Pad Thai – The snow peas version

Snow Peas Pad Thai

Snow Peas Pad Thai

Hello my foodie friends! I am so sorry for the long hiatus, life just got in the middle, but we still cook and eat delicious home-made dishes (well, most of the time we do) and I still desire to share them with anyone in the world’s foodie community that’d like to cook with me!

I’m afraid posts will keep appearing irregularly or less frequently as the used to, but neither me nor my blog are going anywhere, so I hope you be patient with me and pop into “Around the bowl” once in while… By the way, I always share pictures of my recipes in my instagram account, so follow me if you’d like to see what I’m cooking (and some other random things that I enjoy) and please let me know if you are particularly interested in any recipe you see there that can potentially become an interesting post!

We have just finished enjoying today’s recipe, it’s easy, it’s quick, it’s healthy and most importantly: utterly delicious! Other than that, I don’t think Pad Thai needs any further introduction, doesn’t it?

Just as the tittle indicates, I’ve made some adjustments to the traditional recipe: I replaced bean sprouts by snow peas, mainly because we had loads at home that needed to be used and because I love them! and I replace peanuts with cashews because I don’t like peanuts, but I do enjoy the rest of the ingredients of a good Pad Thai, so I thought: why not?

Do you fancy trying it?

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Ten months, ten posts: Reader’s Top Ten Recipes

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Hello foodies of the world! Sorry for my absence the last few weeks. I’ve been pretty busy with no time for new recipes worth posting. Although I always cook, in busy days I tend to repeat old favourites or cook easy and quick things like omelettes and salads.

The truth is, I’ve never been good at extreme multitasking, I know, is shocking to acknowledge such a thing these days, but I’ve been like this since I can remember and I’ve made my peace with it. But, as I’m also a perfectionist, I rather do one thing at the time and do it right than to do everything just like that. To me, is like my father says: sometimes is not that I don’t have the physical time,  is that I have no “mental” time. Of course I keep challenging myself to find the balance, but I won’t fight my nature either.

I’ve thought of this post a while ago and since is less time-consuming than posting a new recipe is a good way for me to show up and say hi! I reckon that after 10 month blogging, it would be a good time to make a top ten of Around the Bowl’s reader’s favourites and give these recipes a second chance to be discovered and hopefully inspire someone new!

The top ten is based on the blog statistics for all ten months and the posts are rated upon visits and sharing figures. I hope you like the recipes if you haven’t tried them before or that they inspire you once again if you did! I’ll be back soon with new soup recipes to share!

Top Ten Recipes from Around the Bowl (so far)

1. Soup à l’ognion gratinée – French Grilled Onion Soup

2. Indian Minced Beef Curry

3. Mercimek Çorba – Turkish Lentil Soup

4. Thai Prawn and Lemongrass Soup – Ken Hom recipe

5. Ciorba de Perisoare – Romanian Meatball Sour Soup

6. Vegetarian Risottos – Aubergine and Mushroom + Spinach, Courgette and Mushroom

7. Parihuela – Peruvian Seafood and Fish Soup 

8. Dal Shorba (Indian Lentil Soup) with Summer Veggies

9. Avgolemono Chicken Soup – A Greek Egg and Lemon Chicken Soup

10. Thai Chicken and Aubergine Yellow Curry – The Basic Recipe

Thai Chicken and Aubergine Yellow Curry – The Basic Recipe

Thai Chicken and Aubergine Yellow Curry

Thai Chicken and Aubergine Yellow Curry

It’s time for a good old Thai curry! I was just revising the Thai recipes I’ve already posted and was amazed to discovered that I haven’t posted a Thai curry yet! Specially considering that I cook one at least every two weeks if not once a week. Thai curries are so a part of our weekly menu that I guess I didn’t consider making  a post about them until today, when I realised that they are totally worth sharing; not only because their deliciousness but also because they can become  a staple of any household menu : they’re easy and quick to put together, and you can use virtually any protein and vegetable available to turn an ordinary week-day supper in a special one, even cooking it for guests. All you need is to always have coconut milk, a good quality curry paste and Jasmine or Basmati rice in your pantry and let your imagination do the rest of the work!

Of course, you can always make your own curry paste from scratch if you have a good Asian market nearby where to get the right ingredients. This would make the preparation a little more time-consuming, but you can make big quantities in advance to store. However, in terms of practicality, I find that there are really good bought curry pastes that use no artificial additives and preservatives.

Today’s recipe is the basic method I always use to cook Thai curries, feel free to change the curry paste (red, green), the vegetables and the protein source. They can be easily turned into a vegan dish by replacing the fish sauce with soy sauce and the meat with tofu.

Thai curries entered my life almost ten years ago, when I was living in Australia for some months (such a good and dear memory to me!) and my Aussie housemate and good friend used to cook them regularly for supper. I had never tried a Thai curry before at that time, and it was “love at first bite” Besides, Thai restaurants and take away in Australia are sooo good that I also enjoyed  a lot of South-East Asian food when eating out.

Back at home, I made sure to find the ingredients to keep cooking them, a little bit harder to find in Spain, but possible if you look eagerly. In Australia you can find everything in a regular supermarket. The UK is a good place to stock up if you have the chance and of course, it is possible to buy online as well!

Let’s cook now, I hope you like it as much as I do!

Nyonya Kari Ayam (Chicken Curry) and some good reading

A new curry recipe! Today I’m sharing a Chinese/Malaysian fusion chicken curry from Nyonya cuisine. Doing my research for the recipe; I became really intrigued by Nyonya cultural background and found some wonderful reading about it that I would like to briefly share with you in order to fully understand and appreciate this curry we are making today (*).

I’ve always thought that a country’s cuisine is a very holistic approach to discover its history, culture and idiosyncrasies; cooking something exotic (to us) is such a wonderful way of travelling without leaving your home, analogous to reading one of those great books that transport you to a different place. I can get so inspired by world’s cuisines that I get to experience a little obsession with the subject, searching, reading and going into expeditions to find ingredients and cook!

(*)The Peranakan or the Baba Nyonya community (also known as the Straits Chinese), evolved in the fifteenth century when the Chinese arrived in Malacca and intermarriage with local women took place. The Peranakan culture is a unique blend of two cultures – Malay and Chinese – intermixed into a fascinating synthesis with elements of Javanese, Batak, Thai and British cultures. Today, they are found throughout Malaysia and Singapore with strongholds in Malacca, Singapore and Penang.

The word Peranakan is derived from the Malay word ‘anak’ which means ‘child’. The term refers to the local-born as well as the offspring of foreigner-native union. Baba is the term for the male and Nyonya for the female.

Peranakan food is a wonderful combination of Malay and Chinese cuisine with influences from Indonesia, Thailand, India, Holland, Portugal and England. Nyonya food is clearly unique and Malaysian/Singaporean in identity. Using ingredients such as galangal, serai, chillies, tumeric, ginger, tau cheow, tamarind, lime juice, belachan, buah keras, gula Melaka; spices such as star anise, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, nutmeg and leaves such as daun kesum, daun kaduk, daun cekok, daun limau perut and pandan.

(*)Extracted from: Lee, Su Kim, 2008. The Peranakan Culture: Resurgence or Dissapearance? SARI, Vol. 26, 161-170, 

I hope that after knowing a little more about this wonderful culture you feel like tasting it with the following unique curry recipe. Trust me, the flavour will surprise you, is neither Indian nor Thai, is just Nyonya, and it’s delicious!

Tom Yum Gai – Thai Hot and Sour Chicken Soup

Tom Yum Gai

Hello foodies of the world! It’s been busy around here but there’s always time to squeeze a good Thai home-made food in. I often cook wonderful Thai curries with coconut milk, but I wanted to try something different that needed to be very easy and quick to put together as well. That’s why Tom Yum came to my mind, it is an aromatic hot and sour soup made with a lemon grass, kaffir lime leaves, galangal/ginger, lime juice, fish sauce and chilli base.  There are different variations depending on the protein component: fish, prawn, mixed seafood, pork or chicken (Gai/Kai); which is the one I’m sharing today.

If you cook Thai regularly, you probably already have all the basic ingredients in your kitchen and just have to add any protein source and vegetables of your choice. You can also turn it into a vegetarian dish by adding tofu and into a vegan one by trading the fish sauce for soy sauce.  Tom Yum makes an excellent week day healthy and complete dinner.

Let’s cook!

Vietnamese Pho Chay – A Vegan Noodle Soup

Vietnamese Pho Chay

Me a little obsessed with Asian food? nah… And yet another Asian dish…I’ve been wanting to cook Pho for a while and today was the day! It was my first time and surprisingly it doesn’t taste like any other Asian soup I’ve cooked before at its flavour it’s quite unique; the spices on the broth really make a difference.

The traditional Pho is made with beef stock and usually contains beef as well, but Chay is the veggie version of this soup, usually with tofu as the protein ingredient. The choice of vegetables was based on what I have at hand this time, but you could use broccoli and bok choy for instance. Would you like to try it? It’s a safe bet!

Thai Prawn and Lemongrass Soup – Ken Hom recipe

Today I’m sharing a very simple but tasty soup I usually make at home,using one of my favourite recipe books.

Ken Hom. Simple Thai Cookery. 2006. BBC Books.

Simple Thai Cookery from Ken Hom (BBC Books) was my first Thai recipe book and I have been cooking with it since I bought it quite a few years ago already. Its recipes are very easy to follow (and to adapt, which is very important to me) and they taste really Thai, most of the times better than Thai restaurant food.

I adapted this recipe by adding vegetables to it, to make it a complete supper instead of a starter.

This is a great option for a healthy, light, quick and delicious supper!

Chicken Laksa – Bliss from South-East Asia

To me Laksa is the queen of all soups, a world’s favourite originally from Malaysia and other South-East Asia countries like Indonesia and Singapore. There are many kinds, varying with the region and the ingredients, but one of the most popular and reproduced in the West is the curry Laksa: a curry and coconut based noodle soup . I have first tried it in Australia and then in Malaysia and have been cooking it at home since then, because I love it! (and there are no restaurants in the area where I live that serve it).

I often take the freedom to customise it depending on my fridge/pantry contents and cravings and I always include some  vegetables. Here it is a very simple recipe I cooked the other evening for supper, I hope you enjoy it as much as we did. Looking forward to your feedback!

Thai Curried Pumpkin Soup

The other day, a good friend of mine gave me some wonderful organic pumpkins from her home vegetable patch. Pumpkin is one of my most-liked veggies and I cook it in different ways, being of them, of course, soup. This time, I  first thought of preparing a pumpkin version of the ginger and curry soup I usually make with carrots. But then, while doing something else, a whole recipe took shape in my mind: a Thai-style curried soup.

Since Thai food is among my favourite foods, it is usually my choice for special occasions. I always cook Thai for birthdays celebrations (love ones and mine),  for my guests (all my friends have tasted my Thai cooking) and on weekends when we fancy something special. I even cooked a Thai green curry the last Christmas eve! However, once in a while I cook Thai just because is delicious, conforming and I feel like it. This was the case and here is the recipe I hope you will enjoy as much as we did at home.