Singha beer Thai recipes: From Bangkok papaya salad to grilled king oyster mushrooms

Spice up your summer barbecues with the help of Thai flavours, from smokey chilli pastes to classic street food favourites

The bursting flavours of Thai food shouldn't be confined to weekend takeaways. As a cuisine full of salads, fish and vegetarian dishes using lemongrass, coriander, garlic, chilli and lime as just some of its basic ingredients, it is perfect for livening up a traditional British barbecue.

Andy Oliver, the chef behind the critically acclaimed East London restaurant Som Saa, worked with Singha beer to create a variety of authentic Thai recipes to bring a taste of Thailand to your garden this summer.

Grilled king oyster mushroom with a grilled chilli relish, toasted rice and herbs

A fun finger food Thai inspired snack – smokey chilli paste and grilled oyster mushrooms are a good combination.

Serves 6-8 as a nibble

200g King oyster mushrooms (can substitute with oyster mushrooms), cut into thick slices
1 tbsp of plain oil (sunflower or groundnut)
Pinch of white sugar
2 tbsp light soy sauce
A few small sprigs Vietnamese mint (optional)
A few small sprigs dill
A few small sprigs coriander  
2 spring onions, sliced thinly
1 head white chicory 
1 tbsp roasted rice powder*

* to make the rice powder, dry and toast raw rice (ideally sticky, but jasmine is ok) in a pan with no oil on a low heat until evenly light brown in colour (about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally). Allow this to cool before grinding it into a coarse powder in a pestle and mortar or clean spice/coffee grinder.

Chilli paste:

4 long red chillies
3 long red dry chillies
4 Thai red shallots, unpeeled (can substitute with small Western shallots)
3 cloves of garlic, unpeeled
2 cherry tomatoes
Splash of fish sauce

Make the chilli paste by charcoal grilling (or charring on a griddle pan) the fresh chillies until charred and soft for around 5 minutes, grilling the dry chillies briefly (about 1 min) until darkened, grilling shallots and garlic until they are charred and soft for around five to 10 minutes, and grilling tomatoes for a few minutes until charred. The ingredients can be cooked on the same grill or pan and taken out as they are ready.

Peel the garlic and shallots, remove skin and seeds from grilled fresh chilli and the seeds from the grilled dry chillies. In a pestle and mortar, pound the dry chilli to a powder. Add the shallots, garlic, tomato and chilli and pound to fairly smooth paste then season with fish sauce.

Mix together the soy, oil and sugar and brush onto the mushrooms on both sides. Grill the mushrooms over a very high heat until charred and just cooked, about two to three minutes on each side. Serve in chicory leaves topped with the chilli paste, spring onions and small sprigs of the herbs, finish with pinch of roasted rice powder.

Bangkok style green papaya salad

A classic Thai street food dish – this goes really well with grilled chicken or pork skewers and sticky rice.

Serves 2-4 as part of a shared Thai meal

3 garlic cloves
Good pinch of salt 
2 tbsp roasted peanuts 
2 tbsp dried prawns, rinsed and drained (can be found in almost any Asian store nowadays) 
2 slices or small wedges of lime (optional)
6 cherry tomatoes, halved 
2 snake beans, cut into 1 cm lengths (can substitute with fine green beans) 
4-6 bird’s eye chillies, to tast
1 small green papaya, shredded 
2 tbsp shaved palm sugar, to taste 
2-3 tbsp fish sauce
2-3 tbsp lime juice 
2 tbsp tamarind water

Using a pestle and mortar, pound the garlic with the salt then add the peanuts and dried prawns and pound to a coarse paste. Add the lime (if using), bruising it with the pestle, then add the cherry tomatoes and beans to the mortar and carefully work everything together. Next add the bird’s eye chillies, barely crushing them. Finally, add the green papaya and lightly bruise with the pestle, while turning and tossing the mixture with a large spoon held in your other hand. Season the salad with palm sugar, fish sauce, lime juice and tamarind water. It should taste sweet, sour, hot and salty.

Cured fish on betel leaf with lemongrass and mint

This is a kind of Thai ceviche, I'm using sea bass here but any type of meaty firm white fleshed fish will work well.

Serves 4 as nibbles

8-10 betel leaves washed and stalks trimmed off (you can find these in most Thai or Vietnamese grocery shops, but if you cant find them at all you could just serve on a spoon instead)
300 of skinless sea bass fillet (ideally wild), pin boned
3 tbsp of lime juice
1 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp white sugar
3 red bird's eye chillies, thinly sliced
4 stalks of lemongrass, thinly sliced
4 fresh or frozen kaffir lime leaves, thinly shredded 
20 or so small picked mint leaves
4 Thai shallots, peeled and finely sliced (can be substituted for regular shallots if unavailable)

Cut the seabass into thin slices. Now make the cure by mixing the lime juice, salt and sugar in a bowl (you can add some lemongrass and lime leaf trimmings here to give extra flavour). Pour the lime cure over the seabass and mix well for one minute. Now remove the fish from the liquid cure and place in a mixing bowl. Add the rest of the fresh ingredients except the betel leaves and mix well. To serve, place a small portion of the fish mix in the middle of each betel leaf. Present the leaves on a platter.

Recipe courtesy of Singha Beer. Find Singha Beer's summer pop up at Night Tales, in Hackney Wick on Fridays and Saturdays until August 27.