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 Sawatdee
Thai food as we all come to know and enjoy, has evolved over the years and has many influences from the outside world. Cooking techniques were limited, at the embryonic stage of Thai cuisine. Thailand, for centuries an Asian crossroads, owes its rich culinary art to the cuisine of India, China, Indonesia, and Malaysia. The country’s cuisine is a blend of 4 basic tastes - salty, sweet, sour and pungent, which form a wide range of flavors. Isan cuisine, primarily based on food from Laos, usually doesn’t include coconut milk, has some ingredients not found in Thai dishes and often offers a large range of herbs with many dishes. Thai cuisine is known for its blend of fundamental flavors in
each dish — hot (spicy), sour, sweet, salty and bitter. One of
the important ingredients is nam pla , a very aromatic and strong
tasting fish sauce made from dried anchovies which have been fermented
in brine. Many Thai dishes use kaffir lime leaves, usually fresh - its
characteristic flavour appears in nearly every Thai soup (e.g.,
the hot and sour tom yam), stir-fry or curry. Thai food is traditionally eaten with a spoon, not with chopsticks. Popular Thai dishes include: Lemongrass: Lemon Grass is a plant that looks like grass, smells minty and tastes similar to lemon (hence the name Lemongrass). The thick, woody base of each leaf is a key ingredient in Thai cooking.
Kaffir lime leaves: Kaffir lime leaves are packed with a wonderful strong citrus fragrance. Kaffir lime leaves are used in a wide range of Thai dishes, especially soups. They contribute astringency as well.
Fish sauce: Fish sauce is another ingredient that is essential to cooking Thai cuisine; for that reason alone, it's difficult to find vegetarian recipes that actually taste like Thai cuisine. Fish sauce provides the salty dimension to Thai cuisine; and it is high in protein as well as minerals and vitamins. It's made from small fish, salt-fermented for a long time. The juice is then extracted and boiled. Good fish sauce should be clear and brownish in color. Garlic: Most Thai recipes start with sliced garlic fried in oil, and proceed from there. It would be hard to cook a Thai meal without using garlic in one form or another. Thai chili peppers: Thai food cannot be created without chili. In fact, Thais sometimes eat them as a snack. Chillis come in different types and sizes. Phrik Khee Noo is the smallest kind, about a centimetre long, but also the hottest. Chopped up in fish sauce, it can be used to make a sauce which can be added to almost any dish.
Coconut milk: Coconut milk is the rich
base for many Thai curries and sweet dishes. Coconut milk or 'ga-ti'
is traditionally made by mixing the grated meat of a ripe coconut
with warm water and then squeezing out the juice. Now there are
extractors which grate and press the coconut meat to produce the
white, sweet-aroma coconut milk. Coconut milk also comes canned
for convenient use. Galangal: A type of ginger, but milder and somewhat different in appearance from the usual form of ginger found in supermarkets. Galangal interacts well with the other essential Thai ingredients described here. It gives a distinctive, lightly acid taste and helps reduce the smell of meat. Slices of galangal are added to many kinds of curry and soup. Some people crush the bulb and boil it in water as a preparation to treat indigestion or stomach upsets. Palm sugar: Sweet is a key taste in Thai food, and many recipes use palm sugar. The sugar is harvested from a sugar palm tree, produced from the sweet, watery sap that drips from cut flower buds. The sap is collected each morning and boiled in huge woks until a sticky sugar remains. This is whipped and dropped in lumps into containers.
Thai Time's 5 Pepper ScaleThai cuisine is considered among the world's most delicious, with a unique blend of particular tastes: hot (spicy), sour (piquant), sweet, and always highlighted with citrus (lemongrass and lime). Although Thai food is known for its spiciness, not everything on our menu is hot. In fact, we will make sure that we cook your food to the level of spiciness that you desire. We rate the level of spice on a five pepper system with one pepper being the lowest and five being the highest. Be aware that our medium (three) will generally make you sweat and may bring tears to your eyes. Five peppers may require a gallon of water to put out the fire.
Using our five pepper scale, many customers may consider three very hot, and by Western standards it is. Please be careful when ordering, and don't be offended if we encourage you to order a milder version. Rest assured that we want your dining experience to be as pleasurable as you want it to be. Thai or Siamese cuisine was virtually unknown outside of Thailand until the middle of this century. Like the other aspects of Thai culture, Thai cooking owes much to its friends and neighbors from China, India and even Europe, but at the same time it still retains the essential Thai-ness of the native food. A typical Thai meal consists of steamed rice with many different dishes. The dishes are not courses, and they are all served at the same time. Take a spoonful of one dish with some rice, then a spoonful of another dish with some rice and enjoy the different taste and texture of each dish. It soon soon becomes clear that Thai cuisine is unique and not merely a regional adaptation of Chinese or Indian cooking. When eating Thai food it is customary to share all the dishes amongst the whole party. |
     
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Thai
Cuisine 
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