Prep: sort-of-Gai Murn Pug and sort-of-Kinpira

Appon's Thai food has a recipe for a chicken roll thing (Gai Murn Pug) which I thought would be good in bentos, if only it wasn't crumbed and deep fried. Well, it would be good anyway, but it would be less fattening if it wasn't crumbed and fried.

I followed Appon's instructions; beating the chicken (thighs, because that's what I had) out flat and covering with a paste of salt, pepper, garlic, and soy sauce:


I covered it in more plastic wrap, rolled it, and left it to marinate for a while in the fridge:


I chopped carrot and spring onion in the processor, and added plum sauce…


… then spread the resulting paste over the chicken …


… and rolled it up:



This is where I deviated from Appon's recipe. She coats her roll in egg and breadcrumbs and deep fries it. I'm dieting so I don't want to do that - I decided to try poaching it. I wrapped it in a cloth and tied the ends securely …


… and lowered it into a roasting pan filled with simmering water, a bit of chicken stock powder, some fish sauce, and salt. I really need a fish kettle! Anyway, I poached it for an hour or so, rolling it over periodically.


But when I took it out and tasted the bits of carrot that escaped, I didn't think it was cooked enough. So I put it in an oven dish covered in tinfoil and roasted it for another half hour or so:


The finished article is certainly healthy looking, but time will tell whether it tastes any good. I think it should freeze OK anyway. I'm boiling the simmering stock down to use for something else - it may have a bit of stock powder in it, but it also has real chickeny carroty goodness that I don't want to waste.


Then in a fit of Maki-induced trying to use things from the back of the cupboard I decided to try and do something with the "Dried Bean Curd (in the shape of intestines)" that I bought just because I liked the name. A quick search of the internet gave me the information that dried tofu was supposed to be soaked then squeezed, then added to something tasty. I decided on an adaptation of Maki's Forgotten Vegetable Kinpira, using carrots, cabbage (because I had some), and the dried tofu things.

I soaked the dried bean curd for about an hour:


Then squeezed the water out of it and threw it, with some carrot matchsticks and shredded cabbage into a pan with hot sesame oil in it …


… added chili flakes, mirin, brown sugar, soy sauce, and a bit of water …


… thenI stirred it around until the liquid was gone and the veges well cooked, and put it in a storage box:


It doesn't taste too bad - the tofu is sort of chewy. Funny texture. But the flavour is good.