Thai food is loved world-wide and whilst it’s tricky to pinpoint one reason for its mass appeal but perhaps a good place to start is its focus on the balance of flavours. A traditional Thai meal incorporates a nod to each of the key flavours – sweet, sour, salty and spicy, from mildly sweet curries rich with coconut milk, hot and sour soups like Tom Yum to fiery stir fries such as Pad Kra Pao. It’s not only the traditional menu combinations – known as Samrub – but the dishes themselves that offer a complexity of contrasting flavours and with Thailand’s wealth of natural ingredients from herbs and spices to fruit and vegetables, there’s often a surprising or hidden ingredient bringing that extra dimension to the dish.
Pad Thai
Mention Thai cooking and often the first dish that springs to mind is the classic Pad Thai. A little known fact about this dish is that whilst it’s often cited as being the national dish of Thailand it was in fact invented in the 1930s at the request of the ruler, Plaek Phibunsongkhram who wanted a dish to unite the country (and also in response to a shortage of rice)! Another thing that might surprise you is the secret to Pad Thai’s delicious ‘umami’ taste is fish sauce. Not, perhaps, the first thing you’d guess when tucking into a bowl of ultimate comfort-food noodles!
Som Tam or Papaya Salad
A Thai salad takes flavour to another level often with a spicy little kick and the iconic Som Tam or Green Papaya Salad never disappoints! Take a delicious mouthful and you’ll be able to identify some key ingredients – papaya (green papaya or unripe papaya for that crisp, fresh crunchiness), cherry tomatoes and fiery red chillies but where’s that extra layer of salty flavour coming from? An ingredient that might surprise you is dried shrimp which when pounded together with garlic, chilli and peanuts creates the base for the moreish sauce that coats the salad.
Thai Red Curry
Needing no introduction, the Thai Red Curry is the slightly less spicy cousin of the Thai Green Curry and delivers the kind of mouthwatering tiers of flavour that Thai food is known for. A little spicy, a little sweet but with an all-important citrussy edge to cut through the richness of the coconut milk… thanks to the humble makrut lime leaf. Sharp to the point of bitterness if nibbled, the makrut lime leaf imbues Thai Red Curry with a characteristic tangy, aromatic flavour when simmered in coconut milk.
Pad Kra Pao
This famously spicy stir fry (Pad means fried in Thai) is a street food staple, traditionally made with ground or minced meat such as a pork and served with a crispy-edged fried egg. But the iconic flavour that makes this dish unique is down to a humble green leaf – Thai Holy Basil. Not to be confused (or substituted ideally…) with regular basil, this herb packs a punch flavour-wise with a peppery hit that has hints of clove and mint. It’s just not a Kra Pao without it…
Pad Cha
The name for this seafood stir fry comes from the sound the ingredients make – the cha – when they hit the hot wok! Always a bit of a showstopper dish with a flavoursome medley of seafood, it’s again a smaller, humble ingredient which delivers the unique flavour in the form of young green peppercorns, known as pron. Not only do they add an extra dimension of flavour but they bring a different kind of heat from that of the usual chilli spiciness of Thai dishes.
