Thai Food Online

If you’ve been to Asia, you will know that the Eastern culture and cuisine is rice-crazy. There is no meal in the day that is not in some way complimented with a rice serving, be it breakfast, lunch, dinner or dessert. This can make those untraveled of us wonder at just how interesting Asian cuisine can possibly be. Preliminary Internet-based searches of the kind of culinary experience we can expect from an adventure into the East don’t even touch on the sheer variety of rice types and preparation methods used in this beautiful destination. And so, this blog endeavors to take a brief journey in the white haze of the Eastern rice craze. First and foremost, each and every continent has its staple food. North America has corn, Russia has potatoes, South Africa has wheat and Asia has rice. Of course, with the sophistication and expansion of global trade, these definitions are becoming somewhat less distinct in the rest of the world, but in Asia and Thailand? Rice is most undeniably the st...

Spicy and salad are generally two words which are not found in the same sentence. In Thai cooking, the nation’s spicy salad is called som tam, or sometimes som tum . It is derived from Laos to the north of Thailand from a dish called tam mak hoong or the Cambodian version is known as bok l’hong. The salad is made from the unripe core of a papaya using a special tool which takes three strips of the fruit at a time. The end result is spaghetti like noodles of papaya. Thai cuisine typically has four main tastes that are present in nearly all dishes. The heat comes from the chilli, the salty fish sauce, the juice of a lime and to counteract the flavours, palm sugar is also added. What is often served up as a side dish or as an accompaniment to noodles and vegetables, som tam gives a refreshing taste with the zing of some hot chillies. Added peanuts, crab (padaek) or dried shrimp are nearly always found in som tam, but in Isaan the crabs are usually raw, meaning the government tries to...

The essential ingredients which set Thai cuisine apart from the rest of the world are the five flavours blended together in each meal. All Thai dishes follow similar rules of having hot (spicy), sweet, sour, salty and bitter flavours. Walk past stalls or markets with curries being made and you smell the distinct ingredients. The aromatic, chilli and rich smells are all blended together to make Thai food incredibly more-ish. In addition to these flavours, Thais have a range of condiments to accompany the already quite spicy dishes. Nam chim or a selection of sauces are served in small containers, which have dried chilli flakes, sweet chilli sauce, nam pla phrik (fish sauce, chopped chilli, lime juice and garlic), sliced chilli in rice vinegar and sugar. Cucumber is found on the sides of a dish, to cool and cleanse the mouth, after eating fairly vicious sounding ingredients. Anyone who has travelled to Thailand or eaten Thai food will understand the flavours being immense. The spiciness ...