Thai Breakfast Cereal ( Nam-Tao-Hu Song-Crueng )

This is the Thai equivalent of breakfast cereal. It's made from tapioca pearls, grass jelly and warm sweetened soya sauce. For the photograph I only put a little liquid into the bowl, so you can see the cereal better, but normally you put a lot more.
Ingredients 200 ml Soya Milk (Normally for Drinking)1 Tablespoon Sugar30 gms Tapioca Pearls30 gms String Tapioca (a zig-zag tapioca style)30 gms Sliced Grass Jelly
Preparation1. Soak the all tapioca in warm water overnight.2. Boil the tapioca until cooked.3. Boil the soya milk with the sugar until the sugar is dissolved.4. To serve, slice the grass jelly, spoon on some of the tapioca and pour on warm soya milk.

Thai Sticky Soya Sweets ( Made Ka Noon )

These are Thai sweets, so they're not what you might expect. Made from sweetened soya beans, then dipped in egg yolk and cooked in hot sugar syrup. You can also use yellow soya for a totally yellow 'candy', but I prefer to use soaked green bean soya, I think it has more fibre.
Ingredients for 4 People100 gms Green Soya Beans300 ml Warm Water500 gms Sugar (100gms + 400gms)5 Egg Yolks
Preparation1. Soak the green soya beans in warm water for at least 10 hours (overnight is best). They will become soft.2. Steam for 15 minutes to cook them.3. Grind it in a food blender, or in a Thai mortar to a paste.4. Put the paste into a saucepan, add 100gms (keep 400gms back!) of the sugar into the same pan and cook over a low heat until the mixture thickens, stirring all the time. Once it thicken after a few minutes, leave it to cool.5. Roll pieces of the soya paste in your hands to form small sausages 4cms long.6. Boil the remaining 400gms of sugar in a saucepan with just enough water to dissolve it all, this is to form a hot sugar syrup.7. Whip the egg yolks together.8. Take the soya sausages, dip them in the egg yolk until they're well covered with egg, then drop them into the simmering hot sugar syrup to cook. 9. The egg will cook giving them a yellow sweet glaze, remove them after 3 minutes or so, and place on a serving dish. 10. They can be eaten warm or cold.

Thai Rice Flour Muffins (Kanom Tui Fu)

This is the Thai version of muffins, they are made with rice flour, scented very gently with rose or other flower water and steamed rather than baked. To cook this you will need foil or paper cups, the dough mixture is runny and needs to be held in a cup during cooking. You can see from the pink muffin sliced in half in the picture above, that the mixture forms light moist muffins.
Ingredients for 4 Muffins125 gms Rice Flour125 gms Sugar125 ml Rose Water1 Teaspoon Fresh Yeast1 Teaspoon Baking SodaFood Colouring (Optional)
Preparation 1. Mix the yeast with the rice flour, add the rose water little by little and mix until the flour is soft.2. Add sugar, and the remaining rose water and the baking soda.3. At this point you can add 5 drops of food colouring. Or even divide the mixture into sections and colour each section separately.4. Stir the mixture well and place in a covered bowl, leave for 1-2 hours for bubbles to form.5. The mixture should be thick but still fluid. Fill each paper or foil cup to just below the top, the mixture will expand during cooking.6. Place in a Chinese steamer for 10 minutes. You can check they are cooked by sticking a tooth pick or fork into the centre and if it comes out clean it is cooked inside.7. Serve cold.

Mini Yellow Bean Fruits ( Kao Noom Look Choup )

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.
Ingredients 200 gms Yellow Bean150 gms Sugar1 Teaspoon Salt100 ml Coconut MilkFood Coloring
Ingredients for Glaze5 gms Agar Jelatin150 Water50 gms Sugar
Preparation1. Soak the yellow beans obernight, steam for 45 minutes.2. Pound or blend the bean to a paste, add mix with the sugar, salt and coconut milk.3. Place into a saucepan and heat gently, stirring continuously until the paste thickens, then leave it to cool.4. Now comes the artistic stage, take small pieces of the yellow bean paste, about 10gms each and form them into fruit shapes.5. I find it's a good idea to use toothpicks and a block of foam to hold the shapes while I paint them with the food colouring.6. Now to glaze, mix the agar with water and heat until the agar has fully dissolved.7. Leave it to cool slightly, but be careful not to let it set.8. Dip the fruit into the agar and stand them up by pushing the toothpick into foam or polystyrene. Let the agar set on the fruit, then repeat the process and coat the fruit again with another layer of agar. You may have to reheat the agar in the pan to melt it again each time.
Hints for Each FruitBanana - Bananas are slightly oblong, with 4 stripes running down the sides.Chom Pu - These are a Thai fruit, a little pink yellow and orange on the base and make the top slightly green.Cherries - The stalk I made from a stalk of coriander.
Chillies - I rolled out the basic shape and used a blunt knife to make the leaf shape at the top. Then skewer them with a toothpick and paint with food coloring.Man Cud - the leaves on the top are made by pressing in the top of a pen to give the round leaf shape.Melon Slices - I found it is easier to not paint the bottom edge of the melon.
Mini Orange - One of my favourites, make the leaf separately and be careful when dipping this one in agar because the leaf can come off.Mini Sweet Corn - Make a tapering sausage shape, cut a grating into the soya with a sharp knife, then paint with yellow food colouring and green edging.Mini Tomato - A blunt knife is used to make the star shaped leaves, by pushing down the soft yellow bean paste.
Mini Pears - I made these pears too big, and as you can see one of them bent when I was coating them in agar.

Thai Mini Pancakes ( Kanoom Krang )

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.Ingredients For Base 120 gms Rice Flour230 ml Water230 ml Water (Again)80 gms Cooked Fragrant Rice60 gms Shredded Fresh Coconut1/2 Teaspoon Salt1 Chopped Spring Onion
Preparation for Base1. Mix the rice flour and 230ml water and leave overnight to sour a little.2. The next day, mix the cooked rice, salt, shredded coconut, and the other 230ml water and blend to smooth out the rice, and add mixture this to the other rice mixture.Ingredients for Topping 230 ml Coconut Milk225 gms Sugar1/2 Teaspoon Salt
Preparation for Topping1. Mix all ingredients together and stir until the sugar and salt have completely dissolved.
Cooking1. Put the pan on the heat.2. Chop the spring onions finely.3. Spread a little oil on the surface by rubbing it down with oiled kitchen paper.4. Spoon the base mixture into each indent in the pan up to the top, sprinkle a few onions on it. 5. Cover and leave to cook for 2 to 3 minutes.6. Spoon just a little of the topping mixture over each pancake, let it set a little, but not too much.7. Take a spoon, turn each pancake over onto it's neighbor, you can see this in the photograph bottom right. Cover and just let the last of topping mixture set for a few seconds.

Black Sticky Rice Pudding ( Kao Niew Dum Pack )

This is the Thai version of rice pudding made with black sticky rice and coconut milk. I like to serve it, as in the photograph above, by pressing the rice into a decorative mould and pouring the coconut milk over the top. But you can also just spoon it into a bowl and pour the coconut over it.
Ingredients 150 gms Black Sticky Rice250 ml Water2 Tablespoons Sugar1 Tablespoon Corn Flour or Cassava Starch1/4 Teaspoon Salt100 ml Coconut Milk
Preparation1. Soak the sticky rice in water overnight.2. Drain and rince twice.3. Steam for 15 minutes in a Thai rice steamer.4. Place into a saucepan with the water, and boil for 12-15 minutes until the rice is soft.5. Stir in the sugar and salt, mix the corn flour with a little water and stir that in to thicken the rice.6. Continue heating and stirring the rice until it is thick, then spoon it into the moulds, or simply spoon into bowls.7. Turn the moulds out onto plates.8. Warm the coconut milk through and pour a little over the rice.

Rice Pancakes : pak moh

If you are wandering around the market, you might spot a hawker cooking little delicate rice pancakes on a steamer. These are called 'pak moh' or ?ҡˁ鍠in Thai. The steam cooker usually has at least one cone-shaped cover which is used in the cooking process. As you can see in the pictures, a piece of white cloth, either cotton or muslin, is stretched over the opening. A gap is left for the steam to escape. The batter is then spread thinly over the cloth. This batter is made from rice flour and tapioca. The cone-shaped cover is then placed over the top. She then turns her attention to the other steamer where the pancake is ready. She spoons in a small portion of a filling and then folds it together. This is then scooped up and put into the foam tray. She then spoons more of the batter on the now vacant cloth. By this time, the other rice pancake is ready and she moves across the cone-shaped cover and starts again with the other filling. The fillings vary from store to store. It can be shrimp or pork, beansprouts, chopped parsley, long green beans and sweetcorn. The woman in this photo was working very fast going back and forth between the two steamers. It was fascinating to watch. It seemed popular as there was quite a crowd of people waiting.