Pan-Fried Chive Cakes (ขนมกุยช่ายแบบสี่เหลี่ยม)

One of the most commonly seen street food items in Bangkok is these chive cakes. As opposed to their (almost always) round, filled cousins that are sold in both steamed and steamed-then-pan-fried forms, these square chive cakes are always pan-fried until the exteriors are crispy. Both varieties are often found right next to one another. They're also served with the same spicy, sweet and sour dipping soy sauce.

My favorite kind of Chinese chive cakes is the round, filled kind. I also like them steamed and not fried. But since I have not been able to perfect a recipe for that type of chive cakes (not much luck with many of the recipes out there including my mother's), this has got to do for now.

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Chinese Green Onion Pancakes

It's a well-known fact among food blog consumers that if you want to learn how to make simple Asian, primarily Chinese, dishes, Rasa Malaysia is a go-to place. Back in 2006 when there weren't as many food blogs as there are now, Bee Yinn Low started her blog as a way of chronicling her attempts to replicate the dishes from her hometown of Penang, Malaysia. The site has grown in leaps and bounds for the past six years, gathering tons of fans, and resulting in Bee's first cookbook, Easy Chinese Recipes: Family Favorites from Dim Sum to Kung Pao released in late 2011.

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Pad Ka-Prao (ผัดกะเพรา)

While Pad Thai or Tom Kha Gai, in my opinion, deserve a somewhat extensive tutorial, there really isn't much to say about Pad Ka-Prao (official transliteration: phat kaphrao). It's a dish that doesn't require many ingredients or demand the kind of skill that takes years to develop. And if this dish could talk, the only thing it would beg of you is that you use the ingredient without which it cannot be what it is: holy basil (Bai Ka-Prao ใบกะเพรา).^[1]

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Baked Pork Tenderloins with Gravy, Coconut Rice, and Carrot Som Tam

Fragrant coconut rice, spicy carrot salad, and this saucy baked pork form one of my favorite meal ensembles. The idea of making three different dishes in order to create this one coordinated meal may seem daunting, but these three components go so well together that, as tempted as I am to tell you that you don't need to serve all of them together in this manner, I'm going to encourage you to give this combo a try.

I may fail as a writer in not being able to convince you with anything more eloquent and persuasive than, "This is really good! You should try!" But I find consolation in the confidence that I won't fail you as a friend.

Hopefully, if you follow the following steps, creating this dinner won't be such a hassle. Here's the game plan.

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Slow Cooker Beef Curry Noodles

The fact that I’ve been happily making this beef curry noodle dish the same way for years would lead one to think that it would have been one of the first recipes to be published here. I’m sorry I’d hidden this from you for three years, but it’s only because I was afraid you cool kids would make fun of me. First of all, it’s made in a slow cooker, not a much more sophisticated pressure cooker or a Thomas Keller-approved sous vide machine. Then we also have the issue of namelessness: this dish doesn’t have a name. Even Holly Golightly’s cat has a name. This thing? Nope. Not even “Noodles.”

The truth is that this dish started out as a failure. Initially, it was supposed to be a streamlined version of Khao Soi (northern Thai curry noodles), but failed to deliver (too many ingredients short). Then, in an attempt to save the cook's face, it was quickly re-purposed as a streamlined version of Kuai Tiao Kaeng (aka Kuai Tiao Khaek), but, still being too many ingredients short, that didn't go so well either despite the addition of soft- or medium-boiled eggs to increase the visual resemblance. [In case you're wondering about the ingredient issue, I guess I should tell you also that this dish was born in an era of students' poverty. My first slow cooker was purchased from a garage sale in a very dingy residential area. I went there, paid $2 for it, grabbed the thing, and ran like heck.]

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Hydrated Lemon Basil Seeds in Thai Desserts (เมล็ดแมงลัก)

After having lent its irreplaceable fragrance to many pots of Kaeng Liang, last year's crop of lemon basil (maeng lak) left me with these. If I was in a more philosophical mood, I would have written something boring about my plan to plant another crop this year with these seeds and how that reminds me of how the death of something must take place in order to make a rebirth possible and all that. But since I'm not in a philosophical mood, I'm going to be writing something boring about how the Thai people use lemon basil seeds instead.

And what makes it boring is the fact that there really isn't much to talk about when it comes to the culinary use of lemon basil seeds. In fact, overwhelmed by the dearth of material, I'll resort to writing in bullet points which, interestingly, is the same method I use when overwhelmed by the wealth of material. You want to read on, though. You're already on the second paragraph; might as well stick around and see how much more boring this can get.

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Nam Prik Pao Fried Rice with Shrimp and Pineapple (ข้าวผัดน้ำพริกเผาใส่กุ้งกับสับปะรด)

Last week, in the course of interviewing my friend M, who devised this fried rice recipe, I came to realize that, based on the way he was answering my questions, I probably wouldn’t be able to get anything bloggable out of this. But it was too late. The blog post had already been planned, the dish had already been made and photographed, the conversation had already started, and I had imposed upon myself the obligation to see it through and make the most of what I got. After all, a famous American philosopher from the 1990s once said, “Anything less than the best is a felony.”

In order for you to understand the interview the translated transcript of which will appear below, I need to tell you something that happened many years ago when M and I first became friends.

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Panko-Crusted Fried Baby Bananas (กล้วยไข่ชุบเกล็ดขนมปังทอด), Thai New Year, Songkran Goddess

What did you do in the last few hours? Me? I woke up and found myself on a bed which happened to be the very same one into which I crawled last night. At one point, I felt a slight itch on my back. So I reached out my hand and scratched it thereby relieving the itch. With the itch having been sufficiently alleviated, I ceased scratching and continued to lie in bed some more. Then I noticed that the light in the closet was on, so I remedied the situation by getting up and flipping the switch to the off position thereby causing the light to go out requiring me to take no further action. Then I started doing some work on my laptop. After a while, I decided to take a short break by sitting idly for a few moments. At the end of the break, I started working again which was when I discontinued sitting idly. Half an hour later which coincided with the 30-minute mark after I’d resumed working, I felt hungry, so I went to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door which allowed me to see inside it. I then decided to make a sandwich. I placed a slice of cheese on a piece of bread and a few slices of ham on top of the cheese. Then I placed another piece of bread on top of the whole thing which resulted in the ham and cheese being positioned right between the two pieces of bread. Then I ate the sandwich until it was no more at which point I stopped eating. ^[1]

I thought you'd be glad to find out that, luckily, things were much more exciting these past few hours in the cosmological world. How exciting? We’re talking seven beautiful women floating in the air with a severed head in tow.

Got your attention, didn’t I?

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