Thai Market Vegetables by Takeaway

Discover How the Thai Balance Their Varied Taste Buds
One of the most exciting parts of traveling is trying out the local cuisine. There’s nothing like enlisting the participation of your taste buds to fully immerse yourself in a foreign culture, especially when the country involved is Thailand.

The Thai cuisine is wonderfully representative of the Thai culture, but also good enough to stand on its own. In fact, Thailand has become more of a culinary destination in the eyes of many tourists. And the best part is, Thai cuisine is expansive enough to meet the varied tastes of people from all over the globe. There are enough dishes for those with more adventurous taste buds, the more conservative eaters, and most of all, Thai has quite a lot to offer for the health-conscious, even the most meticulous vegetarians. This is actually one of the reasons why Thai food has become quite popular lately.

Balance – Key Ingredient in Thai Cuisine

Green Curry Ingredients by FotoosVanRobin

The Thai cuisine is easy to describe and distinguish. Mainly, it thrives on balance. Light preparation, strong flavor. Light ingredients, strong aroma. To achieve this balance, Thai dishes never veer towards a single ingredient too much and instead often includes an extremely varied range of ingredients. Thanks to the Thai’s affinity to balance, most dishes are good for digestion.

And most of all, no other cuisine is as pleasing to not just one but all of the five taste senses. Thai food is always a bit sweet, a little sour with a tinge of salt, and almost always spicy. The only optional taste sense is bitter, but it nevertheless comes into play in several iconic Thai dishes. To achieve this exciting mix of flavors, the Thai uses a lot of herbs such as cilantro, lemon grass, mint, ginger, tamarind, garlic, soy beans, and Thai basil.

Thai Cuisine Dissected

Generally, Thai cuisine is made up of a hodgepodge of influences coming from Thailand’s neighbors. In fact, several Thai dishes are originally Chinese dishes, such as the noodle and soy-based foods. Cooking techniques such as deep-frying and stir-frying, which are well-used in Thailand, were also introduced by the Chinese.

Thai Basil with Flowers by Risacher

After it has evolved on its own, Thai cuisine can now be classified according to the four regions of the country, namely northern, northeastern, central, and southern Thailand, and each regional cuisine often has a distinctive ingredient. For northeastern Thai, this ingredient is lime juice. For dishes in the south, you may very well expect some coconut milk and fresh turmeric.

The usual Thai table also has a common setting: rice, a single dish for each eater, several complementary dishes to share, and a whole bunch of sauces and condiments. If you plan on setting up a Thai restaurant, one of the biggest challenges is keeping track of all the sauces and spices you need to supply. There’s dried chili flakes, sweet chili sauce, chili peppers in rice vinegar, spicy chili paste, sriracha sauce, and the famous phrik nam pla, which is made by mixing fish sauce, lime juice, and chopped bits of chili and garlic.

Rice is a staple in Thai cuisine; not just any rice too, but the special and sweet jasmine rice abundantly found in Thailand’s central plains. The single or individual dishes, on the other hand, are often noodle-based. Since both rice and noodles are staples, the Thai has even come up with Khanom chin, or Thai rice noodles.

Thai Cuisine Appreciated

If you want to truly appreciate Thai cuisine, don’t plunge in with your spoon and fork the moment the food arrives. Instead, take time to feel the heat of the food and take in its strong aroma before taking your first bite. And with every bite, take time to notice the lightness of the food.

Women & a Traditional Thai Buffet

You also need to make sure of two things:

• Rice – Rice is needed to balance the strong flavor of Thai dishes; you will not appreciate the dishes without rice.

• Sharing – Thai dishes are meant to be shared; sharing adds to the experience because you can sample many different dishes and experience different flavors in just one meal.

Thai food don’t require chopsticks. In fact, they require the use of spoon and fork. Chopsticks are only used for the noodle-based dishes.

Immerse Yourself in Thai Cuisine

For breakfast. If you want to have a true Thai breakfast to start the day with, you can go with the chok or rice porridge or perhaps the khao tom, which is rice soup mixed with either pork, chicken, or shrimp. If you want something spicy, go with the khao khai ciao, which is an omelet with white rice and chili sauce.

Individual dishes: A Thai meal often consists of an individual dish, as opposed to the shared dishes. Some of the most popular individual dishes include:

Khao mun kai by Takeaway

• khao man kai (garlic-steamed rice with toppings of boiled chicken and a dipping sauce)
• the khao phat (Thai fried rice consisting of chicken, beef, shrimp, pork – the works; also available in vegetarian style)
• phat khi mao or noodles stir-fried with Thai basil

Shared dishes: The shared dishes are really what build up a Thai meal. These shared dishes add more flavor to make each meal varied and all the more memorable. Some of the best Thai foods include:
• kaeng khae – spicy curry consisting of meat, herbs, vegetables, and acacia leaves (Northern Thai)
• kaeng khiao wan or green chicken curry (Central Thai)
• lap mu or salad with meat, onions, chilies, roasted rice powder, and mint garnishes (Northeastern Thai)
• kaeng lueang – sour spicy curry with meat and vegetables (Southern Thai)

Snacks and desserts: A Thai meal is usually finished off with a sweet snack (although sometimes snacks are replaced with fresh fruits). Popular snack offerings include:
• chaokuai or grass jelly served with shaved ice and brown sugar
• khanom bua loi or balled sweets made of taro root and dipped in coconut milk
• khanom mo kaeng or sweet pudding made of coconut milk, eggs, sugar, flour, and sweet fried onions

Thai Recipes to Try

For your first try in Thai cuisine, why not choose the National Pad Thai, Thailand’s national dish? The Pad Thai or Phat Thai is a dish made up of stir-fried rice noodles with a harmonious and very iconic blend of fish sauce, eggs, tamarind juice, red chili pepper, and lime juice, plus garnishing of peanuts and coriander. You can choose your main ingredient; it could be chicken, seafood, or tofu, depending on what you feel like eating.
Here’s an easy to follow Pad Thai recipe to start with:

Chicken Pad Thai Recipe for Two in Ten Easy Steps

Pad Thai by BenFrantzDale

What you’ll need:
• 8 oz. Thai rice noodles
• 1-1/2 cups raw chicken meat (preferably breast or thigh), sliced
• Chicken marinade: 1 tsp. cornstarch plus 3 tbsp. soy sauce
• 4 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1-2 red chilies, minced
• ½ cup fresh coriander
• 3 cups fresh bean sprouts
• 3 spring onions, sliced
• 1/3 cup crushed peanuts
• ¼ cup chicken stock
• 1/8 tsp. ground white pepper
• Vegetable oil
• Lime wedges

For the sauce:
• ¾ tbsp. tamarind paste in ¼ cup warm water
• 2 tbsp fish sauce (prepare some extra as an added condiment)
• 1-3 tsp. chili sauce
• 3 tbsp. brown sugar

1. Boil large pot of water and remove from heat. Put in your rice noodles. Prepare other ingredients while they soak. Make sure noodles don’t get too soft; drain them as soon as they are soft for eating but still have a little crunch in them.
2. Work on the sauce. Combine all ingredients in a cup and stir well to dissolve the sugar and tamarind paste completely. Don’t worry about all the sugar; the sweetness will be balanced by the tamarind.
3. Place chicken meat slices in a bowl and pour in the marinade. Stir well.
4. Warm up a large frying pan in medium heat. Add the garlic and minced chili and stir-fry for around 30 seconds.
5. Add the marinated chicken and stir fry for around a minute. When the pan dries up, add chicken stock and stir fry until the chicken is cooked. This may take anywhere between 5 to 8 minutes.
6. Add the noodles and the sauce. Stir-fry for 1-2 minutes; toss noodles around while doing so. Add oil if the frying pan is too dry.
7. Add bean sprouts and sprinkle the pepper.
8. Keep tossing the noodles until they are cooked; they should be chewy and sticky by the time you are done.
9. Taste and add more fish sauce until you achieve your desired flavor.
10. Transfer into a serving plate and top with coriander, spring onion, and chopped nuts. Add fresh lime wedges on the side. If you have chili sauce in the house, make sure it’s on the table when the Pad Thai is served.