Thai dish easy and adaptable.

Byline: THE $10 GOURMET By Jim Boyd The Register-Guard

Pismai Nissen, the chef-owner of Tasty Thai Kitchen at 80 E. 29th Ave., said she thought hard to come up with a tasty Thai menu that a cook could make at home with only $10 in ingredients.

She was born in Bangkok, attended college in California, met her husband there and later moved to Eugene to raise a family here. Friends who raved about her Thai cooking prompted her to become a caterer and then a restaurateur, first at the Jiffy Market and then at her current location for the past three years.

Nissen's solution to The $10 Gourmet challenge starts with a simplified, vegetarian version of an appetizer called Krathong Thong (Golden Cup) that's served in deep-fried pastry cups; an entree of curried noodles made in the style of southern Thailand; and a popular Thai dessert made by stewing sliced bananas with sugar in coconut milk.

Nissen said she chose curried noodles as the main dish "because it's easy to make and fast and you can use anything, whatever they have in the refrigerator, as long as they have curry paste, soy sauce and coconut milk."

Curried noodles are filling and can be served either as a lunch or dinner, she said. "In Thailand, we eat noodles all day long. We eat noodles for breakfast, lunch and dinner."

The $10 Gourmet is a feature that allows professional chefs to give menu ideas to home cooks by preparing a meal for two on a $10 budget. Small amounts of kitchen staples don't have to be included in the accounting of the cost.

Nissen spent $9.69 on ingredients at Sunrise Oriental Market and Safeway. She also used vegetable oil, salt, white pepper, soy sauce and sugar from kitchen supplies and frozen corn and frozen mixed peas and carrots from her freezer.

The delicate fried pastry shells for the appetizer are very hard to make from scratch, although they do make them on occasion at her restaurant, Nissen said. So she decided to substitute commercial won ton skins, which are thicker and ready-made, for this version of Krathong Thong. "It tastes as good and it's beautiful - and easier," she said.

Also, to save money, she filled the cups with a meatless mixture made by sauteing garlic with chopped baby bok choy and the frozen mixed carrots and peas and frozen corn that are considered staples at her home.

"In Thailand, we use shrimp and pork mixed together, but for a $10 budget we don't want to go to that," she explained.

Nissen started the banana and coconut milk dessert cooking before she started making the curry, and then let the bananas simmer while the curry was being prepared. The bananas used for the dessert should be neither too green nor too ripe, she said.

Nissen used fresh egg noodles from Sunrise for the curried noodles. However, she said any type of noodle can be used. Spaghetti noodles work well, she said.

She began preparing the curry sauce by frying a mixture of chopped garlic and chopped cilantro stems in a tablespoon of oil. Cilantro root, which is very aromatic, would be used instead of stems in Thailand. However, the roots aren't readily available here, she said.

Next, she added a tablespoon of red curry paste from a can she bought at Sunrise (one tablespoon produced a very mild heat in the finished curry; Nissen said that if she were making the dish for herself, she would quadruple the amount).

After the curry paste had cooked for about a minute, she added a pound of pork sirloin that she had coarsely chopped. When the meat was almost done, she added soy sauce, sugar, water and canned coconut milk that she allowed to boil rapidly, and she then added the bok choy and zucchini. However, she said other vegetables can be used. When the vegetables had softened, the curry was done, ready to be poured over noodles.

Nissen dressed up the dishes with banana leaves that had been cut into 10-point stars and radishes that had been carved into lotus flowers. Please don't look for instructions here. The radish flowers were carved by one of the workers at the restaurant, who learned the art in Thailand.

The curried noodles are best served warm, not hot, she said. That's also true of the coconut banana dessert, although Nissen said she also eats it cold for breakfast.

Nissen said she sometimes has to educate customers that hot curry should be spooned over warm rice to lower the temperature.

"That way, you can taste the flavor," she said. "Because if you have hot rice and hot curry, all you do is taste the heat. You don't taste any flavor of the chili and the spice. It doesn't taste good when the rice is very, very hot and the curry is very, very hot. You just don't taste anything."

Southern Thai Curried Noodles

3 tablespoons canola oil 

2 tablespoons finely chopped garlic and cilantro stems (equal parts garlic and cilantro)

1 tablespoon red curry paste

1 pound pork sirloin, coarsely chopped

2 tablespoons light soy sauce or fish sauce 

1 teaspoon sugar

1/2 cup water

1 3/4 cups coconut milk

2 small baby bok choy, cut small

1 small zucchini, julienned

1 pound fresh egg noodles

Heat oil in frying pan. Add chopped garlic and cilantro and cook over medium heat until aromatic. Add red curry paste. Stir-fry for 1 minute. Add chopped meat and cook until almost done.

Add soy sauce or fish sauce, sugar, water and coconut milk. Cook over high heat until boiling.

Reduce heat and add baby bok choy and zucchini. Simmer until vegetables are soft. Remove from heat.

Meanwhile, in a large pot bring 10 cups water to a boil. Add noodles. Cook for 8 minutes (until tender), then drain. Rinse with warm water.

Put noodles in 2 bowls. Pour curry mixture over noodles. Garnish with cilantro.

Serve hot.

Krew Boud She

(Coconut Banana Dessert)

1 cup coconut milk

1/4 cup sugar

Pinch salt

2 bananas, sliced into rounds approximately 1/4- to 3/8-inch thick

In a small pot, bring coconut milk, sugar and salt to a boil. Add banana and cook until banana is softened.

Krathong Thong (Golden Cup)

Two small ladles, one that will fit inside the other, are needed to form the fried baskets for this appetizer.

1 cup cooking oil (enough to submerge a won ton wrapper held between two ladles)

4 pieces won ton wrappers 

1 clove garlic, chopped

1/2 cup frozen corn

1/2 cup frozen peas and carrots

1 small head baby bok choy, chopped small

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 dash ground white pepper

Cilantro for garnish

Set aside 1 tablespoon of oil to stir-fry vegetables.

Heat remaining oil in a small, deep pan. When oil is hot, press 1 won ton wrapper between 2 ladles and place the wrapper in the hot oil. Fry until golden brown.

Place wrapper on rack to drain excess oil. Repeat for remaining 3 wrappers.

Heat reserved 1 tablespoon oil in a saute pan. Fry garlic until golden brown. Add vegetables. Stir-fry until vegetables are soft. Add soy sauce and white pepper. Remove from heat.

Arrange the 4 golden cups on a plate. Spoon stir-fried vegetables into each cup. Garnish with cilantro.

Serve warm.

SETTLING THE BILL

3 heads baby bok choy:

$1.01

1 pound fresh chow mein noodles: $1.29

1 can (19 ounces) coconut milk: 99 cents

1 can red curry paste: 89 cents

1 package won ton wrappers: $1.29

1 pound sirloin pork chops: $3

2 bananas: 32 cents

1 zucchini: 31 cents

1 bunch cilantro: 59 cents

Total: $9.69

CAPTION(S):

Pismai Nissen, chef and owner of Tasty Thai Kitchen, cooks A Thai meal for two.