Saturday 29 March 2008

Khao Phoune or yum, yum, yum.

Him Indoors likes to cook on a Friday, more specifically likes to cook chili on a Friday. When I say chili I mean that Texan Red stuff. In his quest for the perfect Red he has slaved away at the stove every Friday for the last 8 weeks. I never knew there were so many variations. Indeed, I may ask him to write a piece devoted to the Red. Anyway, as I was in this Friday he decided to humour me and cook something else, and this is what he cooked - Khao Phoune.




The recipe came from an article in the Telegraph and can be found here.

This was the second time he made it, so this time round he decided to substitute the chicken for duck and to use reduced fat coconut milk. I have to say that although I like duck for this I think I preferred chicken. I think the next time he may try beef.

First of all he skinned the duck and cut in into bite size chunks.




then he browned the pieces off and discarded the fat.




Then he made a paste out of 2 red chillies, 2 cloves of garlic, 1 inch of ginger, 4 small shallots, 1 stick of lemongrass, some shrimp paste and 3 tbsp of fish sauce.




He fried the paste in some vegetable oil and when it was brown added a tin of coconut milk and the same amount of water.




He then added 2 tbsp of crushed peanuts, the juice of one lime, 1tsp of sugar, 2 tbsp of fish sauce and the duck. This was left to simmer for an hour until the duck was tender. This is the resulting pot of goodness:







In the colander from closest to furthest away we have bean sprouts, garlic sprouts and basil (unfortunately not sweet Thai basil, as none in Chinese supermarket) and in the small bowl there are shallots and cucumber.

To quaff down with this fiery and intensely savoury dish we needed something that could stand up to the heat and flavours and chose this lovely Gewurztraminer.




What I love about this dish, and what made me think it was Vietnamese at first, is the fact that you are able to garnish it to you own specification. To me this is heaven as it allows each subsequent bowl to have endless taste possibilities. What more could one ask for?

No comments: