A couple of Thai nibbles

Last week I did a canape thing for a friend's leaving bash. She's a teacher and so the crowd were about 30 staff from her school. They were going out for Thai food later on, so we thought it'd be nice to make the canapes SEAsian style.

Did 4 types -

• Miang (see previous post on these),
• Vietnamese style summer rolls with duck & herbs,
• Baby gem leaves with green papaya salad in (some veggie, others with finely sliced rare steak on top)
• Salmon 'Sang Wa' - Thai-style marinated salmon bites.

As is so often the case with me i was too preoccupied and my camera was/is too rubbish to take snaps at the time. But the next day a friend came over for some lunch and i did manage to take a couple of shots as we ate some leftover nibbles in the garden (along with a Thai roasted rice & beef salad made from the piece of rump steak i had left).

So thought i'd stick them up here...

It was only two of them: the Salmon Sang Wa & (in the foreground) Miang Kham:
























Here's a close up of the miang - see my previous post for the recipes for these. i'm also keen to make (& post about) some diff types of these soon too - e.g with smoked fish, with prawns and pomelo etc...watch this space.
























Here's the salmon nibbles...think they're called Sang Wa...is basically griddled sweet potato rounds with marinated raw salmon on top. Something i read about in a Tom Kime book (i'm a big fan of his food). My version + recipe below.


















Salmon Sang Wa (serves 6 as nibbles / starter):

Ingredients:

• 400g of best quality salmon fillet
• 2 sticks of lemon grass
• 2 spring onions
• 1 small piece of ginger
• 1-2 sweet potatoes
• teaspoon veg or sunflower oil
  

Marinade:

• 3 tablespoons each of lime and orange juice
• Caster sugar and fine salt - 1/2 teaspoon each
• Splash of fish sauce
• 1 birds eye chilli
  

Garnish:

• 1-2 kaffir lime leaves
• 1 long red chilli
• Small picked coriander leaves
  

Method:

• make the sweet potato discs - peel & slice down until a round cilinder sort of thing then cut in to 1 cm thick round (you will need maybe 20), toss with teaspoon of oil and some seasoning and, using a ridged griddle pan, griddle for 5 mins on each side on medium heat until just soft, slightly charred and edibly soft.
• dice the salmon in to 1cm cubes, finely chop the lemongrass, spring onion and ginger and mix with salmon
• now make the marinde: squash the chilli with the blade of a knife and then mix with all other marinade ingredients so it infuses it's heat and mix to make sure the sugar and salt have dissolved. pour the marinde over the salmon mix.
  
• for the garnish: cut fine strips of chilli and lime leaf and have ready with your coriander leaves
• to put together: top the potato round with teaspoons of salmon mix, then garnish with the coriander leaves and the chili & lime leaf strips.

N.B you could tweak this in all sorts of ways...i'd be keen to try strips of orange or lime zest in there, use a white fish instead, include Thai basil or mint, more chilli perhaps some crispy shallots or such for texture. Also if you dont want the faff of the potato rounds, then mini little gem leaves work well as a base too.

Andy

p.s oh and am looking to get me a decent camera soon, so watch this space for better quality picks!