Thai Food

     Thailand boats a cornucopia of inexpensive restaurants featuring mouthwatering dished from all regions of Thailand and international cuisine form just about everywhere in the world. Manu gourmet of Thai food rated No. 5 in the world' culinary top ten and consider Bangkok to be on a par with Hong Kong for gastronomic experience. The ideal traditional Thai meal aims at being a harmonious blend of spicy, sweet and sour and is meant to be appealing to the eye, nose and palate. Thai cuisine is essentially a marriage of centuries-old Eastern and Western influences harmoniously combined into something uniquely Thai.

     Chillies were introduced to Thai cooking during the late 1600s by Portuguese missionaries who has acquired a taste for them while serving in South America.

     Thai dishes usually contain a lot of condiments and spices with different types of curry an soups, such as garlic, ginger, shallot, fish sauce, galanga, hoary basil and kafffir, lemon grass, lime, marsh mint, pepper, sacred basil and shallot etc. tamarind leaves, castor oil plant, pomelo.

     Bit cut of meats were shredded and laced with herbs and spices. Traditional Thai cooking methods were stewing and baking, or grilling. Chinese influences saw the introduction of frying , sit frying and deep-frying. Culinary influences from the 17th century onwards included Pr\Portuguese, Dutch, French and Japanese.

     Thai were very adapt at "Siamese " foreign cooking methods, and substituting ingredients. The ghee used in Indian cooking was replaced by coconut oil, and coconut milk substituted for other daily products. Overpowering pure spices were toned down and enhanced by fresh herbs such as lemon grass and galanga. Eventually, fewer and less spices were used in Thai curries, while the use of fresh herbs increase. its generally acknowledged that Thai curries burn intensely, but briefly, whereas other curries, with strong spices, burn for longer periods. Instead pf serving dishes in course, a Thai meal is served all at once, permitting dinners to enjoy complementary combinations of different tastes.

A proper Thai meal should consist of a soup, a curry dish with condiments, adopt with accompan8ying fish and vegetables. A spiced salad may replace the curry dish. The soup can also be spicy, but the curry should be replaced by no n spiced items. there must be a harmony of tastes and textures within individual dishes and the entire meal.

     Some of the most popular Thai dishes are : Tom Yum Kung?Yum Nuea, Phat Thai, Mi Krop, Kaeng Khiao Wan Nuea, Kai Yang with Khao Niao and Som Tam, Satay, Tho Man Pla etc.