nuts

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green papaya salad 

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red curry chicken and eggplant

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roasted  Kabocha

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jasmine rice 

 

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homemade cookies

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passion fruit sorbet 

 

 a tropical celebration

red curry chicken

ingredients:                                                                                                            

• ¾ pound chicken, dark or white meat, skinned, boned,cut into bite sized pieces
• 1 cup coconut milk
• 2-4 tablespoons red curry paste
• 2-3 tablespoons  fish sauce
• 4 fragrant lime leaves, julienned
• ½  pound Thai eggplant (green, golf ball sized) if available; or Chinese eggplants
• 2 tablespoons Thai basil, julienned

 
 
instructions:                                                                                                  

Skim cream from coconut milk. Place the cream in a pot large enough to hold all of the ingredients. Heat. Add curry paste and cook until oil appears on the surface of the mixture.

Add the remaining coconut milk, the chicken, fish sauce and the lime leaves. Cook, stirring, until the chicken changes color. Stir in the eggplant and continue cooking until the chicken is done. (Add water if needed during cooking process.) Stir in basil. Taste and correct seasoning as needed.

Serve over rice.

serves 4-6 

Som Tom: Thai green papaya salad

ingredients:                                                                                                            
 

• 1 ½- 2 pounds green papaya, grated into  long, this strips
• 8-12 cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1-3 garlic cloves
• 1- 1 ½ “ ginger (young as possible) chopped
• 2 each Thai red and green bird chilies
• 1-3 scallions, chopped
• 2 tablespoons dried shrimp
• 3 tablespoons blanched, roasted peanuts, chopped
• 2 limes, juiced
• 1 ½ tablespoon palm sugar
• 3 tablespoons fish sauce
• ¼ pound Chinese long beans, blanched and cut into 4” lengths
• cilantro sprigs
• lettuce leaves

 
instructions:                                                                                                                      

Green papaya is very firm. Traditionally, it is pounded in a clay mortar to soften the fibers so that it will absorb the flavors of the other ingredients when making this salad. If you do not have a mortar, you can achieve a similar affect by alternately mixing and squeezing the papaya with the other ingredients in a bowl.

In a mortar, begin by pounding the garlic, ginger, and chilies. Once a paste, add the palm sugar with a small amount of the papaya. Add more papaya as the ingredients begin to soften. Next, add the shrimp and cherry tomatoes along with more papaya. Continue until all of the papaya has been added. Next, add the peanuts and long beans. Lastly, mix in the fish sauce and the lime juice. Correct seasoning to taste (hot, sour, salty, sweet)

Serve on a platter lined with lettuce leaves. Garnish with cilantro sprigs.

This salad is delicious as is, however, in Northern Thailand, it is traditionally served with sticky rice.