Cocktails & Canapes Women's World Cup 2015: Thailand

Womens World Cup

Sunday 7th June 2015 featured game is Norway vs Thailand and Thai is the theme for tonight's cocktail & canape:

Kamikaze Cocktail

Thai Fish Cakes with chilli dipping sauce

The Cocktail comes from a book I have owned since 1999 and apart from making a dessert soon after I bought the book, it has gathered dust ever since. It was brought back to use for tonight by the very helpful recipe database called Eat Your Books. I have mentioned this service on the blog before, but it really has transformed the way I find recipes from my collection and I would not want to be without it. The site has been developed hugely over the last few years and now includes highly searchable indexes of a large number of internet based recipes as well as a rapidly increasing number of cookbooks and magazines. You can also create your own recipe indexes should you have obscure books or personal collections of recipes you want to index.

So I was searching for 'Thai' and 'Cocktail' and a recipe for Kamikaze Cocktail popped up as it included Thai basil. After googling the cocktail it seems that the Thai basil is not a standard ingredient but I liked the idea. Then of course I could not find any Thai basil so I'm cheating tonight in making it with a smaller leafed, but quite aromatic, basil that I have been growing at home.

Recipe  for Kamikaze Cocktail

The measurements for 4 servings as they appear in the book are:
ice cubes
4.5 ounces vodka
5-6 ounces Triple Sec or other orange liqueur
2 limes cut into small wedges
4 sprigs Thai basil

Pack a large 16 ounce container with ice cubes.
Add the vodka, Triple Sec and lime wedges.
Using a bar stick (muddle?) crush the ice mixture until the lime breaks up which will extract the juice and the lime oils.
Strain through a fine sieve and pour an equal amount into each of 4 martini glasses
Serve straight (without ice) with a sprig of Thai basil

Recipe for Thai Fish cakes with Dipping Sauce

The fish cake recipe comes from the Great British Chefs website and is by Marcello Tully. The only changes I am making are to leave out the green beans (as only grown outside europe ones were available) and leave out the fresh coriander (one of my few dislikes) and to use hake instead of whiting. I did cut back a little on the amount of chilli but was sadly too timid as I could have enjoyed them a bit hotter; so that was a lesson in over caution.
I made a half batch of the recipe and portioned my fishcakes up half size as I am using these as canape style food.

They cooked really quickly, totally cooked in the half time break in fact.

The last five minutes of cooking is done in the oven which gives you time to get serving plates and sauce assembled. I like cucumber salad with Thai food and this one is dressed with a little sweetened rice vinegar.

Well Thailand lost 4 nil to Norway so they will be feeling a bit sore about that. I doubt they drink during a tournament but the Kamikaze really is very good and I rather like the hint of basil.