Hailing from India’s Northeast region, Prem Pradhan, executive chef at Nara Thai India, grew up surrounded by a family of expert cooks. That is where his love for fresh produce and experimenting with seasonal ingredients began. Belonging to a family of exceptional cooks, it was only natural for Chef Pradhan to be drawn to the culinary world. The chef was recently in Yauatcha Kolkata, where Nara Thai hosted an exclusive and extensive Thai food pop-up.
Chef Pradhan admitted to tweaking the original recipes to make them more palatable to the Indian tastebuds. “Thai food is usually salty, spicy, tangy and sweet to taste. But upon visiting Thailand, I realised that the original flavours wouldn’t be very suitable for our taste buds. Also, in Thailand, getting a pure vegetarian dish is next to impossible, since they cannot prepare almost anything without fish sauce. We don’t use that in our veg dishes, so that’s another tweak that we did.”
For the ongoing festive season, Chef Pradhan shares two easy-to-make snack recipes for you to impress your guests.
Crispy Shrimp Cakes
Ingredients
Salt: 5 gm
Fresh prawns: 400 gm
Egg white: 30 gm
Bread crumbs: 100 gm
Coriander stem: 20 gm
Potato starch: 50 gm
Sesame oil: 20 ml
Chicken seasoning powder: 20 gm
Method
Mash the prawns until they’re in a paste-like consistency.
Add the above mentioned ingredients with egg white and mix well.
Make balls in the desired size from the above mix and coat it with a thin layer of bread crumbs.
Deep fry until golden brown, and serve hot with a sweet chilli dipping sauce.
Chicken Wrapped In Pandan Leaves
Ingredients
Salt: 5gms
Garlic: 20 gm
Sweet soya: 20 gm
Chilli paste: 50 gm
Boneless chicken leg piece: 250 gm
Palm sugar: 30 gm
Miracle sauce: 30 gm
Green local chilli: 10 gm
Coriander root: 20 gm
Black pepper: 5 gm
A bunch of pandan leaves
Chicken seasoning powder: 10 gm
Sesame seeds: 5 gm
Method
Combine all the above mentioned ingredients and blend it together to make a paste like marinade.
Cut the chicken in a size that would fit comfortably within the centre of the pandan leaves you’ve gotten and marinate it with the paste mix overnight.
Wrap each of the overnight marinated chicken pieces in the pandan leaf and set aside.
Once wrapped, steam it for 45 mins in a steamer.
After the steaming is completed, deep fry the same in hot oil.
Sprinkle sesame seeds over it and serve hot with sweet soya.