8-An epiphany from cooking chicken rice-my recipe

COOK LIKE A THAI MADE SIMPLE

Holy Batman! I had an epiphany cooking my most favorite food of all time!

Cooking kaomunngai - kao-munn-gai - aka chicken rice (the epiphany came later)

Cook Like A Thai Made Simple, The Official COOK LIKE A THAI Podcast With Pradichaya Poonyarit

So many things went down in this episode!

First, I cooked the most simple, easy, and delicious chicken rice aka kaomunngai. It was based off the recipe that my mom taught me.

Then, I had an epiphany...

Holy .... (add your own)

Highlights from this episode

• See how simple it is to cook this yummy dish! Enjoy the photo show!
• What's a recipe without a story? - A flat page. Can you follow it? Sure, if a robot can, so can you! Will you learn and remember? Probably not.
• This episode is everything but a boring recipe on a piece of paper. Watch, and you will learn a lot more! Then, you can catch the recipe, 'cause you will be ready!

Hey, I've got something for you! Would you like my family recipe - FREE?

Here's your Action Step: Download Tomyumgoong Recipe. GO! >>

Transcript

[00:00:00] Pradichaya: Welcome to Cook Like A Thai Made Simple with Pradichaya Poonyarit. This episode is brought to you by Cook Like A Thai. Cook authentically Thai with stories.
[00:00:12] Sawaddeeka, how are you today? It's Pradichaya Poonyarit at CookLikeAThai. com and this is today's episode of Cook Like A Thai Made Simple. Oh my goodness, I can't wait to tell you what happened to me over this past weekend! I cooked my famous, I have to say my famous, I cooked my famous chicken rice or kaomunngai and I said it's famous because it just Hey, it just is, okay?
[00:00:51] It is famous because it took me years to perfect everything, all the elements in kaomunngai making. You know it, right? You know chicken rice, kaomunngai. There's so many versions of it and not all of them are Thai. This is one dish that I don't believe that it started out from Thai kitchen. I mean it did, the Thai version.
[00:01:15] Originally. It must have come from China, way, way back when, probably as old as when my great grandfather sailed his boat to Siam. I don't know if I mentioned it to you, but he owned several boats. This would have been, what, 150 to almost 200 years ago. I don't know, I didn't even count. How old is Ratanakosin, Bangkok?
[00:01:38] He brought goods from China to trade with Siam and he would bring things back from Siam to China. And he did that until at some point he became one of the merchants partner with King Rama the third. The king was a businessman. At some point, my great grandfather became a regular at the court. He decided to stay in Siam and I don't know which came first.
[00:02:03] It could have been because it was going really well. Or, he took one glimpse at my great grandmother, who was trained with all the skills, especially the kitchen skill, and she became one of the head chefs for the king's kitchen in the palace. I think my great grandfather saw her. But you know, back then, you weren't supposed to go into the ladies quarters.
[00:02:27] Oops, I just dropped something on myself. That hurts. You stay on the outer part. And I don't know, he must have seen her when she went to the market or something. I don't know. At some point, he asked permission or I don't want to know how it truly went down. But the king gave him permission to marry my great grandmother.
[00:02:45] So she moved out. She lived outside with her husband, my great grandfather, and then they had three children together. And the one in the middle, the only girl was my grandmother. Wow. That's such a big background, right? But back then when my great grandfather and a lot of Chinese. came to do business with Thailand.
[00:03:09] That was when people decided to stay to make Siam their homes. So they stayed, got married, got children and the eating, the cooking. Chicken rice is so famous. If you visit Thailand, you go to any side street restaurants and there are a bunch of them everywhere. It's always open. Never close, never close! You come out at three in the morning if you're hungry.
[00:03:38] Oh, yeah, i've done that My husband and I did that there's plenty of food for you to choose from. From noodles to Individual dish like kaomunngai, which is chicken rice. I love the Taiwanese version I love the Singaporean version, but the Thai version this is not just a Thai version, but it's Oh my god It's something I've been cooking ever since I was about 30 years old.
[00:04:05] Back at that time, we lived in Bangkok, totally a different lifetime. On one side, I ran a company, a sales company, and became partner with a lot of business ventures, a lot of them involved food on the other side, I took up adjunct teaching. Teaching voice at two universities. And then I performed opera and I owned my teaching and production studio.
[00:04:32] And that was, you know, totally different life. I don't know how I did it. It must've been the age. I was younger. I got more energy. Oh yeah. And I got growing family. By the time I turned 36, I got four children. It was really fun, crazy busy, but. It was never boring. My life is not boring now either. In a way I do more, but I work less.
[00:04:56] In Bangkok, I worked too much. I worked hard. Now I work less, but I do more. So I would go out after a performance. Or some events and if not performing, we would be attending events that we were invited to. I did it because of business connection. I did so many things. I want to connect with everyone. So more than often my husband and I will pull over after whatever late, late, late night meal.
[00:05:28] And we would eat chicken rice. I know I know and over there where they cook chicken rice that would cook overnight some long Long strenuous process. I mean, there's nothing easy about the true true the heart of the cooking I can't even say Thai cooking but Thai chinese blend there's nothing easy about it and it's consumed so much time energy You really have to have the passion for it So we would have this delicious chicken rice, but most of them, even though they're run by Chinese owners, they have become more Thai.
[00:06:02] You adapt with your surrounding. It's just like being over here in Las Vegas. I cook Thai food a lot of days. And how do I cook it and keep it Thai? Well, I stay within its frame of its original form. But then do I use local ingredients I can grab from my chain grocery? Ya.... Definitely! But I have the luxury of going down to Asian store I have been a situation that there was nothing to be found.
[00:06:28] No Asian store close by and When the Vietnamese store opened downtown Easton, Pennsylvania. I was like, ahhhh! There was hardly anything even up to the time right before I moved which was five years ago Oh my god, we're into year six. That's exciting. There were a lot of times couldn't get what I wanted and I would have to place special order.
[00:06:50] That was how I rolled back then. Maybe you are in that situation also, you know, but there are ways, there are ways to cook Thai food. Yet you maintain its integrity of being Thai. And you can do that. The good thing is I can help you get there. You know, so kaomunngai, chicken rice, the way I cooked it this past weekend, for some reason, it was Something that got me very close, right here, right here, at the core of myself.
[00:07:22] Because it just brought back so much memory. I cooked it the way my mom taught me. But, this time, I changed quite a bit of the cooking process. I wanted the quickest way, the easiest way, the simplest way for me to put this chicken rice, fragrant rice, the smell, the broth, the chicken, and the most yummy sauce right at the table.
[00:07:54] So I wanted that and normally it would take hours to cook it, even how my mom made it. But we faced it at some point in life. There were certain things that we couldn't get done within 20 minutes. If you want 20 minutes in Thai food, there are a lot you can do too. And very simple, very basic, which is so wonderful because when you do something basic, you stay on your ground, you strengthen your foundation.
[00:08:21] That's what it is. And everything is based off all these basic things. So I made it my way and cooked it with less time than the way my mom taught me. And the result was slightly different the chicken was tender the rice got more flavor and less grease Not that my mom's was greasy, but she cooked it more of the original way.
[00:08:45] So It's so shiny, glossy, of course! Because it was fatty So when you watch cholesterol, maybe you wanna opt out from that. I wanted it to be less oily So I did it this way and it was so easy. So easy. You have vegetable for soup. You have chicken. And I chose chicken thighs with drumsticks. It was a big fat pack.
[00:09:12] I buy everything when it's on sale. If things are not on sale, I usually skip because eventually it will come on sale. Chain stores would rotate weekly. Stuff that they want to make it super super cheap to draw people in to buy other things I would just hang around refrigeration section. Why? Because why not?
[00:09:32] I save every penny I can i'm not stingy. I spend mindfully. So my chicken is so tender and mmm, and it smells so good and the broth, the broth was so sweet. The kind of sweet that there's no sugar added. Will you believe that most people now when they cook for commercial, cook so they sell it to you. Sugar is a mean thing.
[00:09:59] If it's the Thais, they would add all these bottle sauces and I don't understand because those bottle sauces, they're not really cheap, but they, I don't know. I was involved in food business. It started from there before you know it. You just know the stuff. When you cook for commercial, I don't know, maybe that trust wasn't there.
[00:10:18] They would have to use guarantee freshness, right? I would hope. But there was no trust there. And what was that trust that disappeared? It was the trust in themselves that they could cook really good meal without using extra MSG, sugar, and extra salt. They all came in disguise, in gapi, you know, the shrimp paste, in nampla, in all these bottle sauces.
[00:10:43] Even oyster sauce is no longer oyster, but oyster smell. I call it oyster smell, oyster, whatever that they put in there. You know, everything is MSG, sugar, salt. I'm not saying that, oh no, I have to stay away from everything. I mean, I want to as much as I can. Sometimes I just can't. I use nammunnhoy to bring on a tad of sweetness or if I have to use sugar I would go for the The natural route, stevia.
[00:11:14] I don't use msg. I've been good at avoiding more sauces. So, nampla, nammunnhoy - oyster sauce Those are my main two bottles. When I make this chicken rice, the sauce is soybean paste. So I go to Chinese store, they would have the soybean in liquid form and also they would have it in semi solid form. And there's that. You just have to be careful.
[00:11:37] You read your label and you go with your gut. But sometimes to go all the way, like this body has to take in only good stuff. If you can do that, if you can dedicate yourself for looking for that, doing that, that's wonderful. I do what I can to cook decent meal and make it as healthy as possible. So kaomunngai, chicken rice, is not exactly clean food.
[00:12:04] This is not. If you come for clean food today, it's not here. It's greasy from chicken, chicken fat. Yeah, that's basically what it is just that and then I can stop there. It got chicken fat in it Why because I cooked chicken And there's chicken fat if you see that yellowness. Yeah, that's grease from the chicken, but I tell you It is so good and I'm not so worried about it because my Thai meals rotate and they have a lot of vegetables most of the time.
[00:12:36] So every once in a blue moon, even though I didn't even look up the sky, if I wanted to make kaomunngai chicken rice, I allow that. Then I would watch out what I feed my family with the next time, the next time and the next time, you know, I would do that. So, yeah. If you want to go for deliciousness, is that a word?
[00:12:59] If you want to go for something that tastes so super good. Yup, kaomunngai, kaomunngai. The way I make my sauce, I make it, Oh, yum, yum, yum, yum. Oh, I made it. I can't explain, but it's just so mouth watering. I think about it and I just, It's so, so good. There are a lot, there are a lot going on in this recipe.
[00:13:29] The slide is rotating, wow, I don't even know what I can describe as I'm talking to you right now. The rice is cooked so easily and you fry raw rice, you fry it with . stuff like garlic and ginger and then a little nampla and yeah, nammunnhoy maybe. I think I put it in. I don't remember. I think I did.
[00:13:49] And I use the broth right from my soup. The soup is cooked when the water is cold. There's gonna be the school that says bring the water up to boil and drop this, drop that in. But my school is make everything cold. Even cold water if your room temperature happened to be the middle of july in Las Vegas when hot water is cooler than the normal tap! You know when it's like that, I just dump in ice I start my soup broth with super cold water What can I say the photos describe themselves pretty much read the pictures and follow along Just go sign up when you want The detailed recipe, it will be delivered to your email inbox.
[00:14:39] And on top of that, you're going to receive my weekly Cook Like A Thai love letters. It's going to be filled with all of this stuff that doesn't go into my regular weekly episode. Sometimes it's important to dive more deeply into something and and stay there for a while. You know, I just think that when people said that they, they cook authentic Thai food, I mean, yeah, it is.
[00:15:04] They truly believe it is authentic in their own sense, right? My authenticity is mine and mine alone and yours is going to be yours alone. But my rule, my rule is so strict when it comes to keeping the Thai food's originality. That's why even when I'm in Las Vegas, I. Do what I can to keep it true to its origin.
[00:15:29] I mean it's not gonna be Authentic authentic because hey, look you grow Thai plants here They're no longer holding the same element as they would in Thailand, right? The soil is different. So I grow my Thai plant in my greenhouse in my backyard And I buy them locally from the asian market. They come from California Florida Mexico, sometimes Texas.
[00:15:56] So, no, they're not authentic. Not in that sense. But do they maintain their element? Yes, they do. They are still Thai. So I can choose the best I can so I can cook the most delicious whatever I'm cooking. I'm not talking too much about chicken rice even though the topic is chicken rice. This took me a little more than an hour.
[00:16:17] That's because of the prepping. The prepping, man, I tell you, for me, I'm not quick when it comes to slicing, cutting, cleaning, doing everything. I'm not. Even to put it in the grinder and go, zzzzzz, that's not my cup of tea. Probably never will be because I built this dislike for prepping ever since I was trained to prep.
[00:16:40] Where do you start? As a kid, I had to break off the tiny roots. My mom was making her famous meegrawb, crispy noodle, in a way similar to puddthai. It's an older dish. meegrawb was something super, super, super high end. I had an epiphany while I was cooking. Never before that I would think that I didn't lose my mom.
[00:17:07] See, my mom passed away in 2017. My heart would break every time I think about my mom because I love her a lot. We had been through many ups and downs together, and especially in two areas. One was my singing, and two, my cooking. The number one, my singing, not that she was supportive. Well, she supported as to not to yank me away from it.
[00:17:35] She financially supported, but she never let me forget. Not long after she passed, I just had no more desire in performing. Not that I didn't like singing anymore. I wanted to give it a break. She wasn't there to ask me if the money that I got paid for a performance cover my gown or my jewelry. That was a running joke between the two of us.
[00:17:59] So anyway, because of that, that stopped. Now, cooking, I, instead of feeling like I'm so done with cooking. It inspired me to do even more and in a way this is why you have in front of you Cook Like A Thai Made Simple episode and all Cook Like A Thai. She taught something in me and it was more than cooking.
[00:18:24] It was like philosophy. She taught me so many things. You know, all of these things I learned from her, I'm passing them on to you. So for the first time I realized that my mom lives and she lives in my cooking. Everything that I do, even though I made it my way like chicken rice, I took a different turn and ended up on the opposite side of what she taught me.
[00:18:49] I did that to her recipe, but it was still from her. When I put the first bite in my mouth, that was my mom's food, the legacy of my mom. I don't even know if I could describe it, but the feeling when it took place is overwhelming. I was in tears. I had to stop eating. It was all around me and it occurred a little before, but I couldn't place it.
[00:19:14] I just felt super vulnerable. Vulnerable yet energized. Because I was pouring out my heart into the food I was cooking. And this is what I do. Come to think of it, this is what I do when I cook every dish. And that's why what's going on is the passion running through that would make any dish a good dish.
[00:19:40] Or a bad dish if there's no passion in it. And that's why home cooked meal is a heck of a lot better than restaurant meal that you go pay so much for. And I'm not saying for all, but if you were top, top, top chef and super disciplined and professional and have true passion or you're the restaurant owner who took over the chefing job yourself, most of the people are hire help, and the passion may not be there at 101%. So, I don't know. There's no answer. I'm just speculating. But it doesn't matter because I'm here. I'm cooking chicken rice and a lot of dishes and I'm presenting the way I do it. So, you will go cook it the same way for yourself, for your loved ones, for whoever you want to cook for.
[00:20:33] And this is why, this is why Cook Like A Thai happens. So, I know, I know, I know, it was just my little moment. But really, all of this, It goes out here. Grab it. Grab it. Because this is how you Cook Like A Thai. How you cook the way Thai people cook. This is how you get inside and really understand that the food that you just cook and the first bite that you just put in your mouth, you're right there.
[00:21:10] You're in the middle of it. You're on the inside. You're in the inner circle. So let's Cook Like A Thai today Let's Cook Like A Thai today. Do what you do here. Comment, like, subscribe, share, then go go to Cook Like A Thai dot com and Sign up so you can get my love letters along with detailed recipe for chicken rice and there'll be others So just get in on the inside already Do it.
[00:21:39] Do it today already. Okay, this wrapped it up! And take what you can. Take what you can from this. I'll see you next Thursday with a new episode. Now you go have a great Cook Like A Thai day. Kawbkhunmaakka. Kawbkhunmaakka. Thank you from my heart. Sawaddeeka. And I'll see you next time. Mwah! Lots of love.
[00:22:07] Bye bye.