Thai Desserts

Posted on 22 October 2011 by christao408

As we wait patiently for updates as to the flooding risk in Bangkok…

It has been a while since I’ve done an entry about food, so I thought I would share with you the plate full of Thai desserts that Tawn brought for me a few weeks ago when I was slaving away all afternoon on the computer.

The full plate – from left: rae rai, khanom tuay, khanom khii nuu (in the cup), and gluay bing. First off, the term “khanom” is an all-purpose word used for snacks or sweets.

Item 1:This is khanom khii nuu. I’m not sure you want me to translate the name as the literal meaning is pretty unappetizing. This dessert is almost like a sweet cous cous made of rice flour instead of wheat flour. The rice flour is mixed with jasmine water to make a paste, then it is pressed through a screen to make small granules. These are then wrapped in a cloth and weighted to press out any extra liquid, then steamed until cooked.

A simple syrup is made with more jasmine water, sugar, and (if desired) food coloring, which is then mixed into the cooked flour granules. Finally, the whole thing is placed in a container along with a jasmine candle, which is allowed to burn to impart additional aroma. It is served with a little bit of shredded mature coconut. The flavor and texture are delicate, almost a bit too delicate.

Item 2: Rae rai are basically rice flour noodles. They are made by mixing two types of rice flour (regular and glutinous) with coconut cream and jasmine water until it forms a dough. The dough is stirred over medium heat for about ten minutes until the flour is cooked. Food coloring is added and the dough is separated into small balls (about the size of ping pong balls) and then extruded through a device that looks a bit like a garlic press. The resulting noodles are steamed and then served with a combination of sugar and sesame seeds and a little bit of salted coconut cream. Also a delicate flavor but a bit more substantial than khanom khii nuu.

Item 3: Gluay bing, grilled bananas. A semi-ripe starchy type of banana is grilled at a low temperature and then flattened. It is then soaked in a mixture of coconut milk and palm sugar. I’m not a big banana fan, so this wasn’t a particular favorite of mine.

Item 4: Khanom tuay, literally a “cup snack”. The dough is made of rice flour, flavored and colored with pandanus leaf. These are steamed in small cup molds and, after being removed, are served with a palm sugar caramel with sesame seeds.

Inside view of the khanom tuay, which has a consistent texture throughout, something similar to mochi, the pounded sticky rice that is common in Japanese cuisine. This was my favorite, especially because of the texture. I like the chewy texture of mochi, caramel, taffy, etc.

So there you have it – Thai desserts to tide you over while we wait for news about the flooding. “The water is coming tonight,” said one of our guards as he inspected the wall of sandbags in front of our condo. Let’s hope when I wake up tomorrow, everything is still dry.

Flooding in Thailand

Posted on 18 October 2011 by christao408

You have perhaps heard that since August, Thailand has been coping with the worst flooding the country has experienced in 50 years. From the far north in Chiang Mai and other mountainous provinces, through the central plains, and now down to the region closest to the Gulf of Thailand, the country has experienced widespread destruction. At least 297 people have died, 700,000 homes have been damaged or destroyed, and estimates are that the waters could wind up costing the country US$5 billion, or about 1% of GDP.

The region currently affected is the southern half of the Central Plains, the rice bowl of Thailand. Nearly 15 million acres have been flooded, of which 3.4 million acres are farmland. The above graphic shows flooded areas in light blue. As you can see, the province of Ayutthaya, home to the ruins of the second capital of the Kingdom of Siam, is the most severely affected.

Many of the major ruins, temples, and historical sites in Ayutthaya have been affected by flood waters, some areas more than 2 meters deep. The United Nations is sending teams to help survey the UNESCO World Heritage sites and offer assistance.

The muddy waters of the Chao Phraya river cannot easily be contained, sweeping into cities and villages along its banks. Most of central Thailand is low-lying land. There are signs that those who live upriver from Bangkok feel that their land has been sacrificed in the name of keeping Bangkok safe. Since the last major flooding in Bangkok in 1995, extensive measures have been put in place to reduce the risk of flooding for the capital. One of those measure is the deliberate flooding of farmland in the provinces north of the city, the so-called “monkey cheeks” approach. Without a doubt, the impact of flooding farmland is much less than the impact of flooding major cities. Nonetheless, that is cold comfort for the familes directly impacted by those policies.

Unfortunately, the flooding has not been limited to farmland. Between Ayutthaya and Bangkok lie many industrial parks, home to manufacturing centers for companies from around the globe. As an example, Honda’s factory, which accounts for some 5% of its global production, was flooded. Pictured above, new Honda cars sit in the factory’s parking lot, some submerged and others partially floating.

Fortunately, most of Bangkok has thus far avoided the worst of it. Some of the northern districts, near the old Don Meuang Airport and Rangsit, have been affected, although not nearly as bad as elsewhere in the country. Our neighborhood, which is near an area at risk for flooding, is bracing for the next five days or so, until the surge that is coming down the river has safely passed the city.

A knee-high wall of sandbags has been erected around the base of our condo building. We have stocked up on bottled water, canned food, and other necessities. Supplies in the stores are low with many thinly-stocked shelves, a situation caused both by people stockpiling essentials but also because of disruptions in the supply chain. In fact, Tawn reported today that Starbucks has run out of espresso beans, some cups, and napkins. That, if anything, must be a sign of how bad it is! (Only kidding…)

Fortunately, there was no rain today. But there is an 80% chance of thunderstorms tonight and the rest of week looks stormy. I hope it gets no worse and, for the more than half of Thai provinces affected by the flooding, that the situation rapidly improves.

Tawn’s Collection: K and I Spring Summer 2012

Posted on 14 October 2011 by christao408

As I had mentioned in a previous entry, Tawn had the good fortune to be invited by Khun Kai, owner of Thailand’s longest running couture house, to design the Spring/Summer 2012 collection for his streetwear label, K and I. After nearly a month of frantic work, the 48 looks were presented on Saturday October 7 at Bangkok International Couture Fashion Week, sponsored by Harper’s Bazaar.

Behind the scenes, Tawn adjusts the fit of one of the finale dresses on his model. A group shot of his models, one of whom used to be the tenant of the second condo we now own. Below are the 48 looks, roughly in the order in which they appeared on the runway. The only comment I’ll provide in advance is that Tawn designed the outfits, but collaborated with Khun Kai on the selection of fabrics (Kai does a lot of lace).

Tawn walks down the runway with a model who is wearing his final look, a beautiful lace dress with body suit. K and I’s mother brand, Kai, is famous for its elegant lace and custom bridal gowns.

Afterwards, Tawn stopped for interviews with several journalists. I’m looking forward to the next round of magazines to see what the critics have to say about his collection. The next step is to translate these designs into actual rack-ready garments. At the same time, Tawn is finalizing his first collection of his eponymous brand, Tawn C. The photo shoot is Monday and hopefully those will be ready for production soon, too.

It was less than a year and a half ago when Tawn decided to go part-time with his job in Public Relations and follow his passion, starting with attending fashion design classes. He has had some amazing breaks and I’m proud, too, of all the hard work he has put into this. Without a doubt, he has much more passion for this line of work!

Buried

Posted on 13 October 2011 by christao408

It’s been a week since my last entry, possibly the longest I’ve gone without blogging! Between Tawn’s fashion show, which turned out wonderfully, and some large projects with work, I’ve had little free time. One thing I’ve come to realize, belatedly, is that the internet (more broadly) and social media (in particular) are not very good uses of my time. Cutting back on those – just forbidding myself from opening my browser – has freed up a lot of time for other productive uses.

That said, I think I’ll have the time to catch my breath this weekend and do an update on Tawn’s show. Meanwhile, I hope you are all well. I haven’t read my subscriptions in a week, either, so if I haven’t responded to your latest post, I hope you will understand.

Want to Change the World? Choose a Woman.

Posted on 7 October 2011 by christao408

While I’m wary of broad generalizations, today’s announcement of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize winners, a trio of women who have promoted the causes of peace, freedom, and opportunity through nonviolence, led me to a conclusion: if we really want to change the world, we need to put more women in charge.

Leymah Gbowee (on the left) is a social worker and trauma counselor who organized a group known as the Women of Liberian Mass Action for Peace, a non-violent group protesting for peace that was instrumental in bringing an end to Liberia’s civil war.

Tawakul Karman (center) is one of Yemen’s most vocal and well-known activists. She is also a member of the country’s main opposition party. Using social media, she organized the first student demonstrations challenging the rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (right), a Harvard-trained economist, was elected in 2005 as President of Liberia. She was the first female democratically elected president of an African nation. She has promoted development after 14 years of civil war that devastated the country, leaving some 200,000 dead.

When women lead, they tend to lead people towards health, education, and peace. Looking at the track record of men, which often leads towards war, abuse of power, and exploitation, it seems that all other factors being equal, a female leader would be preferable to a male one.

Swimming Lessons

Posted on 3 October 2011 by christao408

Ater the weekend at the beach resort last month with some of Tawn’s high school friends and their young children, the mothers decided to enroll their children in swimming lessons. The pool is not far from our neighborhood, so once a week I take a break from my work and ride over to encouage the little ones as they learn to swim.

The two youngest ones, Kiri (with his mother, Tao) and Jaeda (with her mother, Saa), both enjoy the water but Jaeda seems a bit more ready for swim lessons. Even after a half-dozen of them, Kiri doesn’t seem to enjoy any activity that gets his face wet.

By ten minutes into the half-hour lesson, Kiri’s upper lip is trembling and tears are making the pool salty. I feel a bit guilty because as I stand on the side of the pool, he will look at me every so often as if to ask, “Why are you just standing there, letting me suffer?”

Tawn’s Big Break

Posted on 28 September 2011 by christao408

Since we returned from our vacation to Los Angeles this past June, Tawn has been in the process of designing and producing his initial collection of women’s wear. It has been a challenge and an adventure as he locates vendors, deals with problems anticipated and unanticipated, and learns about how a fashion business is run.

They say that success is a combination of talent, lots of hard work, and a dose of good luck. Right now, we’re at a point on the road to Tawn’s dream of being a successful fashion designer where those three factors are coming together. It is a point that, years from now, we may look back on as the critical break that altered the course of his career.

A month ago, Tawn had the opportunity to meet Khun Kai, the man who established the first haute couture brand in Thailand some forty years ago. He continues to produce elegant dresses and wedding gowns that are highly sought-after. While helping a friend shop for her wedding gown, Tawn introduced himself to Khun Kai and inquired if he might consider taking Tawn as an intern. Initially, Khun Kai said he was not interested in having an intern.

A week later, though, Tawn received a call and was invited to Khun Kai’s studio. Starting the next day, Tawn listened as Khun Kai shared his insights on the fashion industry in Thailand and the challenges of running your own design studio. The day after that, Khun Kai explained that he was looking for a designer to help produce the Spring/Summer 2012 collection for “k and i”, Kai’s streetwear brand. Introduced two seasons ago, k and i has yet to establish a solid identity and find its market.

Out of the blue, Khun Kai asked Tawn to design that Spring/Summer collection for k and i. Returning home that evening, Tawn was understandably excited and a little stressed by the challenge. He worked late into the night, creating a mood board to capture his overall design inspirations for the collection and then sketched 48 rough looks to articulate how he thought k and i could best fit into the market.

With some feedback, Khun Kai approved the looks and after he and Tawn chose various fabrics, his in-house team of seamstresses began preparing prototypes.

The collection will show, along with Khun Kai’s “Kai” couture line, October 8 at Bangkok International Couture Fashion Week, sponsored by Harper’s Bazaar magazine. This is a particular honor as only four other brands will be featured, all of whom are well-established here in Thailand. As Tawn explained, these are brands he shopped when he was growing up, so to appear on the same stage as them is a rare privilege.

As you can imagine, Tawn is honored, excited, and quite anxious right now. While 48 looks have been completed, he continues to edit and make adjustments and is now working with stylists to help produce the look and the feel of the show. As for me, I receive a near-daily update on the experiences of working with a legend and the interesting dynamics that entails.

Of course, I’m very proud of Tawn, thankful that he has be given this opportunity, and look forward to sharing the collection with you in the near future.

Egg Sausage

Posted on 27 September 2011 by christao408

One commenter on my previous entry about making sausage expressed surprise about sausage being a part of Thai cuisine. Sure enough, Thais like stuffed intestines just as much as about everyone else! After posting the entry, though, I learned from a friend about a unique Thai sausage used as an ingredient in a clear soup. The sausage is called “look rok”.

It is made by filling sausage casings (intestines) with uncooked, well-beaten chicken eggs. Then you boil the sausage until the egg firms up. The sausage is then sliced and, if you want to be decorative, the cut ends are scored into quarters. The pieces are added to a clear broth that has minced pork and whole shrimp added to it. Looks quite pretty, doesn’t it? Seems like a lot of work, though, for just one ingredient in the dish.

Cooking: Making Sausages

Posted on 26 September 2011 by christao408

Making sausages has long be on my “to try” list. They say that sausages and legislation are two things you don’t really want to see being made, but I was curious. On hearing about my interest in sausage making, Jarrett Wrisley, food writer and owner of Soulfood Mahanakorn invited my friend Chow and me to his restaurant for a sausage making tutorial. This was much appreciated since I have neither a meat grinder or sausage stuffer attachment for my KitchenAid mixer.

Halfway through the process, we have a few meters of sausage made and several kilos of bulk sausage left. Which will run out first: the casings or the sausage?

Prior to starting out on the project, I spent some time learning about sausage making. I borrowed a copy of Susan Mahnke Peery’s “Home Sausage Making: How-To Techniques for Making and Enjoying 100 Sausages at Home” from my friend Nat. Then I did some browsing on the internet to find some recipes that sounded interesting. The day before heading over to Soulfood Mahanakorn, I bought my ingredients, cut the meat into cubes and froze it (for easier grinding), and mixed the spices and seasonings.

Chow and I met Jarrett at the restaurant just after noon. First off, we enjoyed a casual lunch of freshly baked baguette, mustard, and ham that Jarrett had made in his new smoker. Smoked with the cuttings from various Thai herbs, the ham had a fantastic flavor, perfect to set the mood for some sausage making.

First step – grind the meat. I used two different meats, pork and chicken, to make two different sausages: Polish and chicken apple. Chow made a third type of sausage, an herb and curry infused Northern Thai sausage known as sai oua.

The ingredients for the Polish sausage: pork belly, pork shoulder, water, garlic, salt, marjoram, black pepper, dry mustard, and ground coriander seed.

The ingredients for the chicken apple sausage: apple cider (reduced to a syrup), chicken thighs (with skin), dried apples, salt, black pepper, sage, dried ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and dissolved chicken bouillon.

Chow made her sai oua using her grandmother’s recipe, or at least as much of it as she was able to pry from her grandmother’s cook. The secret ingredients she is adding to the ground pork include shallots, garlic, cloves, kaffir lime leaf, ground coriander seed, salt, fish sauce, turmeric, dried chilies, and a mixture of southern and central style curry pastes. And if you think there are any exact proportions to this recipe, you’re crazy!

Jarrett fries up a test batch of the Polish sausage. He explained that his cooks will just taste the mixture raw to check the seasoning, presumably spitting out the mixture after tasting it. I’m not sure I want to be eating raw pork, even here in Thailand. Plus, since you will be eating the sausage cooked, it makes sense to me to actually taste it cooked.

After we tested all three mixtures and were confident we had the seasonings correct, it was time to stuff. No fancy sausage stuffing machines here and certainly no synthetic sausage casings. We used pig intestines fresh from the butcher’s, which had been rinsed countless times and treated with a little bit of lime juice to freshen the smell.

While I generally don’t consider myself a squeamish person, when you are making sausage with natural casings, there is no getting around the reality of what you are doing: filling a previously excrement-filled intestinal track with ground meat and seasonings, with the purpose of cooking and eating them.

Eeew. Reminds me of those acts where a magician pulls an unbelievably long scarf from his mouth.

Fun stuffing. Instead of using a stuffing machine, we hooked up the end of a length of intestine to a plastic funnel, tied off the other end of the intestine with some twine, and started stuffing. It is labor intensive, although not quite as much work as you might imagine. The biggest challenge is that you end up pushing lots of air into the sausage. Later, you need to prick the sausage with a skewer to let the excess air out.

Perhaps a new profile picture for me? “I will stuff your guts!”

After about an hour of stuffing, we ran out of casings. The result was about 3 kilos, or 6 pounds of stuffed sausage, which I later tried twisting into proper links with a modest amount of success. We used only about two-thirds of our sausage mixture, though, so everyone went home with links as well as some bulk sausage.

Unfortunately, I don’t have any photos of the cooked links, due to operator error on my part. (Note to self: you should not delete the pictures from your camera until ensuring they have actually copied onto the hard drive of the computer.) I do have photos of one of my experiments with the bulk sausage: frying up patties of the sai oua and making sandwiches from them.

Tawn was skeptical at first because “this isn’t how sai oua is eaten.” Put it on a fresh baguette with some lettuce, tomato, carrots dressed in rice wine vinegar, a splash of fish sauce and a sprinkle of cilantro and you have a fusion between a Vietnamese bánh mì and Northern Thai sausage. It tasted wonderful.

As for the overall sausage making experience, I would most definitely make sausage again. The ability to control your own flavors and ingredients is worth the effort. Next trip to the US, I’m buying a meat grinder and sausage stuffer attachment for my mixer.

Food in HK – Another Tim Ho Wan Location

Posted on 21 September 2011 by christao408

In April 2010, Tawn and I had the opportunity to visit Tim Ho Wan, the Michelin star winning dim sum restaurant in the Yau Ma Tei area of Hong Kong. When you hear “Michelin star” the normal image is of a big, swanky restaurant. Tim Ho Wan is quite the opposite, a modest twenty-seater emphasizing their food and little else. Because of the chef’s success, a second location was opened in Sham Shui Po, the fabric district in Kowloon. While in Hong Kong earlier this month, we stopped in for a visit.

Tim Ho Wan

(Second Location)
9-11 Fuk Wing Street
Sham Shui Po
Kowloon
‎

Food: Amazing
Service: So-so
Ambience: None
Price: Bargain

Located roughly equidistant between the Sham Shui Po and Prince Edward MTR stations, the second location of Tim Ho Wan is fairly easy to get to. Recognizing it will be a bit more challenging if you don’t read Chinese – there is no English signage. However, the street it is on seems to have no other restaurants, and most of the time you will see a queue out front, so that’s your clue that you are in the right place.

There is also a third location now open in a decidedly more upscale and easier to reach spot: the MTR Airport Express Hong Kong station. Look for store 12A on level one. This way, you can zip into the city from the airport on a four-hour layover, have time to eat the Michelin star earning dim sum, and then head back to the airport!

We headed to the restaurant about 11:00 am on a weekday, sneaking in between the morning crowd (the restaurant opens at 8:00) and the lunch crowd. That meant no wait for us, although just thirty minutes later the other tables quickly filled up. This second location is probably three times larger than the first, so waits are reportedly much shorter than at the first location, where waits longer than an hour are common.

As for the food, it was still very good but I would dare say the quality and care of preparation is lower than we experienced at the original location. And, in one case, the hygienic standards were lower, too.

The cheong fun, wide rice noodles filled with pork, steamed, and served with soy sauce, remain a favorite of mine. Tim Ho Wan prepares them beautifully, with the most delicate and silky noodles I’ve ever had.

Close-up view of the cheong fun, called “vermicelli” on the menu. The dish is just HK$15, about US$2, and even at three times the price, I would classify it as a must-order dish.

Another dish the restaurant is acclaimed for is its char siu bao, or barbecue pork buns. These are baked with a crumb crust on top and have a delightfully flaky texture.

Inside view of the barbecue pork bun. As I understand it, the origin of these bao is that restaurants would use the leftover pork from the previous evening’s banquets as the filling. Of course, that is probably not the case at most restaurants these days. Tim Ho Wan’s are made of very high quality pork and I could eat a few servings of these buns and call it a day.

Another winning dish is what the menu calls the “glue rice dumpling”, or glutinous rice dumpling. Filled with sausage and other goodies then wrapped in a lotus leaf and steamed, this is the most generously-sized item on the menu – about the size of my hand with fingers open wide. The quality of the ingredients is very high and the rice is very aromatic.

The pan fried turnip cakes, another dish that is usually a favorite of mine, disappointed. On our visit to the original Tim Ho Wan location, these cakes were fantastic, with a nicely browned crust and a flavor that comes from only the most seasoned of griddles. In fact, at the original location, this was my favorite dish. Unfortunately, the version at location number two was undercooked and uninspiring.

We made a wrong turn with the steamed beef balls in bean curd (tofu) skin. Commonly nicknamed “Chinese hamburgers”, these meatballs were cooked very rare. While I enjoy rare beef (steak tartare is wonderful), the texture didn’t work well in this dish. Additionally, one of our dining companions found a hair stuck in one of the balls. We brought this to the attention of a server, who replaced the dish but did not offer any compensation. While I know that Hong Kong doesn’t have a reputation for good customer service, the least I would expect at a Michelin starred restaurant (at any decent restaurant, for that matter) is that we not be charged for the dish that had to be replaced.

We headed back on track with the siu mai, steamed pork dumplings with shrimps. These mainstays of dim sum were tasty, although there was nothing particularly impressive about them compared to siu mai I’ve had at a dozen other dim sum restaurants.

Dining companions Tehlin with her daughter. When I ordered, I ordered for four hungry adults, forgetting that a child isn’t going to eat nearly as much. Oh, well, more for the rest of us!

Chris, Tawn, and Chinese aunty.

For dessert, we ordered two types of warm, sweet soup. One was the corn and purple glutinous rice and the other was green peas with sea lavender (a type of fragrant seaweed). Both were tasty but didn’t photograph very well. The third dessert, described as “tonic medlar & petal cake”, was tasty and beautiful. It is a gelatine of dried flowers, probably Chrysanthemum, that was beautifully golden and wonderfully aromatic. This is the type of dessert that is at once very simple – Jell-O! – but also very dramatic.

All told, we had twelve dishes and tea for four, and the bill came out to UK$177, about US$24 for three and a half people. While we did have the hair in the meatball incident and three dishes that were only average, the remaining dishes (especially the cheong fun and char siu bao) were fantastic and well worth the effort to find the restaurant.