I originally thought these were plantains in English, but the variety of banana used isn’t a plantain, so I’m going to call it a Thai Banana. It is small, and when used in this recipe it is unripe, and fibrous, making it suitable for bashing and grilling. A photograph of the banana type is shown below, but for this recipe they should be unripe.

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This ring is made from young shredded coconut, bi-tua (pandan leaves) flavouring, nuts, and puffed rice. It’s Thailand’s version of crunch bars and eaten at the new year in April. I’ve pressed it into a tom yum pan to get that donut shape.

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Another use for mee krob (crunchy rice vermicelli) is this snack. This snack is crunchy rice and dates made into a semi-sweet dessert. I like to mould it into a tom yum pan and serve it sliced with dates in the center, as in the photograph.

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These sweet rice pancakes with spring onions, are a tradition in Thailand. Normally made on a big iron plate, you can make them at home if you have a mini pancake pan like the one shown below and a lid to cover it. They are made from 2 halfs stuck together with a binding topping. The lower layer contains spring onions and salt, and the topping layer is sweeter. In future recipes we’ll reuse the pan to make other desserts, so if you want to buy one you can reuse it for many things.

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This dessert is a mung bean salty sweet dessert so typical of Thailand.

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This is a delicious, slightly salt, slightly sweet, very filling dessert from Thailand. The salt balances the sweetness of the sauce and ripe mango. The sticky (glutinous) rice is like a solid rice pudding base to the dish.

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Part sweet, part salt, part smooth, part rough. This dessert consists of many interesting contrasts!

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As is typical of Asian candy, these candies are only a little bit sweet, the outside has the texture similar to marzipan. Read the rest of this entry »

Everyone of these miniature fruits are made from sweetened yellow bean paste, and food colourings. The shine comes from a glaze made of agar. Don’t be put off, they are not as difficult to make as they look, and you can have a lot of fun with your children making them.
Make each one small, 10-15gms of yellow bean paste is perfect, if you make them too big, they are difficult to dip in the agar later and will not hold their shape. A good way to hold the fruit is to skewer them on toothpicks as you paint and dip them.

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The ginger in this ice cream recipe creates a nice bite that contrasts well with the sweetness of the lychees. I sometime double up the ginger if the ice cream is going to be used to mild fruit, for example if you serve it with baked pears, then you can double up the ginger to add a bigger bite.

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