[THAI] Yam Pla Kapong (A No Cook Fish "Salad")

[Colonel I. F. K. Philpott]

This is a recipe for cooking a dish which in fact requires no cooking.

The title can be translated to "tossed dish [salad] of canned fish".

A little background is in order. Yesterday was the Queen of Thailand's
birthday, and a national holiday. As the people of Thailand revere and
honour Queen Sirikit as the Mother of the Nation, it is also considered
to be Thailand's "Mother's Day". As such, my wife's nephew (who
coincidentally is a student at the university I work at) intended to
spend some time at home with his mother, then pay his respects to his
grandmother, and then spend the rest of the day with his girlfriend and
her mother. We hadn't realized things were so serious :-) indeed he must
be involved in discussing the gift to be given to his girlfriend's
mother as a "bride price" (in Thailand the groom gives the dowry to the
girl's family, and her mother holds it in trust in case the marriage
fails or they need funds to raise the children).

Anyway as he was staying for dinner he wanted to take a gift of food.
The silly boy wanted to be honest, and say that the food had been
prepared by his own fair hands (proving he could look after his
intended), and also it had to be something that could be eaten cold, as
he would have to prepare it in advance.

The result was that my wife and her sisters showed the lad the following
simple recipe. As actually prepared, we could have followed the variant
at the end, but the first version was used because fresh fish wasn't
available in the market this weekend. (As part of honouring the Queen,
no meat is slaughtered in Thailand for 4 days over the holiday, hence
there had been a run on fish at the market.)

The tins of mackerel in tomato sauce we used contain 185 grams of fish
and sauce.

Khao koor is prepared by gently toasting uncooked long grain rice in a
heavy skillet or wok until golden and then grinding it to a mealy
powder. Don't overcook it or you'll get rice crispies! If you prefer,
you can use toasted breadcrumbs.

Yam Pla Kapong (A No Cook Fish "Salad")

Ingredients:

2 tins of mackerel in tomato sauce

3 tablespoons of shallots, very thinly sliced
2 tablespoons of lime juice
1 tablespoon of fish sauce
1 tablespoon of hot chili sauce (preferably not vinegar based)
1 tablespoon of prikthai (black pepper), freshly ground
1 tablespoon of prik phom (ground dried red chilis)
1 tablespoon of lemon grass, sliced paper thin
1 tablespoon of spring onions/green onions/scallions, sliced

1 Tablespoon of khao koor
1 Tablespoon of coriander leaves, chopped (as garnish).

Method:

Remove the fish from the sauce, and cut open and remove the bones, then
break the fish into conveniently bite sized pieces.

Put two tablespoons of the tomato sauce in a mixing bowl, and add the
other ingredients (the pepper, chili and chili sauce may be considered
"to taste", and less or more may be used at your discretion), except the
khao koor and the garnish.

Mix and taste, and adjust the condiments if necessary (if too hot, add a
little more of the tomato sauce).

When the sauce is to your liking, return the fish.

The dish may be served immediately or left to marinate for up to 24
hours before serving.

Immediately before serving stir in the khao koor and sprinkle the
coriander leaves on the top.

Variation:

Use 4-6 fresh mackerel, remove the heads, tails and fins, and split the
fish, discarding the bones and internal organs, then either steam,
microwave (which amounts to steaming), or pan fry the fish until just
cooked.

Prepare a tomato sauce by placing 2 or 3 tomatoes in boiling water for
1-2 minutes then dropping them in ice water to stop the cooking process
and then core and peel them, quarter them, discard the seed pulp, and
chop the fruit flesh to form a coarse "relish". This process is known in
classical French cuisine I believe as a concasse.

Combine the ingredients as above. In this case, the dish must marinate
for at least 3 hours before serving.

If the dish is made with steamed fish, it is now known as yam pla too,
and if the fish is fried as yam pla too tohd.

--
Colonel Ian F. Khuntilanont-Philpott
<col...@korat1.vu-korat.ac.th>
Systems Engineering, Vongchavalitkul University,
Korat 30000, Thailand

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