Learn about the Thai culture with this book

I have a vague memory that my family spent some time in Thailand when I was a baby.  This memory came back to me when I read All About Thailand*, and remembered a few things my Mom had said, and some pictures I remember seeing as a baby.  I also know Thai food uses a lot of peanuts, and that it is spicy.  Now you know my knowledge of Thailand before our country study.  That being said, I absolutely love our geography lesson that turned into this Thailand Country Study.

(because I raved so much about the All About Philippines book, their publisher Tuttle Publishing sent me a free copy of All About Thailand*, and I still love these books, so I’ll rave a bit more, this post contains affiliate links marked with an *)

Our book for this country study

All About Thailand* really is all about the country complete with some great recipes, a few fun games, and craft ideas, and I love this series.  I wish they had books like this for all of the countries of the world.  I would spend those hundreds of dollars to get these books.  As it is, I’m strongly considering skipping over to Asia for a while to cover these while my kids are still relatively young enough to do them.

Also confession, I did not bother with going to the library for more books because I love this one so much.

Our Thailand lapbook

For every country, we study I want to get the basic facts.  Some of this wasn’t in the book, but I was able to pull out my Globetrotters game* and get the information we needed.  About half was in our All About Thailand book.  This year we were reading the book downstairs with the kids on the couch (ironically because Superman was sick again), so I wasn’t able to write answers on the overhead instead, I assigned the kids to go back and read the book to find the different people groups and correct spelling for locations.

Then we dug into the book and learned about native animals, food, and products.  You should have heard the kids get excited about the monkeys in Thailand.  My two non-sick kids both declared they wanted to visit the Monkey Festival, AND they wanted to visit the Elephant Conservation Society.

Speaking of the Elephant Conservation Society, the kids were hugely amused at the idea of an elephant band so of course, we had to watch a video of their “music.”

It’s quite a unique sound.

Upcoming Thailand crafts and recipes

Princess and I want to make this Lantern Boat, we think it could also make an awesome fairy house for our garden.  Her comment was, “if you don’t make it into a fairy house for our garden Mommy, I’m going to use it for one of my dolls.”

We plan to make the chicken satay tomorrow for dinner, so look for a recipe coming soon with how the kids did with it.  They already balked at the idea of cilantro, and I know my husband is not a fan of peanut sauce, so this may be one of those “doomed from the start” recipes I attempt.  Cross your fingers it’s not.

Thailand Unit: Chicken Satay

I was amazingly proud of myself when I started this recipe.  Just for once I actually had ALL of the ingredients for the recipe.  ALL of the ingredients. I even remembered to pull out the chicken early enough to thaw them at the beginning of the day. So like this was a big win for me.

That win didn’t stick around for long.

Then I read the directions from my All About Thailand book* and it said: “marinate the meat for two hours.”  Well, I had three starving, I mean these kids were going to die any minute if I did not get food on the table kids. This is what happens when you have two almost-teen boys, and a tween girl who is determined to catch up with her brothers.

Chicken Satay ingredients

• 1/2 cup coconut milk*
• 1 tablespoon lime juice
• 1 teaspoon curry powder*
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger* (or 1 tablespoon fresh ginger)
• 1 clove garlic crushed (I buy a giant tub of pre-minced garlic, though in this specific version I used garlic salt* because I couldn’t find any of that)
• 4-5 chicken breasts

So, throw out the two-hour marinate and instead marinate for about 20 minutes.  It was an all-out miracle the kids didn’t die during this time.

Since I’m already not marinating for two hours, I’m obviously not going to soak the skewers* for a long time, so we threw that idea out, and instead, I just pan-fried it. While it was pan-frying I made up the peanut sauce.

PEANUT SAUCE TO GO WITH THE KID-FRIENDLY THAI CHICKEN SATAY

• 1 cup creamy peanut butter*
• 1/3 cup coconut milk
• 2 tablespoons water
• 2 tablespoons lime juice
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce* (yes I buy this big bottle of soy sauce, I like soy sauce a lot)
• 3/4 teaspoon fish sauce*
• 1 teaspoon hot sauce (I’d probably use Tobasco sauce* or something, I think I might have omitted it so Princess would eat it, she’s hit or miss with spicy)
• 1 garlic clove minced
• 2 tablespoons cilantro minced (I left this out because Jeff can’t stand cilantro)

This is super easy, just mix it all together.  Mine came out really thick, so I’m not sure if I missed adding in something to it. But the taste was good, and when I make it again I’ll probably add just a hint of the hot sauce.

We had some rice noodles with a bit of soy sauce on them to go on the side.

Chicken Satay

Print

This Thai chicken satay is perfect for young kids because it is not too spicy

Prep Time 1 hour

Cook Time 10 minutes

Total Time 10 minutes

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup coconut milk*
• 1 tablespoon lime juice
• 1 teaspoon curry powder
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger (or 1 tablespoon fresh ginger)
• 1 clove garlic crushed
• 4-5 chicken breasts cut into bite-sized chunks
• Sauce
• 1 cup creamy peanut butter
• 1/3 cup coconut milk
• 2 tablespoons water or broth
• 2 tablespoons lime juice
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 3/4 teaspoon fish sauce
• 1 teaspoon hot sauce like sirracha or tobasco
• 1 garlic clove minced
• 2 tablespoons cilantro minced (optional)

Instructions

1. Mix together the coconut milk, lime juice, curry powder, ginger, and garlic. Add the chicken chunks, and allow to marinate for a minimum for 30 minutes. While the meat is marinating, soak bamboo skewers in water.
2. Thread the chicken onto skewers and grill for about 3-5 minutes and then flip.
3. While the chicken is marinating and the skewers are soaking, mix together the sauce with a whisk. If the sauce is not thin enough add more water or broth to thin it out.
4. Make rice noodles and mix together the sauce with the chicken and noodles.

Notes

If you don't want to thread the chicken onto skewers and grill them, you can pan-fry them in oil.

Get your Thailand Notebooking pages

Though in actuality it’s a strange combination of Thailand Notebooking pages and Thailand lapbooking pages because I like elements of both.

More country studies

• Philippines
• Switzerland
• India
• Portugal

Thailand map from Wikipedia used under Creative Commons license