Khao pad sapparot (stir fried rice and pineap

2 Servings

Ingredients

Quantity Ingredient
1 medium Pineapple, sweet & juicy
⅔ tablespoon Chopped shallots (purple onion)
½ tablespoon Grated ginger
13/16 Red chilis finely julienned
2 Green of 2 spring onions, coarsely chopped
1 tablespoon Chopped coriander/cilantro
2 tablespoons Dried shrimp
⅔ tablespoon Garlic, coarsely chopped
1 tablespoon (to 2) fish sauce
1 teaspoon Sugar
2 cups Steamed rice, cold(garnish)
Coriander leaves (garnish)

Directions

Cut the pineapple in half lengthwise, and scoop out the fruit (my wife uses a curved "grapefruit knife", but any knife will do...) then chop it into bite sized chunks.

Put the fruit in a bowl and add the shallots, chili, ginger, scallion and coriander, mix and set aside. Add a pinch of salt to bring out the juice...

In a wok, heat about a tablespoon of oil, and stir fry the shrimp until crispy, and the oil is aromatic. Remove the shrimp with a slotted spoon and drain, then set aside.

Add a further tablespoon of oil, and stir fry the garlic until golden brown. Add the rice, and stir thoroughly. Add the fish sauce and sugar, and continue stirring. When the rice is heated through, add the pineapple mixture and cooked shrimp, and stir until thoroughly heated through.

Pour the mixture into the pineapple shells, garnish and serve.

Note: if you prefer fried rice to be darkish brown in colour, then replace half the fish sauce with dark sweet soy sauce.

Variation: do not cook the fruit mixture. Instead put the fruit mixture and the stir fried rice in the fridge (separately) and chill all the ingredients, then just before serving mix them and put them in the pineapple skins. If you are serving cold then you can also add a few mareschino cherries as garnish. This cold variant makes an excellent counterpoint to hot curries and spicy chilli dishes on a hot day (and it gets *hot* here I can assure you, with the shade temperature topping 40 celsius on many a day.)

This is an unusual recipe for Thai food because it is essentially a vegetarian dish - they are not common in Thailand, where even nominally vegetarian dishes often have quite a large amount of meat. This one has a little dried shrimp, and the true vegetarian could easily leave that out.

It is also unusual in that it is rather a theatrical dish: though the theatricality comes from a Thai habbit of frugality, and perhaps a desire to have less dishes to wash!

For two people you need a medium sized pineapple: choose carefully it should be sweet and juicy.

From colonel@... Sat Feb 10 12:14:52 1996 Colonel Ian F.

Khuntilanont-Philpott Systems Engineering, Vongchavalitkul University, Korat 30000, Thailand

From Gemini's MASSIVE MealMaster collection at www.synapse.com/~gemini

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