Sunday, February 6, 2011

A Typical Night at Jessica's House (Not Really).

Soooo I've been extremely slack with updating my blog. It seems weird that I update this blog more often whenever I have little time. Hopefully that will change soon. I've been taking photos of food here and there – it's not like I haven't been out and about! Today's update is going to be a bit different. No review today.

While I appreciate going out to eat and trying out different places and different cuisines, there's nothing like eating food that has been prepared and cooked by my mother. I'm sure that it's the same for most people...that is, if your parents can effectively use a stove and an oven. Sometimes (okay, maybe often) I take my mother's cooking for granted. I'm pretty sure that when I leave in September for the UK, I'll be complaining incessantly on the phone to my mother about how I miss her food. Since I returned back home from my trip, I've been asking my mother lots about how she prepares and cooks certain dishes so I can attempt to cook them in the UK. (It's a pain in the ass to recreate any of her dishes though, since she doesn't measure anything. Sigh).


A couple of days before New Years, my parents hosted a dinner. When guests come over to my house, my mother likes to showcase her best food and it suddenly becomes an overindulgent banquet of sorts (...and I mean that in the best way). My brother took some photos for me – thanks brother! – and I thought showing these photos would provide a nice illustration as to how goooood home-cooked (Thai) food can be.

"Som Dum" - Traditionally it's just a green papaya salad. But my mother likes to incorporate carrots if she doesn't have any papaya in her fridge. Sometimes she likes to mix it up and put both in the salad. The salad also has tomatoes and green beans.

"Haw Mok" - Steamed Fish Curry. It doesn't look very nice in the photo. But that's because it was partially eaten by the time the photo had been taken. Whoops.

"Gai Yaang" - My Mother's BBQ Chicken. There's only a few on the plate...again taken while we were eating. My mother's marinade for the chicken is pretty odd, yet brilliant. She makes up this weird concoction, in which she uses a mortar and pestle to grind garlic, peppercorns, salt, and coriander root into a thick doughy paste.

"Moo Satay" - Pork Satay. My mother makes the best satay sauce. Fact. I love eating satay in Thailand, although sometimes the sauce can be a bit too sweet. My mother doesn't make it that often, so whenever we have dinner parties, she makes an excess amount of it (so I can eat it the following day for lunch and dinner). We also serve it with toast and a pickled cucumber dish. Obviously you can do it with chicken...and apparently prawns work as well (we experimented with it on the night).

Mussaman Curry with Beef.

Thai Stir-fried Vegetables. The prawns are kind of in the way in the photo.

(Half-eaten) Steamed Fish with lots of chili and garlic.

Spring Rolls. Yum. The filling is sooo good. Lots of cabbage, mushroom, carrots, garlic. Usually we have pork mince in them, but we swapped it with prawns in the photo above (like you can even tell the difference, heh). We dip the rolls in my mother's homemade Thai Sweet Chili Sauce. Sooo good. My mother's sauce is 100 times better than the stuff in the supermarkets. You can taste the sweetness and the chili (rather than just the sweetness).

Thai Bean Salad - Wing beans are used in Thailand, but my mother likes to use french beans instead.

Next update: Hopefully soon. Canton Cafe in Kingsland. Can't wait, it's a family favourite!

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