Thai Cuisine

Anyone who ever set foot in Thailand, or even in a Thai restaurant, has quickly realized what amazing scents and flavours the Thai cuisine has to offer. Thai food is many people’s favourite food and definitely one of the reasons for why Thailand is a favourite country of so many. The fact that Thai food is so delicious is that last part of the picture that completes Thailand’s status as paradise

Embracing flavours

Thinking of Thai food, we often see spicy dishes packed with veggies, rice and noodles; flavoured with ginger, lemon grass coconut milk and chilli. It’s colourful and rich in both flavour and aroma; Thai food stimulates all the senses. There’s vegetables in almost all dishes and in some you get chicken, fish or other sea food. Meat like pork or beef is not very common.

The Thai cuisine offers many soups and around the globe-appreciated spring-rolls – among heaps of other things. 

Not all Thai food is spicy, and as a visitor to Thailand you can always ask the waiter at the restaurant you’re eating to go easy on the chilli – it’s never a problem. As a matter of fact, the chilli wasn’t always a main factor in the Thai cuisine, but a spice imported to Thailand by the Portuguese who had brought it from South America during the 16th century. The nowadays Thai-typical curries have also originated from elsewhere – India of course. 

Spicy, sour, bitter, sweet and salty

Thai Cuisine is all about combining and balancing the five taste sensations: spicy, sour, bitter, sweet and salty. Each meal is a quest for harmony between the five flavours which is why we experience the Thai food to be so tasty. 

A Thai meal usually includes several small dishes like a soup, a noodle dish, something fried, rice, a salad etc. At the end of a meal there is usually tropical fruits like watermelon, pineapple, banana or mango for dessert. The food is served on big platters for everyone dining to munch in on. 

It’s all about the ingredients

Most meals are consumed with a fork and spoon, or chop sticks. Knives are rarely needed. The food is traditionally served on the floor, or at a very low table. While eating Thai people usually sit directly on the floor, or on flat cushions. 

Very common ingredients in the Thai cuisine include: 

• Chili
• Lemon grass
• Coriander
• Garlic
• Ginger
• Tamarind
• Nutmeg
• Galangal
• Coconut milk
• Chicken, fish and other sea food
• Eggs
• Lime
• Different curries like: red, green, yellow or Panang
• Rice and noodles
• Fish sauce

Above ingredients are essential for cooking Thai food, but there are – of course – many other common ones.

Easy

Thai food is quick and easy to cook, it’s true! The most important thing is to choose raw ingredients of high quality. Once mastered, Thai food is an easy thing to wrap up. Back home you can usually find most key ingredients for Thai food in well assorted food stores.