Thursday, July 31, 2008

thai food history

Thai Food by David Thompson is barely 6 months old, and already it is already quite possibly the finest collections of Thai Cookery ever printed. Thai food at your fingertips. Thai food has a strong acidic element, especially Yum-type salads or the sour curries like Gang Som which are often dominated by lime juice or tamarind. For these types of dishes, it's important that the wine you choose has a good level of acidity to support the acid in the food.
Cook for another minute until the tofu is crisp and slightly brown at the edges. Cooked this way, it is often served with plain boiled rice and vegetables. Pork belly is often used minced as a secret ingredient in other dishes to provide flavor and moistness. Cooking Thai Green Curry is simple once you see how it is done. In the 2 online videos you will be taught by Chef Chanrat Karatna, nickname Air, and his staff not only how to cook Thai Green Curry but about the ingredients.
Mix that with tripe also cut in thin pieces, ground toasted rice (toast rice first then grind in pepper/coffee grinder), shallots, green onions, cilantro, culantro, dried fried garlic flakes, salt/chilis, lemongrass, and lime. And serve with whole salad leaves. Mixed into the lettuce wraps were onions, cabbage and carrots. An optional sweet plum chili sauce added a touch of spice to the appetizer.
Rice, fish, vegetables and herbs feature prominently in the Thai diet, although meat is less common as animals were required for farming. The Thai people have added their own ingenuity to their dishes, using influences from Portuguese traders who brought chillies, Indians who provided curries and spices, and the Chinese method of hot frying in a wok. Rice is a difficult subject to write about because every cuisine has its own particular way of doing things. There are many types of rice and countless methods of cooking it.
Outside Bangkok, Phuket probably has the widest variety of food choices in Thailand. One of the main reasons for this is the island’s long history as an international place, going back to the tin-mining boom of more than a century ago. Outside Raan Jay Fai, lines of cars, tuk-tuks and motorcycles crawl through the hot air, belching exhaust toward Jay Fai's al fresco seating. Still, at Jay Fai's opening time of around 4 in the afternoon, a line waits to be served, and the cook throws handfuls of chicken chunks and noodles into a pan as if she were a metronome on double time.

Thai Food Online