Tom yam

Thai tom yum is perhaps one of the most famous dishes in Thai cuisine.It is widely served in neighboring countries and has been popularized around the world.

Tom yum is characterized by its distinct hot and sour flavors, with fragrant herbs generously used. The basic broth is made of stock and fresh ingredients such as lemon grass, kaffir lime leaves, galangal, shallots, lime juice, fish sauce, tamarind, slices of ginger and crushed chili peppers.

In Thailand, tom yum is usually made with prawns (tom yum goong), chicken (tom yum gai), fish (tom yum pla), or mixed seafood (tom yum talay or tom yum po taek) and mushrooms - usually straw or oyster mushrooms. The soup is often topped with generous sprinkling of fresh chopped coriander (cilantro) leaves.

The less popular variety of tom yum is tom yum nam khon where milk is added to the broth. Tom yum nam khon is almost always made with prawns. Sometimes Thai chili jam is added: this gives the soup a bright orange colour and makes the chili flavor more pronounced.

Commercial tom yum paste is made by crushing all the herb ingredients and stir-frying in oil. Seasoning and other preservative ingredients are then added. The paste is bottled or packaged, and sold around the world. Tom yum flavored with the paste may have different characteristics to that made with fresh herb ingredients.

Ingredients

Thai dishes in the Central and Southern regions use a wide variety of leaves rarely found in the West, such as kaffir lime leaves (bai makrut). The characteristic flavour of kaffir lime leaves appear in nearly every Thai soup (e.g., the hot and sour Tom yam) or curry from those areas. It is frequently combined with garlic, galangal, lemon grass, turmeric and/or fingerroot (krachai), blended together with liberal amounts of various chillies to make curry paste. Fresh Thai basil is also used to add fragrance in certain dishes such as Green curry. Thais also use grapow (kraphao) (holy basil), which has a distinctive scent of clove.

Other typical ingredients are the small green Thai eggplants, tamarind, palm and coconut sugars, lime juice, coconut vinegar, and coconut milk. A variety of chillies and spicy elements are found in most Thai dishes, including the small and very hot phrik khi nu (Thai pepper [a.k.a. bird, bird's eye, or mouse-dropping chilli]).

Further ingredients include pahk chee (cilantro or coriander), rahk pahk chee (cilantro/coriander roots), curry pastes, pong kah-ree (curry powder), see-ew dahm (dark soy sauce), gung haeng (dried shrimp), pong pa-loh (five-spice powder), tua fahk yao (long beans or yard-long beans), nahmahn hoi (oyster sauce), rice and tapioca flour, and nahm prik pao (roasted chilli paste).

Although broccoli is often used in Asian restaurants in the west in pad thai and rad na, it was never actually used in any traditional Thai food in Thailand and is still rarely seen in Thailand. Usually, kana (gailan) is used.

Serving

Rice is a staple component of Thai cuisine, as it is of most Asian cuisines. The highly prized, sweet-smelling jasmine rice is indigenous to Thailand. This naturally aromatic long-grained rice grows in abundance in the verdant patchwork of paddy fields that blanket Thailand's central plains. Steamed rice is accompanied by highly aromatic curries, stir-frys and other dishes, incorporating sometimes large quantities of chillies, limes juice and lemon grass. Curries, stir-frys and others may be poured onto the rice creating a single dish called khao rad gang, a popular meal when time is limited. Stiky rice (khao niao,) is a unique variety of rice that contains an unusual balance of the starches present in all rice, causing it to cook up to a sticky texture. It is the daily bread (so to speak) of Laos and substitutes ordinary rice in rural Northern and Northeastern Thai cuisine, where Lao cultural influence is strong.

Noodles, known in much of Southeast Asia by the Chinese name kway teow, are popular as well but usually come as a single dish, like the stir-fried (Pad Thai) or noodle soups. Many Chinese cuisine are adapted to suit Thai taste, such as kway teow rua , a sour and spicy rice noodle soup.

Nam prik is Thai chilli sauce or paste. Each region has its own special versions. It is prepared by crushing together chillies with various ingredients such as garlic and shrimp paste using a mortar and pestle. It is then often served with vegetables such as cucumbers, cabbage and yard-long beans, either raw or blanched. The vegetables are dipped into the sauce and eaten with rice. Nam prik may also be simply eaten alone with rice or, in a bit of Thai and Western fusion, spread on toast.

Thai food is generally eaten with a fork and a spoon. Chopsticks are used rarely, primarily for the consumption of noodle soups. The fork, held in the left hand, is used to push food into the spoon. However, it is common practice for Thais and hill tribe peoples in the North and Northeast to eat sticky rice with their right hands by making it into balls that are dipped into side dishes and eaten. Thai-Muslims also frequently eat meals with only their right hands.

Thai Cuisine

Thai Cuisine, one of the most popular food , is well-known for being hot and spicy and for its balance of five fundamental flavors in each dish or the overall meal - hot (spicy), sour, sweet, salty, and bitter (optional).

Although popularly considered as a single cuisine, Thai food would be more accurately described as four regional cuisines corresponding to the four main regions of the country: Northern, Northeastern (or Isan), Central, and Southern, each cuisine sharing similar foods or derived from those of neighboring countries. Southern curries, for example, tend to contain coconut milk and fresh turmeric, while northeastern dishes often include lime juice. The cuisine of Northeastern (or Isan) Thailand is heavily influenced by Laos. Many popular dishes eaten in Thailand were originally Chinese dishes which were introduced to Thailand mainly by Teochew people who make up the majority of the Thai Chinese. Such dishes include jok, kway teow rad na, khao kha moo (also known as moo pa-loh) and khao mun gai.

Thai food is known for its enthusiastic use of fresh (rather than dried) herbs and spices as well as fish sauce.