Last month we challenged our Instagram friends to a Thai food themed Quarantine Cook-Off. We were blown away by all of the creativity!
Our instructions were simple: create a Thai inspired dish, post on social media, and tell us what courage means to you. Here are a couple of the standout meals submitted from around the globe:
Papaya Salad submitted by Mony Hean
“Courage to me is the willingness to face fear, embrace uncertainty and to stand up for one’s beliefs!”
Amen, Mony. We couldn’t agree more!
Longtime CK supporter and volunteer, Daniel Saguin, said these powerful words:
“Courage means learning more about yourself, your culture, and your traditions while being open to things you don’t know- histories that are both good and bad.”
Daniel’s ‘Kanom Jin’, an herb topped fragrant red curry with vermicelli rice noodles
And last but not least the winners of the challenge: Henry and Barbara from California who said:
“Courage is stepping out of your comfort zone, entering the unknown, seeking to improve your life and the lives of those around you.”
At Courageous Kitchen this is exactly what we strive to do every single day: improve the lives of others. With the uncertainty in our current climate, it’s important for us to remember that something as simple as growing your own food or sharing a meal can make a tremendous impact in reducing food mileage, healing your body, and the environment. By providing fresh produce and a hot meal for our students it can mean the difference of whether or not to they are going hungry that night.
Winners: Vegan Red Curry Ramen by Henry and Barbara.
We were so impressed with everyone’s dishes, but especially by your words of wisdom. Thank you to Henry and Barb for the beautifully presented meal. As our winners they will be receiving a Thai Cooking Kit full of our favorite ingredients like palm sugar and coconut milk, so they can keep perfecting their favorite dishes!
For those of you who didn’t have the chance to enter, don’t fret! Our friends from Taste of Thailand have curated an “I love Thailand” care box for those residing in the country. Each box contains items from small businesses and local purveyors, including homemade sauces from our students in the Courageous Kitchen.
The ‘I Love Thailand’ gift set for your favorite food enthusiast.
Care boxes will be delivered straight to your doorstep and with every sale, you’re ensuring the purchase of two meals for those in need. To our US and Canadian friends, don’t you worry because we’re crafting up something equally as exciting for you all. Be on the lookout for details. The trio of sauces included feature homemade sriracha, pad thai sauce, and Thai chili jam (aka nam prik pao).
We are grateful for the continued support from friends like you which allows us to feed and educate families throughout Bangkok. We hope you had fun participating in our Quarantine Cooking Challenge and we can’t wait to see what you’re all crafting up for the next one!
For anyone who missed the chance to participate, be sure to follow @courageouskitchen on instagram!
In most cases the ingredients in each delivery are not set, giving the farmers flexibility to provide you food based on seasonality and not rigid menus.
CSA Box: 400-700 baht (on a monthly subscription basis, delivery not included)
6 Tips for CSA Newbies:
Be flexible. At the heart of CSA is being open to what farmers have on offer. Take that spirit into the kitchen when preparing and making use of your produce.
When in doubt, stir fry. Don’t have time to look for a recipe for those alien looking leaves and veggies? Don’t stress. Throw them in the wok with noodles and your favorite seasoning.
Covid-19 isn’t a foodborne illness. While you should be cautious with everything at the moment, food is an arena with fewer worries. Don’t get lax though, continue to wash your hands, surfaces, and produce religiously.
Prevent spoiling. When your veggies arrive, have a plan for how to store them. Keep in mind some fruits do better outside of the fridge. Do your best not to forget about them because organic veg doesn’t have the same shelf life we’ve become accustomed to with things from the grocery store.
Share. Got ideas on a great smoothie for digestion? Created a recipe apt for seasonal veg? Love to pickle, candy, and jam your produce? Be sure to spread those ideas, especially among our youth!
Ask. Don’t know a vegetable? Ask your producers or online community. Need a quick answer? Try one of the many free apps like ‘PictureThis’ for a quick and fairly accurate answer.
Hey Bangkokians, we hope this list is helpful for you, especially during times when people are doing their best to avoid venturing too far from home.
This isn’t an exhaustive list, and we know there may be more new companies in the future. With all of the options, be sure to share with friends and in your favorite online communities. Be safe and support a farmer!
Like so many of you, we are stuck indoors lately because of quarantine guidelines. As a social enterprise offering face to face cooking classes in Bangkok, we’ve mostly been shut down as tourism has been crippled since late February. However, we’re still doing what we can to support our community, and today we’d like to make your day brighter with some of our favorite, easy to do Thai recipes.
When we think about quick and versatile recipes, fried rice is pretty high in the ranks. You can adapt any ingredients you want, add pretty much any protein, and it’s unctuous and familiar enough to please the entire family. Even seasoning is easy. This recipe keeps it simple, using only soy sauce which is often already in your kitchen cabinet.
Let’s have at it, but to kick things up a notch we’d like to suggest the extra option of using a Thai curry paste in your recipe. The paste will lend color, spice, and excitement to the regular old fried rice you’ve made one too many times in the first few weeks of quarantine.
150g of the protein of your choice (chicken or tofu work great)
1 cup of cooked rice
2 cloves of garlic minced
4 small shallots (or 2-3 tbsp of other diced onion)
3 tbsp soy sauce
1 egg
1/2 cup of vegetables (Your choice. Thai eggplants are great if you have them but even frozen or canned vegetable mixes also work)
Optional: A handful of sweet basil (about half a cup, Italian basil can be substituted)
How to Make Green Curry Fried Rice
Start by washing and slicing everything. For your tougher herbs and veggies, get a rolling bowl going in a pot so they can be blanched. Blanch, cool, and set aside.
Tap some oil into your pan and toast your curry paste until fragrant.
Add your protein of choice, stirring over medium heat until brown. For tender proteins like shrimp, cook and set aside. Also remember you can add a little water or stock if your curry gets too dry.
As your proteins mostly cooked, add aromatic herbs and vegetables. This is the best time, for example, to add garlic, shallots, diced carrots, mushrooms, or other veg of your choice. Let your meat finish cooking, and vegetables become tender and covered in curry paste before proceeding.
Add your rice and mix. When making more than one portion, be careful not to add so much rice that you overfill your wok.
Add your soy sauce. Stir, taste, and adjust if needed.
Maneuver your fried rice to one side of the pan, leaving space to crack your egg. Tilt the pan so the side with the egg is directly over the heat and scramble.
Once the egg is cooked, mix with the rest of your rice. Add a handful of sweet basil and turn off the heat.
Stir until the basil wilts, and serve.
Siblings racing to make pork meatballs for their Thai soup.
Thai Pork Ball Soup (Thom Jeud)
Often this warming soup is one of the first defenses when you’re not feeling well. The soup varies from one Thai household to the next, so there are endless varieties. Use that knowledge as license to take some liberties with the recipe, making use of what you have on hand. We make and fill the soup with pork balls, but you can use chicken or create a vegetarian version. Finally, the soup reheats well and can be either a side dish in a fantastic meal or the main dish itself.
Soup Ingredients (serves 4)
1 liter of chicken or pork stock (about 4 cups)
1 cup of chopped cabbage
1 large carrot, sliced bite sized
1 packet of egg tofu, sliced
2 tbsp of soy sauce
Meatball Ingredients
400g minced pork
⅓ cup of carrot diced small
1 cup of chopped glass noodles
2 stalks of chopped spring onions (remember to set a tbsp or so aside to use as a garnish when serving)
2 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp soy sauce
½ tsp palm sugar
You can use minced chicken instead of pork, and we make vegetarian versions of this soup too!
How to Make Thai Pork Ball Soup (Thom Jeud)
Prep your vegetables. You can blanch carrots or other tough vegetables in advance to save time. (To make the soup extra filling parboiled potatoes are a hearty addition).
Slice your glass noodles small.
Mix glass noodles, spring onion and your chopped carrots with the pork in a bowl.
Season with oyster sauce, fish sauce, palm sugar, and soy sauce then make small meatballs
Boil your stock.
Add your meatballs, and when mostly cooked, add your carrot, cabbage, any other veg.
As they soften, lower the heat and add 2 tbsp of soy sauce. If this doesn’t seem like much seasoning remember your meatballs will be contributing lots of flavor to the soup as well.
Taste and add more soy sauce as needed.
Finally, add your egg tofu, turn off the heat, and stir gently.
Garnish with remaining spring onion before serving.
Time for a favorite from our kids and families class!
Kid’s Pad Thai with Instant Noodles
Finally we can’t forget about the kids. They’re home and seemingly always hungry. Take them on a journey in the kitchen using basic ingredients. This is a departure from a more typical pad thai, but we make it often for our Courageous Kitchen kids and everyone loves it!
Stir frying is a quarantine cook’s best friend. When you can throw everything you’re cooking up in one wok, all your dish washers will be pleased as well. So grab your biggest non-stick pan and get ready to make one of Thailand’s most loved noodle stir fries!
1 handful of blanched Chinese kale, broccoli, or the veg of your choice
A small handful of bean sprouts (can omit or substitute with micro-greens)
2 tbsp of pad thai sauce
1 tbsp of oil for stir frying
How to Make Pad Thai for Kids
Blanch any vegetables you want to add by dipping into boiling water for a few minutes (for Chinese kale this usually takes about one minute in boiling water).
Remove from the boiling water and add to ice water to stop the vegetables from cooking, and preserve the fresh color.
Use the same boiling water now to quickly boil your noodles. Most instant noodles will only take 1-2 minutes to become soft. Set aside.
Add oil to your wok or non stick pan. Follow with your chicken and cook until the color changes.
Add your vegetables to your cooked chicken, along with tofu. Stir quickly to heat the vegetables up.
Now add your cooked instant noodles and mix well.
Add bean sprouts and your pad thai sauce.
Mix everything and push to the side of the pan, away from the heat. In the hot portion of the pan crack and scramble your egg, stirring vigorously until cooked.
Once the egg is cooked, mix with all of the other ingredients and turn off the heat.
Stay safe and eat well during this extended quarantine period. While we hope everything gets back to normal soon, we’ll continuously be thinking about new ways to share our love of people and compassion for communities with you online in days to come.
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!
Don’t miss ‘Ladakh – Land in the Clouds‘ a photography exhibition by David Simon.
This month don’t miss, Ladakh – Land in the Clouds, a special photography exhibition in Bangkok. The exhibition is by David Simon, an expat living in Bangkok who leads adventurous motorcycle tours when he’s not teaching at a local international school. As with David’s tours, the photographs also attempt to take viewers on an adventurous journey through the stunning Indian countryside.
The focus of the photographs is the province of Ladkh, India. David considers the area one of the most beautiful on earth. Unfortunately, despite the raw natural beauty of the surroundings, few people know about Ladakh, because conflict in the region has also made it one of the world’s most disputed areas.
Physics teacher David Simon invites you to step into his journeys through Kashmir.
The exhibition launch will be held March 14th, from 4pm until 6pm. The prints will be on display throughout Cajutan Swedish Restaurant, and cost 2,500 each to purchase. Following the launch event, guests are invited to enjoy a sunset drink on the Cajutan rooftop.
Proceeds from the sale of prints will go to benefit Courageous Kitchen’s work with marginalized communities in Bangkok. The support is particularly timely as the impact of the coronavirus has crippled the organization’s social enterprise offering Thai cooking classes to tourists.
