Monday, January 19, 2009

Thai Recipes And Cuisine

By Sunil Tanna

Thai food offers many delicious dishes flavored with spices, lemon-grass or coconut - although different regions of Thailand, each tend to have their own preferred ingredients - for example, coconut milk and tumeric in the South, and lime juice in the Northeast. No matter what part of the country a dish is from, all Thai dishes or meals aim to achieve a balance between fundamental flavors common to the cuisine: spicy hot, sour, sweet and salty, as well as optionally bitter.

Rice forms an important and fundamental part of Thai food, and jasmine rice (which is native to Thailand) is used in many dishes as well as being served plain. Some other popular Thai dishes include:

- Pad Thai - Fried rice noodles with fish sauce, sugar, lime or tamarind, peanuts and egg, mixed with chicken, tofu or seafood.

- Pad see ew - noodles stir-fried with thinly sliced pork or chicken, and flavored with fish sauce.

- Green curry - A curry flavored with coconut, green chillies, and Thai basil, containing vegetables and chicken or fish.

- Red curry - A very hot curry made with plenty of red chillies.

- Yellow curry - A curry that is colored using fresh tumeric (hence its yellow color), and also containing black mustard seeds, cumin, nutmeg, brown sugar, kaffir lime leaves, lime juice, coconut milk and fish sauce.

- Gai pad khing - Fried chicken with vegetables and sliced ginger.

- Tom yam - A hot and sour soup made with seafood (often shrimp) or chicken.

- Som tam - Grated papaya salad. There are several variations: the salad can be served with salted black crab, with peanuts, shrimps and palm sugar, or with salted fish, eggplant, and long beans.

- Satay - Originally from Indonesia, Satay has also become a popular dish in Thailand. Satay is grilled meat (usually chicken or pork), usually on skewers, served with cucumber salad and a peanut sauce.

Originally published at http://www.recipesmaniac.com/cook_thai.php - visit this site for more information, photographs and Thai cook books.

Discover more about recipes and cooking at http://www.recipesmaniac.com


What Makes Thai Herbs Amazing?

By Saras Jantarateptawan
here are many things that are characteristics of Thailand, and have made a brand name for Thailand. These are Thai boxing, Thai dance, Thai silk, Thai rice, Thai fruits and of course, Thai food. The ingredients that make Thai food amazing are Thai 'herbs', which, together with 'spices', have been ingeniously blended in Thai cuisine. The recipes of Thai food have as their main ingredients.

Although most herbs are used are used as condiments or seasoning materials, Thai hers are somewhat different from all other herbs. They have characteristic taste and aroma that are not found in other herbs. They have characteristic taste and aroma that are not found in other herbs. For example, 'Horapha' or Thai basil (Ocimum basilicum), the same species as the well-known sweet basils, has distinct aroma and flovor from that of other sweet basils and is well suited for several Thai dishes, which cannot be replaced with other sweet basils or other herbal materials. These dishes include 'Kaeng Khieo Wan', 'Kaeng Phet', 'Phat Makheua Yao', stc.

Similarly, 'Kaphrao' or Thai holy basil (Ocimun tenuiflorum), has a distinct flavor and aroma from other holy basil (which has rarely been used as herbs as herbs in other countries); it has made Thai dishes, such as 'Kai Pat Bai Kaphrao', very well known to the Thais as well as foreigners. 'Maeng Lak' or hairy basil (Ocimum americanum) is indispensable in 'Khanom Chin Nam Ya' and 'Kaeng Riang'. 'Makrut' or kaffir lime (Citrus hvstrix) whose leaves are used in many Thai dishes, gives a unique aroma and flavorl it is a major ingredient of the world famous Thai soup, known as 'Tom Yam Kung'. Like Thai spices, Thai herbs are uniquely blended with Thai dishes such that they are inseoarable. 'Tom Yam Kung'.

For example, is world famous because it contains a blend of many herbs (and also a few spices), among them kaffir lime leaves, lemon grass stem, lime juice and chili (the last three, although not the leafy nor soft flowering parts of plant, but are treated here as herbs since they come from fleshy part of the plant). Two other related types of Thai dishes, 'Yam' and 'Phla'.

Will not taste as good without such herbs as kitchen mint, lemon grass and lime.
In addition to adding flavor to the dishes, most Thai herbs also provide health benefits from their inherent medicinal properties. Thus, it is fair to say that Thai herbs. With their beautiful form with nice green color, are added as a flavoring, seasoning, or garnish, making Thai dishes both tasty and beautiful, as well as soothing the stomach with their stomach with their refreshing and medicinal properties.



Thai Food Online