I tend to be hit or miss with dressings, but this one turned out fairly well for a first attempt. I was originally thinking of trying something close to salsa – chopped tomatoes, coriander, lime juice, etc. – but when I found the sun-dried tomato pesto in the supermarket, it seemed like a simpler solution to give a little tomato taste to the dressing.

Corn and Black Bean Salad

If you can’t get long beans, regular fresh green beans will probably do just as well. I used dried black beans, although canned will also do.

Ingredients

Dressing

Preparation Method

• Make the dressing first. I prefer to add the vinegar to the spices and let it soak for a while, then add the oil just before using.
• Mix all the vegetable together, then pour the dressing over and mix it in.
• Like many cold bean salads, this one improves after a day or so in the refrigerator.

These curious legumes are also known as yard-long beans or snake beans, while in Thai they’re tua fak yao, and they have to be in the running for one of the more unlikely vegetables. At more than a foot long, they are quite preposterous looking. The pencil-thin beans really can grow to a yard long, but are usually picked and sold when they are approaching a foot and a half. Long beans are a common ingredient in stir-fries, and also served raw with hot and spicy foods, especially chili dips. Like cucumbers, long beans have a strong cooling effect when you’ve eaten a bit too much chili. Aside from their length, long beans look and taste just like fresh green beans. This makes it easy to substitute French beans or similar if you can’t get the real thing. However, never use canned or frozen green beans. They must be fresh. I often see long beans growing on fences along country lanes around the north. They make a great, as well as edible, privacy screen for country homes.

Without a doubt, kale has to be the quintessential Thai green vegetable. It makes a regular appearance on the table, as a stir-fried side dish, in bowls of egg noodles and as a green addition to gravy on noodles.

Kale is sometimes called Chinese broccoli, although the resemblance to broccoli usually has to be pointed out. Like broccoli, kale has thick green stems which are edible. Unlike broccoli, the stems end in large leathery leaves, also edible. You can, if you like, divide diners into those that like the stalks and those that like the leaves. Of course, on the whole everybody likes kale.

Kale is a variety of cabbage, one of the most primitive types in fact. It originated in southern China, along with broccoli and cabbage. It would have come to Thailand along with the earliest settlers thousands of years ago, and was probably carried to Europe along the ancient silk routes. Until the end of the middle ages, kale was perhaps the most common green vegetable in all of Europe. Kale grows year-round in the fields around Chiang Mai, as it does throughout most of Thailand.

I got the original recipe for this off the Internet many, many years ago, and I don’t think I’ve changed it too much. This is a really easy recipe, as it basically just takes "one of everything" – one whole onion, a whole bell pepper, a whole can (standard can size of 15.5 ounce or 425 gram) of corn, another of beans (I prefer black beans, but pinto beans are good). The ‘secret’ to getting the taste right is probably the salsa. Use a "fresh" salsa (not taco sauce) made with chopped tomatoes, onions, chilies, etc.

Prepared vegetarian burrito filling

Ingredients

Preparation Method

• Heat a large skillet over high heat. Add the oil and sauté the onion and bell pepper until soft.
• Stir in the sweet corn, beans, salsa and seasonings. Mix well and allow it to come to a simmer, then remove from heat.
• For the best taste, store the filling in the refrerator overnight before using. The mixture will keep in a tightly covered refrigerated container for at least a week.

Prepared vegetarian burritos (with cheese)

Serving Suggestion

Warm up some of the filling in a microwave. Using a non-stick skillet, heat up a soft flour tortilla. Spoon one or two tablespoons of the filling onto the tortilla. Add some cheese, lettuce, sour cream or whatever is your taste, and roll up the burrito.

Alternatively, you can add one or two tablespoons of the mix to rice as it’s cooking. It works best if you add it 5 to 8 minutes before the rice is done.

Chinese celery (keun chai in Thai) looks a bit anemic when compared to the western variety. The stalks are thin but the tips are quite leafy. A bunch could be mistaken for coriander or parsley. But despite its lightweight appearance, Chinese celery is quite flavorful. Clear soups made with the celery look quite plain but are redolent with the taste of celery. The Thais have a large variety of clear soups, called gaeng jeud in Thai, which are quite popular among the lunch-time crowd at the curry stall. Almost every recipe for any clear soup calls for some Chinese celery. It’s the key flavor that most of these soups will have.

The plant is not directly related to the European variety. Instead it evolved from a wild celery native to Asia. It seems to have come into wide use in Chinese cuisine around the fifth century A.D.

Sweet bell peppers are perhaps the least common form of the pepper family found in Thailand, although they are readily available. They appear in some stir-fries and spicy salads but usually only in restaurants catering to westerners. Bell peppers are in the same capsicum family as hot chilies. Just one gene makes the difference between hot and mild peppers.

Two kinds of cucumbers on sale in a Thai market.

At least two types of cucumbers are typically found in Thai markets. The only real difference is size. The most commonly called for is a smaller variety that in the west might best be called a gherkin and used for pickling. It’s called taeng gwah, while a larger but otherwise similar looking variety is called taeng rahn. Both varieties can be used whenever cucumbers are called for in Thai recipes. When the smaller taeng gwah is listed, you will need to adjust the amount if using a larger cucumber.

Cucumbers actually come in an amazing variety, especially in tropical climates like Thailand where there are many wild varieties to mix with. The cucumber is part of a large family of plants that also includes squash, melons and pumpkins. You will often find the entire ‘family’ at stalls in the market.

We came across just such an array while traveling through the mountain-side farms where much of Chiang Mai’s produce is grown. The hill tribe Meo farmers had set up road-side stall to sell some of their vegetables directly to passers by. A truckload of rag-tag performers from some village’s cultural show was also stopped at the stall, which was mainly tended by an aged woman who nonetheless had a baby strapped to her back. The old lady’s face was deeply lined from years in the sun. On sale was an amazing variety of cucumbers, gourds and squashes, as well as some steamed corn and long beans. We bought some of the corn, which was sweet and easily separated from the cob.

Cucumbers appear to have originated in India about 3,000 years ago. From there, they spread through the ancient trade routes, and probably appeared in Europe around Greek or Roman times.

Cucumbers are highly nutritious, although most of the food value is in the skin. The mix of nutrients makes it useful in treating and preventing many gastric problems. Sliced or grated cucumbers have long been used as a skin and beauty treatment.

Nutty Corn Cakes with dabu-dabu sambal

Ingredients

Preparation Method

• Place half the corn, the peanuts, spring onions, ginger, garlic and cumin in a food processor. Mix until finely chopped and a bit mushy.
• Transfer the mixture to a bowl and mix in the egg, rice flour, red peppers and the rest of the corn.
• Head the vegetable oil in a skillet. Once hot, form the corn mixture into patties and fry both sides until golden brown. I had a bit of trouble with this until I hit on the idea of using an egg ring to hold the patties together until they were cooked well enough.

Serve with dabu-dabu or some other spicy sauce.

Dabu-dabu – the Indonesian "salsa"

I did a little investigating and found several recipes for dabu-dabu. It seems that like any popular dish, there are as many recipes as there are cooks, but the basics remain the same: tomatoes, chilies, lime juice and oil. Common variations include using shallots in place of green onions and the addition of fresh basil. No matter how you make it, be sure to give it a day or more to "ferment" before using. Otherwise it will taste quite "rough".

Ingredients

Preparation Method

• Mix all the ingredients together.
• Store in the refrigerator for at least one day before using.

A large pile of tomatoes on sale in the market.

Thai tomatoes come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Smaller fruits are generally preferred, with perhaps the most common resembling the plum tomatoes favored by Italians as well. These will be added whole to green papaya salad, or sometimes quartered and tossed into fried rice.

A stall in Bangkok’s Pak Klong market selling several types of tomatoes

Tomatoes are rich in vitamins and also a good source of key antioxidants. The University of California at Davis in the United States recently rated the tomato as the single most important fruit or vegetable of western diets, in terms of the vitamins and minerals delivered.

Tomatoes also have a high content of glutamate, a naturally occurring compound that provides the "G" in MSG, a seasoning that has gotten a rather bad name. It is glutamate that makes foods taste good. Other foods high in natural glutamate are cheese, fish and mushrooms.