Homemade Coconut Ice Cream (Ice-cream Ga Ti)

This is classic rich coconut ice-cream, served in a Thai style. Thai ice-cream isn't really iced cream, it's often made from non dairy products. This recipe contains taro, a root vegetable whose starchiness gives the ice-cream a soft smooth texture. You can also use sweet potato if you cannot obtain taro.This recipe is much easier if you have a hand blender, during the preparation you will need to blend the ice-cream repeatedly as it freezes, this is done to break up the ice crystals that form. It is much easier to do that with a handheld blender or egg beater. Finally, the decoration is made from a gummy coloured mixture of cooked sticky rice flour, this is also very typical Thai, but you can use whatever toppings you like, although not strictly Thai, rum soaked raisins are popular in my house among the adults.
Ingredients 800 ml Coconut Milk200 gms Sugar5 gms Salt100 ml Skimmed Milk75 gms Taro or Sweet Potato5 gms Corn FlourIce-water To Rapidly Cool the Mixture
Preparation1. Chop the taro or sweet potato into large cubes and steam until cooked through.2. Heat the coconut milk in a sauce pan on a very low heat (about 55 degrees celsius, this is nowhere near boiling, it is simply hot to the touch).3. Mix the corn flour with 100 ml water and add to the coconut milk in the saucepan.4. Add the sugar, salt, and skimmed milk, to the saucepan and stir until everything is dissolve.5. Warm it to 65 degrees C and keep stirring it. Do not let it boil.6. Mash the taro cubes with a fork and add into saucepan and using a hand blender blender the contents of the pan until the mixture is completely smooth and the taro has disappeared into the liquid.7. Warm the pan a little higher to 80 degrees C for 4 minutes. Again it must not boil. This is to cook the flour through, without permitting it to become a thick sauce.8. The mixture should be cooled quickly and then put in the fridge, the best way to do with is to empty it into a containing that is sitting in ice water.9. Once it is cool enough, put it into the freezer until frozen.10. While it is freezing ice crystals will form, every few hours you should remove it from the freezer and blend it with a hand blender to break up the crystals.
Sticky Rice Ball Topping (Ruam Mid)
These are used as the topping, they have a gummy texture and a rose smell, if you prefer you can use vanilla essence in water for a vanilla smell or other fruit essences. You can use coconut essence if you really want to emphasize the coconut taste.
Ingredients Red, Green and Yellow Food Colouring9 Tablespoons Sticky Rice Flour (3 tablespoons for each colour)4 1/2 Tablespoons Rose Water (1 1/2 tablespoons for each colour)300 ml Cold WaterWater for boiling
Preparation1. The colours need to be made up separately, steps 2 - 4 should be repeated for the red, green and yellow shapes in separate cups.2. Drop the red food colorings into a cup and add 1 1/2 tablespoons of rose water.3. Add 3 tablespoons of sticky rice flour to the cup and mix to a paste.4. Pinch off small amounts of the paste and roll into tiny (corn sized) balls, or small sausages.5. Repeat steps 2-4 for yellow and for green food colouring.6. Boil water in a saucepan and drop the balls and sausages into the boiling water.7. They will swell slightly when cooked, it only takes a couple of minutes. One cooked, scoop them out with a sieve and drop into the cold water.8. Mix a few with the ice-cream just before serving.

Thai Sandwich Cake ( Ka Noom Pang Sungkayha )

This is literally a sandwich cake! In Thailand we often eat bread as a dessert with sweet sauces spread on it. For this recipe I've taken one of these sauces and made it into a layer cake. You can also make sandwiches of this and eat it as a picnic food or as a children's treats.
Ingredients for 2 Cakes 250 m Coconut Milk150 gms Sugar200 ml Evaporated Milk3 Eggs3 Tablespoons Wheat Flour1 Teaspoon Salt2-3 Drops Green Food Color8-10 Slices of BreadDesiccated Coconut for Garnish
Preparation1. Whip the eggs to mix them, add all the other ingredients and whip together for 1 minute.2. This needs to be cooked in a bain marie (a small pan sitting in a larger pan of boiling water so that it cooks gently). Cook slowly for 15 minutes, stirring continuously.3. Let it cool a little, for this cake, you can eat this topping warm or cold!4. Cut the crusts off the bread. Layer slices of bread, and sauce alternately, with a top layer of the sauce.5. Dust with dried coconut.

Coconut Candies ( Ma-Pow-Gew )

For this recipe you will need middle aged old coconut. Not quite young coconut, not old coconut, just middle aged. You can find this frozen in your Asian supermarket, as medium old coconut Mapow How or Mapow Roy Kanom.
Ingredients 500 gms Shredded Coconut Meat300 gms Sugar150 waterFood colouring
Preparation1. Mix the sugar and water together. Heat and bring to the boil.2. Boil the water off to a thick sugar syrup.3. Add the shredded coconut, lower the heat and continue stiring until all the liquid has gone.4. Let them cool a little, taking two teaspoons take out ball shaped lumps on the mixture and let them cool on a drying try.

Sweet Shrimp on Yellow Rice ( Kao Niew Moon Na Gung )

This recipe may sound a little strange. It is a dessert made from shrimp on a base of (non-spicy) curried rice. A common Thai dish, but the ingredients are not common to desserts!
Ingredients for Yellow Rice100 gms Sticky Rice1-2 Teaspoons Tumeric200 ml Coconut Milk150 gms Sugar1 Teaspoon Salt
Ingredients for Sweet Shrimp100 gms Shrimps2-3 Garlic Cloves1 Teaspoon White Pepper10 gms Coriander Root or Seeds100 gms Desiccated (Ground) Coconut150 gms Sugar1 Teaspoons Salt2 Tablespoons Oil2-3 Drops of Orange Food Colouring10 gms Sliced Kaffir Leaves for Garnish
Preparation1. To make the yellow rice, soak the sticky rice in warm water, and tumeric and leave for 4-8 hours.2. Steam the rice until cooked, (approximately 15 minutes).3. Place the rice in a bowl, mix with the sugar, salt and coconut milk. Leave it to soak up the coconut milk.4. Now to the shrimp topping. Clean the shrimp, remove the shell and cut down the back to remove the black thread 'gut'.5. Chop the shrimp into a fine mince.6. Pound the garlic and coriander root/seeds and white pepper together until well ground up.7. Fry the shrimp and pounded mixture in a frying pan with a little oil until part cooked, 30 seconds or so is fine.8. Mix the ground coconut with the orange food colouring, add to the frying pan, add the sugar and salt and fry for a further 2 minutes. The sugar will slightly caramelize.9. Serve a small bowl of the yellow rice with the sweet shrimp on top and garnish with some slices of kaffie lime leaves.

Black Rice Pudding Cake ( Kao Niew Dum Gurn )

The taro gives a soft bread like texture, the coconut cream a smooth creaminess and the berris give a contrast tartness. I used red berries for this, but sour strawberries or raspberries would also work well.
Ingredients 500 gms Taro Root140 gms Tapioca or Cassava Starch Flour60 ml Hot Water250 ml Coconut Milk175 gms Sugar1 Teaspoon SaltYoung Coconut Meat (Available in cans)Bitua LeavesSour Berries for Garnish (Optional)
Preparation1. Peel the taro root, cut into half, steam until it is cooked through and leave it to cool. Mash it.2. Take half the flour, add to the mashed taro, add the hot water and mix. Add the remaining flour and mix well to form a smooth paste.3. Cover the bowl the paste is in with a damp towel to stop a skin forming.4. Into a blender, blend the Bitua leaves with 2 tablespoons of water to form bitua juice, sieve the leaves out leaving just the juice and add that to the taro dough. If the dough is too wet, add more flour.5. Roll out the taro and cut into square (if you prefer you can pinch off pieces and roll them to form balls).6. Into a saucepan, place coconut milk and bring to the boil, add sugar and salt and stir to dissolve then remove from the heat and leave to cool. Adjust the seasoning of this sauce to your tastes, it should be a little salty and slightly sweeter than you like.7. Cook the tarot squares in boiling water for 3 minutes, remove and cool in cold water.8. Serve the taro, berries and warm sauce immediately

Fruit Pork Fat Roses ( Ka Noom cho Morng )

These roses are a typical Thai recipe from the Krua Klai Baan recipe forum, that I thought was worth translating into English for you. The filling is mainly pork and candied (glacé) fruits, a little sweet and a little savoury with excellent presentation, typical of Thai snacks. To make the flowers use a set of flat bladed small tongs, but if you don't have them, you can just make round balls instead.In the following photographs you can see the filling used inside the roses:
Ingredients for Filling30 gms Pork With Fat & Rind50 gms Chopped Candied (Glacée) Fruits30 gms Chopped Peanuts20 gms Sesame Seeds1 Teaspoon Salt1-2 Tablespoon Oil
Ingredients for Dough130 gms Rice Flour1/2 Teaspoon Cassava Starch1/2 Teaspoon Tapioca Flour250 ml Water2 Tablespoon Oil2-3 Drops of Food Color
Preparation1. Boil the pork in water 10 minutes.2. Chop the pork to tiny tiny pieces.3. Drain and place in a frying pan with a little oil4. Fry for 30 seconds then add finely chopped candied fruits, sesame seeds, salt and fry again for 30 more seconds, then turn the heat off.5. Add the chopped peanut in and leave to cool.6. Make the dough by mixing the 2x flours & starch together, add the oil and the water and mix.7. Place into a saucepan, over a medium heat and stir until the mixture cooks and thickens, this will take 8-10 minutes. Remove it from the heat and cover with a damp cloth to keep it moist.8. Rub your fingers lightly in tapioca flour to stop the dough sticking.9. Pinch off small pieces of the dough, about 30gms worth and roll it in your hands to form a ball. Repeat this until all the dough is used up.10. Take each ball and press them flat in the palm of your hand.11. Spoon some of the filling into the middle, fold up the edges and seal it.12. If you wish, you can make roses at this point, this is explained below.13. Steam for 5 minutes.
Making The RosesUsing the flat bladed tongs, pinch a triangle into the dough. Next go around spiralling and pinch out a leaf. The leaves form interlocking spirals around the triangle, they start near the triangle and spiral downwards. You repeatedly pinch the dough until the leaf is wide enough.

Yellow Soya Coconut Sweets ( Tou Goun )

Another Thai 'candy' that's more like a snack than a sweet. This one is made with a pureé of yellow soya bean and sugar. When I was a child I would spend my money on these sweets whenever I could. When you buy these in Thailand they have a pretty pattern stamped into the top, but you can also make them the same way I do, in an ice-cube tray. You will need either yellow soya beans for this, or green soya beans. If you have green soya beans, soak them in warm water overnight and peel them in the morning.
Ingredients 100 gms Green Soya Beans500 ml Warm Water300 gms Sugar300 ml Coconut Milk50 gms Grated Coconut
Preparation1. Soak the soya beans in warm water overnight.2. Remove the green skins from the soya (you can simply squeeze them between your fingers to do this) then steam for 15 minutes.3. In a blender, take the soya beans, add the sugar and coconut and blend until smooth.4. Place it in a saucepan and cook over a low heat until it becomes very thick.5. Form into cubes, leave to cool in the fridge and they're ready to eat. I use a ice-cube tray dusted with icing sugar for mine.