Thai Sawasdee

For gluten free families, especially those that lean toward vegetarian, I highly recommend ethnic restaurants. Thai and Indian cuisine are our favorites. Finding gluten free items is a breeze as these cultures do not traditionally use wheat products. An exception would be Indian nan. (I love nan)
My husband and I just had an amazing Valentine's day dinner at our favorite Thai restaurant. Thai Sawasdee in Groton, CT. (A plug for you Thai) The owner of the restaurant is a lovely lady who calls herself "Thai". I suspect that her real name is something else, a beautiful name that us Americans would mangle. We were served chicken satay, Drunken noodles with chicken, prawn with rice noodles and fried banana for dessert. We also did a bottle of Merlot, being V-day. Thai cuisine uses rice based noodles and most wrappers are rice based as well. The bananas were wrapped in a rice wrapper. Spring rolls are also wrapped in the rice wrapper. Thai food also used fish sauce, which is gluten free, as one of the main condiments. It is roughly equivalent to soy sauce, however, soy sauces are usually made with wheat. Wheat free soy sauces are available for home cooking.
One of the things I especially enjoy about Thai cooking is the freshness of the ingredients and the spices. The sauces are light in texture and burst with the flavor of thai basil, lemon grass, ginger and hot thai peppers. Thai curries are coconut milk based and taste and smell so good that I would wear it as a perfume.

This is a favorite recipe in our home - Fried rice with walnuts and raisins. Unlike American-Chinese fried rice it is light in flavor. The mix of sweet, acidic and savory makes it a delight to the tongue.

2 1/2 cup cold cooked rice
2 tsp canola or peanut oil
4 tsp minces garlic
2 1/2 tbsp golden raisins
2 scallions sliced
1 tomato cut into thin wedges - I have also used halved grape tomatoes
2 tbsp gluten-free soy sauce
1 1/2 cup raisins
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 cup walnuts halves

Get all ingredients ready - this does not take long to make. Heat oil in large skillet, add cooked rice, mash with potato masher if it is clumpy. Stir fry 1 minute, add garlic and scallion. Add each ingredient one at a time, stir frying 30 seconds- 1 minutes between additions. Add walnuts last.
Garnish with cilantro if desired.