Thai foods are irresistible

Rice is considered as the main food in Thailand. Almost everyone in Thailand prefers to have rice as their staple food. But rice cannot be swallowed alone. There should be something to go along with it. Most of the time rice is taken with some tasty side dished. These side dishes are very famous for its spicy and hot taste. Thai people are very particular about their choices of food e.g. in their lunch and dinner they cannot have sandwiches as these are regarded as snacks in Thailand. Thai people prefer to eat when they are hungry or badly need food.

Thai food balances its taste between hot-chili and bland. Thai foods usually represent the lifestyle of waterborne creatures. Herbs, plants and aquatic animals are the major ingredients of Thai food. Meats of large chunks are deliberately avoided. You can use sizeable chunks while cooking any special Thai dish. This happened due to the Buddhist background of the Thais. Meats are cut into small pieces accompanied with spices and herbs. Grilling, stewing and baking were the traditional method of cooking Thai food. But after the Chinese influence, Thai food saw deep frying and stir frying which becomes very famous. Thai foods were influenced by Dutch, Portuguese, Japanese and French as well. In the late 1600s chili was introduced to Thai food. Sometimes pure spices are toned down with the use of fresh herbs such as galanga and lemon grass.

A delicious soup, a dip with accompanying vegetables and fish, and a curry dish with condiments comprises a proper Thai meal. The curry dish is sometimes replaced with a spiced salad. If the soup is spicy, in that case the curry should be replaced by non spiced items. This way Thai mean always balances its taste. I can only say that while in Thailand you should not miss to taste traditional Thai food.

Gai Tom Kha i.e. chicken in coconut soup

In Thailand you can enjoy some excellent soups and most of them are internationally famed. Gai Tom Kha popularly known as Tom Kha Gai is one of the classic soups of Thailand. This is very easy to prepare and mothers usually like this soups as the preparation time is also very less. Tom Kha Gai is milder than Tom Yum Goong soup.

The ingredients can be noted as one or one and half cup water, one piece crushed galangal, one piece lime, ¼ cup coconut milk, two to three Thai chili pepper, one tablespoon fish sauce, two to four springs cilantro, one to two kaffir lime leaves which is optional, and ¼ cup chicken.

If the soup tastes too mild you can add some more fish sauce, or sometimes lime and chili pepper. The ingredients of this Thai soup are flexible and you can alter it according to your taste bud.

At first a piece of galangal should be crushed. The galangal, water and coconut milk should be dropped in a two quart pot. It should be then boiled in medium to low heat. After sometime the heat should be reduced to simmer and this should be followed by constant stirring. Sliced chicken and fish sauce is added just after sometime. If you are planning to add the kaffir lime leaves, the central stem should be removed from the leaves. The soup should be boiled for some more time and the heat should be turned off.
While serving, add some crushed fresh chili pepper to the bowl. It is very useful if you are suffering from sinus. But if do not like the hot taste, pepper should be avoided. You can add some for garnishing. One third of the lime should be crushed in each of the bowl. The soup is poured and cilantro is used for garnishing. The soup should always be served hot.

Loog Choob or Miniature fruit

Preparation of this Thai dessert will definitely enhance your creative impulse. You just need to have some wild imagination, delicate fingers, food coloring and small paint brush. Your Loog Choob is ready. To serve two to four persons you need to arrange half cup sugar, four cups coconut milk, one cup hulled mung beans, two to three bamboo skewers, and one package gelatin or food colors. The process is simple and it won’t take much time to prepare this Thai dish.

Mung bean should be boiled till it becomes soft and tender. You should make it like a pate. Coconut milk is added little at a time. Then the whole composition should be stirred in sugar. You can use low heat throughout the process. The paste should be so smooth that no one can feel a single bean kernel. The paste should be cooled before using this further. The gelatin can be prepared very easily after reading the instruction written on the packet.

After this the important part begins where you have the chance to show your talent and become popular in your kid’s friends circle. Take a small amount of the paste and shape it into a form a fruits, vegetables or if possible any animal. After that you can stick your fruit or vegetables on the skewer and this is mainly because of easy handling. After that color should be added on these with a fine brush. Gelatin will help to seal the color. The objects should be stuck to the skewer till the gelatin becomes completely set. Your dessert is ready. Place these in a plate and see the reaction of your tiny one. I can tell you from my experience you will get a warm hug and yes that’s your price…

Kow Neuw Mamuang-mango on sticky rice

Thai dishes are internationally famed. Mango on sticky rice is a traditional Thai dish which is very famous as a summer dessert. All of us know that mango is a summer fruit and that is why this dessert can be best enjoyed in the months of April and May. Mango on sticky rice is really delicious and you should taste this once in a lifetime.

You can make it in a very simple way. One ripe mango is peeled and sliced. The coconut milk and sticky rice has already been prepared and kept aside. Now, this sticky rice should be placed on a small plate and then top it with peeled mango. The coconut milk can be served by spoon on top of it to garnish the whole dish and makes it more attractive.

Thai desserts are very original and they have no similarity with the Western desserts. In Thai dishes you will always get indigenous ingredients. In Thailand, you won’t get cake made in Western style. Even many chefs don’t know how to make cake in that style. They don’t even use measuring cups while preparing some delicious cakes. The flavors are more or less mentioned as a mixture of sweet and coconut milk. A typical Thai meal always ends with a sweet dessert or some fresh fruits. If you have kids at home you can try making Loog Choob or miniature fruit. In my next post I will try to write the recipe so that you can try once and see your child’s happy face.

Kow Neuw Moon-sticky rice with coconut milk

Sticky rice is an important part in Thai dish. This is known as the core ingredient of Thai dessert and also northeastern Thai food. This dish is easy to make. The ingredients are as follows one cup sticky rice, two tablespoons sugar, one cup coconut milk and two pinches salt. Traditionally this dish was made by using a steamer. The process can be explained as at first the sticky rice should be soaked in enough water so that the rice can be covered for an hour or even sometimes overnight. Water should be there in the bottom of the steamer and the steam section should be covered with cheese or muslin cloth. The rice should be poured in the muslin cloth which is followed by covering the lid. Then the steamer is put on the stove on medium to high heat. It takes twenty minutes to cook the rice in a steamer.

Now a day all of us are habituated to use microwave oven. So, this is better to write down the process of making sticky rice in this gadget. First the rice should be soaked in warm water for about ten minutes. Soaking is important as it makes the rice soft and it also helps a lot in cooking. If the quantity of rice is one cup, the water should be little more than a cup. The cooking bowl should be made of glass. The bowl with rice and water should be covered with lid and cooked for three minutes in full power. The rice should be stirred from up to the bottom. You will fine some part of rice is cooked and some are not. Repeat the process for another three minutes. The rice should look translucent if it really cooked, or else the process of cooking three minutes should be repeated.

In the next phase the coconut milk should be heated in a pot on simmer and constantly stirred till the coconut milk thickens. Sugar and salt should be added till the milk becomes curdled. After this it should be removed from it. ¾ of the hot coconut milk should be poured over the hot sticky rice and it should be like this till five minutes. Rice will absorb the coconut milk, after which it becomes mushy. The rest of the coconut milk can be used for garnishing.

Some titbits of Thai food

Thai people always use spoons and forks to have their meals. They show proper respect to the elders while having food in any occasion. Most of the population in Thailand is Buddhist and that is the reason why the impact of Buddhism can be seen in Thai food. Usually the Thailand food is served with roasted pork or duck topped on it. In that case the fork becomes a must to eat such food. If you are having a noodle soup then chopsticks would be the best choice. The influence of Chinese, Indian and Japanese styles can be prominently seen in Thailand food culture. Some of the Thai dishes are really delicious and tempting because of its color, aroma and healthiness.

Puffed rice cake, hors d’oeuvre, snacks like rolls, satay etc. are some of the tidbits of Thai food. The dips can be made from lime juice, chilies, garlic, fish sauce, etc. Fish sauce and lime juice bring the sour taste in Thai food while chilies are responsible for the spicy taste. The curries are also important in Thai cuisine. The main ingredients in Thai curries are fresh herbs and powdered dried spices. Thai people love to use fresh ingredients. The tinned products are not readily available in Thailand.

Thai salads are always very colorful. The Thai salads are normally sour, sweet and salty which are topped by different kind of meat textures. Desserts have always satisfied the sweet tooth of the Thais. No typical Thai meal is complete without sweet dishes. The Thai people like to take something very sweet after a spicy treat and that way they try to balance the taste bud. Soups are usually taken as a side dish with rice. The Thai soups are very healthy as the best quality of herbs and spices are used in it. Thai people are very fond of eating rice with their meal. They take it as their principal food. Thai dishes are really exotic if they are taken in a proper way.

Exotic Thai cooking

If we are talking about internationally famed food, Thai takes an important part. The Thai cuisine is famous in the whole world because of its taste. It can attract an array of tourists because of its unique blending of plants, aquatic animals and herbs. All the five elementary tastes are present in Thai food and these are bitter, spice, sweet, sour and salty. A typical Thai dish contains lime juice, lemon grass, chilies, garlic, and fish sauce as common ingredient and it is on these ingredients that the taste of the Thai food matters. Basically the specialty of Thailand food depends upon, by whom it is cooked and for what occasion it is cooked. A little influence of Chinese cuisine can always be seen on Thailand food.

In Thailand you will get fresh fruits and vegetables in almost all departmental stores. People love to take fresh salad along with lunch and dinner. Rice is one of the principal food ingredients. This is omnipresent in all kind of Thailand food. Thai people love to take the jasmine rice and sticky rice. Chicken curry is a famous Thai dish which is best accompanied with sticky rice. The fresh herbs are generally used while preparing Thai food. This mainly increases the quality of the aroma of the food. In a single time a Thai people consume a hot cup of soup, a dip accompanying fish and vegetables and a curry dish with condiments. Some spicy salad can be added to the meals to make it heavier. The garnishing of Thai food is always colorful and that’s why it is very attractive to others. A proper balance is always maintained in Thai food such as the balance between bland and spicy taste is kept by the cooks while serving the spicy and non spicy dishes. For desserts one can enjoy the Thai sweets and fresh fruits. The ice crèmes are also very popular in Thailand and you can get a wide variety of it throughout the year.