Thai Spicy Grilled Chicken

This is a wonderful little idea I stumbled upon. Wings - who doesn't like them? Now, imagine it with some ginger and other great Thai cooking ingredients.

This is a great one for all you grill chefs out there. So get out your grilling tongs. We start with the marinade.

What you need:

• Lots of chicken wings
• About a cup of soy sauce
• Orange or lemon juice of a lemon
• Sesame oil to taste
• 2 tablespoons of honey
• Chopped ginger (about a tablespoon)
• Cilantro
• Chili paste or ground chili
• Pepper
• Lemongrass?
• A spring onion

1. Mix the wings with chopped ginger and cilantro in a big bowl. Pour all other ingredients on top and mix well.

2. Let marinade for an hour. Occasionally stir around, so all the wings get some juice.

3. Grill on medium heat until meat is white, with a dark brown to black crust (mmm honey caramelizing).

Thai Green Curry

This is a curry, which is only green because of the chilies. Wonderful recipe, works great, tasted a lot like my tom yum soup, but I guess that was Thai as well. Coconut, chili, lemon grass and everything else, that you want in your curry.

You can chose between beef or chicken. The following recipe is made with chicken.

We start by making a chili paste, which is then used for the actual dish. You can set aside this paste and cook with it another time, supposedly you can even freeze it.

Paste

What you need for the curry paste:

• 4 green chilies
• 3 onions (shallots)
• 3 cloves of garlic
• Finely chopped galangal, ginger, lime leaves and lemongrass
• Pepper (white)
• Coriander and cumin
• Salt

1. Grind all dry ingredients with pestle and mortar.

2. Chop up everything else and add. Stomp the s*** out of it.

The Curry

What you need:

• 400g of chicken
• A can of coconut milk
• Lime leaves
• Fish sauce to taste
• A bit of sugar
• Thai or those big black eggplants

1. Cut chicken in bits, or strips. However you like. Set aside.

2. Fry curry paste (above) in a bit of vegetable oil.

3. Add coconut milk and lime leaves.

4. Add the chicken, and let cook for 3 minutes.

5. Transfer everything to a pot, and boil. Then add eggplant and fish sauce and a bit of sugar to taste.

Tom Yum(mm!) Soup

Also known as 'white milky soup with bits of foreign looking spices in it soup,' Tom Yum is one of those soups that you could never even dream of comparing to any other soup. It's an excellent example of Thai cooking. Coconut, lime, lemongrass and chili to spice it up a little. How could you possibly ask for more?

And it doesn't take very long at all. And it's pretty immediate satisfaction. The only thing that could go wrong is the chicken and that is quite difficult to do in itself.

What you need:

• 2 limes
• 1 can of coconut milk
• Water - about 3 to 4 cups
• Some shrimp or bits of chicken work
• Lemon grass
• Lime leaves
• Fish sauce (couple of tablespoons)
• Chinese chives
• Ginger
• Optional: Galanga root
• Chili (how hot can you go?)

Alright, again pretty standard ingredients. Some stand out; lime leaves are a great addition, makes everything smell amazing. And of course, my all time favourite ingredient lemon grass.

1. Boil water in a sauce pan.

2. Add lime juice and leaves, fish sauce. Chop up chicken or simply add the shrimp.

3. Chop Chinese chives, chili, diced ginger and galanga root and add to the pot.

4. Beat up the lemon grass with a knife. Don't chop it, just beat it for the flavour to be released and pop it into the probably already amazingly smelling broth.

5. Add the coconut milk.

Make sure the meat (chicken or shrimp) doesn't get too tough. Chicken can become too tough if it boils in the water for too long.

And you probably don't need reminding that chilies are hot. I personally added just one, and it was quite the sweaty, heated experience already.

Pad Thai

Hi there folks.

Thought I might give Pad Thai a try. Obviously Thai, lots of fun and lemon grass, limes and chilies guaranteed. But spicy, and the rice noodles can be tricky. They got all lumped together when I tried this. It definitely takes practice. But well worth a try.

What you need:

• A wok or a large frying pan
• 2 limes
• 1 egg
• Optional: Peanuts or cashews
• Fish sauce (doesn't smell so good, but amazing stuff, which adds a lot of flavour)
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 1 chili pepper (the smaller the spicier)
• Optional: Tamarind (quite sweet and a lot like nougat)
• A pack of rice noodles (dry)
• Optional: Some kind of meat (usually shrimps)
• Chinese chives (kind of like basil)
• Pack of tofu - dry and firm
• Optional: Bean sprouts
• Recommended: ginger and/or galanga root - pretty interesting. You should be able to find it in any south east Asian grocery store

These ingredients are easy to find in any grocery store that sells groceries for South East Asian cuisine. My tip, just ask the shop keeper.

1. Soak the rice noodles in col water. 5 minutes should do the trick.

2. Cut the tofu into thin slices.

3. Chop garlic and Chinese chives

4. Get out your wok! Oil it up, and let it heat up a bit. Fry the nuts, then set them aside.

5. In the same pan, add Chinese chives, garlic, and tofu. Chop chilies and add them too.

6. Check if your rice noodles are still kinda hard but flexible [...]. Drain them and add them to the pan.

7. Add tamarind, a little bit of sugar and fish sauce.

8. Squeeze some lime juice into the mix, and throw in the shrimp and bean sprouts.

9. Scoop everything to the side of the pan and crack the egg into the pan. Scramble it in.

So serve on a platter and I recommend decorating it with lemon grass and obsessively taking pictures of it. Add some more fish sauce into the mix if it's not very tasty. Maybe experiment with coconut milk, but don't blame me if it doesn't work out.