Main Ingredients:

See below ingredients and instructions of the recipe

Cooking Preparation of the Recipe:

1 lb Prawns
5 Coriander roots, crushed
1 tb Pepper corns
1 Onion, thinly sliced
3 sl Ginger, crushed
2 tb Cooking oil
1 tb Maggi sauce
1/4 ts Salt
1 tb Sugar
1 tb Oyster sauce
2 tb Light soy sauce
1 ts Sesame oil
1 tb Whiskey
2 c Mungbean noodles, soaked
-and cut into short lengths

Here's a goody that came out of my new Thai cookbook.
It's easy and quick to do and quite tasty. It's a
baked dish, which is unusual for Thai cooking. I
suspect that originally, it would have been steamed.
Next time I'll try it that way or put a tablespoon of
water or sherry in each bowl. It seemed a tad dry to
me. I cooked it in individual French onion soup bowls
with lids.

Place the oil in a wok, heat and stir fry the
coriander root, ginger, pepper and onion. When
fragrant, remove from the wok and place in a mixing
bowl.

Add the noodles, the sauces. salt, sugar, sesame oil
and whiskey, toss the noodles until well coated, and
then add the prawns and toss well once again.

Divide the noodles and prawns into four individual
portions; place each portion in a lidded cup, and
close the lids. Place the cups on a baking tray and
bake at 460F until the prawns are done (about 10
minutes).

Serve hot with fresh vegetables, such as tomatoes and
spring onions. Serves four.

From "The Elegant Taste of Thailand, Cha Am Cuisine"
by Sisamon Kongpan and Pinyo Srisawat. SLG Books,
Berkeley and Hong Kong, 1989. ISBN 0-943389-05-4.

If you can buy coriander bunches with the roots
untrimmed you'll be in good shape. If not, substitute
stems. I left it out as the person I was eating with
doesn't like coriander at all. It doesn't say to, but
I cracked the peppercorns slightly before adding them
to the mix. By light soy sauce, they mean like in thin
soy, rather than as in "lite" soy sauce.

Maggi Sauce is a condiment sauce++originating in
France, I believe++ popular in Asia. It's somewhat
like a slightly thick soy sauce. It can be found in
the gourmet sections of supermarkets as well as in
Asian markets. If I didn't have any, I'd use thick
Chinese soy in it's place. If you can find the Maggi
Sauce grab it. It lasts virtually forever in the
fridge. Get a small bottle, though. I run across very
few recipes that call for it. It's used as a table
condiment in Asia and is often seen on the tables at
Vietnamese restaurants here in the States.

The mungbean noodles are the thin, clear "cellophane"
noodles. I'd have no qualms about using the similar
thin rice noodles if I couldn't find mungbean ones.

I picked up a neato garnish from the photo with this
dish. It shows a green onion "brush" with a slice of
red pepper around the middle. Quite attractive and
easy to make. Cut a slice of scallion++the whitish
part++about an inch and a half long. Slice a fresh
red chili into quarter-inch slices. Take a length of
scallion and push the seeds and pulp out of the chili
slice. Slip the rind down to the middle of the piece
of scallion, then cut the exposed pieces of scallion
with a thin, sharp blade all the way through. Make
two cuts vertically, then rotate the scallion and make
two more cuts. Do both ends, then toss the bundle
into a bowl of water with lots of ice cubes and the
slit ends will curl up making a nice, tassley looking
garnish that's great to eat too. The trick is to get
chilies that are about the same diameter as the
scallions so it's a snug fit. Just toss a couple of
the chilly, frilly scallions into each bowl before
serving. It's a little touch, but it adds a lot to the
appearance of the dish.

Posted by Stephen Ceideberg; July 23 1992.

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