Paddy Thai - St. Patrick's Day in Bangkok

On Burns Night I wrote about Burns Night in Bradford ("Burns Night Bradford Style").  On St David's Day I wrote about Llarregub (get it? Oh never mind). And last Saturday on St Patrick's day my thoughts turned to Erin from Bangkok.

Now they celebrate St Patrick's day in Belfast and Ballymena and of course Boston in the USA but I had not expected anything in Bangkok. I was in for a surprise.  I gather there had been a parade but it was so damned hot that I stayed in the bar.

A lot of beer was sunk that night but even more pad thai. What's pad thai? An Irishman who has spent too long in the sun?  Not exactly.  It's this.

And here's how to make it:

Serves 1 to 2:

Ingredients

100 gm of dry rice noodles, pre-soaked in warn water until soft
5 medium sized prawns peeled and de-veined
2 table spoons of vegetable oil (NB never use olive oil or sesame oil in Thai cooking)
25 gm of chopped chives or spring onions
1 table spoon of palm sugar (palm sugar is from coconut trees or jaggery or even at a push brown sugar)
2 tea spoons of fish sauce
1 egg
50 gm of raw bean sprouts
1 table spoon of finely chopped garlic (or garlic paste)
60 gm of firm tofu cut into strips
1 table spoon of tamarind paste or white vinegar
1 table spoon of pickled white radish finely chopped or pickled cabbage
1 table spoon of ground roasted peanuts or cashew nuts (take your pick)
1/2 tea spoon of dry red chilli powder

Method

1. Heat oil, add garlic and fry.
2. Add prawns, tofu, bean sprouts, chives and stir vigorously (and  I mean vigorously!) and keep stirring until prawns are cooked.
3.  Add the egg and keep stirring as with scrambled egg.
4.  Add noodles, add seasoning (fish sauce, palm sugar, roasted nuts, red chilli powder, tamarind paste and radish or cabbage) while still stirring vigorously.
5.  When noodles are soft and translucent switch off the heat.
6.  Garnish with ground peanuts and chilli powder.

Serve with fresh vegetables.                                                                                                                                                                           

If you have had a jar or 4 on Paddy's day the vendor will cut up your noodles for you.  Why? Well imagine Mick or Seamus manipulating noddles with Thai eating utensils on a skinful.

Talking of which it is very bad manners to insert a fork directly into your mouth in Thailand.   You are supposed to use the fork to gather the food in your spoon.  Just so as you know.

St David's Day

Today is St. David's Day. I have been trying to think of something funny to say about Wales but not a lot springs to mind. I googled "Welsh humour".   And what came up? "Llareggub!" And I'm not referring to Dylan Thomas's masterpiece.
My late partner's dad was Welsh.  Indeed, his name was Evans.   He had no particular affection for the place.  When I once asked him why he replied "Nowt much happening in Wales. It's always shut, isn't it."

Same with Welsh food. Welsh rarebit, laver bread and apparently shepherd's pie.  So I was going to let the day pass until I learned of the Welsh community in Patagonia.   They make a really yummy fruit cake called torta galesa (literally "Welsh cake"). Here's a recipe in English.


Now I have never heard of Welsh cake in Wales and that got me thinking about the transplantation of cultures. How people from one continent have to adapt to their environment when they cross to another.


Take the first Thanksgiving, for example.   According to Wikipedia:

"The feast consisted of fish (cod, eels, and bass) and shellfish (clams, lobster, and mussels), wild fowl (ducks, geese, swans, and turkey), venison, berries and fruit, vegetables (peas, pumpkin, beetroot and possibly, wild or cultivated onion), harvest grains (barley and wheat), and the Three Sisters: beans, dried Indian maize or corn, and squash."  

One year out and the Brits had already abandoned their meat and two veg.  The same sort of thing has happened with Indian food in Britain. "Balti" comes from Birmingham and hit the British scene in the 1970's not Baltistan. The idea of serving food in a cooking vessel would just not happen where my folks come from.

Returning to things Welsh I love daffodils.  My first daffodil flowered today.