Hot Sour Prawn Soup With Tamarind Leaves

This Thai dish is similar to tom yum goong, except that this particular soup dish uses tamarind as its base.  Tom yum goong, on the other hand, relies on lemongrass as its primary souring agent.  In addition, the tomalley from the shrimp's head is pureed and used in this dish, as you can see in the picture.

How To Make Tamarind Water From Fresh Pods

Tamarind water is the foundation of many Southeast Asian tamarind based soup dishes. Green, unripe tamarind pods are used as souring agents. These green pods are quite tart, acidic and astringent. They are usually used in combination with chilies.

Mussels In Ginger Soup With Chili Leaves

Last week, a reader who goes by the initials V.T., e-mailed me about this particular Filipino mussels soup dish that I forgot about.  As I have said to V.T., this is one of my favorite classic Filipino dishes.  Unlike a lot of Filipino dishes, this is one of the easiest to prepare and cook.

Awards And Badges

With this blog still very much in its infancy, which I started on Thanksgiving Day of 2009, I didn't expect to receive an award, let alone two, in such a short period of time.  With this blog being just a little over two months old, I have met some wonderful and talented  fellow food-obsessed bloggers. One of those would be Anamaris over at Chef It Yourself, who gave me these two awards.

Curried Away: Green Chicken Curry With Baby Corn (Geng Gwio Warn Gai)

Green chicken curry has to be one of the most well-known Thai dishes outside the Kingdom, as this dish is almost always served in just about every Thai restaurant the world over. 

Curried Away: How To Make Green Curry Paste

During my freshman year as an art student, a professor of mine said that a good piece of art is like a well-choreographed dance performance. The music, the movements of the body, the sequence and the timing must seamlessly blend together to achieve that  smoothness, finesse and unity.  Like in a dance performance, a good piece of art is an exercise in restrain and moderation.  Apply too much of the available  visual elements on a canvas or execute too much pirouettes in a ballet piece, clutter and chaos results.