Thai Pumpkin in Red Curry (Kaeng Phet Fak Thong)

This is a great dish to make in the fall, which is actually when I made this, despite taking forever to post it.  I had always wanted to try making a pumpkin curry after I tried one at the very excellent Thai X-ing, an off the beaten path restaurant literally in someone's living room in Washington, D.C.  The pumpkin curry dish surprised me with how much flavor it packed in - the standard pungency of a curry sauce, but with the smoothness and slightly sweet and nutty overtones from the stewed pumpkin (in that case, acorn squash).  So the first fall that came around, when fresh squash reared their heads, I made it a point to try this out.

I highly recommend kabocha squash to make this dish instead of other squash or pumpkins.  It holds up well, is fairly easy to work with, and seems to be the traditional gourd preferred by many Thais, in addition to being one of the mystery orange vegetables in an order of Japanese tempura.

Don't be misled by the name, this dish is non-vegetarian given the addition of some boneless pork to round out the protein content of the dish.  After all, squash and pork chops seem to go together, so why not pork with squash curry?

Yum Woon Sen (Chile Lime Glass Noodles)

My first encounter with chile lime noodles was at a vegan food market, where it was framed as a gluten-free, animal byproduct-free meal.  As I ate it, I thought "this would be much better with some animal byproducts in it."  But all of the recipes I found were somewhat bland, Americanized versions of this dish.

Enter the real deal - yum woon sen, which is a Thai salad using mung bean noodles.  You've probably seen these before - they start off pale white, and when you cook them they turn translucent, earning them the name "glass noodles".  They're fairly easy to find, and not to be mixed up with rice vermicelli, which will cook up white, and though they are the same diameter, that's about all they have in common.  Glass noodles are chewy and have a much more neutral flavor, making them perfect for this dish.  And the Thais don't mess around with the whole animal byproduct thing - they thrown in fried, dried shrimp, and often ground pork (which I didn't add here, to try just the standard dried shrimp version).

In addition to getting to buy two new ingredients I had never purchased before, which is always fun, this dish surprised me by how easily it came together.  You don't really cook anything, in the traditional sense.  You basically just soak the noodles in boiling water, then crisp up the dried shrimp and peanuts, and toss everything together.  I was waiting for the stir-fry step the first time I made it, but it never came.  The end result was very healthy and fresh as a result, so now I see why this dish became popular.

Yum Woon Sen (aka Chile Lime Glass Noodles)
From ThaiTable.com

• 5-6 sprigs cilantro
• 1 2 ounce (dry) bundle mung bean noodles (aka glass noodles, clear noodles)
• 1/4 cup dried shrimp
• 1 tablespoon fish sauce
• 1 tablespoon fried garlic
• 1-2 limes
• 1/2 sliced onion
• 1/2 cup peanuts
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 3 Thai chili pepper
• 1 cup cut Chinese Celery, or regular celery if you can't find Chinese

If you can't find the Chinese celery above, just use regular celery.  But do at least keep the tops

This single bundle is all you need for the recipe posted here.  Don't get carried away, it will throw off the balance of ingredients

Rinse your vegetables well, and chop them to the right sizes.  They won't end up being cooked, so it has to be bite-sized and ready to go.

Take one of the 2 oz bundles from the noodle pack, and place in a large bowl with boiling hot water for 6 minutes. Strain the noodles and drain, then pour the noodles into a large mixing bowl and cut them with scissors randomly to make the strands easier to serve and eat.  Cut the Chinese celery into 1 ½ inch pieces. Slice onion, top to bottom to get crescent pieces. Chop cilantro and chili peppers.  If making your own, make the fried garlic by placing 6 cloves of garlic in a microwave-safe bowl and cover with 1-2 tbsp neutral oil, then microwave on high for up to 2 minutes, 30 seconds in 30 second increments until nicely browned and fragrant.

If using raw peanuts, fry peanuts in 1 teaspoon of oil over low to medium low heat until light brown and cooked, about 5-7 minutes. Remove peanuts and set aside. Fry the dried shrimp over medium heat until crispy and brown, about a minute, depending on the size of your shrimp. When the shrimp turns whitish, remove from heat and set aside.

Dry-fry the dried shrimp - this was a new one for me.  I found these in the refrigerated section of the Asian grocery store

Make the sauce / dressing - 1 tablespoon of fish sauce, 5 tablespoons of lime juice, and 1/2 tsp (or less) of sugar.  It should be more sour than salty; you should also take into account how salty the shrimp are. The role of sugar here is to round the flavors.

Add a tablespoon of fried garlic to the noodles and mix them. Fried garlic gives the noodles flavor. Add 5 tablespoons of the dressing to the noodles and mix well, reserving the last tablespoon to add only as necessary. Add the peanuts, dried shrimp, onion, Chinese celery, chili peppers and cilantro to the noodles. Toss well and taste. You may need more dressing, depending on water content of the noodles and the concentrations of your seasonings.

Toss all ingredients to combine, and you're done!  Minimal cooking necessary

Thai Basil Chicken (Gai Pad Krapow)

Update 8/2025: made a refreshed version using ground pork, home grown long beans, and Thai basil (still not holy basil). Recipe reordered to cook meat first, then remove, then add back in towards the end. This version seems more vibrant and less dry.

Update 9/2024: after reading through Andy Ricker's Pok Pok Noodles book, it is very clear that I have made a huge error in describing this dish. Krapao doesn't translate as "basil", it translates as "holy basil", which is very different from the Thai basil with licorice flavor and purple stems. Reading this and confirming it all over the internet, I realize that I have no idea what this dish is really supposed to taste like, so I'll have to update this page again once I find or grow the correct basil, and get a better feel for the correct flavors. The version with Thai basil is certainly fine, but it's not authentic, and I've been spreading misinformation with what's below. Holy basil (Ocimum tenuiflorum), also known as tulsi, has notes of mint and clove in addition to licorice. I might try some of my wild basil to see if that's similar.

Original post:

It's always nice when you eat a dish in a restaurant and think "I could make this at home", and then you go home and try to make it and it's a dismal failure. Sometimes a homemade meal is a shell of its former glory, when you previously paid for a professional to make it for you. But every once in a while, you make something at home that could pass for restaurant food, if only you had shoved it into a plastic take-out container before serving yourself. And this was one of those moments.

I can't tell you how many times I've ordered pad krapow.  I believe the dish literally translates as stir-fried (pad) basil (krapow - see 9/24 correction, this is actually holy basil) with chicken (gai), which leaves very little mystery.  It is typically served in a large bowl, and consists of ground chicken, a ton of basil, and sometimes a couple of vegetables. I poked around online until I found one that sounded good, then modified it slightly to include a couple of produce items I wanted to use. The result was pretty much identical to the restaurant, although significantly cheaper, and hopefully more healthy. Apparently, the secret to this dish is a ton of fish sauce, although I'm learning more and more that this is the secret to pretty much all Thai cooking.

I've made a few dishes using Thai basil before, but have perhaps skipped over its importance. Thai Basil Chicken is not "Basil Chicken" with Thai flavoring; it is chicken that has been blessed by the infusion of Thai basil. Here's what this looks like:

Thai basil plant, from my garden.  Money well spent - I put this stuff in everything!

Notice that the leaves are not as large as those of regular basil.  I'm no botanist, but this is clearly not the same plant, and shouldn't be confused as such.  You can also probably get away with holy basil, which has more of a purple-colored leaf, and which probably tastes more like licorice than the Thai varietal.

Other than that, there are no mysteries to the ingredients.  I ground my own chicken, which is totally unnecessary unless you happen to only have whole chicken breasts and a grinder.  But other than that, this dish should come together very quickly and easily.