Hot Thai Spicy shrimp paste Chili Sauce

Hot Thai spicy shrimp paste Chili Sauce or Nam Prik Kapi ; น้ำพริกกะปิ in Thai. This recipe is special for myself. It is not something that my husband will appreciate the shrimp paste. So I have lot of vegetables and mackerel for him to enjoy with me. If you have dry shrimp in hand please add in the sauce. I do not have it this time. It came out good.

Ingredients for the sauce :
1) 1 1/2 Tbsp shrimp paste
2) 1 1/2 palm sugar
3) 2 lime juice ( 6-7 Tbsp )
4) 4 cloves garlic
5) 12 Thai chili
6) 1 Tbsp fish sauce
If you have dry shrimp please add it up to the recipe. 2 Tbsp of dry shrimp

Ingredients for the side dish:
1) 2 mackerel fish
2) 3 eggs
3) 3 sprigs of dill
4) 1 tsp thin soy sauce
5) 1 Tbsp canola oil
6) fresh vegetables or cooked vegetables. Here I have fresh Thai eggplants, steamed broccoli, carrots, cabbage and long Green beans.

Preparation:
1) Here is some of my ingredients, lime, garlic, hot chili, shrimp paste, eggs, palm sugar and mackerel fish .
2) Here is shrimp paste I wrap it up with banana leave and put on the oven 400 F for 5-10 minutes. It looks too much in the picture but I did use it 1 1/2 Tbsp.

3) If you like to fry mackerel is good too. Here I put on the oven 400 F 30-45 minutes or until turn gold or cooked.

4) Peel garlic, remove chilies stems, wash pat dry and put in a mortar.
5) Coarsely pound chilies and garlic. If you have dry shrimp, you can add into the mortar and well pound with all ingredients.

6) Add shrimp paste into the mortar.
7) Then well pound with all ingredients.
8) Add palm sugar. Pound the mixture together.
9) Adding palm sugar, lime juice and fish sauce to suit your taste.
10) It should has a taste of sour, spicy and sweet.
11) Nam prik ka pi can be served with omelet. I put dill into my omelet. It is ok. I prefer to make omelet with Phak cha-om but I can not find one.

13) You can cut into a size 1 " dice to serve with the dish.
14) When the mackerel is ready. Take out from the oven and serve immediately.
15) This can be served in many ways. Spoon over fresh steamed rice or use as a dipping sauce for fresh or steamed vegetables such as cucumber, long green bean, cabbage or bamboo .In Thailand this is very popular to eat with fried mackerel fish or pla too and omelet with cha-om.
I hope you enjoy my cooking :-)

Thai fish cake

Thai fish cake or Tod Mun Pla: ทอดมันปลา in Thai. Thai fish cake is easy to make. It's really tasty by itself and it can be served with cucumber dipping sauce which sounded good. Here I am sharing my recipe and pictures of Thai fish cake with you, trying to re-create what I had in my kitchen. They are as good as they get. I really like it.

Ingredients:
1) 2 Lbs Tilapia fillet
2) 2 eggs
3) 3 Tbsp red curry
4) 4 kaffir lime leaves
5) 1 cup slice long green beans
6) 2 and 1/2 Tbsp fish sauce
7) 1 Tbsp sugar
8) 1/4 tsp salt
9) 1 cup canola oil

Ingredients for cucumber dipping sauce :
1) 1/2 cucumber
2) 3 sprigs cilantro
3) 1 green onion
4) 1 shallot
5) 3 hot Thai chilies
6) 4 Tbsp white vinegar
7) 2 Tbsp sugar
8) 1/4 tsp salt
9) 2 Tbsp ground roasted peanuts
10) 1/2 cup of water

Preparation:
1) Wash tilapia fillet, pat dry.

2) This is kaffir lime leave from my garden. I am so excited to cook from it.
3) Wash kaffir lime leaves and remove central stems and thinly sliced. 4) Wash long green beans , cut long green beans both end, and slice into small pieces.
5) slide tilapia into 2" lengths, put into food processor and blend well.


6) Add red curry paste, and mix together.

7) Add 2 eggs.
8) Add fish sauce, sugar and salt then blend all ingredients until sticky.
9) Add thinly sliced kaffir lime leaves.
10) Add cut long green beans.
11) Mix well.

12) In a pan, add 1 cup of canola oil on medium heat. When the oil is hot spoon of mixture to deep fry into a oil, form into small 2-3 inch diameter cakes.
13) Fry in oil until golden brown on both sides.
14) Drain on paper towel.


15) Wash all vegetables for making cucumber dipping sauce. There is sliced shallot to add in a dipping also which I forgot to make a photograpgh.
16) Thinly slice all vegetables.
17) Heat the water, vinegar and sugar in a sauce pan until the sugar dissolves.
18) When the mixture get cold, mix everything together.

19) Put the fried fish cake on a plate and serve with cucumber dipping sauce.

Guacamole

First of all, happy valentine's day. I hope it isn't too late. I hope you had a good time with your special person. I went out for lovely dinner with my husband at Thai orchid restaurant (Berwyn). The food was great and we know so many Thai friends and family. That was fun. I had a chance to visit one group of my husband's student in New Jersey on last week. There is one of student put the guacamole on the table with some corn chip. I would like to try to make it sometime and she send me a simple recipe to me and here I try to make it. Thank you Maricarmen. First recipe of Mexican food. I am so excited!

Ingredients:
1) 3 ripe avocados
2) 1/2 white onion
3) 1 jalapeno pepper (Here I used banana pepper)
4) 1 small bunch of cilantro
5) 2 limes

Preparation:
1) Wash cilantro, banana pepper and peel onion.
2) Mince onion , banana pepper, cilantro.
3) Cut avocados in half.
4) Remove seed. Scoop out avocado from the peel, put in a mixing bowl. Using a spoon, mash the avocado.
5) Add minced onion, cilantro and banana pepper then lime juice and some salt.
6) Mash some more.
7) Here is a very quick guacamole. 8) Enjoy guacamole with your favorite corn chips.