Author Archives: Louis Katz

Green Curry Paste เครื่องแกงเขียวหวาน and Curry และแกง

Sweet Green CurryI am getting ready to make some Green Curry Paste แกงเขียวหวาน . I do not have much galanga to harvest but might harvest it all and use it up. After I return from Thailand maybe I can get some fresh from Houston. Making your own curry paste is not something you should do at the last minute. It is very time consuming. In a mortar it requires lots of work. Start it no later than noon the day you are serving. Generally I try and make it the day before. I store it tightly sealed in the fridge. It is great for a few weeks, after a few months it is no better than the store bought paste. The more ingredients that you can get fresh, the better, but it could be made from dry except for the basil and peppers.
The recipe I have been using for years is:

  • 3 pieces dry galanga or equivalent Fresh or frozen (3 inches??) ข่า
  • 1 teaspoon dry lesser ginger กระชาย (Also available frozen)
  • 2 corriander roots รากผักชี (cilantro)  Sometimes you can by fresh cilantro with roots attached
  • 1 teaspoon caraway seeds เมล็ดยี่หร่า (this really adds character to this)
  • 1 teaspoon coriander seeds เมล็ดผักชี
  • 4 whole cloves กานพลู
  • 1 nutmeg pod ลูกจันทน์เทศ (everyone should buy nutmeg whole and grate it when needed)
  • 2 stalks lemon grass minced as fine as you can.  ตะไคร้
  • 12 black pepper corns พริกไทย (unless you have fresh)
  • 2 T shallots หอม
  • 2 T garlic กระเทียม
  • 1 t shrimp paste กะปิ (keeps years out of the fridge)
  • 1 t kaffir lime zest ผิวมะกรูด (freezes well, you can sub regular lime zest)
  • 8 whole green serrano chillies พริก เขียว (If you want less heat substitute a strong flavored but less hot chilli like mild poblano, but it takes a little more to get the flavor.)
  • 4 t vegetable oil น้ำมัน (this can be coconut, olive or whatever) Don’t worry about the taste, its gonna be covered.
  • I hav  in the past added basil to the paste but put it into the curry. It still needs fresh basil leaves at the end. I would leave this out. 1/2 Cup fresh basil leaves โหระพ
  • also some recipes call for fresh coriander ( why not) 1/4 cup ผักชี
  • 1t salt (OK to omit if you are going to use this fresh, if you are going to store this, include it)

The best way to get this all into a fine paste seems to be to:

  • Break up the nutmeg into small chunks, and if dry the break the galanga into pieces first.
  • Take the dry stuff and grind it in a blender, coffee grinder or mortar and pestle.
  • Peel the outside tougher green leaves off the lemon grass. As a group tie them in a big knot and reserve for Tom Yum stock if you are making it or discard, if you use outside leaves your paste will be hairy. Cut the lemongrass across the grain very VERY finely. Then chop. Do the same if using fresh galanga or frozen. If you do not get it fine enough your paste will be hairy.
  • If the lime zest is fresh, chop it.
  • Chop the peppers and any other fresh ingredients (lemon grass, galanga, lime zest) and grind or pound until smooth.
  • blend and/or pound until smooth. Its OK to add a little extra oil, but no water unless you are not keeping some of the paste.
  • After all the fresh ingredients are added add the dry ones and blend until homogenious

Sweet Green Curry with Chicken

  • 3 pounds chicken cut into chunks. Legs should be cut through the bone.
  • 3-4 cups coconut milk (make sure it is NOT sweetened)
  • 1/4 cup coconut oil (other oil may be substituted)
  • 2 T fish sauce
  • 3 slices Galangal
  • 3 T green curry paste approximately
  •  a few basil leaves if using the above paste, otherwise 1/2 cup
  • 6 fresh Kaffir Lime leaves or other citrus leaves, frozen or dried are OK
  • 1-2 cups pea eggplants (one small purple eggplant cut or some Thai eggplant are OK too). I have been using Tomatillo in this because they are good, down here in Texas they are cheap, and they look right. มะเขือพวง
  • 6 Serrano peppers

Boil the chicken, 2 cups coconut milk, fish sauce and galangal until the meat is tender. Remove the meat. Add the oil. Boil down until the liquid thickens, add the curry paste (blend into some liquid) and cook while stirring 5 minutes. Pour in remaining coconut milk (and purple eggplant if you are using them) and return to boil. reduce heat and simmer 5 more minutes. Add basil (reserve a few for garni), citrus leaves, pea or Thai eggplant and chili peppers. Increase heat and bring to low boil for 5 minutes. Garnish with Basil and serve over rice.

 

 

 

Thrift Store Pots

I arrived in Helena with Gail and the boys. If I remember correctly Benny was an infant. I was supposed to be on a quick run to the Rock Hand Hardware Store but guiltily I stopped at a thrift store on the way. I did a quick run through the hardware area. I never buy clothes, well, hardly ever. I walked down one of the isles with pots and turned them over to see if any were made with clay bodies (compositions) from before the 70’s. One ugly little cup with a funky dead form, coil handle, poorly turned footring and bubbled glaze, that was rubbed down with a brick to break the bubbles, was old stoneware. It did not have the typical APGreen brand fireclay look. It was ugly so I set it down.

By the time I got to the end of the isle I was thinking again of the ugly pot. “Whose signature was that?” I went back and turned it over again. Clearly it was signed, “Voulkos” (right).
IMGP5147RosieVolkoussm
Peter Voulkos is one of the best known clayers of the 20th century. He made delightful functional pots until he began making abstract sculpture. He began studying pottery at Montana State University in Bozeman under Francis Senska and was a resident artist at the Archie Bray Brickyard. After Berard Leach, Shoji Hamada and Soetsu Yanagi lectured and demonstrated at the Bray (not sure of this it could have been before) the resident artists at the Bray were asked to make “Bray Standard Ware” (I need a source for this). One of the items was a small cup with a little coil handle just like this one. Voulkos, I think, resented having to make these, but made them. In defiance, (again conjecture) he signed his cups.

(Yanagi, Leach, Rudy Autio, Voulkos, Hamada, at the Bray Pottery)

Cup in hand, poker-faced, I paid my 25 cents and left with my cup.

A few months later at the same store I bought a cup by Rosie Wynkoop (left) who had been one of my students in the community classes at the Bray.  It cost a dollar. I think she made it while she was one of my students.

In graduate school one of the off syllabus things we learned was that garage sale and thrift store shopping was a competitive sport. The price tags were left on the pots. One friend was so well known at one thrift store that she received phone calls on the store phone.

On occassion, I invite my students over to my house to view pots. One time while talking about these two drinking vessels a student asked, “Wouldn’t Rosie be upset to find out that her work only cost a dollar?” I answered, “No! She is getting four times the price of Voulkos!”

Box

The box. There is always a box. We say that some people can think outside of the box. We say this  because those people’s thinking is outside of our own box. We make these boxes ourselves and dutifully place or just find ourselves inside them. Much of our personal box is determined by the frame-set we grow up in; the boundaries defined by parents, teachers, children, environment, and cultural identity, our own unique Ethnocentralia.

We, the big we, humans, have a box that we all live within, the box is bounded by our earth, and the box of our common mental structure, maybe astronauts and the insane can escape in some measure. Physics boxes us. We understand momentum, mass and acceleration as we move our limbs. Because of our box instantaneous acceleration of arms or legs is hard to comprehend. Light stopping as it travels is hard to comprehend. Our senses box us with their limits. Even trying to visualize, to internalize non-visible forms of radiation, infrared ultraviolet, radio waves, these visualizations lie outside our box. We can only pretend to have them inside, to use comparison, metaphor, or some sort of visualization transferance.

Artists are supposed to be able to think “beyond the boundaries”. They are supposed to be able to develop new ways of thinking, new relationships. They should be able to create “the new”. Yet even artists create seemingly arbitrary boundaries to their thoughts and work. This personal dogma defines us as we define it. We box ourselves.There is absolutely no help for it. When we manage to expand our boundaries, it is only because they were not boundaries but stumbling blocks.

Fortunately artists, people in general, humankind are not  homogenous, and different cultures and groups and individuals place different boundaries on our thinking. By comparing where these boundaries are we might be able to discern where as a species we limit ourselves. It is these intercultural differences, specifically in American/ Thai art or more generally culture , that I am trying to ascertain, to get a handle on, to try and grasp. My hope is that by understanding these differences a little more light can be shed on the larger boundaries of thought, the boundaries of expression and the boundaries on art  that we needlessly impose on ourselves. Knowing each other brings a broadening as well as homogenization. Its conundrumous.
—-
Some of us play with box shifting. Until recently I called it phase shifting. The word box puts me in a more open frame of mind than phase. It is less abstract even if just a different metaphor.
These shifts seem easiest when they are applied to organizational schemes. The best example I have is the typical structure of art schools around groups of tools and techniques; media specific structure.
We tend to structure our courses around media and tools:
•    Drawing classes,
•    Painting Classes,
•    Printmaking Classes,
•    Ceramics classes.
We could instead organize around content types:
Representation,
Presentation,
Surrealism,
Realism,
Function,
Formalism, and minimalism etc. .

Or perhaps we could take the sculptor’s beginning approach:
Subtractive processes,
Additive,
Manipulative
Time
and use whatever materials to teach these things.

We could also have a freshman art class, a sophomore class, junior and senior and rotate media people in and out or just use individual instructors. There really is no end to the variations on these box shifts.

It is only recently that I realized it, but nearly the entire body of my work has been the investigation of these shifts with a fixed center of clay.
What is function? This started with oddly functional objects, as mundane as soy sauce droppers and as far afield as ceramic counterweights and insulators.
What is a pot? What is the art object, is it the pot, the message, the effect on the viewer or the viewer’s perception and understanding of the artist? When a clayer paints a pot on canvas, is it a pot? Is their relationship to clay more important than the paint?

The question I seem to be asking has been getting more general. What is clay? Is it just the stuff, the material. Is the real primary object the “finished product” or is it the thoughts and feelings we have about it, how the cup affects our lives and hearts, minds and relationships?

My work at the Archie Bray several years ago, “Manifestation: Bray” and its predecessor “Manifesto” make the case that “we” are not just “makers”. Certainly many of us make ceramic objects; sculpture and pots. But many of “us” are also historians, critiques, and just our buying public. It is a mistake to view “us” without at least a query of our boundaries. Since this is about people, it becomes a question of “us and them”. “Them” are those that don’t see, appreciate, breath clay. To us they are as Muggles, “Them!” said Stan Shunpike contemptuously. “Don’ listen properly, do they? Dpn’ look properly either. Never notice nuffink, they don.” (Rowling, 1999)

2022
These last few years I have fixated on “What is Art?”. There are lots of ideas floating around about this. In about 1997 I asked some colleagues. One said, “Art has to be transcendant”. “What does that mean?”, I asked. “It has to transcend reality, to go beyond reality.” In Dysaniuk’s words “it has to be made special”. I call people with this opinion “Art Transcendtalists”.
Another said that it had to have intent. Questioned they said, “Artistic Intent”.  These are the “Intentists”
I am an “Art Meglomaniac”. If I did not need to communicate with others I would call everything “Art”, Space, time, matter, nature, what people make, say, think, yes, even dog poop. The main reason is related to Dysaniuk, “To make special”, and the word “appreciate”. A viewer who looks upon the poop and thinks about it, appreciates it. Once thought about, once it has acted as a vehicle for thought it has risen in value. Before it was just poop, now it is more than mundane. It has been appreciated. This set of thoughts brings the question around, Is art made by the artist, or the viewer?

Rowling, J. K. (1999). Harry potter and the prisoner of azkaban. (1st ed. ed., p. 36). New York: Scholastic Press.

Burnt Coffee

So, my second daily pot of coffee… I was brewing with the radio on.
Distracted. Boiled over.
Burnt coffee smell of my father melting the percolator.. but without burnt bakelite handle.
I opened the front door… 10 years old. Dad at work. It stunk but was not smoke so I went in.
Aluminum slag. Time for a new coffee pot.
Turned the burner off.
Smart kid.
Nother day.
Came home from school.
Opened front door. Smelled smoke.
Went next door to Sheri’s house.
“Mrs Simons, could I use your phone? ”
Dialed zero. “Operator give me the fire department.”
They came, no smoke.
“So, you decided to see the fire trucks little boy?”
Mother, Fern Katz , pulls up next to the fire truck.
“My son said there was smoke, so there was. Go find it.”
Mom gets extra credit and gold star.
Lint in the dryer caught fire and went out.
No one asked me how much smoke.
The coffee is good. Time to clean the stove top.

Miang Kam

Gail’s Miang Kam เมี่ยงคำ

This is a fun appetizer. I think it should be sold in restaurants on a tray. The sauce can be made in advance and most of the other ingredients can be prepped ahead too.
Sauce

  • 1/4 cup ground dried shrimp กุ้งแห้ง
  • 1/2 -1 cup sugar น้ำตาล
  • 1/4 cup roasted grated coconut meat (can be roasted in a dry cast iron skillet on a burner)มะพร้าวเผา
  • 2 T fish sauce น้ำปลา
  • 1/2 cup water น้ำ
  • 1 teaspoon shrimp paste กะปิ

Roast coconut meat, add sugar until dissolved add fish sauce and shrimp paste and water cook 1 or 2 min., cool.

  • 1 cup shredded coconut ( roast to bring out flavor) มะพร้าว
  • 1/4 cup shallot diced หอม
  • 1/4 cup small diced ginger ขิง
  • 1/4/cup peanuts roasted no salt ถั่วลิสง
  • 1/4 cup dried shrimp (not fresh) from asian gorcery กุ้งแห้ง
  • 1/4 cup small bits of lime with peel (1/4″x 1/4″x 1/4″) มะนาว
  • 1/4 cup small serrano chillies , seeded for the mild stomachs พริก
  • Lettuce leaves ใบ?? หรือ ใบผักกาด

Take the lettuce leaves and wilt them  by soaking in a strong warm brine. Rinse well.
Ito each leaf place a dollup of cool sauce a bit of Shallot, Ginger, 1 dried shrimp,1 peanut, 1 pit of lime a bit of coconut, 1/4 – 1 whole serrano chilli. roll up small enough to jam into your mouth in one bite.

Appon’s Thai Food Site https://www.khiewchanta.com/

 

Appon might be an old Thai pronunciation of Apple in Thai. The letter that corresponds with ‘L’ ล (law ling) is only pronounced like an English ‘L’ as the initial consonant in a syllable. At the end it is pronounced like an English ‘n’ in Thai. Consequently ‘hotel” becomes ‘hoten”, and ‘Apple’-‘Appon’.

Regardless, the recipes on her site look to me like the real deal. They are not what you find in most “Thai Restaurants” in the United States. Chicken Feet in red sauce, and Haw Mawk Prik Kai  and Kanom Jiin Nam Ya Tin Kai are on my list to try.

https://www.khiewchanta.com/

 

Gaeng Mussaman

กำลังทำเครื่องแกงมัสมั่น มีข่าขมิ้นมะกรูดสดสด แต่มันฝรั่งกินไม่ได้ เป็นแพ้  จะทำ
มันเทศและหัวผักกาด
I am working on a meal, and am making Gaeng Mussaman แกงมัสมั่น . You can buy premixed curry paste and they make fine food. But, if I am going to go to the trouble of cooking, I am going to make it a real feed, fine food. My last shot at a meal like this included Gaeng Panaeng (the recipe for the paste is further down the blog). It was certainly one of the finest dishes I ever have made. I will vary from tradition and leave out the potatoes as my relationship with them is inverted. I was considering Taro as a substitute but am not because of oxalates. I don’t want any more kidney stones in my future. I am thinking about sweet potatoes and cooked daikon as substitues, I think I will use both.

Like the Panaeng I did my preliminary research on the web. I have fresh Kaffir Lime Skin, Turmeric, Bay Leaf, and Galanga. The turmeric galanga and kaffir lime are terrific. I favor complex recipes so I amalgamated a few to get to the recipe below. I also include lesser ginger everytime I use galangal. I made the start of the curry paste this evening. It is still without shallot cinnamon and hot pepper but is superb.

My two sources for the paste recipe are:

  1. https://honest-food.net/2012/03/15/thai-massaman-curry-with-venison/
  2. https://www.realthairecipes.com/recipes/massaman-curry/

I almost certainly fiddle with proportions as I make it depending and the taste of the peppers I use and freshness of the spices. As normal for me if the recipe calls for galanga I add a bit of lesser ginger.

  • 7-10 dried or fresh hot chiles, Thai, Serrano Piquin or combination
  • 6 cloves
  • 2-inch stick of cinnamon
  • Seeds from one black cardomom pod
  • 1 teaspoon corriander seed
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • 4 bay leaves, crushed fine
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 8 garlic cloves, minced
  • 2 teaspoon Kaffir Lime skin
  • 1/4 cup shallot minced
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon minced galangal,
  • 1 teaspoon lesser ginger if available.
  • 2-inch piece of fresh turmeric, or 2 teaspoons powdered
  • 1 lemongrass stalk, minced
  • 1 teaspoon shrimp paste

I am not sure if I will make the dish with poultry, beef, fish or seafood. I have had this curry paste with tofu before as well, and may leave out the shrimp paste and go vegan.  I will have to taste the paste and see.

Plants in the yard.

This is some of what I am growing in my yard. Lots of these were given to me by Thuy! Many Thanks.

  • Wild Hot PeppersIMG_0001
  • มะกรูด-Kaffir lime.  looks like a cross between ugly fruit and a lime. The leaf is used in many classic Thai dishes. The fruit is more fragrant than regular limes, but less juicy.

    Kaffir Lime

    Kaffir Lime

  • น้อยหน่า- Custard Apple aka soursop This is a SE Asian relative of the cherimoya and North American pawpaw.

    Custard Apple

    Custard Apple

  • ละมุดเม็กซิโก 1 ต้น ละมุดไทย 1ต้น Sapote aka Mamey 2 trees.  This one and its frontyard cousin both did not make it through the winter. Time to try again.

    Sapote

    Sapote

  • Amaranth. I am holding back on eating until I identify this as actual amaranth. (gone already)
  • มะม่วง ปลูกจากเมล็ดแบบลอตเตอรี่ .Mango Trees, multiple. These were planted from seed. I will be luck to see mangos from them. 7 come 11.

    Mango, Dragon fruit, Kale

    Mango, Dragon fruit, Kale

  • แก้วมังกร Dragon Fruit plants, multiple. I have two different starts. This is a succulent and seems easy to grow but hard to keep the squirrels away from.
    Dragon Fruit

    Dragon Fruit

    Mango, Dragon fruit, Kale

    Mango, Dragon fruit, Kale…Third year transplanted kale is dead.

  • ใบกระวาน Bay tree. I am told that this is a genuine Bay and not the Texas Bay tree. Its doing well. Galangal is doing well. Turmeric looks GREAT.

    Bay, Turmeric, Galangal, Rosemary,etc.

    Bay, Turmeric, Galangal, Rosemary,etc.

  • มะละกอ Papaya has seen better days.

    Papaya

    Papaya

  • Rosemary (in the Bay Tree photo above)
  • Sweet Basil.
  • โหระพา Thai Basil.(gone)
  • กะเพรา Holy Basil.Hybrid basil is everywhere.

    Holy Basil

    Holy Basil

  • มะเดื่อ-Fig  This needs more light. Probably have to trim back the prickly pear.
  • เงาะ-Rambutan seedlings. This would be great if they work. They are like big hairy lychee

    Rambutan, Tomato, and Butterfly bush

    Rambutan, Tomato, and Butterfly bush

  • สะระแหน่ Mint.Having trouble with the mint.(brown thumb syndrome)new plants
  • ตะไคร้ Lemon Grass.Planted from routed stock from the grocery. Needs bigger planting

    Lemongrass

    Lemongrass

  • ขมิ้น-Turmeric planted from roots from the grocery. This is doing GREAT this year and is crowding out my galanga. (bay tree photo above)
  • ข่า-Galangal. A relative of ginger like the turmeric above. Galangal AKA ka and laos is not doing that well. It will get its own pot. (bay tree photo above)
  • ส้ม-Orange. This tree came with the house and produces large oranges that taste a bit like navel oranges.

    Orange

    Orange

  • ส้มอื่น  Kumquat

    Kumquat

    Kumquat

  • Small sour oranges. These are useful. I threw one at Tegarden today. They replace limes sometimes. They also make great orangeaid. I try to get at least one into very batch of som tom.
  • ส้มโอ (คล้ายๆ) – Grapefruit This is a recent transplant and came with little root. It appears to have died. Since it was originally planted from seed we may have some luck if it comes up again from the root. Gone,, bad transplant.
  • Prickly pear cactus fruit and leaves. I have stopped eating these because of concerns over oxalic acid and kidney stones กระบองเพชร
  • มะขาม- Tamarind seedlings  in the ground. The seed pods are sour tasting and can be used in a variety of cooking or eaten a few at a time raw. Too much and จุดจุด.
  • Lychee seeds in soil. Did not make it.
  • Acorn (Live Oak) ลูกโอ๊ก Our live out seems to produce about 200# a year. I am told that Live Oak produce little tannin in the acorns. This year I hope to harvest and make something; soup?bread?pancakes?
  • celery . This may just be a replanted heart. It is developing a big root. I will have to read up and make sure celery root is actually celery root. died.
  • Loquat are small ละมุด sized fruit, but probably not related. They are very juicey and sweet but do not store. They require almost nothing to grow down here.

    Loquat

    Loquat

  • Texas Ebony. I am told that the seeds can be roasted to make a coffee substitute. It has no caffeine. I would verify this before trying it. It is a relative of the tamarind, mesquite and locust trees. It is a beautiful and very hard. Like other members of the family it is hard on saw blades. Benny is cultivating a Texas Ebony Bonzai.
  • ขนุน Jackfruit, I was given some seed by Sebastian. August 25, one  sprouted. I have two in the ground now and have given a few away. Jackfruit Carnitas (have not tried hem) .These jackfruit did not winter. I have one left in a pot.

  • Jackfruit

    Jackfruit

 

Som Tam ส้มตำ Recipe, aka Green Papaya Salad

Some people are allergic to papaya. This is reportedly worse in Green Papaya. I believe that it is related to latex allergies. I am not sure.

There are lots of region variations of this dish. I prefer making it with dead green papaya, but any combination of carrots and diakon (use a shreader and don’t pound them) is also fine. I have used cabbage and nopalitos but without much success.
The key to success  is a balance of flavors. As the ingredients vary in intensity, taste and adjust the recipe as needed.

In a stoneware mortar from Dankwean, with a wooden pestle or by other means, pound 3 or four black pepper corns, 8 small cloves of garlic, 5- chilli pequins (also known as bird pepper or mouse shit pepper) until well mashed or fine. You can use 3 serrano peppers, or if you want no heat, a mild poblano. Standard US sweet green peppers are better than nothing but not quite right.
If available toast in a dry skillet 1/8 cup dried shrimp (you want to just start to toast and for them all to get hot). Add the shrimp to the mortar and pound some more. You can do the same with fresh toasted peanuts. Add 2 tablespoons of lime juice (you can use some sour orange juice or mashed kumquat as well), and 2 tablespons of fish sauce. You may substitute a teaspoon of shrimp paste or fish paste for 1 tablespoon of fish sauce.

Julliene 3-4 cups of peeled dead green papaya (1/16- 1/8″ strips) (probably not available in a regular grocery store). To do this the Thai way, peel the whole papaya. Hold the whole papaya in one hand with the stem end facing towards you. Take a straight bladed knife and quickly chop parallel cuts into the papaya as you turn it. When you have chopped it sufficiently take a coarse vegetable peeler and peel off the no julliened strips. A coarse shredder is not really sufficiently thin, but “any som tam ส้มตำ is better than no som tam” no?

Picture of Julliened strips

In batches take the papaya and pound them medium gently in the mortar until slightly translucent. Place them in a serving dish. When all the papaya is pounded make sure it is well mixed. Taste it. It should be peppery, garlicy, and a bit fishy. Usually I have to add some more fish sauce  and sometimes lime juice. The traditional recipe calls for a bit of raw cane sugar (jaggery). I generally leave it out.

Chopped tomato’s and a bit of parsley or celery leaves make good garni . T

Green papaya can be hard on the digestive track due to enzymes. You should probably hold back on this and limit yourself to less than a cup a day. It can cause sores just like pineapple and green mango.

แซบหลาย (f)saep (r)lai (Northearn Thai Lao for “delicious)

 

ตำ Tam (the “T” is pronounced as a plosive predental a hard D like in “Tortilla” ) is a style of cooking, or spicing.
The best known version of this is Green Papaya Salad, Somtam. In Thai this salad has some other names, Tam Bakhung. Bakhung is Lao for papaya. In Thai papaya is “malakoh” and another name is Malakoh Bok Bok. “Bok Bok” is the sound of the pestle in the mortar. I could be reading this wrong but it has some less than faint sexual overtones. The pestle “saag” is slang for penis, pot is slang for vagina. Occasionally when I talk about buying a Thai mortar and pestle the day before my wedding it gets a bit of attention.
Tam, basic recipe:
Fish Paste or Shrimp Paste
Fish Sauce ( you can skip the paste, but you will make characterless Tam)
Garlic, raw
Hot Pepper, Back when I had a chilli pequin plant this was the only dish where I got it really spicy.
Lime juice. You see this translated as lemon juice, but its a bad translation in the US. Use limes.
This picture is of green mango salad, not green papaya. Our local grocery store had them in 2.2 pound bags. The were probably chill damaged or something. They did not have a price. Usually I walk past unpriced produce. But these were dead green mangos. What a treat! Don’t eat too many unless you like ulcers.
In order for this to seem really authentic these days it seems to need some salted land crab.  I used to stay away from this authenticity unless given no choice.
Since Tam is a style of cooking you can do a lot of different things with it. Carrot is a great vege for it. I like adding a bit of shredded turnip to just about any tam. But straight turnip is not great. Tam chicken feet can be had. I have seen chunks of cooked liver tam in the market. Noodles get “tammed” pretty frequently. Corn, fruit, foot long beans, cucumber, shrimp, the list goes on and on. If you want to see pictures do a picture google search for ตำ .
Green papaya is full of enzymes as is green mango. Papain the enzyme in papaya helps keep intestinal parasites under control and can kill some. When I first lived in Dankwian (10 months ’88-’89) it was made and eaten once a day in the late afternoon. I think that this is eaten daily specifically to keep parasites under control people said it was good for their stomachs and to not eat too much, its just a snack. Nong Fon, and Nong Gaowow used to make it. These wonderful women helped keep me and Gail alive when we were there. One of the great joys of Fazebuk has been to meet up with them again. I saw N. Gaowow again in 2019, and Fon again this year (2022). They have the same smiles. They are wonderful people and I miss them.
You need a mortar, pestle and spoon to make somtam, or any tam for that matter. The dishes are easy to make and more difficult than they seem to get right. It is all about balance, and with strong flavors it is hard to find the sweet spot in the middle.
I have never had bad somtam in Thailand. Restaurants in the US can make absolutely awful stuff. Generally I never order it. I would rather have them screw up the national dish Tom Yum Kung or something else I care about. Somtam is a religious culinary experience. To serve some of the stuff I have been served should deal a deathblow to the cooks karma and they should wake up as dogs.
There are really great videos on making it on youtube. I tend to like the somtam videos from Lao. They seem right to me. I think that if you are going to learn to make this dish you have to watch a good video first. This guy seems to not be the house’ prime somtam maker, but clearly its not his first time either.
If you absolutely cannot take the heat do not [use] bell peppers. Get some of those little hot house peppers or mild poblanos. I like the way mild poblanos taste better than sweet peppers.
Saap (like tree sap but with a falling [tone] and long lasting vowel,mean delicious in NE dialect) lai (pronounced like lye but should also be drawn out) together this is “very delicious”
——added.
Papaya, guava and many varieties of mango are mostly eaten green in Thai. Green papaya is used in gaengs (what we call curries) . It is rare to eat cooked papaya in restaurants. Like cooked turnip in the US it seems to have the sense of being food for the poor. It showed up in a few dishes in the Santi Asoke compound I visit. They grow almost all the food that they eat.

Reports are that the seeds of papaya are edible. I have not seen them eaten in Thailand. This makes me hesitant. I have some real faith in Thai folk knowledge. Cultural practices often make a lot of health sense. Walking through the woods with a friend who grew up very poor I was introduced to leaves and fruit to eat. “This only a handfull a day”, “This only if you are very hungry, but it tastes good.” “You have to cook this”. Thais not eating the seeds makes question the practice although web searches makes this seem OK.

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As an aside, people eat jackfruit seeds cooked in several ways. Mango seeds are apparently eatable but not very palatable. One of my friends said that they are an important food source in famine in India. I am not a food safety expert… I have learned to not trust what I read on the web about the safety of unusual foods.

 

 

 

Panang Curry Paste Recipe เครื่องแกงพะแนง

If you are mixing from commercial curry paste, read down.
Approximate เครื่องแกงพะแนง Panang Paste recipe from these sources:
RealThaiRecipes This one was really helpful but I went with a less simple paste recipe.
All Recipes
thedomesticman.com

I suggest at least doubling this.

  • 3 large dried redchiles พริกสีแดงใหญ่  Ancho
  • 1T dried wild red peppers    พริกขี้หนู
  • 1 tsp toasted coriander seeds เมล็ดผักชี
  • 1 tsp toasted cumin seeds เมล็ดยี่หร่า
  • 3T″ lemongrass (white base of one stalk), chopped Fresh ตะไคร้
  • 4T galangal, chopped Fresh ข่า
  • 5 fresh (or dried) kaffir lime leaves Fresh ใบมะกรูด
  • 1 tsp shrimp paste you could call it fresh กะปิ
  • 2 cardamom pods (black cardamom)กระวานดำ
  • 2 small shallots หอมแดง ??
  • 2 cloves garlic fresh กระเทียม (1T)
  • 1 tbsp salt เกลือ
  • 1 tsp black peppercorns พริกไทย
  • 2T peanuts toasted ถั่วลิสง
  • bit of Thai holy basil (not traditional but its fresh) ใบกระเพา หนึ่งใบThe easiest way to make the paste is to grind the dry ingredients in a coffee grinder or if you have forearms a large stone mortar such as one from Ang Sila Thailand. If you use your coffee grinder wipe it out with a damp paper towel and then grind some rice in it. Wipe it out again and your next batch of coffee will only be “a little” interesting.
    The galanga and the lemon grass need to be cut very thin. The part of the lemon grass that can easily be used for this is the tender part inside the lower stalk. Use the rest for Tom Yum. The thinner you cut it the less stringy your curry will be. All the rest of the mashable damp stuff and the galanga and lemon grass can be loaded into a food processor and have the snot chopped out of it. Add oil for liquid. The coconut milk that you can buy now is devoid of coconut oil so you need to add at least 1/4 cup of oil to this recipe. It is handy for grinding the paste into (especially if you use a blender or food processor. You can use any oil. Coconut oil is usually pretty refined and tasteless and little flavor will be able to poke its head above the spices above so in my opinion the kind of oil matters very little. Store it in the refrigerator. This is not nearly as salty as commercial paste so do not expect it to keep for months.

Here is what you need to make food from the paste:

  • 2 cups homemade (or 1 can) coconut milk กะทิ
  • 1 tablespoon more shredded lime leaves fresh ใบมะกรูด
  • sliced beef or pork เนื้อ
  • fish sauceน้ำปลา
  • one banana flower /and or someother vegetable. I like tomatillos and rutabaga.

Put the paste in the pan with a little more oil, cook it stirring constantly until it is just smokey and then add 1/2 cup coconut milk slowly stirring until evaporated and then add more. Cook out most of the water in the coconut milk quickly on high heat, but not all, add more coconut milk and keep at it keeping it dry. When the oil comes up (sometimes (always) commercial coconut milk is short on oil, especially these days, there is a market for it. If you get no oil, either add some coconut oil or use a few TB of a mild flavored oil.
Add all the meat and cook until tender with squirt of fish sauce. Add the banana flowers or other veges (sometimes I nuke them first). Add lime leaves added near the end of the cooking. Garni with a bit of basil, and a few paper thin slices of orange or lime or kaffir lime zest.

Do not forget that this is eaten with Jasmine Rice .

If you try this more than once try my new variaton Coco Mole Gaeng Panang and add 3TB of quality cocoa to the curry paste recipe.

2014-11-10 Made this again over the weekend with added sliced banana flower and tomatillo. The Banana flower was added just after the meat and the tomatillo when the banana was almost cooked. With the Ancho, this is really a mild on the spicy scale maybe a 2 or 3 on a scale of 5. It is not “gonna kill spicy”, but it might be a bit much for those to whom Pickapeppa sauce sounds scarey.