Thai Scallops in Yellow Curry

When we were recently in Bangkok Thailand we stayed at the Sukhothai Hotel. It is a wonderful luxury hotel - our official go to hotel in Bangkok. The food there was so exceptional that we never left the hotel to eat! One night we had Lobster in Red Curry, then next night we had Lobster in Yellow Curry. We loved them both. I wanted to eat those dishes in Los Angeles. Interestingly we realized that with all of the Thai restaurants in Los Angeles there isn’t a high-end Thai Restaurant in Los Angeles that could make the recipes we wanted.

We finally found a recipe in the book: Thai Food by David Thompson. Unfortunately there was a major problem: the recipe calls for Coriander (Cilantro) Root. When you buy Cilantro in a market you purchased the snipped off leaves, you don’t get the root. We asked Preech the Thai chef at Jar Restaurant about cilantro root, and he said it isn’t available fresh but can be found in some Thai Market’s freezer. I went to a couple of Thai markets, and finally found the frozen roots. We were good to go. It got better! We went to the Hollywood Farmer’s Market and at an Asian stall we actual found fresh Cilantro, roots and all. We were ready to cook.

Thais often use Red Rice. It is very crunchy. We had never cooked it before. When I washed the rice I noticed that it has very little starch. We cooked it in our Rice Cooker I used the appropriate amount of water for brown rice. The rice was a little dry and we added additional water at the end to get the correct consistency. I now know exactly how much to use. We substituted scallops for lobster for this first attempt at yellow curry. It was great! We will make it again, we also plan to make Red Curry from the same cookbook.

SOUTHERN-STYLE CURRY OF MUD CRAB

gengguwa malayu

Thai Food

David Thompson

This curry is quite common in the south of Thailand, and shares many qualities with Malaysian curries.

Any fish - especially the long, silver-skinned ribbon fish - is used there, but scallops or clams are also very good. Although traditionally there is no vegetable garnish in this curry, I think 'betel' leaves, pickled mustard greens or some sour fruit, like santol or langsart, are delicious inclusions.

1     large live mud crab - about (2-3 lb)

1     cup coconut milk

2     cups stock or water

1     tablespoons white sugar

3     tablespoons fish sauce

2     tablespoons tamarind water handful of torn 'betel' leaves – optional

1     cup coconut cream

5     kaffir lime leaves, finely shredded

paste

6     dried long red chillies, deseeded, soaked and drained

large pinch of salt

2     teaspoons scraped and chopped coriander root

5     tablespoons chopped lemongrass

3     tablespoons chopped red shallot 3 tablespoons chopped garlic

1     tablespoon chopped red turmeric

1     tablespoon shrimp paste (gapi)

First, make the paste

Kill the crab humanely, and rinse off any mud or dirt. Then remove the top of its shell, scrape out any tomalley or roe and chop the crab into bite-size pieces.

Bring coconut milk and stock to the boil and simmer until the liquid has slightly separated - only a matter of moments. Season with sugar, fish sauce and tamarind water, and add 3 tablespoons of the paste. Simmer for a minute before adding the crab and 'betel' leaves. Continue to simmer until cooked. Check seasoning: it should be salty and sour. Finish with coconut cream and serve sprinkled with lime leaves.