My brother’s girlfriend Nan is a Thai kitchen Goddess and we’ve just spent the last 3 days yakking, laughing, exchanging secret family recipes and talking non stop about the guilty pleasures, commonality, shared heritage, differences and individuality of Malaysian and Thai food! We’ve also been turning our food fantasies into reality much to the benefit and pleasure of my mum and brother. Haven’t had this much fun in the kitchen in ages!As Nan keeps reminding me, in Thai (and Malaysian) cooking, the 4 essential sensory experiences of salty, sour, sweet and hot meet and marry seamlessly, effortlessly, to produce amazing and unique flavours that you won’t quite find in any other culinary culture.
Today Nan blew me away with her delicious Thai Belachan fried rice (courtesy of Wild’s bintulu belachan supplier of course). Definitely a classic dish that is going to go down in the family recipe book and that I can’t wait to make for Wild when I get back to London! It was amazingly simple but the fragrant smell of sautéed garlic and belachan in the rice, along with the accompaniments were divine!Nan whisked up some shredded green mango, shallots, long green beans, birds eye chillies and shredded omelet, along with some finger licking sticky thai chicken and before we knew it we were in comfort food heaven!Absolutely loved it and Nan has promised to replicate it at one of our supper clubs when she and bro are next in town.
