Cooking Ingredients

	Chiles, fresh, dried, and made into pastes, are a must for Thai stir-fries.

Coconut milk and palm sugar are the most common sweet ingredients. The sweet element found in most Thai dishes isn't cloying. Instead, it balances the heat and counters the sour notes. Coconut milk, often added to curries, stews, and stir-fries, tones down the heat with its creamy sweetness. Palm sugar, made from the sap of various palm trees, comes packaged in plastic jars or as round cakes. It has a caramel flavor that enhances the salty and sour flavors of a dish. If you can't find palm sugar, substitute light brown or granulated white sugar, increasing the amount called for by about 20 percent.

	Palm sugar (left) and coconut milk give Thai dishes sweetness. Limes, kaffir lime leaves, or lemongrass add a fragrant, citrusy note.

Acidic ingredients add vibrancy. Thai cooks use great amounts of tart ingredients, such as lime juice and tamarind juice (made by soaking tamarind pulp in water), to wake up the taste buds. Lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves give a dish a refreshing, lingering lift.

Lemongrass, the most popular herb used in Thailand, is a tall, scallion-like stalk that has a subtle lemony and citrusy flavor and fragrance. Before using, peel away the tough outer layers and crush or chop the stalk to release its flavor.

Kaffir lime leaves impart a most intense floral and citrus flavor and are almost required in Thai curries. Lime zest, while not the same, will give the dish a similar refreshing citrusy flavor.

	Limes, kaffir lime leaves, or lemongrass add a fragrant, citrusy note.

Bright, fresh herbs are aromatic finishes. There's another group of ingredients that further enhances all these basic flavors--the aromatics. Fresh herbs, such as basil, mint, and cilantro, are added to finished dishes
in great quantities, sometimes by cupfuls, with leaves often left whole to give a burst of flavor with each bite.

	Cilantro, basil, and mint leaves--often left whole and added at the end--are frequently used in Thai dishes.

Powdered cardamom is readily available but it is better to grind your own freshly if possible.

CELERY
Thai celery is much smaller than the variety found in the West. It is also greener, thinner-stemmed and leafier, with a stronger celery flavour. However, either type can be used equally well for Thai soups, sautés and salads.

Young celery leaves make an attractive garnish which enhances the flavour of the food at the same time.

CHILIES
The Thai add generous amounts of chillies to most of their dishes. No one region is known as the home of fiery food, as each province has its own "hot" dishes.

Many different varieties of chillies are used in Thailand but the most common is 7.5-10 cm (3-4 inches) long and can be red, green or yellow when fresh. Dried, it is red. Another popular chilli in Thai cooking is tiny, green and extremely fiery. The seeds are the hottest part of the chilli so if you want to keep the flavour, with out the heat, slit open the chillies and discard the seeds. Dried chillies should be soaked in hot water for 10 minutes before grinding.

The Thai use chillies in almost every conceivable way - fresh, dried, whole, chopped, crushed or sliced into rings. Just a few words of caution, always wash your hands carefully after handling chillies and do not touch your eyes or mouth, or they will suffer from a burning sensation.

CHILI PASTE
Can be bought in bottles from Asian stores. A particularly popular one in Thai cooking, especially for seafood dishes, is burnt mild chilli paste.

CHINESE MUSHROOMS
These dried, whole mushrooms have a distinctive flavour. They should always be soaked in warm water for 30 minutes before being added to other ingredients. The stems are seldom eaten, as they are quite tough.

They are sold in most oriental food stores around the world.

CINNAMON
In southern Asia, there are many varieties of cinnamon, the dried, aromatic bark of a member of the laurel family. In Thailand the "Batavia" variety is commonly used to give a pleasant aroma to beef and chicken dishes.

CLOVES
In Thai cuisine, cloves are added to curries and they also go very well with tomatoes, salty vegetables and ham. In Thailand, cloves have traditionally been chewed with betel leaves.

COCONUT MILK
The milk itself is the liquid wrung from the grated and pressed coconut meat and then combined with water. In Thai cooking it is used with curries and stews and it is often combined with curry pastes for sauces. The milk is used as a popular cooling beverage and a key ingredient in puddings and candies.

Be sure to shake the tin well before opening to use.

CORIANDER
The leaves and seeds are used in many cuisines throughout the world, but Thai cooking makes use of the roots as well.

The round, beige seeds are added to curries and vegetables. The roots are crushed with garlic to flavour meat and are often added to soups, especially beef soups. The leaves are used extensively as a garnish.

CUMIN
Only the seeds are used, dried and ground. In Thai cuisine, cumin is used in sauces and on grilled meats. Cumin can be purchased already ground, but the whole seeds keep their flavour better and they are easy to grind at home.

FERMENTED SOYA BEANS
Whole fermented yellow or black soy beans may be labelled "Dow See" in oriental stores. They are sold in bottles and the English label probably says "Yellow Bean Sauce". Fermented soy beans are nutritious, strongly flavoured and salty. They replace salt completely in some Thai dishes.

FISH SAUCE (Nam pla)
Fish sauce is also known as fish gravy or nam pla. It is a thin brown sauce made from fermented salted fresh fish, usually anchovies. It is sold bottled and has a noticeable fish odour and salty taste. However, it is a Thai standard and should be used, perhaps sparingly at first; moreover, cooking greatly diminishes the 'fishy' flavour, and the sauce does add a special richness and quality to dishes. The Thai brands are especially good, with a less salty taste. It is an inexpensive ingredient so get the best on offer.

GALANGAL (Kha)
Both greater and lesser galangal are related to ginger. In Thailand greater galangal is most commonly used; its aroma is subtler than that of lesser galangal and its inside is milky white. You often find it in curries and soups. It is used fresh in Asia, but elsewhere it may have to be purchased dried. In this case, soak the root in hot water for 1 hour before use and remove it before serving. Powdered galangal is also available.

GARLIC
The Thai garlic head is made up of smaller cloves than the Western varieties. It is used abundantly in Thai cuisine.

GINGER
The aromatic rhizome of the ginger plant is an important ingredient of Thai Meat Dishes and desserts. It must be peeled before it can be chopped, grated or crushed. Fresh ginger is preferable, but powdered ginger can be substituted if necessary.

LEMONGRASS
This herb is close to being the 'signature' ingredient of Thai cookery. Lemongrass is available in fresh as well as dried form. Dried Lemongrass is used for herbal teas, and only the fresh for cooking. Fresh lemongrass is sold in stalks that can be 60cm (2 ft) long – it looks like a very long, thin spring onion. Most recipes use only the bottom few inches of the stem. Lemongrass pieces are removed after the dish is cooked. In recipes that call for lemongrass to be finely chopped or pounded into a paste, it becomes an integral aspect of the dish, and isn't removed.

Fresh lemongrass can be kept, loosely wrapped, in the bottom part of your refrigerator for up to one week. Please note that lemon is not a substitute for the unique flavours of lemongrass.

LIME LEAF
You'll find lime leaves floating in soups or finely shredded. The dried leaves must be soaked in cold water 20 minutes before use. Substitute 1 tablespoon lime juice.

MINT
Leaves of the spearmint variety are often used in Thai salads, fish dishes and soups. Sweet basil leaves can be used as a substitute if necessary.

RICE, THAI JASMINE
This fragrant long-grain rice from Thailand is prized for its aromatic and nutty flavour.

Widely available in supermarkets, it is much favoured by Thai cooks and chefs. The taste of jasmine is not quite perceptible, but you sense that the rice is pleasingly different. And there is a difference, however subtle.

RICE NOODLES
Don't be intimidated by all the foreign writing on these packages of clear rice noodles. For pad thai you'll need the wider noodles, which look like dry linguine. Rice noodles should be soaked in cold water, then quickly boiled or stir fried.

TAMARIND
This sweet-and-sour fruit comes from a fuzzy light brown pod. The pulp (with seeds) is sold in a flat square as tamarind paste. It must be mixed with water and strained before using.

Experiment with Thai flavors

• For a delicious barbecue, try marinating meats with fish sauce, soy sauce, sugar, garlic, lemongrass, and chiles.
  
• Serve steamed or fried fish with a sauce made with equal parts of fish sauce, water, and sugar, and then accent with garlic, Thai chiles, and a squeeze of lime.
  
• For a flavorful Thai salad dressing, blend together lime juice, sugar, fish sauce, lemongrass, chiles, and sliced onions.
  
• Rub a chicken with lemongrass, cilantro, chiles, coconut milk, garlic, and fish sauce and roast as usual. Ten minutes before the chicken is done, baste it with the spice mixture and return it to the oven until cooked. This last-minute treatment creates a most aromatic roast chicken.

--Mai Pham is the chef-owner of Lemon Grass Restaurant & Cafe in Sacramento, California. She wrote The Best of Vietnamese & Thai Cooking. Photos: Scott Phillips. From Fine Cooking #31, pp. 72-73.