Original subtitles

Hey friends, Jet Tila here with another episode of Ready Jet Cook, where we

break down the core techniques of Asian cooking from shop to plate, one dish at

a time. Today we're making tom yum soup and Thai cashew chicken, specialties

that have defined Thai American cuisine for decades.

And they're two of the first dishes I learned how to cook in my family's

restaurant.

We're making a Thai version of a Chinese -American classic cashew chicken.

I bet you can't guess what my first ingredient is.

Cashews! Pretty nuts, right?

If you didn't know, cashews proliferate all over southern Thailand.

It's a nut that we grow and we consume quite often in Thailand.

You want to make sure that you're buying roasted cashews versus raw.

Cashews, if you didn't know, have a nice kind of a buttery...

texture they're not really like a firm crunchy nut if you can't find toasted

cashews i like to throw them in an air fryer for about six to eight minutes and

then they're perfect and that bag of old cashews in your pantry get rid of it if

you want to make them last longer just store them in the fridge in an airtight

container if you can't find cashews or you don't like cashews no big deal i

peanuts a lot as an alternative for this dish all right i got a couple more

things to grab

I can't leave without grabbing another essential Thai ingredient, num prik pao.

Well, let me explain it a little better.

Num prik pao literally translates to roasted chili paste, also known as chili

paste in soybean oil. It's totally unique in the chili paste world. The

come from roasted garlic and shallots and dried shrimp and fish sauce. It is

unsung hero of the Thai pantry.

So this is really the secret that takes Thai cashew chicken over the top. I'll

show you when we get into the kitchen.

I'm sure you've tried catchy chicken in a Chinese restaurant, and it's because

this dish originated in Chinese -American restaurants.

But the dish was so popular that Thai restaurants felt they were missing out

had to get into the game. So they created their own original version, and

is it. Let's start by breaking this dish down.

The first thing I do with the chicken breast is find the graining. And the

graining is kind of going the way my fingers are.

So let's cut into three to four inch pieces with the grain. Once you cut with

the grain, you take each block and now cut against the grain. But I'm not going

to cut perpendicular, straight up and down. I'm going to angle that knife

slightly so when I make my slice, I pull a tile off that piece of chicken. Now

just keep repeating that tile. So you're not only cutting against the grain to

keep the chicken moist.

You're also creating a nice flat surface, which is going to cook up

quickly and evenly.

This shape of protein in the pan will also pick up a lot of the delicious

seasonings we're going to use. So there you go.

Chicken is sliced into perfect tiles. So as usual, I'm using a gel board or a

plastic board to contain my raw proteins so I don't cross -contaminate. Now that

I'm done with the chicken, I can put this away.

wash my hands and we'll move on and stay clean so in terms of veg prep why don't

we turn this into a mini knife skills class the way i like to hold the knife

above the handle i'm going to put my thumb and index finger on the blade and

then i'm going to wrap my three fingers around the handle and this is what we

call in the kitchen a pinch grip and now the knife is an extension of my arm get

tons of leverage on it okay

Onions, bell peppers, pretty simple.

This is how I like to cut a bell pepper. Remember the Tila tile slice dice?

Let's make everything a tile first.

So tile from the back of the pepper.

The tile from the front of the pepper.

Get rid of the stem.

And now we're gonna tile out the rest of the pepper by just inserting our knife

into a tile, turning flat, and rolling the seed pod cut away

from the pepper. See?

look at that perfect seed pod and no seeds in the actual red pepper it's good

practice to repeat your motions so instead of like cutting this bell pepper

the way through since i have a green pepper i'm going to do tiles first it's

way we do it in a pro kitchen let's get rid of that stem button because we've

tiled it perfectly and i'm going to do the same here insert the knife flatten

out

And that way I can see the seed pod rib lines. And we've got perfect tiles.

I'm only going to need half of each pepper.

So this way I can be neat and tidy about it and save this for my next dish. I

like these little French fry cuts called batonettes. But if you love...

dices that's fine the only thing i ask is you keep the sizes relatively the

so they cook up nice and evenly but these are batonettes they are french fry

cuts about a quarter inch wide and about two to three inches long So the

difference between red and green bell pepper is really just the flavor.

Reds are fruity and sweet.

Greens have that kind of like chlorophyll grassy note. So for the

going to stay away from batonette. I'm actually going to do a large dice just

I can have some variance in the dish. I take the tip and the root side

completely off. I like to split in half. I'm only going to need half the onion.

And I like to peel the onion while it's sliced in half because I think it's

easier and more efficient.

And I'm going to do dices here. So a large dice is three quartering. So I'm

going to go thirds first and then thirds this way.

Okay, last few things.

Garlic and chilies. I'm going to do the grandma garlic smash.

So keep the garlic closer.

to your body. Allow the handle to be off the board so you get a flat smash.

That doesn't work because your knuckles get in the way. And then, not a

pressure, smash.

Don't hit your camera person, all right, at home.

Position, smash, and then I'm going to do a few passing cuts.

Perfect. I think chili and garlic and Thai cooking have to be together.

We have these things called mortar and pestle, and most grandmas will just

the... chili and garlic together in the mortar and they just leave a pile of

that chili garlic and they start all their stir fries that way two is

three four is pretty spicy i'm gonna leave that up to you i want to feel the

heat i don't want to get hurt by the heat so i'm going to leave it there i'm

also using dried chilies for this recipe it really is an homage to the chinese

side of this and speaking of that connection between thai and chinese

believe it or not most of us Thai people do have Chinese roots. For instance,

our family's last name, Tila, was actually say, T -S -E.

So we're not only Chinese by blood, most Thai restaurant families are actually

Chinese. So there's a very deep, long connection between Chinese cuisine and

Thai cuisine. Coming up, I'm gonna show you how to get all these ingredients

into the pan.

All right, so my veggies are prepped. My chicken is sliced. Let's get into the

Thai stir fry. So for this dish, I'm using a skillet, a big skillet. The

the better. You want as much surface area as possible so all the ingredients

cook evenly and quickly. I'm always starting with a neutral oil.

I think there's a lot of debate in the world. Canola, peanut, vegetable,

whatever you like to cook with as long as it gets a really high smoke point.

It's really important to preheat your pan on a common stove if you're not

cooking in a commercial kitchen because you want this thing to get searing

really quickly. So we're going right with chicken breasts.

And use that surface area of the pan because you want coast -to -coast

I'm looking at the veggies, and the onions look a little denser and square,

they're going to take a little longer.

Garlic, chili.

and get that moving it is critical to make sure all of your prep or your mise

place is ready because once that pan is at like 400 degrees you can't stop and

start or you're going to lose the sear time for dried chilies and of course

cashews all right bell peppers are going in late here because they are cut

a little thinner that bats and that's going to cook faster the whole idea is

the time the stir fry is done Every ingredient, from the thickest to the

smallest, is timed out and cooked evenly.

All right.

We've got the sear. Let's get some sauces in there to start building that

The chicken is really nice and brown. It looks more firm, and that's exactly

what I want.

Thai oyster sauce. If you've cooked with me before, we've used Chinese oyster

sauce, and it's bigger in salt.

Thai oyster sauce is actually more mellow and sweet.

And then since we're doing Thai food, I'm also using fish sauce. Chili paste

soybean oil.

Finally, I love adding a little pinch of MSG.

MSG is the secret that's going to make your home dishes taste like the

restaurant.

So visually what I'm looking for is that sauce that's sticking down to a glaze.

Chicken is good. Veggies are good. I'm ready to plate.

Since it's Thai food, I'm always gonna pair this with the king of grains,

jasmine rice. The crunchiness, the spiciness, the deep flavor of this dish

gonna compliment really well. And always match your utensils to your cuisine.

Chinese food, I might use chopsticks, but in Thai culture, if I'm eating

rice, I'm always using a spoon.

Before I take a bite, I'm gonna top this with just a little bit of that white

pepper. You're going to find that white pepper is a very common topping

condiment for a lot of Thai dishes. And it adds that little floral note right at

the end. I'm trying to compose the perfect bite. Peppers, onions, cashews,

chicken on that jasmine rice.

Yo, that was not

a TV bite. This is so good. Let me take another bite.

That flavor profile.

of hot sour salty sweet the bell peppers and the umami flavors really bring me

back to being a young cook in our thai restaurants this is the dish that i

watch the cooks make and want to get a little bite of so before the orders went

out i got a little courtesy bite of a lot of these plates and this takes me

right back to that fun memory so we've covered the essential thai sauces in

cashew chicken but next i'm going to show you some essential thai aromatics

make up tom yum soup Stick around.

Let's get into another dish that embodies Thai flavor, tom yum soup.

This is one of the most frequently ordered Thai dishes in American

Let's get into it.

Dum Yum really embodies the magic of why people love Thai food so much. There's

a specific trinity of herbs that goes into everything, and this is really the

cheat code to Thai food. This is lemongrass. It's a stalk that grows out

ground. I'm going to show you how to cut it up in the kitchen, but this gives

you an amazing citrusy experience, and the essential oil is called citronelle.

Next, galanga. Now, commonly mistaken for ginger, this is not ginger at all.

you can tell because it has a waxy surface.

This is what we call a rhizome. So it grows underground horizontally, and then

the big shoots come up that kind of look like lemongrass, but it's got an

amazing peppery, piney smell.

It's going to be a lot more dense than ginger, so you don't really eat this

directly. We're going to slice it up really thin, and it's going to lend its

flavor into our broth.

What you're looking for for fresh galanga, if the skin looks super dry and

cracked, not fresh. This is actually perfect.

Next, all right, I'm going to break the rules a little and show you what Thai

lime leaves look like.

The Thai lime leaf, it looks like two leaves stuck together.

Very tough. It's a pretty coarse leaf. So again, we're not going to eat it

directly unless we slice it really thin, which I'll show you in the kitchen. But

we really prize it for its amazing citrus aroma.

It is packed full of fragrance, and that fragrance is going to be part of that

magic of Tom Yum Soup. I'm going to show you how these all come together in the

kitchen.

So yum is a Thai word that translates to that perfect balance point between hot,

sour, salty, sweet, savory. Think about the dishes you know. Tom yum, yes.

Yum nu, which is beef salad.

Yum salad.

It's actually a Thai word. It's not just like a cheesy dad joke that my kids

can't stand.

So tom yum really embodies these five flavors. It really is a ubiquitous soup

Thailand, and I've been making this since I was a kid. So I'm going to start

with lemongrass.

Now, lemongrass can be a little daunting in the market. I'm going to teach you

exactly what to do with it. So this is the root end, which is in the ground,

this is the leaf end.

Find the midpoint of the root ball and cut that right there. If you're growing

lemongrass at home, in the garden, Cut it there, and this will continue to grow

and proliferate. You're gonna have a lemongrass forest really quickly.

So now that we've cut the base of the lemongrass off, I want you to cut the

lemongrass about 50 % down from the top. So we get rid of the top and the

bottom. This is the usable portion.

I want you to remove any of the looser leaves because those looser leaves don't

have as much flavor as that hardy core.

We finally have made it to the part you're gonna cook with.

For this soup, you have a few choices.

You can slice thin, exposing a lot of surface area, or you can cut it

into wider pieces, smash it to expose the essential oils, and then remove it

later. There you go, and with these pieces, I will cut the thin slices.

Lemongrass, done.

Meet your new aromatic friend, galanga.

Because this is a soup base, I'm not worried about peeling it.

I just want to cut it into very thin slices so it can impart its aroma into

soup stock.

There you go. And the third ingredient in our Thai trinity that we spoke about

at the store is Thai lime leaves.

For soup stock, I'm just going to tear them apart so they can give us their

citrus flavor, and I'm going to reserve some for garnish. I'm going to use most

of the leaves to flavor our stock, and I'm going to show you how to cut

chiffonade Thai lime leaves.

Place the leaves on top of each other, roll them into a tight parcel, bring

knife, and very, very, very thin slices.

In Thai, we call this soi, S -O -I, and that means very, very thin strips,

similar to cow soy.

All right, heat.

The level of spice is always personal. My go -to is two Thai chilies because I

think that's medium hot, but if you're sensitive, go down to one Thai chili or

switch over to Serrano chili. That's fine, but... I'll do two to three on

one. So these are my Tom Yum aromatics. If you find yourself making a ton of Tom

Yum, make a ton of this aromatics and then separate out into bags. So all you

have to do is take that parcel and throw it into the water.

To continue the stock.

I'm going to add that to my hot water. And to get that umami chicken flavor,

going to add chicken powder. But in my house, we call this chicken power

it's such a powerful seasoning and I use it in everything.

This is also going to make this tom yum into a quick version of tom yum. So in

our family's restaurants, we used to use a ton of chicken bones. But over the

last 50 years of Thai restaurants, the truth is most restaurants now are doing

this. recipe with chicken powder so i'm actually giving you some secret

restaurant tips My family opened our first restaurant in 1978, our grocery

in 1972.

And back then, we were the first grocery store and one of only three Thai

restaurants. So I was lucky enough to watch kind of Thai food proliferate in

America. And like all good Asian restaurant families, my restaurants and

were my daycare. They were my summer job.

They were my winter job. I literally grew up working in every position in the

restaurants and the markets.

All these aromatics need to infuse, so I'm going to give it 20 to 30 minutes.

When I get back, I'm going to build out this quick soup. You don't want to miss

it.

All right, team, I can smell all those stum yum aromatics coming together.

Let's finish up the soup. And the first thing we want is straw mushrooms.

Now, these are those kind of... Really cool shaped mushrooms you see at the

restaurant. They're called straw mushrooms because they actually grow in

beds. But when they actually pop, they look like little round spheres.

In order to get that mushroom shape, you actually have to peel them. When you're

at the market, make sure to find whole peeled straw mushrooms.

If you don't want to use canned mushrooms, any fresh mushrooms would be

delicious in this soup.

So all I have to do is strain them now.

So as you can see, these whole peeled mushrooms give you that really classic

mushroom cap shape.

Throw them right into the soup.

Next is going to be the shrimp. I like tail off medium size, but if you're

like a fancy meal and you want to go like extra jumbo or colossal shrimp, I

think that would be super cool.

These are going to cook fast, so I'm going to finish seasoning.

Most prolific...

Seasoning ingredient in Thai cooking is fish sauce, fermented anchovies. This

will give you a nice saltiness and a lot of umami. This chili paste is so unique

in flavor.

It's almost like an onion jam with a little bit of shrimp flavor.

Next, it wouldn't be Thai food without acid. In Thai cooking, the only citrus

use is limes. We don't use lemons. We don't use oranges.

These are known as Persian limes. They're the larger, juicier limes versus

key limes, which is the smaller ones.

Before you serve this, you always want to make sure you taste and adjust.

You know, the recipe is going to be great, but the fine tuning is up to you.

you need a little more salt, that's fish sauce. If you need a little more sweet

and umami, that's going to be the chili paste. And if you need some sour, that's

going to be the lime juice.

Mmm, that's pretty spot on.

I'm ready to plate this. I like to garnish the omelette with three simple

garnishes. That's cilantro, scallions, and a little bit of that Thai lime leaf.

It's pretty authentic to leave the trinity pieces in. Like you can see

amazing pieces of galanga, lemongrass, and thai lime leaf. I prefer that look,

but if you're serving this soup to people who've never had it, either warn

or strain it out. I prefer you don't because I think it makes the soup look

gorgeous.

All right, simple garnish.

Some scallions, some cilantro or coriander, and then a little bit of this

lime leaf.

Simple, humble, yet complex in flavor.

One of my favorite soups. One last note about proteins.

This is shrimp, but if you have guests who don't like shrimp or are allergic,

change up your proteins. You could do fish.

You could do any combination of proteins that works, because the soup really is

the soul.

I want to make sure to grab a piece of mushroom and a piece of shrimp.

There's that perfect bite.

Mmm.

It's warming. It's comforting.

It's got so much umami. The bright citrus notes of the lime touch against

the citrus flavors of the lemongrass.

I really love this soup. It's great as a appetizer.

You can serve a larger bowl as an entree. And we also throw noodles in

make tom yum noodle soup in Thailand. Amazing.

Now that you've mastered the yum, you know, hot, sour, salty, sweet, savory,

you're ready to take on Thai cooking.

So there's your crash course on some key Thai flavors with these two iconic

specialties. I'll see you very soon for more of my favorite Asian dishes on

Ready Jet Cook.