The Art of Cooking: A Journey Through Flavors and Techniques

As we begin our culinary journey, it's essential to understand the importance of cooking techniques and ingredient selection. Our dish today will feature a fried egg, Thai chilies, garlic, chicken, and vegetables, all carefully prepared to bring out the full flavor of each component. In this article, we'll delve into the world of Thai cuisine and explore the various methods and ingredients used to create a delicious and authentic dish.

First, let's start with the eggs. A fried egg is a staple in many cuisines, and it's surprisingly easy to cook. To achieve the perfect doneness, you need to wait until the edges start browning, which indicates that the yolk is cooked to your liking. You can choose from three options: runny, medium, or hard. For this recipe, we'll aim for a slightly runny yolk, but feel free to adjust to your taste.

Once our eggs are cooked, it's time to prep the vegetables. Maria is helping me with this task, and she's expertly julienned half a white onion. She's also cutting string beans into 1-inch pieces on the bias, which makes them look nicer and more appealing. While she works her magic, I'm busy pounding some garlic and chilies together to create a paste. Thai garlic is tiny but packs a pungent flavor, and it's essential for adding depth to our dish.

The chili in question is Birds Eye chili, and I've added four of them to the mix. These come from my backyard, and they add a nice kick to our recipe. If you prefer a milder flavor, feel free to reduce the number of chilies or omit them altogether. Next, I'll be adding some pre-Chifa chilies for color and decoration purposes.

Now that we have our ingredients prepared, it's time to make our ground chicken. Instead of buying pre-ground chicken, we're going to make our own by pounding a pound of chicken thighs into small pieces. This method allows us to control the fineness of the meat and ensures that it stays juicy and flavorful. With my trusty cleaver, I'll be chopping the chicken into bite-sized pieces, making sure they're not too big or too small.

As we continue our journey through cooking, we'll explore various techniques and ingredient combinations that will take your dishes to the next level. In this article, we'll share tips and tricks from experienced cooks who have mastered the art of preparing delicious meals. Whether you're a seasoned chef or a culinary novice, there's something for everyone in this comprehensive guide.

Whether it's the technique of cooking, ingredients used, or flavor combinations, this article is designed to take your cooking skills to new heights.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enSawaddee ka welcome to hot Thai kitchen and this time I am standing in the backyard of my Bangkok home so I  thought we might cook something from my backyard so today we're going to make a ga prao pad kai dao now  so here goes your Thai lesson Chi Dao means fried egg guy as you already know means chicken and  ga prao let's look at what ga prao is so let's go down over here guys this here is your pal you  can come a little closer and take a look at what it looks like up close it's english name is holy  basil and it's going to be the main flavor of the dish that we're making today all right what about  the one back there look who you have here hello guys this is Marika Marika is a very good friend  of mine from high school and she's also tell us what you do now I am the food editor of BK  magazine which is a city lifestyle magazine about Bangkok so I have the distinguished pleasure of  eating at restaurants as well as street stalls on a daily basis it's an awesome job so she knows it  correct me if I'm wrong here where to eat and what to eat in Bangkok that's correct but what  I don't know sometimes is how to make things at home in Bangkok you can always get whatever you  want on the street so not all of us are very good at cooking stir fries so I'm hoping I can sit in  on your crap a lesson of course I'm very honored to have you and so anyway you were asking what  about this guy over here now this here is also grab pal but it's a different variety this is  called Kapow dang Kapow dang means red Kapow and if you can see the stems are red and the  other one the stem was white and the other one was called grapple cow literally white or Powell  and we generally prefer this ones it's got a more intense flavor but when you pick up how  I pick the younger looking ones so the older the bush get so this big guy here the sense seems to  get dissipated all over the place and it becomes less concentrated so I try to pick from the little  guys down here sorry these aren't the ones that are used in American restaurants and American  Thai restaurants in American tire run snow even though the dish might say your power pack their  power something of that manner they don't use holy basil they use this guy over here this here  is Thai basil it's Thai name is horipad so if you want to take a smell what's sweeter less peppery  less strong yeah it's it's a sweeter cooling kind of scent whereas the other one has the peppery  note it it makes things seem hotter this one makes things seem cooler so this we put in curries and  it seems to cut the heat of the curry very well but then why do they use them and stir fries in  America why don't they use holy basil because holy basil doesn't grow very well at all in the  states it's just simply not available this one seems to do very well overseas in San Francisco  I was able to find a bunch or two here and there at farmer's markets but they're usually in very  small amounts and they're very rare so that's why they're just never used on the subject of  exotic basil there's another one let's come over here so this guy over here the little  one is actually another kind of Thai basil called lemon basil or mint basil it's Thai name is Bai  Mangala and if you take a smell it smells just like the name suggests lemon elem tea lemony and  minty and it's used in a couple of soups in Thai cuisine and not so much in the food that you'll  find in the States I suspect probably because of availability so so there goes your basil lesson  for the day shall we get cooking let's go no gir Hawkeye will be complete without Kai Dow  and Kylie Dow literally means star egg is Friday but in Thailand when we make our Friday we like  the edges crispy and the way to get it crispy is to almost deep-fry it so as you can see I've got  about an inch of vegetable oil in the pan and I preheated my oil earlier so it's pretty hot  push the hot oil on top of the egg so the top part of the egg cooks quickly if you feel it  starting to get stick to the bottom just ever so gently kind of loosen it with with your spatula  and then you can you wait till the edges start to get brown like that and the readiness of your  yolk is completely up to you you can do it runny you can choose medium or you can do it hard but I  like it still a little bit runny we're good on two and absorptive receptacle and we got a fried eggfor our ingredients Maria here is helping me prep some vegetables what do you have there  um I have half a white onion that I'm gonna julienne and I have a few string beans that  I'm gonna cut into 1-inch pieces on the what's on the bias on the bias it makes it look nicer  that way you don't have to but so while she's doing that there's a little touch  of authenticity for you flies everywhere I'm going to pound some garlic and chilies together  so what I have here is a handful of garlic so this is Thai garlic they're tiny little folks  but boy they're pungent and an equivalent about a tablespoon and once it's finished and on top  of that I'm also going to add some Thai chilies or Birds Eye chili these actually come from my  my backyard so I'm going to add four but you can add however much you like so to pound this into  a paste and if you don't have a mistake with garlic if you don't have a pestle and mortar  you can also just finely chop them you can put a food processor and that you can already smell  the chili from all the way over here so this is traditionally a very much dish and a cup  out guy that's not spicy not really good so once that's done it's going to be a pace that  looks like this alright so as you can see it's a big mush that you can just chop so I'm going  to borrow rigo's knife and these are this is called pre Chifa and they're bigger chilies  that I'm just going to add for color because I like a lot of red but if I put all birth side  chili it's going to be a really spicy and so these I'm just going to cut on the bias  they're not very spicy at all it's mostly just for decoration here and these also come from my kindall right so just about three and you can toss the whole thing in but you're not gonna you don't have  to pound it because they're really just just for decoration so that the veggies are all done you're  all finished over here yep next we're going to do our ground chicken but we're not going to buy  ground chicken we're actually going to make our own ground chicken why's that because well first  of all it's the way I used to have to do it I was little we never bought any ground meat and also  you can control how the fineness of your mints you can make it when you buy ground pre ground  chicken it's very fine but fork of Hawkeye I like it a little rough so you got the big big pieces  of chicken here and there and so when you do it yourself you can control it and also because it's  funny so I got my big cleaver here and that's what we use and I also have about a pound of chicken  thighs that I've cut into you know pieces like this and I used you can thigh because it doesn't  dry out as quickly and so you're just going to put a little bit on just to start and you're  just going to go for it for a fight and then you're going to go for it in the other directionand when you feel like you've gone through it thoroughly enough here's the advantage of a  big flat knife you take it and you flip it over okay you want to have a go yeah keep my thumbyou\n"