Epic Thai Taco Recipe - Western Supermarket Challenge!

welcome to hot thai kitchen so today i'm excited  to be doing a special video sponsored by our good   friends at the thai trade center vancouver and as  you can see we are not in the kitchen because we   are first going to go shopping so many of you over  the years have told me that you have difficulties   getting thai ingredients where you live so today  what i want to show you is you can still have real   thai flavors without having to go to  a specialty or asian grocery store   and without really having to make a full-on  authentic thai dish so here's the challenge   i'm gonna go shopping at a western grocery store  and we're gonna go to the international aisle   and with whatever thai ingredients i can find  there that's what i'm gonna use to cook with   now i have some idea of what i wanna do but i  will make my final decision once i see exactly   what i've got available to me but before we  go shopping because of the time that we're in   i have found it the aisle is called  asian foods let's see what we have   this is all we got for curry paste  i got red i got green and i got   this is the product of poland  this is a thai curry taste   from poland we're gonna go with the tiger it is  from thailand okay i got coconut milk we're gonna   definitely take this adam would you please hold  these thank you water chestnuts are from thailand   now fish sauce fish sauce they must  have fish sauce give me fish sauce   oh my god is there no fish sauce  oh oh i found it i found it yay gluten-free fish sauce awesome oh and we're  gonna need snacks we're gonna need snack these   are so good you guys if you haven't had these you  must try it okay what have we got for fresh herbs   is there any lemongrass no lemongrass  i was hoping for lemongrass   but i guess we're not gonna  cook with lemongrass today all right i'm so excited about this by the  way this is the first time i've ever made this   so i won't have exact recipe written out for you  but i want you to think about this not so much as   a recipe but as an inspiration of how you can take  whatever thai ingredients you can find and apply   it to things you're already familiar with and get  thai flavors in that way okay all right so this   taco i think i'm gonna use ground pork because  pork is the most commonly eaten meat in thailand   flavor it with thai curry paste and then we found  water chestnuts which i didn't expect to find so i   think i'm going to add that in for crunch and then  on top i'm going to add a little bit of a thai   slaw so we got some cabbage and some cilantro  we'll make a little slaw with a thai dressing to   go on top it's gonna be great first let's look at  the pork see how they're always tubular when they   come if you put this directly in the pan you might  end up with tubes of pork which does not look good   so you want to go in and like mash them out first  so they end up looking a little bit more natural   and by the way you can totally do this with beef  i don't see any reason why not or chicken but   if you're going to do chicken i would recommend  doing dark meat okay i think that's good enough   i'm gonna start this the same way i start with  any curry is to use coconut milk and the fat the   oil in coconut milk to be the oil that we use to  saute the paste this way if you add vegetable oil   it's fine but you're not going to get the flavor  and the richness if you reduce coconut milk right   so that's why we do this add a little bit more and  i know most of the products that we have now is   thai kitchen brand it is not sponsored by  kitchen it's just the only brand that we   have downstairs um but thai kitchen is a brand  that's made in thailand so that's important   so that's come to a boil i'm going to add my red  curry paste and you can totally do this with any   other kind of curry paste and the thing with thai  kitchen that i actually like is when people say oh   they don't eat very spicy this is not a very spicy  brand i guess that's the benefit of getting like a   you know a brand that's meant for a western  market is they will make it less spicy   okay so now it's well mixed in i'm going to let  it reduce until it's sizzling in that coconut oil   so fyi i used about half of this jar which is  112 grams you know i don't know if it's too   much or too little again this is the first time  i've made this particular recipe but we can find   out and we can add more later cooking without a  pre-determined recipe this is great this is such   a refreshing thing because i always come  here and i got everything sorted out   okay see that see a little bit of  coconut oil starting to separate   that's great that means the paste is now  frying okay i gotta go in with the pork before i get curry paste all over myself get that  mixed in oh that just looks like a great start   to so many things now if i were able to get some  fresh lemongrass fresh kefir lime leaves i would   probably throw that in right about now to get it  infused and flavoring everything but i don't which   is okay because there is all those ingredients  are in the paste already but it's nice sometimes   to get a little bit of extra and also some visual  oh this would make a great burrito filling as well   how very english of adam to suggest this would  make a great shepherd's pie base okay so i'm   gonna stop there because it's all cooked because i  just want to taste it first like i'm not done done   but again when you're working with something  for the first time and you're kind of like   freestyling it you want to know  where you're at before you start   putting in seasoning right because some curry  pastes are always pre-salted to some degree i think i'm going to use that whole jar oh  definitely need salt but it needs it also it's also a little mild now it's not  ideal that that paste didn't get fried   but what are you gonna do i mean you could fry it  separately but we're not doing that right now and   some seasoning i'm gonna do some fish sauce  and if you want to know about how to identify   good fish sauce i do have a video for that as  well okay so i'm gonna turn the heat back on   and see where we're at now and yes i have used  the entire jar if you're using like a maply or   messy like one of the brands with thai names you  will not need this much because those pastes are   a lot more concentrated i find oh it's starting  to look good too okay i'm gonna let that   fry just to let the paste cook a little  bit okay let's see where we're at now now we're talking but it needs a little bit  of sweet to get that balance of flavor and   almost forgot our water chestnuts which by the  way they come whole like this and i just cut them   into little little dice just to get a little bit  crunch water chestnuts it's a great thing to use   um because they don't have too much  of a flavor in enough themselves   but they add a lovely lovely crunch to just about  anything add that in and turn the heat back on all right i'm going to turn this off do one final  taste mmm oh that's good oh toss this with pasta   and you're done you can stop right here so for  this part i am thinking you know normally a taco   you might put sour cream on it or in a more  hipster taco establishment they would put a   crema which is like a loose i guess like  a creme fraiche type thing like a creamy   dairy thing that's a little bit tart to  go on top of the taco so i want to do   something like that but with coconut milk instead  which is the thai dairy i always tell people   we don't use dairy in thai cuisine we only use  coconut milk whenever we want that creaminess   we're going to use this tiny little frying pan  which i've been waiting for the opportunity to   use for a very long time and i need to thicken  it a little bit so i'm going to add a make a   cornstarch slurry so this is just some  cornstarch and i'm gonna add some water just to   dissolve it adding dry corn starch to  hot liquid is something you will do   once in your life and then you'll be so  traumatized by the lumps that you cannot get out   you will never do it again so let's  just start with just a little splash   and we'll see where that gets us and  once you add the cornstarch oh that was   quick well that thickened on me really quickly  this darn stove and you want to bring it to a boil   because that's how you know that the cornstarch  has reached its maximum thickening power do i   want it a little bit thicker no i think this  is good because it'll thicken a little bit as   it cools as well okay so i'm going to turn it off  i'm going to season it with a little bit of salt   and also to get that tart crema flavor i'm going  to add just a touch of lime juice let's see yes wow that lime really brighten  it up a little a touch more lime   and i think we are good oh i'm so excited all  right now the slaw which is going to add freshness   and crunch and some spiciness to not that we don't  have enough spiciness but hey what's a little   extra spice so i'm gonna make basically a yum  dressing which is a traditional classic thai salad   dressing and we can yum anything and i have so  many yums on the website so if you just go on the   website and search for yum you will end up with  a ton of salad okay so now we're going to make   is cabbage which is a great thing to go on top  of taco and then i'm going to start with some   thai chilies which you don't have to add or you  can add any spicy chilies i'm going to pound that   but you can also just finely mince it as well  and you're going to see that there's a lot of   chili skins left but that's not a problem a little  bit of sugar first i was hoping to find palm sugar   i did not find palm sugar but come to think of  it maybe i should have looked in the sugar aisle   but see this is the this is the hard part about  shopping for asian ingredients is you don't know   if it's in the international aisle or it's in  the like the isle of the food category that it   belongs to so maybe i should have looked in the  sugar aisle and then the sugar helps the chilies   break up a little bit more as well okay and now  just some lime juice and of course fish sauce   rule of thumb for salad dressing roughly one  part lime juice one part fish sauce and then   you kind of taste and adjust depending on the  recipe that you're doing let's see where we're at oh perfect oh nice and then when you pound  chilies you get a much prettier dressing too   okay and then i'm going to also add some shallots  into here you can do red onions thinly thinly   sliced and then what i'm going to do also is i  this just occurred to me that i was going to add   tomatoes to the to the tacos somehow but i think  i'm going to add it directly to this yum dressing   so that the tomato juice has actually  become a part of this dressing and that   idea to me just came from something or thai green  papaya salad where we pound the tomatoes in with   the dressing to like bruise it a little bit to get  that juice mixed up so i think that's a good idea mmm that looks good so i'm using purple  cabbage just because it's pretty you can   use green cabbage or a mixture of cabbage and  carrots or whatever sort of crunchy vegetable   radishes would be really good in this too give  that a nice mix oh i also got green onions i also have some cilantro which i guess i'll  add half now and then leave the other half to   garnish oh that looks so good already oh yeah oh spicy oh spicy alright so time to  assemble i'm so excited about this this is looking   so good so the store did not have any all  corn tortilla and they didn't have any   mexican food aisle because we're in canada  they only had the asian food aisle so the   only tortilla that they had was 50 corn  and 50 wheat so i'm gonna heat that up   and this is quite big i'm used to corn  tortillas that are smaller okay so i just   want a little bit of brown spots because i think  when it's slightly brown it has a better flavor   but you can just heat this up  until it's hot yay there we go   go in with our filling or just have this  over rice my goodness how did i forget that   this would be just good over rice our slaw oh some  tomatoes in there yes oh my god that looks so good   and i was um thinking about penang curry which  in thailand we often drizzle a little bit of   thickened coconut milk on top so i thought about  that i was like oh yeah that would be like a crema   and a little bit of garnish cilantro just  cause why not yay i'm so excited to eat   mmm oh my gosh so good i'm shocked how good this  is i think i want to add a little more sloth   maybe i just didn't get much slaw on that  bite but i just love crunchy crunchy bits that is ah amazing that surprised me i mean  i fully expected it to be good but how good   it is is like completely shocked to me  that slaw works so well somebody call   chipotle tell them they need to put this on  the menu you can really taste the red curry   paste it is unmistakably thai and if you did  this with green curry paste i think it would   be just as fantastic and it's rich with that  coconut milk that we added and the slaw just   gives it the perfect balancing point crisp light  fresh there's no oil no anything in the dressing   and it just works together so well the crema  adds just a little bit of that creaminess   but it still has a spirit of the taco because  of the flavor of the tortilla i mean like this   is basically thai food right here right like we  we made thai food right here but we assembled it   using only one non-thai ingredient that is the  tortilla and you've turned it into something   completely fantastic and wonderful yay so i really  really hope you give this a try this will knock   your socks off trust me on this i will do my best  to write down the recipe with the most accurate   estimated ingredient amounts and that will then  be on hathaikitchen.com i'll link to that below   and if you haven't subscribed to the  show make sure you do so you don't miss   a recipe and click the bell icon as well so you  get a notification when i post a new video thank   you as always for watching and i will see you  next time for your next delicious thai meal you

Channel: Pailin's Kitchen

Views: 110,638

Keywords: Hot Thai Kitchen, Thai food, Thai cuisine, Thai cooking, Thai, Thailand, Bangkok, street food, Southeast Asia, Asian cooking, Asian food, Asian cuisine, Asian recipe, Thai recipe, Cooking, cooking show, how to cook thai food, how to cook, thai tacos, taco recipes, Thai taco recipe, red curry tacos, thai fusion recipe, mexican thai recipe, Thai mexican recipe

Id: 0EyElhNgsG4

Length: 17min 20sec (1040 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 21 2020