How to Cook Thai Food
Learn to make your favorite Thai dishes with these tips on cooking Thai food at home
by
Sara Bonisteel /
Photo by Rachel Been/AOL
If you've ever had a wonderfully fragrant and flavorful Thai curry, chances are you've wanted to make it at home.
You can, but first you need to learn the basic ingredients behind Thai cooking's distinctive blend of sweet, sour, salty and spicy tastes.
"It's the combination of the sweet, the sour, the salty and the spicy all blended together -- it's a beautiful balance," says
Philippa Kingsley, an Atlanta-based chef who teaches and cooks the cuisine under the moniker "The Blonde Thai." "It's fresh herbs, fresh spices. It's not heavy stuff. It's a very light clean fresh taste, and that's why it's so popular."
You won't need many fancy gadgets to get that restaurant taste in your own kitchen. All that's required is a wok (flat-bottomed will do), and a handful of fresh herbs and a few key packaged ingredients make up the backbone of most Thai dishes.
"Thai food is so popular now," Kinsley says. "It's much more mainstream than it ever used to be anywhere in the States."
Kingsley grows her own basil, lemongrass and cilantro in her Georgia garden. But with the cuisine's increasing popularity, most if not all the following ingredients can be found at retailers like Whole Foods Market or at an Asian grocery.
"It's Southeast Asian cuisine. What do you do with lemongrass? People don't grow up with lemongrass. People don't grow up with galangal," Kingsley says. "It's knowing what that is. Once you understand the mindset of it, it's what goes with what."
Lemongrass This woody stalk gives Thai cuisine its distinctive fresh flavor. Cut off the nib of the stalk and peel off three layers before slicing it thinly at an angle for stir-fries. It can easily be used coarsely chopped to flavor roast chicken or whole fish.
Bird's-Eye Chilies Handle these tiny, spicy chilies with care (and rubber gloves) as they will leave a lingering burn on the skin. Use them to add heat to Thai dishes.
Kaffir Lime Leaves These leathery green leaves -- sold by weight -- can be frozen and thawed on the countertop before use. They add brightness to Thai dishes.
Galangal A root that looks like ginger, but with less heat. It's used extensively in Thai cuisine for flavoring, Kingsley says. Never substitute it with ginger. You'll get an entirely different taste.
Thai Basil These anise-flavored herbs differ from their Italian cousin.
Coconut Milk Used in southern Thai cooking as the liquid in curries, coconut milk can be stored in the fridge or on the shelf. When stored in the fridge, the milk will separate. Use the thicker portion to fry up curry paste in a wok, then use the watery portion to help thin the sauce.
Fish Sauce This pungent liquid -- made from fish fermented for at least 18 months -- takes the place of salt in many Thai dishes. Look for a bottle made in Thailand and store it in your pantry for up to 18 months. Use sparingly as the sauce goes a long way.
Click here for Kingsley's Pineapple Rice recipe.Once you have your ingredients, a wok is vital to success, Kingsley says.
"You're cooking things at a very high heat, very quickly," she says. "It's a different mindset: You heat up the wok first whereas with the western frying pan or a skillet, you literally put the oil in and then heat it up. With the wok you heat up the wok first without anything in it, and when it starts smoking … you literally put the oil in."
It's the prep work that some may find a bit labor intensive. Meat is sliced thin to take on the flavors of the dish, and fresh herbs need to be chopped and later blended for curries.
Thai cuisine has four basic curries – red, green, panang and massaman. Kingsley recommends making your own – think of it as Thai pesto – but they're also available at the grocery store and should be refrigerated or frozen.
"To make a paste you have to have something to bind it together, so in this case it's oil," Kingsley says. "Thai cooking uses bland oil -- vegetable oil; it doesn't use olive oil."
Use a food processor to blend your herbs and oil to make a curry paste. Curries are traditionally served with jasmine rice.
Click here for Kingsley's Green Curry Chicken recipe.For curries, Kingsley cooks about 3 tablespoons of curry paste in a smoking hot wok with the thick part of cold coconut milk that's separated from the watery liquid in the refrigerator. She then uses the watery liquid to thin the sauce.
Don't be afraid to experiment or make mistakes as you first begin to tackle Thai recipes, she says. And above all, have fun.
"You have to have humor," she says. "You should enjoy it."
06-01-2009
