thai food

And Renu Nakorn in Norwalk still rules.

does anyone have a recipe for pad thai? (vegetarian) - it can't be too difficult.

The hot tip for all -- northern Thai cuisine. That's the speciality of Renu Nakorn and now I'll be pissed if I can't choose from those options at any other Thai place.

Weirdly, the best Italian meal I've ever eaten was fresh tagliatelle with crab sauce in an Italian restaurant on Ko Thao.

Phil if we're talking Thai hangovers, you've got to include Sang Thom and Sang Thip.

Sadly, I'm not a big thai food guy.. though when a place is REALLY good, I like it. Thankfully, one of those places is Tawon Thai in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle.. another great, cheap, quick place is Mae Pham in the Pioneer Square area..

I heard about Mekong whisky, that scared me (and was another one with the formaldehyde rumour)

I are not.

And the "nuts" must surely be peanuts, right?

the dried shrimp are rehydrated and fried with the base ingredients, but I have seen it done without them being rehydrated. I never saw it with proper meat in it other than a bit of minced chicken.

my suggestion to anyone seriously wanting to learn more about Thai food and/or cook it is to check out David Thompson's exhaustive and really interesting book called, simply, Thai Food. some people have complained that there's not a nam pla (fish sauce) recipe in it, but with everything else it contains, that's really a small complaint. about the first 300 pages are all a history of Thai cooking which is really fascinating to read (if you're into that sort of thing). it also differentiates between the different styles of cooking which are representative of the different regions of Thailand. seriously, i cannot recommend this book enough. also, apparently the UK version has a cooler cover than the US one i linked above---pink Thai silk. check it out here.

Vatcharin Bhumitchitr's books are worth investigating as well. i'm particularly enamoured of the one he wrote about street vendors---particularly as it had a recipe that i grew up with my mom making, and i'd never seen it written down before. salad kaek is lovely, and i know it can't be found in restaurants around here! :) perhaps at the ones Vatch runs.

if you're having difficulty finding ingredients and are in the US, i'd also suggest trying someplace like Import Food.com or Temple of Thai.com. i've ordered from ImportFood before and had absolutely no problems doing so---although i haven't ordered their fresh produce, everything else has been top notch from them and i can't recommend them highly enough. their customer service people are also very friendly and helpful.

thai curries are great, but there's more to it than just curry, dammit! :)

Not sure about that, but I have used the analogy:

pad thai : Thai food :: bi bim bop : Korean food

pad thai, to my understanding, is more of a snack. of the sort one would purchase from street vendors. not unlike big soft pretzels or churros or something similar are here.

granted, it works okay as a meal. i'm all about adaptability. hell, popcorn (as someone mentioned on another thread) is also an acceptable meal at times. but it's hardly representative of the entire nation's food as a whole. :)

Haha! That's brilliant, Jaymc.

should be more like "chop suey != chinese food."

whoops. XD

search (sf bay area):
thep phanom on waller/fillmore, sf
lotus thai on piedmont ave, oak
royal thai, downtown san rafael

can anyone recommend/ or describe the taste of thai pineapple rice?

i have been broke for like a week now and have been surviving of Thanksgiving leftovers and stolen bagels from work.
i buddy at work is getting Thai food for lunch and offered to buy me some. i am in such need of a good meal and all this thai food sounds sooo good right now that i can't decide what to get. Help me!

wtf? pad see mow and tom kah soup duh.

get with it man.

dude, i'm just a little overwhelmed with the prospects of a good meal

i want to eat it all

kha mu (thai pork with galangal)

Kaeng Kua Phak Gai (chicken and winter melon curry)

pad kee mao (drunky rice)

tom ka gai (coconut and chicken soup)

yeah, and I use Chaokoh so it's got a really nice thick cream w/ no emulsifiers.

I usu put it in the fridge overnight.

best thai food porn ever

i've lived there and am pretty sure you can safely label the people of thailand "foodies". they take this shit seriously, as amply demonstrated by the variety of dishes available from street food vendors in the above thread.

thread link

omg made a jungle curry that is destroying my insides as we speak

i'm not a spice wuss but had some sort of jungle curry at Jitlada (place had the biggest disparity between food quality and service ever) in LA that was really tasty but i could barely eat any of it cause of the heat, bummed me out cause i don't live in LA and had been looking forward to a meal there.

yeah, and I use Chaokoh so it's got a really nice thick cream w/ no emulsifiers.

― Yo! MTV La Tengo (Stevie D(eux)), Tuesday, 29 January 2013 05:27 (4 hours ago) Permalink

hmmm that sucks then, that was my one pro tip that helped me.

I've never tried frying it in the coconut milk. I just put a little oil in a skillet, maybe some garlic, a bit of ginger, some onion, then when the onions are soft I stir in some curry paste until it becomes fragrant, then add the coconut milk.

yeah isn't the paste always before the milk? this makes sense in terms of cooking generally, at least anything else like this you tend to let your aromatic stuff get going before you add the bulk of liquid.

you tend to let your aromatic stuff get going before you add the bulk of liquid.

yeah you do this, you fry it in the fat from the cream, then you tip in the rest of the milk... as per - http://www.thaifoodandtravel.com/recipes/greencurp.html

ah okay... i must try that way.

wouldnt it be easier just to start frying the paste in oil (maybe coconut oil?) and then put the cream in tablespoon by tablespoon separating each time

Okay so now my general technique is:

Fry 2T red curry paste in some oil for a few min
Add 1 can coconut milk, mix together
Add 1 lb protein (I've only done chicken and beef), cook for a bit
Add veggies, cook until tender
Balance flavors w/ fish sauce, palm sugar, etc (usu 1T of each)

Tonight I'm going to make a red fish curry w/ broc, bell pep, shallot, mushroom. I am thinking of a) frying some kaffir lime leaves w/ the curry paste/simmering them in the coconut milk b) maybe frying the shallot w the paste too c) adding the veggies with or even before the fish time bcz the fish only takes a few minutes to cook.

Is this OK enough re: my proportions, technique, order of stuff? How can I improve my thai curry game?

I'm no Thai expert, just an amateur cook, but it sounds pretty good to me. I agree with shallot in the oil first, and def. the veggies before the fish. Depending on what the veggies are, you may even what to steam/blanche them a bit before adding them to the coconut milk.

Also jarred curry paste is usually not spicy enough for my taste, so I'd also chop up a few chili peppers and fry them with the oil & shallots, but that's just me.

I usually saute the protein and veg in the curry paste before adding the milk, so that they get some more of the flavor. But I've never really explored proper technique so I am probably breaking several curry laws lol

Probably would work fine with most proteins, but I think fish prob. too delicate for that.

mackerel

I got tilapia

I have never bought fresh fish before! Goodness gracious, that shit's expensive!

saute the fish in the curry paste but remove it when done. add it back in when everything else is done.

Btw, here's a recipe that's basically what you're proposing, except without the broccoli (which to include I'd blanche a bit before adding to the coconut milk between steps 2 and 3):

http://www.atasteofthai.com/index.php?page=recipe&id=328

Oh! also! how small do I cut the fish?

I don't think you need to cut it up for this recipe. In the picture it looks like whole fillets.

Well that recipe yeah but I was planning on doing a more traditional soupy curry w/ bite size pieces type jawn

I guess you could cut to any size you like.

an inch or so is good, as a general rule

living in sydney now and i'm eating so much REAL THAI FOOD. it is the best. quality of life improvement = 100%

thai spicy

REAL Thai food

cf thread of pictures of real chinese food

rticles are tl;dr but the worst thing is American hipsters who say "That's not real _________"

― liars - wkiw (Whiney G. Weingarten), Thursday, June 7, 2012 7:09 AM (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm just being stupid, forget it