Main Ingredients:

See below ingredients and instructions of the recipe

Cooking Preparation of the Recipe:

1 md Pineapple, sweet juicy
2/3 tb Chopped shallots (purple
-onion)
1/2 tb Grated ginger
13/16 Red chilis finely julienned
2 Green of 2 spring onions,
-coarsely chopped
1 tb Chopped coriander/cilantro
2 tb Dried shrimp
2/3 tb Garlic, coarsely chopped
1 tb (to 2) fish sauce
1 ts Sugar
2 c Steamed rice, cold(garnish)
Coriander leaves (garnish)

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.

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