Last week I wrote about one regional cuisine which inspired me to give you two more recipes from Isan or North East of Thailand. It has to be understood that Isan is the largest region of Thailand but most of the land there, before the King started many Royal projects to improve the living conditions of the people and the quality of the land, was fairly barren. There is always too much or too little water and the soil is very poor for agriculture. Consequently, the kind of cuisine in Isan is very spicy and

 they mainly eat sticky rice as their staple for of starch in their diet because a little goes a long was. You will find that Isan people eat all kinds of animals including insects and rodent. Snakes, frogs, field mice and many other animal are used in Isan menus because there was not enough meat to go around in the olden days. Isan food is simple and fiery hot and spicy because with very pronounced flavors you can eat a little with lots of sticky rice to fill you up.

Direction for making the dipping sauce:
Pound everything together in a pestle and mortar and add saltiness by using fish sauce or pla rah and add sourness by adding lime juice or tamarind pulp juice. This sauce should be slightly chunky not smooth. Spoon into a bowl and serve with the grilled fish and accompanying vegetables and sticky rice.

Directions for grilling the fish:
1. Scale, gut and wash the fish thoroughly.
2. Break the lemongrass stalks in half and insert the sticks into the mouth of the fish, all the way to the stomach.
3. Run the outside of the fish liberally with the sea salt and grill over charcoal until done.
4. Once done, take a knife and cut along the seams of the fish and take off the skin, which should lift off easily. Plate it and serve with fresh and steamed accompanying vegetables.

Tips:
a. Remember that when I call for shallots in Thai recipes, our shallots here are about half the size of those in Europe.
b. If you do not have a grill just roast all the ingredients in the oven instead.
c. Pla Rah is fermented fish. It is an acquired taste item if you don’t like the smell just use fish sauce instead.
d. Mang Dah is an insect the size of a roach. It is attracted to bright lights and is naturally found near the sea or in the countryside. The male insect when roasted gives off a wonderful scent. If this is definitely you cup of tea you can of course omit it from your recipe.

Directions:
1. Slice the beef along the grain one-inch thick and marinate in soy sauce for an hour.
2. Grill the marinated beef over high heat until medium to medium rare. Take off heat and cooled on a plate.
3. Once the meat is cooled, slice the beef thinly across the grain and place the slices in a mixing bowl.
4. Add the fish sauce, lime juice, ground chili peppers at first and taste to get the right seasoning. It should be spicy sour and salty. Then add the rest of the ingredients and leaving the ground toasted rice kernel to just before serving. Serve with accompanying fresh vegetables.
Tips:
a. Nowadays we can get pretty good cuts of beef, which are quite tender and juicy but if price is not an issue use sirloin steak keeping a little fat at the edge while grilling.
b. If you cannot find Saw Tooth Coriander, regular coriander or Italian parsley will do.
c. The reason for putting the ground roasted rice kernel in just before serving is because the kernels absorb liquids and will swell up and become mushy not crunchy and nutty as it was intended to be.