Do it my own way…

There was a Thai chef, a lady, here once and all that she dished out was really good. Unfortunately, the boss of the café saw it fitting to close down the place and got her to pack her bags and head on home. However, the final month when she was here, I did manage to go and enjoy her food a few times before they finally called it a day and I remember particularly her prawn toast that we liked a lot.

Well, last Friday, I had a loaf of sandwich bread in the fridge and a packet of the fish paste from Sarikei and it occurred to me that perhaps, I could try and do it my own way to see if I could come out with anything just as good. I added some ingredients to the paste…

…not much as I would not fancy a somewhat overpowering taste, a bit of serai (lemon grass) and kunyit (turmeric), pounded and finely-chopped Thai basil leaves. I was thinking that perhaps they would give it a bit of that unmistakably exotic Thai taste to what I was about to cook.

I broke an egg and beat it well to use as a holding agent. After that, I cut the bread into squares, applied a bit of the egg on one side and spread the fish paste over it. Then I dipped a prawn in the egg and placed it on top…

I only used half a packet of the fish paste and managed to come out with 30 pieces, that was all.

I heated some oil in a pan till really very hot before putting the pieces in, a few at a time, face down…

…so as to cook the toppings.

Once nicely browned, I turned them over…

…to let them fry for a while, making sure that I removed them quickly from the oil when they were all golden brown, not overdone and I let them stand on some kitchen towel to soak the oil and to let it drip first before moving them onto a serving plate.

My girl came home from school that afternoon and we had them…

…for lunch. She took one to eat and much to my delight, she exclaimed, “This is very nice!”

Yes, I would say they were all right, nice but somewhat disappointing in more ways than one. I should have been more generous with the added ingredients as I could hardly detect them in the pieces of toast. The fish paste shrank terribly till there wasn’t much of it left – next time, I must make sure that I add a lot more…and I sure would want to cut the bread a little bit bigger – they were rather small, I thought and perhaps, I can add a sprinkling of chopped spring onion or daun sup (Chinese celery) and chili on top for a bit of colour.

Anybody wants to give this a try?