Thai Cuisine

Thai cuisine comes out from Oriental cuisines of South-East Asia. Its widely accepted foods in the world with immense flavours & taste. Traditionally, Thailand has very open to foreign culture with use of herbs & ingredients such as Lemon grass, Kaffir lime, & bird-eye chillies, makes it scented, spicy, & acceptable to almost all the palates in the world. There is some features of this cuisine are, other than like other-Asian countries, its does not use chopsticks for eating, rather eaten by fork & spoons, second, Thai cuisines has lots of curries, which is different from Indian counterparts, each curries have unique tastes & flavorings combined with coconut milk, herbs, & sauces with rice. & Third, the main dish always rice & all dishes are used as accompaniments to it.

Thai food has been accepted all over the world, perhaps because of a unique harmony of cooking methods that are seen separately in other cuisines, & ability to create five different tastes-sweet, sour, pungent, spicy, & bitter, in one dish with each of them being unison with others. This cuisine have methods of stir frying, stewing for curries, grilled & barbecued meat such as satay & grilled meat, & also steaming. Thai use lots of chillies in their food, there dishes that do not contain any chillies. Its achieving harmonious blend of spicy, sweet, & sour tastes. A typical meal might include soup, curry, salad, fried fish & steamed one. Buddhism is the most practiced religion in Thailand, where people do not use large chunks of meat in their food. Rather, in many dishes’ meat used as chopped & shredded & cooked along with lemon grass, hot & sweet basil. Thus, meat like beef, duck & pork, or fresh seafood such as clams, mussels, crab, & prawns.

There are variety of sauce & condiments: nam pla, the essential salt substitute made from fermented fish: nam prik which is combined with chopped chillies, crushed dry chillies, pickled garlic, locally made chilly sauce, fresh vegetables such as cucumbers, tomatoes & spring onions. Some common names in Thai language, like Ahan (Food), Ahan Thalay (Seafood), Bahmee (Egg noodles), Bai (Leaf), Het (Mushroom), Horapa (Basil), Kaeng (Curry), Kai (Chicken), Kapi (Shrimp paste), Khai (Egg), Khao (Rice), Koong (Prawns), kung mang (Lobster), Man (Potato), Manao (Lime), Maprao (Coconut), Moo (Pork), Nam (Water), Neua (Beef), Prik (Chilli), Pla (Fish), Phak (Vegetables), Woon sen (glass noodles), etc.

Some famous ingredients used in Thai Cuisines are like Lemon grass, Thai ginger (Galangal), Palm sugar, Kaffir Lime, Mango ginger (Krachai), Tofu (To hu), Fish Sauce, Curry paste, Bird’s eye chillies, red & yellow chillies, Green Papaya, Long Beans, Mountain Sauce, Pea aubergines, Pandan leaves, Moong bean noodles, Flat rice noodles, Shrimp paste, Thai chilli paste, Thai Cardamom, Holy Basil, Sri Racha sauce, & Bean Curd Sheets.

Popular dishes of Thai Cuisine

Satay- These sliced meats marinated in curry paste, seasonings & skewered into bamboo sticks & char grilled on satay grillers, originated in Indonesia.

Thod Man khao phod- Thai corn patties, prepared by mixing creamed corn kernels with red curry paste, Kaffir Lime, chopped lemon grass, corn flour, & fish sauce like butter.

Som tam- Made from Raw papaya, known as raw papaya salad or Som tam, shreds of white raw papaya used, crushed with tomatoes, peanuts, palm sugar, coriander roots, served as salad.

Tom yam- Soup from Thailand, spicy, hot & sour broth of aromatic vegetables, such as mushrooms & crushed shallots.

Krathoung Thong- it means golden flowers made by dipping moulds in a batter of rice flour, tapioca flour & wheat flour with egg & coconut milk, deep fried until crisp tartlets, served as snacks.

Kai Takrai- Kai means chicken & Takrai means Lemon grass wit onions & peppers, stir-fried with seasonings like mountain sauce & fish sauce.

Kaeng phet- red curry with second spices of all curries, same as green curry with an addition of Mountain sauce as seasonings.

Bahmee- Stir fried egg wheat noodles with meats & vegetables, with seasonings with soy sauce, fish sauce, & mountain seasonings

Tab tim krob- Water cheesenut cut into small pieces & dipped in pomegranate syrup get deep colour, mixture of sweet coconut milk & served with crushed ice.