I chose this recipe to use the ingredient dried galangal sent to me by Adrienne. Who has heard of galangal (never mind the dried variety), I certainly had not. It did not even appear in any of my dictionaries. So, one Google search later I established that it is a stem plant, which is very similar to ginger and originated in Indonesia. It is used in various Asian cuisines, so off I went to my piles of recipe books and searched through my Thai recipes until I came across this one for Thai Fish cakes which had galangal in the ingredients. My only problem was that my galangal was dried but a long soak in a hot bath - for it, not me - and it was soft enough to chop and use just like a ginger stem.
The end result (pictured left) was delicious and just full of flavours. I served it with some brown and wild rice with corn and peas and some spicy Sriracha Sauce.
Thai Fish Cakes (serves 4)
Ingredients
1 shallot, chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
2 coriander roots, roughly chopped plus extra leaves for garnish
1 tbsp finely chopped galangal
6 kaffir lime leaves, sliced
2 red chillies, deseeded and chopped
450g (1lb) cod, skinned and boned
2 tbsp fish sauce (nam pla)
Vegetable oil for shallow frying
Use a food processer to blend all the ingredients, except the vegetable oil.
Form into 8 to 10 cakes. I find that making them smaller stops them from breaking up on cooking.
Pour enough vegetable oil into a wide frying pan to cover base generously.
Heat oil and when hot (I use a cube of bread to test if it is ready, the bread sizzles when hot enough) fry the cakes for 3 minutes each side until golden brown.
Drain on kitchen paper and serve with garnish of coriander.
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