Thai Sticky Rice - Cooking with Microwave Oven

Sticky Rice is known as Khao Niew in Thai language. This type of rice has special characteristic which is different from plain steamed rice. It has some gluey effect, meaning the rice can be easily made into ball shape and stay like that. It's basically a different type of rice where you should be able to buy from any Asian supermarket.

Sticky Rice is a basic dish for many parts of Thailand especially the North and North-eastern. Traditionally, the way to steam sticky rice is quite complicated and time consuming. A special bamboo basket is used to hold the sticky rice (raw) and placed on top of boiling pot. After 25-30 minutes of steaming, you will get a nice and soft sticky rice. But before that the sticky rice should be soaked overnight. And while steaming you should frequently stir the rice in the basket.

However, in Thailand we can easily buy cooked sticky rice every corner so many people don't really want to cook by ourselves due to the time and energy required. We can easily buy 5 baht of sticky rice and that fills up our stomach for half a day.

Sticky rice can also be cooked using a microwave. Many of the Thais who live abroad have been cooking Sticky Rice with Microwaves for long time ago. Here's how I do it.

Ingredients (4 servings)
2 cups sticky rice
2 1/4 cups water
(water should cover 1 cm over the rice level, so you can adjust the amount of water depending on your bowl)

How to cook:
- Rinse Sticky rice with water 2-3 times
- Pre-soak the rice in a big soup bowl (microwavable) for 30 minutes
- Microwave 7 minutes at HIGH
- Bring out the bowl and use the fork to let the air into the rice so it doesn't stay too sticky
- Put back into the microwave on HIGH for another 2 minutes, bring out and work with the fork again
- Microwave another 2 minutes on HIGH, you should get a nice and soft sticky rice by microwave

Although cooking Sticky Rice with Microwave is not as dry as the bamboo basket, but in general it's softer and much faster to cook. Let's try.

Phad Kra Prao Kai (Chicken with Basil and Chili)

Basil leaves in this recipe make this dish unique in the scent and taste. Thai Basil or Holy Basil can be grown in tropical countries. But after Thai food restaurants and asian stores can be found everywhere, it's not so difficult to buy 'Bai Kra Prao'.

Phad Kra Prao Kai is an easy dish. Many Thais make this recipe as individual dish, just like Pad Thai. Original taste of this dish is salty, spicy and slightly sweet.

Ingredients:
2 tb.sp. vegetable oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
6 mid size chilis, coarse minced
200 g chicken breast, sliced
2 tb.sp. fish sauce
2 tb.sp. oyster sauce
1 1/2 t.sp. sugar
1/2 cup basil leaves (as much as you want)

Cooking:
1. Preheat the pan and pour in vegetable oil (I always use soya oil for frying)
2. Throw in the garlic, stir until light brown
3. Add chili (make sure not to breath in)
4. Add chicken, stir until cooked
5. Add fish sauce, oyster sauce and sugar
6. Add basil leaves and quickly turn a few stirs then serve on a dish with steamed rice

Tom Yum Kung Recipe

Tom Yum Kung is a Thai spicy soup with lemongrass and other herbs. This soup is very good nutrition. The right flavour is spicy and sour.

Ingredients:

3 cups chicken stock
250 g shrimps/prawns,shelled and divided
2 garlic cloves, minced
5 leaves kaffir lime leaves
3 slices fresh or dried galangal (Kha) 1/4 cup fish sauce
2 stalks lemon grass/citronella (ta-krai), lower1/3 portion only, cut into 1-inch (2.3 cm) lengths
5 hot green Thai chilli peppers (can be less if you are not familiar with spicy taste)
1/2 cup sliced straw mushrooms
1/4 cup lime juice
1 teaspoon chilli paste (nam phrik pao - can be found in asian stores)
1 tablespoon chopped coriander leaves
Cooking:

Bring the stock to a boil over medium heat. Add the garlic, lime leaves, galangal, fish sauce, lemon grass, and shallots, then the mushrooms and chilli peppers, if using.Simmer for 2 minutes.
Add the shrimp and reheat to boiling. Cook until the shrimps are pink,opaque, and firm but no longer than 1 minute.
When the shrimps are cooked, place the lime juice and chilli paste in a serving bowl.
Pour the soup into the bowl, stir, and garnish with cilantro leaves.
Tips:

You can add 1/2 cup of cream in step 2 to make this soup creamy and milder in taste. A bit of sugar (1 t.sp.) can be added if you want.

Chicken Green Curry (Kang Khiew Waan Kai)

Green Curry is another well known dish of Thai food. Thai people loves to have green curry with rice noodles (called Khanon-Jeen) or rice. Some Thais eat green curry with Roti.

The taste of green curry is mild, slightly sweet and not too spicy.

Ingredients:

400 g sliced chicken breast
200 ml coconut milk and 100 ml of coconut cream
2 t.sp. Green Curry paste (or Thai green curry powder which you can buy from local supermarket)
2 bell peppers, red and green
2 eggplants
1 cup fresh basil, chopped roughly
Cooking:

Cut the chicken into small pieces and pre-cook it gently in a pan with drops of oil.

Mix the coconut milk, the coconut cream and the green curry paste in a bowl

Add the peppers and baby eggplants to the chicken and cook for few minutes

Add the sauce to the chicken and cook gently for 10-15 min

Add the basil 5 min before the end

Favourite Pad Thai Recipe

Pad Thai is one of the most famouse dish of Thai Food. This is more like a one-dish menu. Most of Thai food we eat many dishes with rice. But for Pad Thai, it's the individual dish.


This recipe is very easy to cook. The major ingredient is Tamarind Sauce. In tropical countries, you can make this sauce by soaking tamarind in warm water, then squeeze and filter the sauce. In some places, you can find 'ready mixed' Pad Thai sauce, which can make our lives easier.

Ingredients:
2 tb.sp. vegetable oil
1 egg (preferably duck egg)
4 t.sp. fish sauce
2 red onions, sliced
8 shrimps (you can add more if you want)
4 tb.sp. ground peanut
3 tb.sp. Tamarind Sauce
1 pack for 1 serve rice noodles (dry noodles - soak in warm water for 5 mins, not too long!!)
1 1/2 cups bean sprouts
1/2 cups Tofu sliced
1/2 cups Chinese Chives, chopped into 1/8" dice
1 t.sp. dried chili powder (could be less if you're not the spicy person)
2 t.sp. sugar
2 onion trees, chopped 1"

Cooking:
1. Heat up the fry pan, put the oil into the pan until smoked
2. Put red onion, stir until light brown
3. Add Shrimp, tofu, Chinese Chives, stir until shrimp is cooked
4. Rest rice noodles and let water rinse, then put into the pan
5. Add Tamarind Sauce, fish sauce, sugar stir until well mixed
6. Add Ground Peanut and Chili powder
7. Make a hole in the middle of the pan, add a bit of oil, knock the egg in there, leave until bottom is hard
8. Stir everything in the pan, try to keep the egg flat
9. Add bean sprouts and onion trees
10. Serve on a dish with fresh bean sprout, lime, and banana flowers (optional), better eat while hot

Omelette with shrimp and chili

My wife always convinces me to cook. And we find that I am a pretty good cook. Although everytime I cook, it will be something different. I don't really care about the recipe but after a while, I found that having the recipe is helpful.. but we don't need to be very strict on that.

Each family has different preference in taste and styles. For me and my wife, we prefer rather tasty food. Since we are Thai, the main ingredients we always use are chili and garlic. Even when we cook some western style, we also add chilli.

Today I will give you a simple recipe which you can make within 10 mins, "Omelette with Shrimp and Chili".

Ingredients:
3 cloves garlic mid size
3 Large Eggs, fine beated
15 Shrimps, peal off skin, head and tails
1/2 t.sp. sugar
1 tb.sp. vegetable oil (I use soya oil)
6 Thai chilis (prik-ki-noo)coarse blended
2 t.sp. Fish sauce (if not, soy sauce can do)
a bit of pepper and coriander/parsley for decoration

Cooking:
1. Pre-heat non-stick pan, high heat, put soya oil in the pan
2. Once the pan gets warm, put garlic and stir until slightly yellow
3. Add shrimps, stir until cooked then add chili (at this point, you may sneeze so be careful) add sugar
4. Add fish sauce to the beaten egg, slowly pour beaten eggs into the pan, turn your pan so the egg is flatten
5. Turn down the temperature on your gas stove to medium
6. When the egg starts to cooked on the side, stir gently until well cooked
7. Put the egg on the dish, add a bit of pepper and decorate with coriander leaves