Thai Grilled Pork on Skewers (Mu Ping หมูปิ้ง)

From the looks of it, you wouldn't think something like Thai-style grilled pork on skewers would require a year of recipe testing. But that's exactly what had happened between May 2010 and last weekend. It's not just the marinade formula which I feel must replicate the flavor of what was served at my favorite Mu Ping (often transliterated Moo Ping) stall in Bangkok; it's also the way the pork is threaded onto the skewers, the best cut of pork, etc. And we all know the "simple" things are usually the hardest things to get right.

I don't know if it's incompetence or perseverance, but a year and somewhere between 10-15 experiments later, we've got it -- the skewered grilled pork that transports you back to the streets of Bangkok. So make this, would you please?

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Pad Thai Recipe (ผัดไทย) - Part One: The Pan

One of the reasons I had not put Pad Thai¹ on this site until now is because I knew it would be a lot of work as there is so much that needs to be said about the dish. Pad Thai, like many true street dishes² cannot be adequately explained in one post. It's a dish that was born out of an interesting era with an interesting history; it's a dish that may look quick to make but actually requires pretty extensive preparation; it's a dish that is somewhat picky about the quality of the ingredients that go into it. Unavoidably, this will have to be a series.

However, the first installment of our Pad Thai series has nothing to do with its history, ingredients, or method of preparation. I don't know what kind of logic I'm operating on, but I've decided to commence the series with what in my opinion is the ideal Pad Thai pan. To me, it's that important.

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Sweet Sticky Rice with Durian-Coconut Cream (Khao Niao Thu-rian ข้าวเหนียวทุเรียน)

Sweet Sticky Rice with Durian-Coconut Cream (Khao Niao Thu-rian ข้าวเหนียวทุเรียน) is how I cope. What else can you do when May rolls around and your friends and family in Thailand seem intent on taunting you – just like they do every year – with pictures of plump durians while gushing over how fresh, how delicious, how abundant, how inexpensive they are this time of year?

You drive to a local Asian grocery store, of course, and get yourself a box of frozen deseeded durian¹ – the only doggone choice available. You make this. Then you gorge yourself silly on it to numb the pain.

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How to Prepare a Jackfruit (Kha-nun ขนุน)

It used to be that once in a while hunks of fresh jackfruit would pop up randomly at some Asian and Hispanic markets in my neck of the woods causing me to mentally squeal with delight at such a rare sight. Most of the jackfruits you see in the US, according to my produce guy, come from Brazil. And though it bums me out a bit that the flesh of this cultivar is harder and much less sweet than that of the main cultivar found in Thailand, I'm too excited about having fresh jackfruits at all to complain about anything.

Nowadays, I've noticed that jackfruits are showing up at mainstream supermarkets in the US with higher and higher frequency. If you -- perhaps out of curiosity -- have bought, or are thinking about getting, a section of jackfruit, but don't know what to do with it, I hope this post will help somewhat.

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Baked Tomatoes with Custard Filling

This is one of the simplest things to make that have never failed to impress. It also allows you to play around with different ways to season the filling as well as different add-ins. Baked tomatoes with custard filling are almost always on the menu when I entertain, especially in the summer when on-the-vine tomatoes are abundant at the farmers' market.

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Andy Ricker of Pok Pok and Tom Saep Nuea (ต้มแซ่บเนื้อ) Recipe

My conversation with Andy Ricker, chef/owner of Pok Pok in Portland, Oregon, started out as dry and formal as you would expect from two people who had never before talked. I can’t recall precisely at which point things started to change, but change they did. And next thing I knew, jokes were exchanged and giggles were shared. In fact, half way into the dialogue, I’d kind of forgotten this was the man at whom I’d mentally blown a raspberry multiple times on account of the offense he didn’t know – he couldn’t have known – he’d committed.

In case you’re wondering what’s going on here, let me set the stage.

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Thai-Inspired Baked Sticky Rice Pudding: Short-Cut Khao Niao Sang Khaya (ข้าวเหนียวสังขยาประยุกต์)

Mom made this baked sticky rice pudding during her last visit on the night both of us couldn't sleep and decided that a sweet, warm, gooey, carbo-rich dessert and an old movie was just what we needed. In the time it took me to find an old DVD copy of Roman Holiday and get the movie ready for us, she'd turned the cold leftover sticky rice in the fridge and a few pantry items into this comforting dessert -- completely impromptu. Mom did things like that with the kind of ease that never failed to amaze me.

The dessert, in my opinion, is best served warm or slightly warmer than room temperature. Some coconut cream on the side and some heavy ogling of Gregory Peck with it are completely optional, though highly recommended.

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Grilled Pork Neck (Ko Mu Yang คอหมูย่าง)

Should it surprise anyone that pork neck ^[1] or collar is one of the favorite cuts among the Thai? Blessed with just the right amount of lean meat, muscle, and fat, pork neck is so flavorful that I'm tempted to say that you could throw a completely unseasoned piece of it on the barbie, and the result would be quite good.

Okay, so that might be a stretch, but if you have tasted a perfectly-grilled piece of pork from the areas around the face and the shoulder, you know it's not a major stretch.

For this reason, I prefer to keep things very simple for this particular dish, leaving out even what I consider to be the essential marinade ingredients, namely garlic, peppercorns, and cilantro roots. The dipping sauce, Jaew (or Nam Jim Jaew), is already intense in flavor that the pork doesn't need to be elaborately seasoned at all. The only thing I insist on when it comes to the marinade is the addition of palm or brown sugar. It's a personal preference. Sugar increases the caramelization on the surface of the meat when it's grilled, and I love the crispy, slightly-charred bits.

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