Som Tam: How much do I love thee?

This much:

Som tam (Thai/Isan ส้มตำ) is a spicy papaya salad originating in Laos and the Isan region of northeastern Thailand. Som (ส้ม) in Isan and Lao means "sour," and tam (ตำ) means "pounded." - wikipedia

There is so much to say about this simple wonder salad. The Isaan region tends to have quite a number of wondrous food and this is definitely the cream of their crop. I never know about how good Som Tam can be until I tasted one myself in Thailand. I can eat this everyday as a staple diet if needed. Maybe then I will be as slim as most of the Thai people here. There is just something in their food which a generally slim society even when sugar are consume in excess. Don’t get me ranting on that, maybe in the next post, now it is all about Som Tam.

Unfortunately, I know that it is near impossible to replicate this dish anywhere else outside of Thailand unless you have all the ingredients air flown to you fresh and you somehow learn the art of making Som Tam. Here are the reasons:

Young papaya:
First, the freshly grated papaya is important. Grated is not exactly the word as I see the Thai chefs skillfully chopped the whole papaya in their hands, and then slice them nicely, where all the papaya falls miraculously into same-sized strips. Believe me, they do it way better than any grater or food processor can ever do. I always stand there in fascination when they prepare it. So maybe if you do it in a machine, it will never be as authentic. Maybe if I’m lucky I can learn up the skill, without losing a few fingers. But first to get hold of these huge green young papayas.

Sauce
Then the important lime juice in the sauce, using Thai rounded green limes that seem to be only found here is an extreme point in the sauce key tanginess. The sauce also uses palm sugar, fish sauce and thai chillies.

Peanuts
Plus to me, a Som Tam is never complete without its freshly fried peanuts, where I found is way much better than the varieties in Malaysia. Here they have these not too big and light peanut that they had roasted to perfection. Slight hint of black spot ones are the most fragrant.

Everything else
It is also important to have the baby tomatoes, halved added into the Som Tam. I also usually call the most general version of Som Tam which adds in dried shrimps for taste.

Raw vegetables
Well this one I guess you can get it here in Malaysia, generally we eat with raw cabbages and winged beans, sometimes with basil leaves and spring onions. It is really fun eating raw vegetables dipping in som tam sauces.

Utensils
Oh and not to forget one must have the Thai mortar to ‘pok pok’ your som tam together. It is essential indeed for the authentic taste. This mortar is not to be confused with our Chinese mortar and pestle, as the mortar is made of ceramic and the pestle made of wood. It is much deeper to fill in all the som tam ingredients. But if you insist, or you are desperate (I might someday), I found a few recipes which seemed promising:

Real Thai Recipes
Blue Elephant Recipe
Thai Info-net

For the love of Som Tam, I must have it every time I am in Bangkok. If I have a choice, I would have it for every meal even. As far as my love for Som Tam goes, I will stuff my mouth with it as much as possible before my chances of having the authentic ones in Bangkok itself ran out. This is definitely one dish I would miss.

Bangkok: Sneaky Lunch Post

You know, as good writer you have to be able to write under any circumstances, under any amount of time and under any environment. I want to test my that ability. (psst, this is an excuse to blog in the middle of my working time, amidst all my clients, right after lunch). Yes, I am on assignment in BKK, had a great lunch, a nice short walk across a mini-market near the office and just had to the urge to write. Boss if you so happen to read this, please pardon my form of stress releasing therapy.

I had Kanom Jeen for lunch. You can read all about it here in Eating Asia, where Robyn did a great justice to it. For me I am ‘suppose’ to be doing a quick post here. My time now is still ‘paid’, and not to write for sure.

This lovely spicy noodle came with arrays of fresh veggies (very good for a health freak like me). Fresh vegetables are ubiquitous here in Bangkok, the total opposite of Malaysia.

After the lunch, which is located in the market, we had a walk past the stalls selling various foods. My eyes feasted greedily from here to there, mouth watering and hands firmly holding my camera. The locals there must be confused, as I usually look like a local, and pretend like one most of the time, mumbling few Thai words as if it is my mother tongue.

My colleague got intrigued with this stall and ask for two ‘balls’ which was then pick up, smashed up and mixed with everything else and then passed to my bewildered colleague. This is her two fried balls, now a smashed ‘rojak’.

Anyway, as we are about to leave, we got called on by a lady to buy her sweets (I checked with my Thai friend here, it is called Ka Lak Meh, made of rice flour and sugar). She look so cute, marketing non-stop on her sweets, smiling so innocently, it got right to my heart. These are people who make me feel soft at the heart, and to know that not everybody has comfortable life. I told my colleague, how much can she get selling 1baht (10 cents) per piece of sweet, she need to sell at least 20 sweets to get a kanom jeen for lunch. With chance, I will surely go back there again and buy more from her.

Our Favourite Breakfast Place

How did my blog got into maintanence state? Thanks to Zoto for sure. They decided that they no longer offer free picture storage and then lock me from assessing my pictures. Worst, they decide to rip it off the face of the internet. Yes I am venting in anger here. It cause my whole blog to feature gray flowers as food! Besides, they do not allow retrieval of pictures, and asked to fill in form for pictures to be send back to you (which till now is no where in sight). Anyhow, I would urge everyone out there to never pay money for Zoto’s irresponsible services. I also found out that to republish post with pictures are painstakingly taking up my time. Sigh. I only manage to republish my Bangkok posts. The rest will have to come in batches (especially my favourite penang posts! Sobs).

Anyway, anger aside, I hope everyone here will welcome me back, despite the absence. Where have I been? Let’s just say it is the usual excuses so I’ll spare you. Let me now get on with food.

One of the main meal of everyday that J and I never (almost) misses are breakfast! We just had to have it before the start of our day. Everyday, before heading to work, we would stop by one of our usual haunts. Though there are a few places that we usually go to, one place is where we always would preferred. This place is just right on the way to our workplace, no crowd and ample parking spaces. Best yet, it has the best Wan Tan Mee in town (claimed so by J). But I myself (hail from Taiping with its own reknown Wan Tan Mee) must say this one is definitely good. Entirely different from the ones in my hometown, this one is sweet with the char siew (roast pork) sauce and the char siew is really succulent and delish!

We’ve been here so many times, the young girl who works here will automatically bring my favourite ‘Cham’ nga lat (coffee-mix-tea-mix-milk drink – big).

Then usually I would call the old-style breakfast of toast bread and half boiled egg (that I mentioned before I love so much), this time at much less the cost.

Tear the bread, use it to soak up the eggs and munch away. Remaining bread can be dipped into the ‘Cham’ and devour or eat plain. Your call! Any of the way is my favourite.

I am really reluctant to introduce this place, as I love the not too many people atmosphere and I love the sure-to-have parking spaces. Few doors away there was also opened an Indian restaurant that serves mean Indian breakfast (will feature it soon). But how can I keep this gem to myself only? Good food (in this case plus good place) is meant to be shared. I came near lunch time before and found that it is usually crowded by people who are here for the chicken rice (which only opens for lunch). I am not being selfish here but I really do not know the address, but it is so easy to find a little direction will do (and shame on me to forget the name of the restaurant). I will return with the address and the name, I promise!

Restaurant Yat Yeh Hing
SS4D/5, 47301 PJ
Left of LDP (heading towards Puchong tol)
First corner shop,right opposite Kampung Cempaka

Update: On sad note, the Wan Tan Mee stall has closed, thus depriving J and I of our usual breakfast fix. We have yet to find one good enough to replace it yet. :(

Under Maintenance

This blog is currently under maintenance. Please bear with your hunger!

Bangkok Food Post: A-Roi

How long since I have abandon this blog? I guess we better skip the I’m-so-sorry part and get right down to business. Yes I’ve been to Bangkok once again, if any of you have guess with me missing in action, and work life has just been busy. So I have to be short here. No matter how much I love to write, sometimes I do agree to some degree that picture speaks louder than words.

I have been contemplating for a long time on how to present all the wondrous food of Bangkok that I had in my long-stay two times trip here. There is just so much to talk about from fresh fruits to som-tum to porks (which seems like the main meat here in contrast to Malaysia, where it is the universal white meat – chicken). Nonetheless, chicken will be featured here too of course, albeit in dimmer limelight, but still not forgotten.

Here I go again, launching into ranting when I have just said I want to let pictures do the talking. I can’t resist it. I am a writer at heart squeezing in beside my tham-jiaknes. Anyway, for the Bangkok foods, I have tried searching around for proper info in the food I ate, its name and how it was made, but nonetheless, it was too many and much cannot be found on the web. Appreciate if any of you out there knows about it, would drop some comments for all of us to share.

Now I would kick-off my Bangkok food posts with street-snacks:

As I found out soon, all snacks in Thailand are of 10 baht, equivalent to RM1 in Malaysia. Everything is 10 baht, from fried stuff to ice cream to peanuts and to fruits and to even my favourite coconut. We find it cheap as the portion are usually very generous.

First up is my favourite snack from the street side vendor. It is called Kanom Kai Noak Garta, which are actually fried sweet potato balls. Crunchy and sweet at the same time, very moreish.



Then we have the Kanom Krok, which is actually coconut pancake, cooked in special pan. It is sweet, for the plain ones, and slightly savoury with the addition of the green onions. I welcome the taste of the spring onions as it brings this tiny little morsels into another level, weighing between sweet and savoury.



As I walk along the street after my lunch, I came across a stall grilling bananas. I just had to give it a try as all this while, this lovely fruit appear only as eaten plain, along with my ice creams, or mashed up into my muffins or banana cakes and also hidden in my pancakes sometimes plus sliced finely into my bowl of cereals. But never was it ever grilled and eaten before. We ordered a pack (10 baht of course) to go, and the lady gave a generous douse of palm sugar syrup onto it before handing it to us.




The Gluay Ping turn out to be chewier and stickier than I liked. It could get stuck in your teeth and also a bit rough edged (I don’t know how else to explain it). Maybe this stall did not give justice to these Gluay Pings as later, in my next trip, I had a tried on grilled sliced bananas on a stick which was much better, crispy on the outside with sweet and soft interior..

So many sweets, now its time for savoury snacks. This fried puffed fishballs are certainly one of the best fishballs I’ve ever tasted. I called it puffed, as it is really fluffy with fishy taste. Hard to describe but just one word, good!



Then its back to sweet again. This stall is right outside the street near my hotel, where this lady sells fried sweet bread. It is something of a sight to behold, which is how it attracted me and my colleague one day while we were strolling by. So we went there one fine Sunday morning, just to get it. We bought a stick each, haul it back to our hotel restaurants, like two little girls with a good find of sweets.


It was really good, soft and sweet cake-like bread, with a surprise in the middle, of all things a sausage ball. Surprisingly, this salty addition was really complementing, and it helped us gobbled up the rest of this gigantic ball. It was that good, my colleague and I bought it again on our second trip, like little girls going back for their treats.

Next up is mini donuts on stick that I stumble upon in one of the many myriad of stalls in Jatujak (certainly a shopping paradise but not one to speak about in a foodblog) and of course with wondrous foods (more to come). These mini donuts are really good, soft and ‘juicy’. The brownie ones are just-enough-chocolatey with chocolate candy bits while the strawberries ones are sweetly-fragrant with bits of strawberry-jam candy here and there. Ah, lovely!

With all that heaty yet addictive snacks, I have to wash it all down with my all time favourite Ma Praao. The mini coconuts here area extremely sweet (then again, everything is sweet here, more on that later) and really refreshing. Now I’m missing it already. Here is the guy who’s stall is right outside my office. He’s my source of Ma Praao and various fruits daily!

The End and The Beginning

A great food-year of 2006 has pass with my humble blog seeing two New Years. I once again wish all my readers out there a really Happy New Year. Thank you for your continuous support on this little site from a tham-jiak girl.

Looking back at all my food posts, I seem to miss out a lot in my culinary adventures recently. I told J I want to cook again every Sunday (with him rolling his eyes) and I hope I would stick to it. Cook something or bake something. Anything! Relaxing should no longer be a valid excuse for me. I hope this count as a New Year resolution. Truly tham-jiak of me to have a resolution which is food related. I would throw in extra bonus on this resolution that is to live and eat healthier this year, which can be done with more home-cooking, right?

While waiting for my so-call more cookings to come (and a belated-nowhere-to-be-seen Bangkok posts), here’s the food we had at the end of 2006 and the beginning of 2007.

I was craving for ice creams on the last day of 2006, and J recommended on Baskin Robbins as they have 31% discount promotion for every 31st of any months. So we went to Uptown, which had an outlet there, and first had our dinner in a restaurant few lots away. We pick it cause its nearby, and went in curiously. The place was not crowded, only with a long table of a rowdy huge family. It did spoil the mood a little and we had to wait for quite sometimes for our food to come. This restaurants serves Korean and Japanese food, with quite a number of choices and the price was reasonable.

J ordered a Japanese salmon set, which came with soup, vegetable and prawn fritters. The fritters was great but the portion was small, with only two mini prawns. Then the salmon was actually pretty good, tender with a salty cheesy sauce at the top.


Next I ordered Korean Kim Chi noodle, but it came not like what I expected. This Kim Chi soup was really thick, remind me of our local Mee Rebus (with grounded peanuts). It was still tasty but I would have prefer my Kim Chi the way I had in Haeun Khon Korean restaurant at Amcorp Mall, featured by many bloggers before. Anyway, it satisfy my search for something spicy.

After dinner, we head on down to Baskin for our desserts. We then found the shop jam-packed with crazy people like me, thus we decided not to join in the pack. J and I then diverted to Swensen’s instead, for my ice cream craving fix. It has been a long time since I have my chocolate fix, so now I’m craving for some icy chocolate treats.


They ran out of their famous chocolate ice cream so I went for the Chocolate Crunch. The ice cream was slightly melted, but nonetheless its creamy, chocolatey with crunches of puffed rice cereals. In short, it satisfies my craving till I make my next batch of chocolate heaven.


Then J had chocolate brownie topped with ice cream. The brownie was slightly dry to my liking. While eating I was dreaming of baking one extra soft gooey chocolate brownie topped with my own homemade vanilla ice cream. Let’s see when this happens, I’m good for wishful thinking.

Anyway, that gives a sweet ending to year 2006 and for ushering in the year 2007, we had a nice late lunch at Esquire Kitchen. This Chinese restaurant had been in Malaysia for quite a long time,with lots of branches and the food is always up to par. It was also featured by Boo before from masak-masak. It is also really famous for its steam chicken, but we opt for something else that day.


This stir-fry pork strip Szechuan style was really good, with apparent taste of rice wine which I liked.


Then this stir fry chicken with paprika was really good too, and I absolutely love the addition of the cashew nuts. Certainly one of their signature dish.


We also ordered Siu Long Pao, but it was certainly not recommended by me as it was nothing close to the ones I had in Hong Kong. In fact these reminds me of Siu Mai instead, with the absence of the soup. So next time I will stick to the dishes and not their Dim Sums, but their Siew Pao was good too, we had that at other occasions before.

Esquire Kitchen
Lot 10 &11,
Ground Floor Atria Shopping,
Jalan SS 22 / 23,
Damansara Jaya,
47400 Selangor

Thus with tummy filled and lips smiling, J and I awaits a wonderful year ahead. Hope you all will keep coming back to this site, occasionally, to check whether I did really buck up and cook every week. You readers have always been a source of inspiration and also motivation for me to continue my culinary endeavours. So do help me to stop J’s eyes from rolling. ;)

Quiet Dinner for Two

Where have I been missing from Bangkok? Well, I have been catching up my lost weeks in Malaysia, relaxing and enjoying Malaysian food once more, nothing beats going out and deprive from your usual food to fully appreciate it again. It reminds me of the time I left my hometown and came to live in KL; that is when I start missing home food, Taiping-style food and appreciate it so much more every time I’m back in town. As for now, I went and visited all the food I miss since Bangkok. Don’t get me wrong though, Bangkok food is great, it excites my palate and I’m hooked to one or two of their dishes. But somehow, nothing beats home.

For now, since its Christmas time, let this be a Christmas related post then (yes, it’s an excuse on my long overdue Bangkok food post). Yesterday, just for time of giving spirit, I cooked up some simple fare for J and I to enjoy together, thus escaping the hassle to go out, with the roads jammed with cars and the restaurants jammed with hungry people.

I cooked a variation of fish curry, adapting from the trusted source Kuali, in order to fit what I had in the pantry (sounds familiar). The fish came out alright, though not as good as the Assam Fish I did before, but this one does have a lot more spicy kick with an extra personal touch to it. To accompany it, I came up with the idea of chow fan (fried rice) at the last moments. So it’s just a simple fare of chow fan with curry fish, enough to fill two happy tummies while enjoying the peace of home.

The fish turned with hidden spiciness, like how when you eat some dish, it was not spicy at first or two taste, but then when you continue on, you will feel the burning sensation in your mouth and then it is your tummy on fire. I must have put too much cili padi (bird’s eye chilli). Anyway, it was good, could have been better with okra but I did not get them during grocery shopping as they sold it in huge pack and it looks not-too-fresh. I would not be sharing the recipe as I believe it could be better, somehow lacking in something, this taught me not to mess with a recipe too much.

As for the chow fan, I did it by my simple rules of ultimate chow fan. This time, it is much simpler as it would not be a main dish itself but just an accompaniment to my fish. So I just chopped up some shallots, fried it till slightly soft, throw in finely chopped long bean (my absolute favourite in chow fan, it gives the crunch and the nutrition I might add) and fry again for a minute. Then in went the rice, fry a little and pour in the sauce, which is a mixture of dark soy sauce, soya sauce, sesame oil, pepper and water. I added a little too much water this time, resulting in a less-than-perfect chow fan which was bit sticky. For extra seasoning, I splash some fish sauce and rice wine vinegar. Then of course, an ultimate chow fan must end with egg coating, to seal up the goodness and turn up the taste a notch. Oh if you have notice, there is no garlic in present, yes I ran out of it, but I believe with it, it would have been so much more fragrant.

So there, it wraps up my Christmas dinner for two. Now on you go to enjoy your holidays, while I see would I be able to squeeze in some last minute baking and also, not to forget my Bangkok food posts to come! Cheers!

While I am Away

The internet connection was down in my hotel now. So I started writing. I guess when you stop reading you start writing, a good theory no? Well, I have yet to fully gather all the picture and information on Bangkok food, so this post would be about something else. Though it is Bangkok related, as it is about the cookie I baked for J, for his breakfasts and munchies, while I am gone, for I won’t be able to go to our daily breakfasts and to catch him out to grab some food at odd hours.

Before this, J commented that I can bake good cakes but not cookies. I protested defiantly, after all I am a baker, I bake everything well! Or so I thought I did. So I baked a batch of my Godsister’s chocolate-walnut-oat-chocolate chip cookies, which unfortunately did not turn out too well just because I so happen to ran out of baking soda, and acting smart, I added in baking powder as substitute. The cookies turn out with good texture and all but it tasted slightly off to me and definitely very off to J. Later I found out that the baking soda in the recipe serves as not only rising agent but also to counter the acidity of cocoa powder, which explains the off taste of my cookies. Turns out my plans to change J’s mind on my cookies had just backfired and now he is even more sceptical of it.

I let the issue pass, and then the news came that I have to get to Bangkok for a business trip. I just wanted to make something for him while I am gone (though I did not expect it to last the entire trip knowing him, ha-ha), then the thought of regaining his faith on my cookies came to mind too. So I decided to bake him cookies for my away-trip, that’s what I call killing two birds with one stone.

This time I finally manage to bake a batch of cookies that could erase all the doubts on my cookies-baking skills. I had my housemate eating non-stop while I keep baking batches out, which I packed it and sneak out a batch for her too. J commented that the taste was great this time but he asked, “Why was it not crunchy?”

“It is supposed to be a chewy cookie! Don’t you like it?” I exclaimed.

He nods and continued munching, but I was not satisfied with it. I asked, “Is it that you like crunchy ones?” He nods again and continued munching. Being too late, and I am to fly off in a day, I vowed to bake a super-crunchy-and-addictive cookie when I come back from Bangkok. For now, these batch of cookies will do.

Chewy Chocolate Chunks Cookies

These cookies are really great, if you are looking for the chewy kinds. It would not be too chocolatey, in the absence of cocoa powder (which is why I can use baking powder here instead of baking soda), but chocolate enough with all the chocolate chunks. And the presence of salt brings out the flavours, though my salt was a bit coarse, but once a while biting on some salt was a welcome taste through all the sweetness.

I adapted this recipe from few sources and adjusted to what I have, such as my lack of baking soda and vanilla essence plus chopping up the remaining block of chocolate that I bought for my Y’s birthday cake. The chocolate chunks turn out to be really good, so much better than chocolate chips I believe. Try it, especially when the cookies are just out of the oven with the chocolate chunks in the gooey stage (yes, I was my housemate’s partner-in-crime on eating thorough the batches), after all this is a baker’s privilege. Enjoy!

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
½ cup rolled oats
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
175 gram butter
½ cup white sugar
¾ cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 cup chocolate chunks (200 gram)

Preheat oven to 180C and prepare baking sheet/pan, lightly butter.
Sift together all-purpose flour, baking powder and salt.
Then whisk together with whole wheat flour and oats.
In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugars, till light and airy.
Slowly add in the flour mixture till nearly combine.
Sitr in the chocolate chunks until well distributed.
Drop by teaspoonfuls onto prepared pan.
Bake at 180C for 12-18 minutes, until lightly browned.
Remove to wire rack to cool.

Makes about 36 cookies (included baker and partner’s stolen ones)