Thai Fish Cake (Tod Mun Pla) Recipe
February 7th, 2009 | Thai Recipes | 32 Comments
ทอดมันปลากราย.
I don’t know Thai, but I think it means Tod Mun Pla, or fish cakes in Thai.
Let me tell you the story about how I fell in love with ทอดมันปลากราย, or Thai fish cakes.
Every time I go to Bangkok, I love wandering about in the city, looking for interesting street foods to eat. Recently, when I was in Pratunam, I chanced upon this old lady with a push cart equipped with a big wok of hot boiling oil. On the push cart, there is a huge container of orange-hued mixture. It didn’t look too appetizing to me and I didn’t know what it was…
The old lady then wet one of her hands, shaping a small ball from the mixture, and using only her fingers, she flattened the ball into a nice patty and then dropped it into the wok. Within a minute or so, the flat patty floated to the top and I realized that she was making Thai fish cakes. She made many of these Thai fish cakes in a jiffy; all of them floated to the top to golden-brown glory. I knew I had to taste them.
She packed 10 pieces of the Thai fish cakes into a plastic bag, drenched a dollop of chili sauce onto the fish cakes, and then topped them with a few slices of fresh cucumber. All for only 20 Bahts. It was love at first bite, the best Thai fish cakes I’d ever tasted. They were so fresh, juicy, and simply exquisite. I wished I could have taken the pictures, but I left my camera in my luggage.
So here I am sharing my recipe and pictures of Thai fish cake with you, trying to re-create what I had. They are as good as they get.
Ingredients:
8 oz. fish paste (I used store-bought fish paste)
1/2 egg (beaten)
2 tablespoons Thai red curry paste (Mae Ploy brand or Maesri brand)
5 snake beans/long beans (thinly sliced)
5 kaffir lime leaves (cut into fine thin strips)
Method:
In a small bowl, mix all the ingredients above to form a smooth fish paste. Make sure the red curry paste is well blended with the rest of the ingredients.
Heat up a pot of oil. Wet your hands and pick up the fish paste (about the size of a ping pong ball). Use your fingers and palms to flatten it and make it into a patty. Drop it into the cooking oil and fry till golden brown. Repeat the same for the rest of the fish paste. Alternatively, you can prepare all the fish aste first and then deep fry all of them at once.
Serve the fish cakes hot with Thai sweet chili sauce and sliced fresh cucumber. (Please refer to my Thai Fried Chicken recipe and find out how I dressed up store-bought Thai chili sauce.)
Cook’s Note:
If you like Thai food, do check out my Thai recipes, including Thai fried chicken, green curry, Panang curry, and more.
Related Recipes:
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u always traveled around… :) here and there….. very nice.
i was at pratunam before… u were wright about it. they have lots of street foods…fish cake..oh my god, dipped with sweet chilli sauce is very good. by the way, very nice pic
That looks so authentic!!
Too bad, we should have met. :)
Ohhhhh. That’s my favorite! I can’t wait for the recipe!
Based on the post’s TITLE, I thought we’d find an actual recipe rather than a preview.
Shreela – the recipe is up. It couldn’t finish posting the recipe and had it as “Coming Soon” just now.
I love Thai fish cakes. I think the addition of chopped long beans give thai fish cakes a great texture, more crunchy. And of course, you can’t go wrong with the sweet chili sauce. The recipe seems very easy. I am going to try your Thai fish cakes recipe!
Rasa, I can always count on you to make something delicious. Love it!
Love the pictures – it looks great!
Looks so good!! I can imagine how tasty it must be!
I love Tod Man Pla too. The picture takes me super hungry.
This is one of my favorite snacks! When I was living in L.A. I love to go to “Sala Thai” in Chinatown. They have one of the best fish cakes!
Those looks tasty!
Perfect Bee. They look amazing. I also like tod mun goong made with prawns.
I never tried making this be4 … it sounds very interesting .. and looks delicious .. Laila .. http://limeandlemon.wordpress.com
Mmmmm Tod Mun Pla is one of my favourite things. I love the crunchy bits of long bean and the zing that comes from the lime leaves.
oh man, this looks awesome.
Your fish cakes make me drooling! I luv kaffir lime leaves. Used them in my minced meat and they tasted great!
This is a best-selling snack anytime. From Bangkok to Chiangmai. Just love it.
the trick is you need to pounce very hard on the mixture of fish paste and curry paste several times with the help of mortar and pestle till sticky. This will ensure that once fried, it’ll be gummy like.
Hi
My 1st visit here.
Bangkok is one of the places I like to travel the most as well as my friends because of the yummy street foods there. It is also the only one place that we don’t gain weight after the trips, lol. The secret is shopping, eat, shopping, eat so we are able to burn the fat from time to time.
Wish I can make it as good as yours by following the recipe, thanks for sharing
Oh gosh, one of my fav snack. Thanks for sharing the recipe. Just a quick q. you use premade fish paste…does it give a springy texture? Thanks again.
Nic – yes, it’s still pretty springy because I added egg into the paste. It’s great. :)
do u have the recipe on how to make fish paste? All of your recipe involving fish paste are refered to cha cha brand which has no origins.
I don’t have the recipe for fish paste. There are many brands offering all kinds of fish paste in US Asian grocery stores and also, fresh market in Asia. You should have no problem finding them.
There is a recipe for fish paste by Redcook.
http://www.redcook.net/2009/02/01/making-fish-paste/
Looks delicious but… you know that your fish paste contains MSG (mono soiumd glutamate) It affectds the brain, digestive system and is for many people a systemic allergen… It is also registered as a brain neurotoxic…. just as bad as aspartham, nutrasweet and other synthetic sugars
I would really like if people like you became more conscious of using high quality food and that as it turns out may mean doing one’s own recipes from scratch
Daniel – thanks for your information but if you eat out or buy processed food, there is no way to avoid MSG. If you can’t take MSG, then you shouldn’t be making this recipe.
Hi
Rasa Malaysia, I remember my visits to Thailand when I was a teenager. My favorite was definitely the Tod Mun. Thanks for the recipe and the story of your experience. It brought back memories.
When looking for the fish paste, do you look for a particular brand? Should I avoid fish paste with seasoning, salt etc?
Thanks
Aaron
Aaron – I used this brand: http://www.rasamalaysia.com/uploaded_images/fish_paste.jpg
Hi, I was just wondering if you also knew anything about breaded, or battered fish, or crab bites that usually could be found all over the New Zealand food shop district…They were usually always sold by the same or very close to places making fish cakes, that I also love by the way…Your pictures take me right back to NZ, very authentic looking…the crab, or fish bites were usually served cold with a mayonaise based dipping sauce….I would love to find a recipe for these….I miss it so much….they were great to throw in or along side a salad….any help would be very much appreciated….
Sorry I am not sure what that is.