Recipe - Salat Khaek (Southern Thai Salad)

Stephen Ceideburg
2 Dried chillies, seeds
removed and soaked in water
One fourth teaspoon Salt
One fourth cup Thinly cut or sliced up shallot
1 teaspoon Curry powder
2 Hardboiled eggs
One half cup Ground roasted peanuts
2 cup Coconut milk
3 tablespoon Fish sauce
1/3 cup Sugar
One fourth cup Tamarind juice

Ingredients for dressing: Preparation:

Pound the chillies, salt, shallots, and curry powder
well in a mortar and then mix in the peanuts. Remove
the yolks from the two eggs and mix the yolks into the
chilli paste.

Heat 1 cup of the coconut milk. When some oil has
surfaced, add the chilli paste, stir to disperse, and
cook until fragrant; then, add the remaining coconut
milk, fish sauce, sugar and tamarind juice.

Ingredients for salad:

1 potato 3 hardboiled eggs cuts into slices 1 cake
firm white bean curd 1 head romaine lettuce 1 cup
scalded bean sprouts 5 cucumbers [Or one large Western
one. S.C.] 1 onion 2 tomatoes 2 cups cooking oil

Preparation:

Cut the potato into very thin slices, soak in water,
drain well, and then fry in the hot oil until crisp
and golden brown. Cut the bean curd into thin slices
and fry until crisp.

Peel the cucumbers and onion and cut them and the
tomatoes into thin slices

Arrange the lettuce on a platter, add the cucumbers,
bean sprouts, onion, tomatoes, eggs, bean curd, and
potato, spoon on the salad dressing and serve right
away.

Serves two.

From "The Elegant Taste of Thailand, Cha Am Cuisine"
by Sisamon Kongpan and Pinyo Srisawat. SLG Books,
Berkeley and Hong Kong, 1989. ISBN 0943389054.

From Gemini's MASSIVE MealMaster collection at www.synapse.com/~gemini