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.

Barbecued corn on sale in a Chiang Mai stall.

If you travel into the hills around Chiang Mai, you will likely come across some fields of corn, especially during the rainy season from May to September. Like carrots, corn is grown by the Meo villagers who live in the mountains. They are one of many ethic groups commonly referred to as "hill tribes" in the guide books. Most of the corn will be taken down to Chiang Mai and sold in the Muang Mai wholesale market once it is ripe. Some of the corn, especially ears that aren’t quite up to size, will be sold at road side stalls that you will find if you travel through the hills. The sellers will steam the corn without removing the husks and silk. For these simple country folk, "nature’s packaging" is the best. Customers buy a few ears, peel the husks back and eat the corn right off the cob. A half dozen ears may set you back as much as 25 U.S. cents.

While fully ripe sweet corn is popular as a dessert in Thailand, baby corn is what most people think of when you mention Thai food. The small undeveloped whole cobs are used in everything from curries to stir-fries. As most people know, corn is a New World vegetable, so it must have come to Thailand at about the same time as the chili pepper. There is no tradition regarding why Thais began eating baby corn. It is probably simply because the small cobs are crunchy and not too sweet. Whatever the reason, cultivating baby corn is much more labor intensive than growing the corn to maturity. Farmers must remove the tassels from the ears to prevent them from being pollinated.

There is another theory that mussaman curry originated in southern Thailand, where it may have been based on dishes introduced by Arab traders. Since this curry is one of the few well know Thai dishes that uses beef rather than pork, it seems possible that the name mussaman is a corruption of ‘Muslim.’

Mussaman curry is one of the most complex of all Thai curries. It uses many more ingredients than most curries, and also takes more time to prepare than almost any other dish. The extra time is largely due to the use of potatoes, although a ‘long time’ to prepare a Thai dish is 20 minutes or more, compared to most other curries that require 10 minutes at most.

Mussman Curry with Chicken

Mussaman Curry Paste

First, you have to make the curry paste.

Ingredients

To prepare the curry paste, grind together the dried chillies, coriander seeds, fennel, cloves, cinnamon stick, cardamom seeds, shallots, garlic, galangal and lemongrass to form a fine paste. Add the roasted peanuts and grind them into the paste.

Mussaman Curry Recipe

(Serves 4)

Ingredients

Preparation Method

Heat the coconut cream in a large pot to simmering. Stir in the prepared curry paste and continue to simmer until the fragrance is released. Add five tablespoons of fish sauce, five tablespoons of the tamarind juice and two tablespoons of the granulated sugar. Mix well until the fragrance returns, then add one tablespoon of the palm sugar.

Heat the coconut milk along with the meat in a pot. When it begins to simmer, pour in the coconut cream mixture along with the remainder of the seasonings.

Add the new potatoes and test the taste. Add more tamarind juice to make it more sour, or additional salt if needed.

When the potatoes are nearly done, add the onions, shallots, peanuts, cardamom leaves and cardamom seeds. Remove from heat.

Chicken Green Curry

Green Curry Paste

First, you have to make the green curry paste.

Ingredients

To prepare the curry paste, grind all of the ingredients together until you have a smooth paste. Store excess paste refrigerated in a tightly sealed jar. It will keep for several weeks at least. In fact, it’s best if you make the paste a day or two before you need it. The paste tends to get better with a little age!

Chicken Green Curry Recipe

(Serves 4)

Ingredients

Preparation Method

• Fry the green curry paste in vegetable oil until the aroma is released. Add the thick portion of the coconut milk and continue stir-frying until the aroma returns.
• Add chicken and when the chicken is about half cooked, add the remaining coconut milk.
• Add eggplants and lime leaves. When cooked through, add seasoning: chicken powder, fish sauce, palm sugar, fresh milk, chillies and sweet basil leaves.

The most common eggplants on sale in a Chiang Mai market.

The types of eggplants Thais use most are quite different from their large elongated deep purple colored western counterparts. Although small versions of the purple variety can be found, the most commonly used type is called ma-kua pro in Thai. In English it is variously known as brinjal, apple eggplant or just plain Thai eggplant. It is about the size of a ping-pong ball with a curiously variegated skin that zigzags from off-white to dark green. Ma-kua pro is sometimes served raw with chili dips, but it is probably most recognizable as an ingredient of green curries.

In green curries, ma-kua pro is joined by the small pea-sized ma-kua puang. Ma-kua puang are somewhat bitter to taste, although the bitterness is reduced the longer they are cooked. Both types of eggplants can be difficult to find. Frozen green peas simulate the appearance if not the taste of ma-kua puang. The best substitute for ma-kua pro is probably zucchini.

The small purple version of the eggplant is called ma-kua muang lek, which directly translates to "small purple eggplant". These vegetables are sometimes fried with fermented soy beans or an egg yolk batter. Another commonly seen type of eggplant is the yellow eggplant, known in Thai as ma-kua luang. These are about the same size as brinjal, but the skin of the ripe eggplant is bright yellow in color. There’s a bit of spiciness to this vegetable, which is why it’s sometimes used in spicy Thai salads. Finally, there’s a long thin green eggplant that sometimes is known as a Japanese eggplant, or oriental eggplant. In Thai, its just plain ma-kua yao, or "long eggplant."

Eggplants must be cut using a knife with a stainless steel blade. Any other metal will discolor the flesh. Eggplants must be used or served immediately after being cut or else they will turn a rather unappetizing shade of black.

You can, of course, vary this dish to use whatever you have on hand. It’s one of those recipes that you rarely make exactly the same way twice.

(Serves 4)

Ingredients

Preparation Method

Heat a wok and add the oil. When hot, toss in the chopped garlic, Chinese kale, baby corn, carrot, cauliflower, cabbage, and mushroom. Stir fry and season with oyster sauce, soy sauce, sugar, and black pepper. Add some dissolved tapioca flour (or cornstarch) to thicken the mixture.

Potatoes are a relatively recent introduction to the Thai table. Although potatoes originated in South America, the Spanish and Portuguese apparently did not bring them to Asia, as they did with many other new world foods such as chillies. I found a rather humorous account of how they came to Thailand in the Norwegian naturalist Carl Bock’s journal of his 1881 expedition to Northern Siam and Laos. In the book, Bock recounts a dinner with one of the principal “Chows” [princes] of Chiang Mai:

“As he had deferred to European customs in the form his invitation to dinner had taken, so the Chow now did his best to conform to civilized habits by using a knife and fork to eat with. But he was manifestly uncomfortable, and the effort at last became so irksome that he cast aside these unaccustomed implements, and fell back on his fingers and thumbs. The dishes were mostly Chinese, and call for no special comment. One item in the bill of fare, however, reminded me of home, viz. Potatoes – which had been introduced along with other vegetables into this country by the American missionaries, and which the Chow ate with great relish, helping himself to them sans cérémonie, in the good old-fashioned country-peasant style, and blowing his fingers to keep them cool.”

Potatoes aren’t quite as popular with the average Thai as they appear to have been with the late prince, although they are readily available in American fast food chains as well as chips (crisps to the British) in convenience stores. However, in traditional Thai cuisine, the potato rarely makes an appearance.