The Popular Thai Cuisine

I was surprised to learn that some of the tour packages in Chiang Mai offer Thai cooking. They will take you to the market and shop for the ingredients and materials needed for the cooking and they will teach you the step by step cooking with actual hands on. After the cooking session, of course eating will follow. So whatever is prepared one has the privilege to eat everything. What a good culinary exposure. But I missed this and I would like to try this next time.

My experience of the Thai cuisine started from eating at the restaurants to the side street stalls. Thailand is really haven of good food. From noodles to full meals and to desserts, one cannot stop but appreciate every recipe. I learned to love eating spicy noodles and they are really hot. Tom yam is a soup that is hot and sour made from lemon grass, kaffir lime leaves, galangal, dried chillies and lime juice. It is usually added with prawns and is called tom yam kung or chicken and is called tom yam kai.

In one of my walk tour in Bangkok, I tried the papaya salad or they locally call it som tam. This is a salad made fresh and you can actually see the preparation of this. It is basically made of grated unripe papaya with peanuts and dried shrimps with palm sugar that gives sweetness. The three main variations of this salad are som tam pu with salted black crab, som tam Thai with peanuts, dried shrimp and palm sugar, and som tam plara or som tam Lao with fermented fish

From the street vendors I saw them sell khanom wun. These are desserts made with an agar gelatine. The colours represent different flavours. I saw also small donut balls.

In one of the dinner hosted by my Thai friend in Chiang Mai, I was sampled with fried fish and Thai red rice which is shorter and wider seed which has nutty flavor and has high nutritional value. She also ordered a platter of steamed vegetables and meat with a spicy dipping sauce. Thom khai gai was also served to us. It is a spicy and hot soup which is made of coconut milk, galangal, lemon grass and of course chicken.

It was really very good to indulge with Thai food. Hoping to get another culinary adventure next time.