Thai Duck & Noodle Soup

I've been dying to try this recipe out, ever since I first saw it in Keith Floyd's Thai Food. Just the image of this rich, dark broth makes me salivate.

We had crispy duck with Chinese pancakes for dinner on Friday night and, as usual, I saved the carcass, bones and giblets from the duck to use in another dish. As an aside, crispy duck is so easy to make - you just roast it on a rack at 170 degrees for 4 hours, then 30 mins at 220 degrees. Job done, thanks Nigella!

This stock is very different to my usual rough home stock, the ingredients are much more exotic and the liquid is incredibly flavourful almost right from the start.


First, pop two star anise and a cinnamon stick on the heat in a large, dry pan for half a minute or so. Then add all of your duck, five fat (or ten small) crushed cloves of garlic and four pints of water (about 2 litres). Stir in 2 tbsp of palm sugar * (or brown sugar) and 6 tbsp each of dark soy sauce and nam pla (fish sauce).


A handful of chopped ginger next, along with one of the more unusual ingredients: 5 bruised coriander roots. I headed out to the garden and pulled up a clump of coriander that was going to seed, you could do the same with a wilting pot from the supermarket. 
I separated out the roots to wash and then hung the stalks, with their seeds attached, upside down to dry. I put the roots I wasn't going to use out to dry in the sun on a teatowel.

When the broth came to a boil, I popped a lid on, turned the heat down and left it to simmer for an hour and a half.

In the meantime I tore up some lettuce leaves, washed and spun them dry. I didn't have any beansprouts so I cut a fresh carrot into thin strips to lend that crunchy texture. I also sliced up some spring onions and a red chilli.

I put a small sliced green chilli into a little bowl, covered it with vinegar and left it to steep. I had run out of cider vinegar so I used white wine vinegar instead; I can't say the difference was particularly noticeable.

When the soup was ready it was just a matter of draining it through a colander into a fresh pan and keeping it warm while I cooked some flat noodles from the cupboard. I had Japanese style dried udon, so that's what I used.


The noodles go in the bowl first, followed by the lettuce, sping onion, carrots (or beansprouts) and red chilli. The small amount of leftover duck meat I had went on top, along with a drizzle of garlic oil. Then a few generous ladlefuls of soup, fresh coriander leaves and a few teaspoons of the chilli vinegar.

It was as good as I'd dreamed it would be from looking at that photo in the book. I would definitely make this again.

A note on palm sugar:

Please don't confuse palm sugar with palm oil (or the oil palm). I've read and heard a few people saying how we shouldn't use "palm sugar/oil" because of the environmental impacts of producing it. 

Palm oil plantations have been directly linked with deforestation and thus the endangerment of orangutangs and many other animals, as well as destroying the lives of the people living nearby. Palm oil comes from the oil palm, whereas palm sugar comes from the palmyra palm (or date palm or coconut palm) - these are all completely different plants.

I strongly suspect that the palm sugar industry isn't all roses and light either, however I don't think it deserves to be boycotted due to a misunderstanding about its name.

Palm oil presents a much greater threat and I'd encourage you to examine products you buy with palm oil in them and at least check the sustainability rating of the supplier. 
Interestingly, palm sugar tapping could possibly present a part of the solution to the palm oil problem. I haven't been able to get hold of Masarang palm sugar yet (see below), but I'm on the look out for it. 

Palm Oil
Palm Oil Wiki
Palm Oil article by Greenpeace
Palm Oil article in the Independent (2009)
Palm Oil usage list from Panorama
Palm Oil article by the Rainforest Action Network
Interesting article about sustainable palm oil from The Ecologist 
Friends of the Earth: Greasy Palms expose
Palm Sugar
In depth look at non-wood forest products, including palm sweeteners, as a sustainable source of income for forest and near-forest communities (FAO/UN)
Palm Sugar Wiki
Treehugger article on palm sugar tapping as an alternative industry to palm oil 
IPS article on the impact of producing palm sugar vs palm oil
Sugar Palm Tree - The Masarang Foundation 
Earth Day: Saving the World's Orangutangs
Ashoka.org - Willie Smits

Father's Day Thai Dinner (Pad Thai, Red Curry & Rice)

I asked my Dad what he wanted for his Father's Day dinner and, after talking about a few ideas, we settled on a home-made version of his favourite Thai takeaway - without the insane amounts of fat, msg, salt and sugar.

I chose to make a chicken pad thai and a king prawn red curry, alongside the obligatory semi-steamed, shortgrain rice. We also agreed on his favourite pudding, a lemon tart, but I'll cover that in a separate post.

I did as much of the prep as possible before cooking anything, obviously making the two dishes at the same time. I debated whether to write this post in the same order but changed my mind. I've put the steps of each dish separately as, although I wanted to give my Dad that "takeaway experience" of variety (and leftovers!), either one of these would quite comfortably stand as an entire meal for four people.

Thai Red Curry Paste (inspired by Keith Floyd's "Thai Food", p45)

I put three long, red, deseeded chillies in a bowl with hot water to soften up. While they were doing that, I finely sliced 2 lemongrass stalks and 3 shallots, several garlic cloves, plus I zested a couple of limes. All of this went into my Mum's little magimix, along with 10 white peppercorns and a teaspoon of shrimp paste. I briefly heated a heaped teaspoon each of ground cumin and coriander and half of nutmeg, until they started to smell strongly, these also went in the magimix with the chopped chillies and a little water.
It took a while to turn into a paste, and a bit more water, but it did eventually turn into a nice paste. It keeps in the fridge for almost a week and works brilliantly as a marinade.

Prawn Red Curry (inspired by Keith Floyd's "Thai Food", p13, & "Nigella Express", p15)

This is quite an easy one, once you've made the curry paste. First de-skin and cube half a butternut squash and a sweet potato. Heat up a large pan and fry a couple of tablespoons of the curry paste plus a sliced spring onion for a few minutes. Add a tin of coconut milk, half a pint of chicken stock and a good few squirts of nam pla (fish sauce). 

When it's simmering add the sweet potato, butternut squash and a good tablespoon of lime leaves (they sell these frozen in packs at waitrose). Leave it for quarter of an hour and add some green beans and a load of raw prawns, I used frozen ones but there's no reason not to use fresh.







When they're cooked, season with a little dark sugar, a few squeezes of lime juice and extra nam pla if needed. Finally, mix in lots of chopped fresh coriander just before serving. It's great with sliced mango, but my Mum doesn't like fruit in savoury food so I left them out.

Chicken Pad Thai (inspired by Keith Floyd's "Thai Food", p77)

First of all, put flat noodles into a bowl of hot water for 15 minutes. Move them about with a fork every so often, to stop them sticking together. 
Add 3 tbsp of tamarind paste, 2 of nam pla and 2 of dark sugar, plus a teaspoon of chilli powder together in a small bowl. Stir until the sugar has dissolved. On a chopping board, smash up a handful of dry roasted peanuts.

Fry up some chopped garlic, followed by chicken peices (preferably thighs) until cooked through, then put these into a dish on the side.
Reheat the pan with a bit more oil and then scramble a couple of eggs in it.  Return the chicken to the pan, along with the mostly-cooked noodles and a sliced spring onion. After a minute or so, add the pot of tamarind mixture and half of the peanuts. I didn't have any beansprouts, but this is where you'd add them if you did. I had mushrooms, so that's what I added.


Keep stir frying until the noodles are cooked through, then add the rest of the nuts, a load of fresh chopped coriander and fresh chilli (I put this in a bowl on the side, so we could all choose the heat we liked).

Steamed Rice (memorised from "Korean Cooking" by Young Jin Song)

One teacup of shortgrain rice is enough to generously feed two people, in this case I used two cups. The first step is to wash it; quite apart from possible contamination by rat wee in a warehouse, this removes all the dust and some of the starch too, which leads to tastier, less squishy rice.

I put the rice in its saucepan, fill it with water, gently squoosh it around and drain it - five times. Then I cover the rice with cold water to about half an inch over the rice for one cup, an inch for two cups and so on. Add a few drops of sesame oil and cover with the lid. 

Put on a high heat and keep an eye on it, once it starts to bubble you need to turn it right down and then leave it for 14 minutes.
 
Take it off the heat and leave it to sit for another 5 minutes. Don't take the lid off! Serve it using a fork, it separates the grains nicely instead of squishing them together. I love this rice and I make it to go with all sorts of things.

Pad See (not) Ew

I had a bit of a poxy day today, so I opted for one of my favourite comfort foods: simple Thai style noodles.

Easy to make and easy to eat, using a mix of storecupboard and cheap fresh ingredients. I do like the proper Thai flat rice noodles, but I've done this with ordinary, plain dried Asian style noodles before and it's been fine.

First things first: put the noodles in a bowl with boiling hot water to soak for 15 minutes. 

Then cut up the veg and put them to one side, I do the veg first so I can reuse the chopping board for the chicken, without having to do more than wipe it down in between.

There are three clusters of veg, the base (garlic, onion and a stick of celery if you have one) all diced, the sliced greens (spring greens, cabbage, spinach, whatever) and the sprinklings - red chilli, spring onion and coriander. 

Now move onto the chicken. Dice up a couple of chicken breasts or four thighs (off the bone) into big chunks and toss in cornflour. Sounds like a pain in the bum but it is absolutely worth it, trust me! 

Heat up a frying pan with some oil until it is hot hot hot, then lay the chicken peices in it. Don't move them, don't stir, just leave them be until the underside is properly coloured brown, then turn them over and leave them again until cooked. Then pop them on a plate to one side.

Seriously: that dusting of cornflour and hands-off cooking in a hot pan makes the difference between dry, chewy chicken and moist, juicy chicken. If you're going to spend good money buying a beautiful, good quality, happy-lifed chicken then it's definitely worth spending a few extra minutes getting the absolute best out of it. 

Around this time you probably want to drain the noodles.

So, now pop the base veg and a big fat dollop of grated ginger into the same pan and stir fry until almost fully cooked, then add the greens and a tiny spot of water (you don't want to fry the greens so they're crispy, so a half steam action is the trick). Throw in two tablespoons of light soy sauce, one of dark, a few squirts of nam pla (fish sauce) and a tablespoon of sugar. 

Once the veg is cooked add in the noodles and mix them up, then the chicken and finally the sprinklings.

Top with crushed, dry roasted peanuts, eat with a contented smile on your face and dream of being on holiday in Thailand, instead of back at work tomorrow.