Mini Bánh Mí Banh mi are a take-away mainstay. They’re a healthy quick lunch to grab on the run and fun to serve as finger food or a starter if you turn them into little open sandwiches on slices of baguette. Inspired by leftover bits and pieces from a few weeks recipe testing, I whipped […]
Sticky Rice with Mango I find any dish with sticky rice addictively comforting, especially a dessert. So I adore khao neow mamuang, sticky rice with mango, which is one of Thailand’s most popular desserts. Glutinous (or sticky) rice is the staple grain of north-eastern Thailand and, despite the name, doesn’t contain any gluten, making it […]
Fresh Fruit with Spicy Thai Salt I was reminded of this classic Thai dish at Viand, when Annita Potter served a simple pre-dessert of pomelo segments alongside a little mound of ground salt, sugar, chilli and kaffir lime. I’ve bought sliced pineapple from Asian grocery stores with a little pod of the salt-sugar-chilli combo, but […]
Hot & Sour Prawn Soup Hot and sour soups are a classic on Thai menus. Although the version containing prawns, dtom yam gung, is perhaps the best known in Australia, ‘dtom’ simply means to boil and ‘yam’ to mix or toss together and these soups can be as basic or as complex as you care […]
Thai Fish Cakes In Thai cuisine, dishes such as fish cakes and spring rolls are snacks, often bought from street vendors between meals. Thai fish cakes, tod man pla, have a springy texture, achieved by repeatedly ‘slapping’ the minced fish against the side of the bowl to develop the protein. Red fish works particularly well […]
Simon’s Wagyu Kway Teow Char kway teow, the popular Malaysian and Singaporean dish of stir-fried rice noodles, literally means ‘stir-fried rice cake strips’. Flat sheets of rice dough (called ‘hor fun’ in Chinese) are folded into blocks, cut into strips and separated into noodles. Char kway teow typically includes Asian clams and lup cheong sausage. […]
Red Rice & Herb Cake Every rice-centred cuisine has a version of fried rice to use up leftover cooked rice. I created this red rice & herb cake inspired by the Vietnamese tomato rice, cơm đỏ, which Mark Jensen introduced me to. It’s a great way to not only use up excess steamed rice but […]
Glutinous Red Rice with Lychees I love glutinous rice desserts and have always wanted to experiment with them so, inspired by a dish that chef Mark Jensen served me several years ago, I came up with this easy glutinous red rice dessert served with lychees. It’s quick too, as long as you get organised and […]
Vietnamese Chicken Rice Soup Every culture seems to have a chicken soup that’s the universal panacea, and in Vietnam it’s cháo gà. Similar to Chinese congee, it’s sometimes called chicken rice porridge and is generally a breakfast dish, often served with omelette. It can be quite bland, if that’s what you want, and it’s traditionally […]
Vietnamese Iced Coffee When I first visited Vietnam in the mid-90s it was impossible to get any coffee except the traditional dark roast dripped into a cup of sweetened condensed milk from a small aluminium filter called a phin. As I don’t have a sweet tooth it took some getting used to, but once I […]
