Thai dishes specialty of math teacher from Tremont
Oct. 5—TREMONT — When Mathinee Spencer has time, when she isn't worn out from teaching or parenting or life's daily challenges, she likes to get in the kitchen and make dishes from her native Thailand.
"If I have time to prep, I make Thai food," said Spencer, 52, who lives in Tremont.
Spencer was born and raised in the Kalasin Province of Thailand. After her mother married an American, the family moved to Washington State in 1980. When her stepdad retired from the Army, they moved to Tilden, a small community in Itawamba County, where his family lived.
"I came to the U.S. at 9 years old, and they put me in first grade," she said. "So I didn't graduate high school until I was 21."
When Spencer was a junior at Itawamba Agricultural High School, mutual friends introduced her to a young man. She asked him out on a date, and he said yes.
That young man is her husband, Randy, the pastor at Tremont First Baptist Church. The couple has been married 30 years and has four children — Loren, Samuel, Miah and Lydia — and one grandchild, Luca. Spencer teaches eighth-grade math at Mooreville Middle School, and is now in her 27th year.
Even though Spencer ate Thai food as a child, her mother didn't prepare it much after the family moved stateside.
"Mama cooked Hamburger Helper and hamburgers when we came to the U.S.," Spencer said. "She didn't cook Thai because the ingredients didn't become readily available until maybe the late 1980s."
Consequently, the only thing Spencer could cook when she married in 1992 was spaghetti.
"Randy got so tired of spaghetti," she said. "When Loren and Samuel were born, I wanted to feed them correctly — green beans and broccoli. I wanted them to have good, nourishing meals."
She learned to cook Southern staples, like chicken and dressing, and chicken and dumplings and vegetable soup, but she also got interested in cooking Thai food.
"When Randy and I would go out of town, we'd go to Thai restaurants," she said. "When we got home, I'd Google what we had, or look on Pinterest. I try to make Thai food as authentic as I can. Now, when we go to a Thai restaurant, my children say, 'Why are we here? You know how to make all this at home.'"
Every three months or so, Spencer will travel to the International Farmers Market in Cordova, Tennessee, to get ingredients to make Thai dishes.
"Once, I found a type of guava fruit that I hadn't had since I was a little girl," she said. "It used to grow in our yard. I brought it home and ate it, and I just cried. It's amazing how the brain works, how that piece of fruit took me back."
Spencer goes through phases, where she prefers one Thai dish over another. Currently, her favorite is Som Tum, a green papaya salad.
"It's a dish you share with people," she said. "Food is meant to be enjoyed with people — people you love. It's meant to bring people together."
DO YOU KNOW A GOOD COOK? Send your nominations to Ginna Parsons, Cook of the Week, P.O. Box 909, Tupelo, MS 38802. Or you can call (662) 678-1581 or email them to ginna.parsons@journalinc.com.
DRUNKEN NOODLES
PROTEIN
8 ounces shrimp, bacon, chicken or pork
1 teaspoon fish sauce
1 clove garlic, grated
Pinch of white pepper
SAUCE
2 tablespoons oyster sauce
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon dark soy sauce
2 tablespoons honey, palm sugar or brown sugar
NOODLES AND VEGETABLES
1 pound fresh rice noodle sheets or wide rice noodles
1 to 5 Thai chilies, crushed then chopped
8 cloves garlic, crushed then chopped
1 large shallot, sliced
6 ounces Chinese broccoli or broccolini
1 red chili, sliced
2 cups Thai basil
Combine protein of choice, fish sauce, garlic and white pepper in a bowl and let marinate while preparing other ingredients, about 10 minutes.
Combine oyster sauce, fish sauce, soy sauce, dark soy sauce and palm sugar in a small mixing bowl and set aside.
Soak noodles in hot water for 15 minutes, then drain.
Heat a wok over high heat until smoking. Saute Thai chilies, garlic and shallot for 45 seconds to 1 minute. Add the marinated protein and saute 2 minutes. Add broccoli and saute for 1 minute. Add soaked, drained noodles and the reserved sauce. Stir-fry for 2 minutes. Add sliced red chili and basil. Turn off heat and keep tossing.
THAI MANGO SWEET STICKY RICE
1 cup glutinous/sweet rice
2 to 3 fresh mangoes
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon coconut milk
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon corn starch
1/2 teaspoon sesame seeds
Soak glutinous/sweet rice for 2 hours, or up to overnight. Drain water when ready to cook.
Using a steamer, steam sticky rice for 20 to 30 minutes. Check at the 20-minute mark. If rice is soft and not hard in the middle, it is done.
While waiting for rice to cook, slice mangoes.
Prepare the sweet coconut sauce by bringing 1 cup of coconut milk, sugar and salt to boil. Once it reaches a boil, place half of the sauce into a small bowl and set aside.
Combine remaining 1 tablespoon of coconut milk and corn starch, then add that into the pot to thicken the sweet coconut sauce. Boil for a few minutes until sauce is thickened.
When rice is done, add the reserved bowl of sweet coconut sauce to rice and mix well. Set aside and let it cool for 15 to 20 minutes.
Once cool, place rice onto serving plate, top with sliced mangoes, and drizzle the thickened sweet coconut sauce onto rice. Garnish with sesame seeds.
SOM TUM
(Thai Green Papaya Salad)
1 1/2 cups julienned green papaya
2 cloves garlic, peeled
Thai chilies, to taste
1 1/2 tablespoon palm sugar, finely chopped, packed
2 to 3 long beans, cut into 2-inch pieces
3 tablespoons roasted peanuts
1 heaping tablespoon small dried shrimp, roughly chopped
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 teaspoons tamarind juice
1 1/2 tablespoons fish sauce
1/2 cup grape tomato halves or a small tomato cut into wedges
Soak payaya strips in ice water for 10 to 15 minutes until they are firmer. Drain well and place in a bowl lined with 2 layers of paper towels to absorb excess water.
In a large mortar and pestle, pound garlic and chilies until there are no more big chunks (pieces of chili skin are fine). Add palm sugar and mash with the pestle until it turns into a wet paste and all the chunks are dissolved. Add long beans and pound just until they're broken.
Add peanuts and dried shrimp and pound to break the peanuts up slightly. Add lime juice, tamarind juice and fish sauce, adding the squeezed lime skin into the mortar as well for extra lime fragrance. Stir with a large spoon to mix and dissolve the sugar.
Add juliennd papaya and tomatoes, and mix well. Once everything looks well mixed and the tomatoes are just slightly crushed, it's done.
CHEESECAKE
FILLING
2 eggs
12 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 large graham cracker pie crust
TOPPING
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup sour cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Fruit or pie filling, optional
For the filling, beat eggs and softened cream cheese. Add sugar and vanilla and beat until well blended. Pour into graham cracker pie crust. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes.
For the topping, combine sugar, sour cream and vanilla. Spread on top of cheesecake. Return to the oven and bake for 10 minutes. Add fruit or a dollop of pie filling on each slice, if desired.
MATHINEE'S EGG ROLLS
1 pound ground pork sausage
1 small cabbage, shredded
1/4 cup shredded carrots, or less
1/4 teaspoon garlic salt, or less
Sugar to taste
1 package (18-count) egg roll wrappers
1 egg white mixed with a little water
Vegetable oil, for frying
Thai sweet chili sauce, soy sauce, or sweet and sour sauce, for dipping
In a large skillet, brown pork sausage. Add cabbage and carrots and season with garlic salt and sugar. Stir and cook until the cabbage wilts. Let mixture cool.
Follow wrapping instructions on the egg roll package. Brush egg white mixture on egg rolls to seal. Place egg rolls on a paper-towel lined cookie sheet.
Deep-fry egg rolls until golden brown. Serve with Thai sweet chili sauce, soy sauce or sweet and sour sauce, for dipping.
