Hor Mok Ta Lay or Seafood Curry Custard

Hor Mok (literally, wrap and hide and “Ta Lay” is from “Ah Han Ta Lay” means seafood) is a steamed curry custard in banana leaves. This dish is a common food in Cambodia, Laos and Thailand, each country’s Hor Mok has some slightly different ingredients but Thai Hor Mok is always with seafood and some kinds of fresh water fish.

You can find this dish at Khoa Kheng Shop or and street food vendors to luxury Thai restaurants. The process is pretty straight forward even it has lots of different kinds of ingredients.

• It is better to use uncooked seafood for this dish so that it will mix and blend into fish and herb purée well. You can use any kind of seafood for examples (the popular ones in Thailand) are shrimp, mussel and squid. You can either have only one kind of seafood or mix seafood in this dish.
• In traditional way we use banana leaves for wrapping or making bowls for the size of one serving, but nowadays many chefs use nice little glass or ceramic dipping or sauce bowls for this dish.
• You can have your Hor Mok more texture by adding more chunks of seafood meat in purée besides indicating in the recipe. This is where the name of Hor Mok (wrap and hide) from – the chunks of meat are wrapped and hidden in the custard.
  
  

 12 servings

Ingredients

14                Shrimp (size 31 – 40) uncooked and thaw cut in half

14                Mussel uncooked and thaw cut in half

42 leaves     Sweet basil

Mussel, shrimp cuts

4-5 leaves   Coriander, garnishing

4-5 leaves   Kaffir lime leaves, slice very thin for garnishing

4 tbsp          Thick coconut milk

½ tsp           Potato or corn starch

Banana leaves enough for making 12 bowls.

*First part - herbs

1                  Large long chilli, slices for garnishing

10               Dried large long chillies, soft in warm water and remove seeds

5 roots         Fingerroot

2 roots         Coriander

Ingredients

2 tbsp          Lemongrass, slice

1 tbsp          Galangal, cut into small pieces

1–2               Fresh Thai chillies or Prik Kee Noo (optional, if you like spicy food)

3                  Shallots

3-4 cloves   Garlic

 1                 Kaffir lime, skin( 1 small one or ½ for a big one)

1 root          Turmeric, about 1” long

¹⁄₃ cup         Water or coconut water

**Second part

100 g           King Mackerel, remove bones and skin

2                  Eggs

1 tsp        Palm Sugar

1 tsp            Shrimp Paste, roasted (wrap in foil and roast on the element of stove)

½ tsp           Fresh ground pepper

1 ½ cup       Coconut milk, the thick one from a can

3 tbsp          Fish sauce

Instruction

1. Making banana bowls (if you use glass (pic. below) or ceramic bowls then skip this part), cut banana leaves into 5 x 5 inches. Fold each corner and secure with staples until finish for 4 corners.

   

   Bowls

2. Purée the ingredients of first part – herbs until smooth, and add the second part blend together until smooth. Pour into a mixing bowl and add shrimp and mussel and mix well. Store the mixture in the fridge for 10 – 15 minutes to set.
3. Heat a steamer on high heat.
4. Mix 4 tbsp of coconut milk with potato or corn starch well on medium heat until thicken or you can cook it in microwave. Set a side.
5. Place 3 basil leaves on the bottom of each bowl, scoop 2 tablespoon full of the mixture into the bowls (you can put more or less of the mixture, depending on the size of the bowls). The mixture of each bowl must have meat and sauce purée combined.

   

   For garnishing
   
   
   
   

6. Steam in boiling hot steamer for 8 minutes. Remove from the heat garnish with coconut milk sauce, long red chilli slices, kaffir lime leaf stripes and coriander leaves. And serve hot with steamed rice.

With glass bowl