Things Are Heating Up

Over the past few weeks the weather around here has finally started warming up to Thai summer standards after an unusually long dry/cool season. How hot is hot? Right now it is 2:00pm and the thermometer outside my door (which is in the shade, by the way) reads 99 degrees.

It’s not only outside that’s heating up. I’ve also been breaking a sweat in the kitchen. My moment of glory was last Tuesday when my friend Bay invited me to her house to do a cooking exchange. Bay would be providing the recipes and ingredients for lunch, while I brought what was needed for dessert.

My plan was to make the stove-top cookies that have kept Joe, Mara, and me alive since we can’t bake. When I arrived at Bay’s I found out that there wasn’t a stove or a sauce pan, just an electric wok. Yes, we made cookies in an electric wok, and they were delicious!

The only thing better than the cookies was lunch itself. The first dish Bay showed me how to make is what I’m calling an Issan version of quiche. You mix a lot of mushrooms, some egg, garlic, lemongrass, shallots, lime leaves, lemon basil, and salt together in a bowl and then spoon the mixture into some banana leaves that you let soften in the sun. You then fold the banana leaves up to make a small package that then goes into the oven until the leaves are about to burn. Bay had a small circular glass oven, I’ve never seen anything like it, and it was fun to watch the leaves cook.

The second thing we made was fried vegetable tempura salad. We cut up veggies and tofu into bite size pieces, coated them in a tempura flour batter, and then deep fried them. I’ve never deep fried in a wok using chop sticks, and it definitely was a challenge not to flick hot oily veggies at myself or Bay. Bay also made a classic Thai sauce made of chilies, lime juice, garlic, salt (non-vegetarians use fish sauce), and sugar to pour over the tempura. It was arroy maak (delicious).

After 2 -3 hours in the non-aircon kitchen, I was very grateful to sit down and share this cross-cultural meal with a good friend.

nam crook?

One of the best appetizer-type dishes that I’ve had here so far is nam crook. At least I think it’s nam crook, that’s what I say to the som tam lady at my favorite veggie restaurant, and this is what she always gives me. Of course one time she wasn’t there and then I tried to order it and the man taking my order had no idea what I was talking about. So I digressed into limited choppy Thai vocab/hand signals: “fried ball” (mashing motion) “leaf” (spooning motion). He got the idea and I got what I call nam crook. If you’re reading this and you know what it’s really called, please post it in the comments.

Since I can’t find a recipe (maybe because I don’t know its name), I’ll explain how nam crook is made in my imagination. You first make a kind of fried rice with chopped up kaffir lime leaves, these awesome dried roasted chilies, peanuts, and other magical Thai spices. You then form this rice into pool-ball size spheres and deep fry it. You leave the balls in this stage until just before you are ready to eat. (It is at this point that I actually begin to witness preparation).

When you are ready to serve nam crook, you place one of the balls in a bowl and mash it up with your hands (preferably gloved). You then add fresh mint leaves, lime juice, maybe something else if you think it would taste good. It is then served on a plate with fresh leaves, generally of the same unknown variety (occasionally supplemented or substituted with a less tasty unknown variety).

I then spoon the rice mixture into a leaf and wrap it up before popping the morsel in my mouth. However, I can’t say if this is the proper way to eat nam crook, but no one’s ever corrected me (although maybe they’re just too polite).

Like many Thai dishes, Nam crook has a nice balance of spicy, salty, sour, and sweet (not really sure where that last flavor comes from, but it’s there). The texture is also amazing, with the soft rice mixed with crunchy dried peppers, peanuts, and bits of the original deep fried shell wrapped in the smooth and fresh-tasting leaf. It is amazingly arroy (delicious-- one Thai word I know very well).