See the highlight article below for this topic. Scroll down for a list of more articles on the subject as well as recipes.
Spices
Curry spices in the market.
A stall you will find in most markets will sell the fresh spices that go into many Thai dishes, perhaps most notably the well known hot and spicy tom yum soup. From these vendors, food stall owners will buy bunches of lemongrass, kilos of galangal and the other spices that will be used in many curries. The ordinary home cook who just wants to make a single dish of tom yum or other curry will most likely buy a "kit" assembled by the stall owner, and consisting of a few stalks of lemongrass, a small knob of galangal, a couple of kaffir lime leaves and a lime. These kits are usually packaged in a heavy plastic bag and will cost less than 25 US cents.
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Pepper – More Valuable Than Gold?
It’s interesting to think what the world would be like without pepper. It would certainly be a much duller place, and not just for our taste buds. In 408 A.D. Attila the Hun demanded a huge quantity of pepper as ransom during the siege of Rome. ThenMore...
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Thai Ginger
Ginger (king in Thai) is perhaps the most recognizable and widely available of the spices used in Thai cooking, although many are surprised at the extent to which it is used. It’s sometimes ground up in curry pastes, but the most common use of ginger is as aMore...
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Balinese Pork & Ginger in Sweet Soy Sauce
Be Celeng Base Manis Time to take a break from Thai food and try a little Balinese cuisine for a change. While Thai dishes tend to be quick light stir-fries, many Balinese and Indonesian dishes often take a bit more time and are a bit heavier. Balinese Pork & Ginger inMore...
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Thai Pork and Ginger Stir-Fry
Moo Pad King Although it is perhaps not so well know among Western Thai food fans, this dish, made with either pork or chicken, makes a frequent appearance at the street stall. You can also make it with beef. If you can only get dried wood-ear mushrooms, soak themMore...
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Spicy Pork Salad – Larb Moo
The spicy minced meat salad known as larb is found in many different styles all over Thailand. Variations abound, as the dish can be prepared with just about any kind of meat, including duck, chicken, catfish, prawn, beef, and on and on. Sometimes referred to as Thailand’s ownMore...
Garlic
Is there any spice more universal than garlic? It’s certainly as fundamental to Thai cuisine as the chilli pepper, if not more so. There are few dishes indeed that don’t call for a little garlic, if not a lot. Food stall owners will typically buy garlic in largeMore...
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Shallots
Shallots are another fundamental spice in Thai cooking. They are equal to, or perhaps even more important than garlic. Shallots are something of a cross between onions and garlic. Thai shallots are sweet, yet still have the punch of garlic to them. They’re also red in color, whichMore...
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Galangal
Galangal is one of the cornerstones of Thai cuisine. Few other regional foods use this fragrant tuber more than Thailand. Galangal is a close relative of ginger. Like it, galangal is the tuberous root of a flowering plant that grows on the forest floor. When mature, galangalMore...
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Onions
Onions can and are used in just about any dish for the Thai table. You can never be sure where they’ll show up. Thai onions are rather sweet compared to most other kinds around the world. This leaves it up to the garlic and other spices toMore...
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Kampot Pepper
Pepper vines in a plantation near Kampot Among gourmets, Kampot pepper is becoming increasingly prized for its strong yet delicate aroma and taste. As with fine wine, it’s all about the climate and soil. Modern mass cultivation began in the 1870s, when the Sultan of Aceh burned his Indonesian plantationsMore...
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Vegetarian Burrito Filling
This is one of my favorite lazy bachelor recipes. It makes enough to keep me from having to cook for a week or so. In fact, not only does it make good leftovers, it actually improves with age – so much so that I generally make it aMore...
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Curry Pastes
Thai curry pastes consist of a thick mixture of ground herbs and spices such as galangal, lemongrass, coriander, garlic, shallots and chilies. Thais will usually purchase prepared curry pastes from the market or supermarket, but recipes for making them from scratch also abound. In fact, many famous supermarketMore...
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Burmese Pork Curry
In Thai, this dish is called Gaeng Hungleh, and it’s also called "Chiang Mai Pork Curry", this dish is a specialty of northern Thailand. It originated in the foods that the Burmese bought with them when they occupied the Lanna kingdom, which had its capital in Chiang Mai, fromMore...
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Pork or Beef Stir-fried with Chili
Although the name of this dish implies that the main ingredient is chilies, it’s really the onion that provides much of the taste and flavor of the recipe. This is one of the first Thai recipes that I ever learned to make, way back when I lived in theMore...
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Garlic-Pepper Fried Pork
This has to be one of the most common dishes in Thailand, from food stalls to fancy restaurants. Some variation of this recipe will appear very regularly at the curry stalls, often several times a week. The dish is easy to prepare and can be made hours inMore...
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Chinese Keys
Chinese keys, also called wild ginger or grachai in Thai, is a root in the same family as ginger. Although becoming hard to find in Bangkok, it is still quite plentiful in the markets of the north, where you’ll most likely find it at the same stalls selling fresh gingerMore...
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‘Korean’ Grilled Beef
I put ‘Korean’ in quotes because I don’t know how authentic this recipe is. Everything Korean is extremely popular in Thailand, as it has been for a few years, so I suspect a lot of things get ‘labeled’ Korean even if they’re adaptations of Thai foods or whatever. Curiously, IMore...
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Red Curry Paste
Red curry paste is one of the most basic in Thai cooking. You can make much more than is needed since, like most curry pastes, it will keep for quite some time in the refrigerator. Ingredients Dried chilies 10 Lemongrass 2 Tbl Chopped Shallots 2 Tbl Chopped Garlic 4 Tbl Chopped Galangal 3 Slices Kaffir Lime Peel 1 tsp Grated Salt 1 Tbl Black Pepper 1 Tbl Shrimp paste 1 tsp Coriander roots 1 Tbl Chopped PreparationMore...
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recipePickled Garlic
Pickled garlic is not called for in many recipes, but it can be substituted for fresh garlic in many dishes, and Thais enjoy it as an accompaniment to many meat snacks. At the Anusarn night market in Chiang Mai you’ll find huge jars of pickled garlic among the manyMore...
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Chinese Chives
Chinese chives, also called garlic chives or gui-chai in Thai, bear a strong resemblance to spring onions. They grow in dark green stalks from white bulbs. But where the stalks of spring onions and regular chives are round and hollow, the blades of garlic chives are flat.More...
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Chicken and Galangal Soup
I often think chicken and galangal soup (tom ka gai) is perhaps the best example of Thai cuisine. Unlike its more famous cousin tom yum the taste of this thick soup is more varied and sublime. The undercurrents given by the galangal, lime juice, lemongrass and pepper makeMore...
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Black Pepper Noodles
Just in case you were thinking that every meal at my place is a gourmet feast, I thought I would post a recipe that represents a more typical lunch or dinner for me. Instant noodles have become something of a staple in modern Thailand, since they’re quick and easy toMore...
