Often overlooked because of the delicious sweet potatoes themselves, the leaves of the sweet potato plant are nourishing as well. Sweet potatoes grow in the soil unseen, but above them is where all of the action is happening. Given enough space sweet potato vines are prolific. They will act as ground cover, stretching across your yard, and when given the opportunity to climb, will grab hold of nearby plants, posts, and fences. With plenty of sun provided, the heart shaped leaves stay ever stretching to find new opportunities to sun bathe.
Young sweet potato leaves on the end of a sprawling plant. The leaves are edible and have no bitter after taste.
Any gardeners reading are likely to join in our enthusiasm for these tasty leaves. The same can’t be said of regular potato leaves which can be toxic. Pumpkin, squash and other gourds have leafy vines, but the leaves have a sticky layer on them that needs to be peeled. Then there’s the incredibly popular cruciferous greens like kale which are well known, but sweet potato leaves are seldom as bitter, often being neutral tasting. This means they’re also good for introducing more green into the diet of young people as well.
A few ideas for cooking sweet potato include having them raw in a salad, or as an addition to a green smoothie. When harvesting them for a salad, look for the tender young leaves, often a deeper color than the larger leaves. For stews, stir frys, and any heavier cooking, the larger leaves hold up well. We use the beautiful new leaves as a colorful and tender garnish on top of other dishes as well. These leaves appear darker in color and more waxy looking, but lose this sheen as they grow larger.
Mix up your usual salad greens by adding sweet potato leaves. Here a young sweet potato stem anchors this salad (with the dark leaves), along with butterfly pea flowers and sesame seeds.
Often the young leaves are darker in color and more tender, making them a great for garnishing other dishes like this gaeng som curry with durian.
Today we want to share a bowl of simple, sweet potato soup. The recipe is versatile, allowing for lots of variations. Feel free to make it your own, using different vegetables and locally grown herbs if needed. The point is for the soup to be a vehicle for nutrition, and a champion for biodiversity. The flavor comes from the combination of soft and hard aromatics in the recipe, basil leaves and lemongrass, and should only be mildly sweet with an optional touch of heat from fresh chili. Enjoy the recipe below with a heap of sweet potato leaves, and any other nearby and nutritious ingredients you have to add.
Ingredients
Serves: 4-6 people
Equipment: mortar and pestle, pot
Prep & Cooking Time: 30 minutes
1L water or stock 500g sweet potato leaves 500g winter melon (substitute another soft gourd like zucchini if needed) 1 angled gourd, sliced 1 carrot, sliced 5 lemongrass stalks, smashed 6 shallots, smashed 4 coriander roots, smashed 3-4 fresh Thai chili (substitute with mild chili or bell pepper if desired) 1 tbsp of palm sugar 1 cup of soy sauce 1 tsp of salt 1 tsp of black soy sauce 1 bunch of lemon basil (or other sweet tasting herb leaf, like Italian basil)
The leaves on the sweet potato vine are dominant in the garden, and they’re tasty enough to be dominate your soup bowls too!
Instructions
1) Prep all your ingredients, washing and peeling as neccesary. Before you start cooking, consider which vegetables you’re adding that may need more time than others to cook. 2) Pound your shallots, coriander root, and lemongrass in a mortar and pestle. Or bruise with a heavy object. 3) Add water to your pot with these three aromatics (shallot, lemongrass, and coriander root) and bring to a boil. 4) When the soup is fragrant and lightly boiling, add any tough vegetables like carrot, followed later by soft veg like winter melon and angled gourd. Cook until soft. 5) Adjust your heat to low and season by adding your palm sugar, soy sauce, black soy sauce, and salt. Taste and adjust as needed. 6) Turn off the heat and add your fresh handful of lemon basil. 7) When serving remember to avoid adding lemongrass into your serving bowl. You can remove it completely, but leaving it in the soup will allow it to continue to add flavor to the broth.
The dominant flavors in this soup are the lemongrass and basil flavors, followed by a slight sweetness from the palm sugar and shallots.
This recipe is suitable for a large family of 5-6 people and may put a big dent in your garden. Don’t worry though, the sweet potato plants are resilient, and can survive your pruning and nibbling. Do let us know if you loved this recipe by donating to our charitable work, or signing up for one of our online classes. Then check back soon for more updates and recipes!
Tom Yum lovers will be excited to learn you can enjoy the popular soup in a variety of ways. One of our favorite renditions is in the form of fried rice. This is similar to what you would order at a street food stall with a wok station. If you can find fragrant herbs to add, this recipe will be a great way to spice up your usual homemade fried rice!
Aromatics & Cooking Method
If you’re new to tom yum, the flavors come from a combination of aromatic herbs popular in Thai cooking. Those herbs are lemongrass, galangal, and kaffir lime leaf. If you’ve ever had them in a Thai restaurant you may remember them because they’re the bits in the soup you can’t eat comfortably. Although all of them are edible, each is so coarse they would be really tough to chew.
To make the fried rice version, you’ll need to find your local asian grocer and prep the ingredients. Unlike the soup where the herbs will boil together, this recipe requires the elbow grease to pound them in a mortar and pestle. This is a big job, and is best done in a traditional stone mortar and pestle, so that each of the ingredients is properly smashed.
Homemade Thai chili jam is best (see our recipe), and you can use the excess oil for cooking your fried rice.
Can you put the items in a food processor or blender? Sure you can. However, often when we’re using the mortar and pestle, blending is not the most important function for using this traditional kitchen equipment. What we really desire are the essential oils from the ingredients that will make a paste that will remind your eyes, nose, and mouth of your favorite tom yum soup!
Finally, we should add some details about the moisture content of the fried rice. If you’re not cooking over high heat, or using leftover rice that is drier than rice freshly steamed, you may find the final product too soggy. If you know you prefer the drier, more crusty fried rice— be prepared with a heavy duty wok or pan to use. That way you can stir fry you rice longer, and scrape the stuck rice at the center of the wok to free the toastiest bits before they burn (not the best use of your non stick pan). Don’t be surprised to find cooks who love their fried rice this style, even throwing the wok or skillet of fried rice into the oven for a crispy finish.
Tom Yum Fried Rice
Gather, wash, and prep all of your Thai ingredients for this recipe, along with the protein of your choice.
Equipment: mortar and pestle (preferably stone), wok
Ingredients
1 cup of rice
70-100g of protein (we used tofu)
1 tbsp of oil
30g mushroom
30g tomato (plum or less watery tomatoes work better)
20g onion
2 kaffir lime leaves
2 tbsp of soy sauce
2 tbsp of sweet chili jam (nam prik pow)
Optional: Lime to squeeze on top and spring onion for garnish
Tom Yum Paste Ingredients:
1 tbsp of minced galangal
1 tbsp of thin sliced lemongrass
2 chili (optional)
Directions
Prep all your ingredients. In mortar and pestle, pound lemongrass, galangal and chili together. Set aside.
Chop your proteins bite sized or smaller.
In a wok over medium heat, add a tbsp of cooking oil.
Add your proteins (If using tender meats like shrimp, you can set aside after cooking) and stir until mostly cooked.
Then add your paste and allow to become aromatic. Followed closely by your onions.
When your proteins are cooked and other ingredients smell nice, add your mushrooms and tomato.
Now you’re ready to add your rice. Mix with everything and add soy sauce and chili paste.
Stir fry until ingredients are well incorporated, or you have achieved the desired texture (give it an extra few minutes if you prefer a dry fried rice).
Plate and garnish, reminding your guests to squeeze their lime wedge over the top before enjoying.
The combination of classic Thai aromatics makes this a spicy choice no matter what meat, seafood, or plant based alternative you choose for your recipe.
The past few weeks have been a trying time for everyone around the world. Wherever you are reading from, we do wish you good health and would like to share our concern and condolences to anyone who has been directly impacted by the corona virus Covid-19.
At the moment we have few guests or activities planned. However, if you do have a cooking class booked, we want to make sure everyone is aware, we consider your health, and the health of our staff is of the utmost importance.
As an organization whose mission is so closely tied to the handling and cooking of food, we are well prepared to make sure we maintain a safe working and learning environment. We need your help to continue to follow the best practices during this time, and support organizations like ours that work with communities particularly vulnerable to viral disease.
This includes our regular hygienic equipment: * Air conditioning * Air purifier * Anti-bacterial soap * Water filtering and purifying
Our regular hygiene practices: * Sanitizing surfaces * Soap at every sink (there’s 3!) * Limited class size
And new policies: * Postponed or canceled gatherings with over 10 people * No new volunteers will be accepted * Refusing guests with symptoms of illness or poor hygiene * Refunding guests as necessary (minus any booking fees) * Providing more online recipes and cooking courses for you (if you have a request let us know!)
To limit the spread of the virus we may need to refuse service to guests or refund guests who are unable to visit due to travel restrictions. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience this causes.
Like so many people around the world, we’re still trying to wrap our minds around going from daily cooking classes to only a few a month. Our social enterprise is crippled, but we hope to one day get it roaring again. If you would like to help through donations, they would be greatly appreciated and put to use helping those in need.
In the meantime, we will still be working with marginalized youth and their families in small groups. As there is often poor information in these communities, we’re hoping to teach people and prevent the spread of the virus to their communities. Otherwise, we will be testing recipes and hopefully sharing more pdf and video resources so that you can join us in cooking delicious Thai food wherever you may be.
Thank you for your understanding, be safe, and let us know if you’ve got a Thai recipe request that would brighten your day!
Today’s recipe is a favorite, a quick Thai style green curry filled with veggies. The emphasis of this plant based recipe is to use the curry as a vehicle for nutrition. Got certain veggies the kids don’t like? Drop them in green curry paste to help change their mind.
In addition to lots of vegetable, this recipe uses healthier noodles than you typically get in Thai restaurants. We chose brown rice noodles with chia seed, but we’re seeing a great variety of interesting noodles these days in the super markets and encourage you to explore using them when you have the opportunity.
Making curry is a great opportunity to incorporate a variety of vegetables into your diet.
If you have time, making your own curry paste is always best, and we usually teach guests in our Bangkok cooking classes exactly how. However, today’s recipe is aimed at busy people using a curry paste packet. Grab curry packets at your local grocery store, but before you purchase, flip them over and check the ingredient list. Many curries include shrimp paste, or other meat based flavoring. There are lots of choices, but we usually recommend the Kanokwan and WorldFoods brands as good options.
Once you’ve got your curry paste and coconut milk on standby, you’re nearly ready to cook. We use fresh coconut whenever possible, but we tested this recipe with canned coconut milk because we know it is easier to find for readers outside of Thailand. So use quick version of green curry on a busy night, remembering not to stress too much about certain ingredients.
Feel free to mix and match the veggies of your choice in the green curry. Just be sure to adjust the cooking time for more dense veggies, so that everything is tender when you serve. If you already keep lots of veggies prepped in the fridge from salads and other recipes, for example cherry tomatoes, this will decrease the amount of prep time. Finally, check that you have the classic Thai seasoning ingredients such as soy sauce and palm sugar.
Thai Green Curry Recipe
Prep Time: 10-15 mins
Cooking Time: 15 mins
Feeds: 1 – 2 people
Skill Level: Intermediate
Diets: Gluten-free, Halal, Plant Based, Vegetarian, Vegan, Nut-Free and for soy-free replace the soy sauce with salt.
Gluten free brown rice noodles are becoming more popular with several brands starting to appear in supermarkets around the world.
Green Curry Ingredients
Essential Ingredients
Curry paste 50g
Coconut Milk 1 cup
Rice Noodles 60g
Tofu 75g
Light Soy Sauce 1 tbsp
Miso 1 tsp
Palm sugar (aka coconut sugar) 2 tsp
Thai Herbs
Thai basil leaves 1 small handful
Green peppercorn 1 branch
Fingerroot 1 tbsp
Large chili – 1 fruit
Kaffir lime leaf – 2 leaves
Veggies
Cherry tomato 3-4 fruit*
Orinji mushrooms 20g
Green okra 2 pieces
Micro greens 50g (we used a mix of sunflower, radish, and morning glory sprouts)
Moonflower 4 buds
Baby corn 2 cobs
Pea eggplant 5 fruit
When you include so many nutritious ingredients, this becomes a healthy one plate Thai meal that you can make in a hurry.
Green Curry Instructions
Wash and prep all of your fresh veggies and herbs. You want to cut them so they cook quickly and are easy to eat. Fingerroot is not essential, but if you can find it, cut into small thin strips. Cut your cherry tomatoes in half. Julienne your okra, baby corn, and mushroom.
The protein source in this recipe is tofu. Firm tofu is best, rinse and cut into large squares.
Setup a pot of water to boil. Add your noodles when boiling. All noodles are different, refer to the instructions on the noodles you purchased for cooking time. Set a timer, rice noodles typically take 5-10 minutes once boiling. When finished strain and set aside.
Place your wok over low to medium heat and add your curry paste. Stir until fragrant, add a tablespoon of coconut milk to keep your paste from burning.
When fragrant add your most dense herbs and vegetables so they can begin cooking first. For example, pea eggplant, fingerroot, and kaffir lime leaf.
Next add your tofu, allowing it to mix with the green curry. Add more spoons of coconut milk to be sure nothing is burning, but the goal is to soften the tougher ingredients and bring out the aroma. This means a little bit of char on your tofu or veggies is fine, just be careful not to over do it, or leave your wok unattended.
When everything smells good and begins to soften, begin adding the remainder of your coconut milk, followed by the remaining veggies (except micro greens and basil). You’re in the home stretch with your curry, congrats.
Allow to simmer on medium heat while seasoning with light soy sauce, miso, and palm sugar.
If the soft veggies are suitably cooked, turn your heat off and add the handful of sweet basil and micro greens. In a pinch, Italian basil can be substituted for sweet basil. Both however, take little to no time to cook. Stir the leaves in your hot curry for a few moments until wilted.
You did it! Your nutritious Thai dinner is ready in under an hour. Pat yourself on the back while plating your noodle first, followed by gently ladling your vegetables and curry over the top.
If serving guests who are unfamiliar with the hard aromatics, like kaffir lime leaf and green peppercorn, take the liberty to remove them when plating.
We’re hosting our very first plant based cooking class in Bangkok. The event will be a Thai language class taking place on Monday, March 23rd at 3pm. Guests who book will have the opportunity to learn how to make 5 plant based dishes. The workshop style dinner experience should be a fun time of learning and celebrating healthy eating together.
Instruction for the class will be in Thai, led by Panisha Chanwilai, a manager at Courageous Kitchen. Panisha grew up helping her mom in the kitchen, who let her assist, as she made spicy Southern Thai dishes. Panisha converted from the hectic office lifestyle and diet, to become a food and nutrition enthusiast. Today she is a plant based eating devotee and trainer, endlessly experimenting with new ingredients. She will share about her journey, and why she believes plant based eating may be more simple than you believe.
The workshop and dinner is aimed at busy Thais who may not have time to do recipe research or spend hours cooking. Panisha has done her best to simplify a few of her favorite dishes, and is excited to share them with an open minded group. She hopes all of the participants walk away more confident in their ability to create healthy, nutritious meals at home.
The dishes include:
1. Spicy Smoked Eggplant Dip, Nam Prik Ma Kua Yao น้ำพริกมะเขือยาว
2. Spicy Mushroom Salad, Yum Hed Ruam ยำเห็ดรวม
3. Stir Fried Red Curry with Tempeh, Tempeh Pad Prik Kaeng เทมเป้ผัดพริกแกง
4. Essential Veggie Soup, Kaeng Jued แกงจืดหมูก้อนวีแกน
5. Coconut Snowballs, Kanom Tom ขนมต้ม
The cost to participate in this inaugural plant based cooking class is 1000 baht per person. The dinner is limited to 15 participants and takes place in Panisha’s home in Sukhumvit 101/1. Book your seat by sending your bank transfer receipt to line id panisha_p. Detailed directions will be sent to all confirmed guests.
You’re here because you’re addicted to sticky rice, sweet tropical mango, and everything that comes along with it!
We don’t blame you.
Welcome friend, you’re in a safe place because today the Courageous Kitchen has got a few versions of Thailand’s most renown dessert, mango and sticky rice, to share with everyone.
Guests enjoy making mango and sticky rice in our Bangkok cooking class.
If you’re new here, we’re a nonprofit with a cooking class that raises money to help improve the lives of youth in Bangkok. We do this simply by hosting tourists visiting Bangkok for fun cooking classes. And you guessed it, one of our most requested desserts is the notorious mango and sticky rice. As we’ve cooked it for you over the years, we’ve had fun learning about all the components of the dessert that make it special, and trying different variations of the dessert.
Don’t let the name fool you, making sticky rice is a lot more work than many people know.
A Delicious, but Tedious Dessert
Although the name sounds like you can just slap wet rice on a plate with mango, that couldn’t be further from the truth. The ‘sticky rice’ used by Thais, isn’t just your regular rice gone soggy, but a separate species of rice entirely. Southeast asian glutinous rice is a beast entirely of its own, and if you don’t give the rice the respect it deserves, it may ruin your day (and your kitchen), when it fails to cook up as nicely as you remember from your trip to Thailand.
For starters the rice has to be washed and then soaked for hours. Many people will soak the rice overnight and steam it in the morning. Next, while your steamed rice is hot, you want to add your sweet coconut sauce so that it can be absorbed by the rice for at least thirty minutes. This isn’t to mention getting your mung beans all toasted and ready, and creating a salty version of the coconut sauce to use as a topping.
Not sure what all the fuss is about? Have a gawk at the classic version of mango and sticky rice.
While making the dish overall isn’t hard, you will have to put in some time and attention to the process if you want it to yield great results. Don’t fret though, we’ve included the instructions for classic mango and sticky rice in the pdf download of our recipe book.
Thais are True Mango Connoisseurs
The sticky rice isn’t the only difficult component of this dessert. The mangoes, depending where you live, can be more than troublesome to find. When you do find them, they may be overripe, or just breeds that don’t lend well to slicing nicely to the pairing. This may because the particular fruit is too fibrous (you know those stringy bits you get on the inside that take over). If they’re large like Mexico’s ‘Tommy Atkins’ mangoes they may be too soft, mushy, and overripe before becoming sweet enough.
While many western countries outside of the tropical zone count themselves fortunate to import a few breeds of mango from places like Mexico and India, Thailand is home to over 200 varieties. The biodiversity found in the country for this one particular fruit is astounding, and the way Thais consume them is a reflection of that variety. They’re eaten unripe and crunchy, soft and velvety, and about every combination in between. At times they’re paired with pungent, fishy dipping sauces, and in other instances dipped in a mix of sugar, salt, and lime.
Mango and sticky rice can hold it’s own against your favorite western desserts like chocolate mousse and banana pudding, or have them all together!
You may not be surprised to learn then that mangoes, during harvest season especially, are shockingly cheap in Thailand. One of the fanciest of Thai ‘nam dok mai’ (a thai cultivar whose name means flower nectar) mangoes may fetch a price of 120 baht or more per kilo. But just think, that’s still only about $4 for a whole heap of luxurious mango to stuff in your face.
The cheaper varietals abound, and people in the countryside might have a mango tree or 20 in their orchards. The ubiquity and variety of mangoes available in Thailand, and their pairing with the humble sticky rice is telling. While jasmine rice was tapped for export, and touted by elites, sticky rice on the other hand remained what average people ate from day to day. You can be confident that the mango and sticky rice combination then, wasn’t a five star chef invention, but made it’s way from the lowly countryside, to the notoriety it enjoys today.
Mango and sticky rice, presented sushi style, rolled in a thin crepe and covered in coconut creme.
Sticky Variations of the Dessert to Try
Now that mango and sticky rice has gone around the world, cooks are challenged to put a new spin on the dish. Serving the dish with a unique presentation can be just what’s needed to catch the eye of locals ready to get excited again about the old favorite, and newcomers to Thailand who may be trying the dessert for the first time. This may mean naturally dying the sticky rice until you have a rainbow of rice to serve with your mango, or even giving it a Japanese makeover, by serving it sushi style.
Another abnormally eye-catching version calls for you to do some kitchen voodoo on the mango. You’ll need to slice the top off and carefully etch away at the flesh against the seed of the mango, being careful not to let your knife cut through the thin skin. If you’re skillful enough, you can create enough space in the in mango to begin twisting the seed until it pops out. Now you’ve got a natural bowl, ready to be filled with mango, sticky rice, and any other fruit your heart desires. When we spotted Chef Seng’s stuffed mango and sticky rice on instagram, our faces lit up and we knew we had to give it try.
A new favorite in our Bangkok cooking class, stuffed mango and sticky rice!
So how do you like your mango and sticky rice? Rolled sushi style? Or shoved back into the fruit so the mango becomes a natural bowl? Maybe you’re like us and will always love the classic version.
Whichever one suits you, we hope you’ve learned more about what it takes to put this deliciousness together, and that the best version is one you can enjoy with friends.
Alright sweet tooth friends either get cooking, or get over here to help us eat them all!
