Northern style curry with crocodile meat

A few days ago I spotted crocodile meat at Tesco Lotus, and since it was just 70 baht, I thought I give it a try. So today I prepared a red curry country style, without coconut but with just nam prik and water, together with the meat, some bamboo shoots and eggplants.

When I was opening the defrosted bag and pull the meat out, I already was sure that doesn't look to good. You could clearly see that this wasn't properly cut from a croc, but was torn apart, randomly hacked. It was fatty and looked like the garbage on the floor after the butcher had left.

Anyway, I wanted to see how the remaining eatable parts will perform with spicy chili, and they did well. Crocodile meat itself has kind of a fish texture while the taste is somewhere between chicken and nothing. So it needs to be either marinated, charcoaled or with a lot of spices.

If anyone knows a place where to get a proper crocodile fillet please let me know.

Introducing: The Thai country burger

When I made some spicy sausages yesterday (Xai Ua, or Chiang Mai sausage), it had some leftover filling. Why not fry it in the pan like a burger paddy I thought? I did, and since I had some sticky rice left and veggies, I started creating the  Thai country burger.

Ingredients:

Sticky rice

Snake beans

Tomato

Lobo Xai Ua spice mix burger paddy (chicken, beef or pork)

Cheese

Chinese cabbage

Spicy sauce

You can buy a very good Xay Ua mix from Lobo's at Big C, Tesco Lotus or Villa Market, it comes actually with sausage casings. 

Take off a big cabbage leaf and use it as a pocket. Put in the paddy, then sticky rice on top, a slice of tomato, a layer of processed cheese and a bit to taste of spicy sauce.  Snake beans left and right of the paddy give some stability. Ready to eat.

Costs are cheap: 500 gr chicken is a bout 50 baht, spice mix 18 baht, sticky rice 7 Baht, cabbage 30 baht, snake beans 18 baht, tomato 20 baht - lasts for 8-10 burgers, depending on the size of the paddies.