Week 5: Thailand

This week, we ventured to Asia for the first time during ATWin52 while trying the flavors of Thailand. We followed the normal protocol of drawing a country out of the hat (rather than just picking a country without drawing as we did with Scotland last week). Thailand is one of those countries whose food I was anxious to try--it's a cuisine I've had some familiarity with (mostly through satay and through the assumption that it couldn't be much different from Chinese), but also a cuisine that offered a wide array of brand new flavors. My research of their cuisine quickly showed me the unique qualities of Thai food/culture, such as the beautiful characters in their written language, as well as the language itself which, while obviously Asian, translated into unique English phrases. The unique style of food preparation and ingredients also stuck out to me--Thai cuisine (what I've observed of it) is made up of many soups and rice noodle dishes (such as pad thai) with fresh ingredients including a variety of fruits and vegetables, herbs and spices, peanuts and lots of fish sauce; their cuisine is quite fresh and refreshing in preparation and ingredients.

After sifting through many Thai recipes, we opted for an American spin on two authentic Thai recipes. The "spin" was the classic combo of "soup and salad"; not that the two aren't eaten together in Thailand, but we thought it would be a nice change of pace from other cooking methods we've been using so far (yes, for those of you keeping score, we have had a soup--and a stew--already, but still ;-D ). Many Thai recipes are stir-fry in nature and recommend a wok for preparation (which we don't have), so that factor also played into our choices. Of the multitudes of Thai soups and salads to choose from, we opted for Tom Ka Gai and Som Tam. Tom Ka Gai is a spicy chicken soup with coconut milk (yes, this is the second instance of using coconut milk, but we thought it was okay since it's such a different interpretation than pollo con leche de coco) and Som Tam is a salad made with bean sprouts and papaya.

Thai Chilies, Baby Corn (which we DID NOT use) and Rice Noodles

The recipes we chose for the Tom Ka Gai and Som Tam both called for a few ingredients that we didn't have, so we either substituted or simply left out such ingredients as fish sauce, shrimp paste and basil leaves. The som tam called for a green papaya, but we settled for a regular ripe one. That being said, we might not have had the exact flavor experience as those in Thailand do, but we at least got a better idea of what the Thai people like to eat ;-D

Tom Ka Gai

The tom ka gai starts off with sautéing the garlic, ginger, lemongrass (a stalk-shaped herb that has a strong lemon scent) chilies and spices--the fumes from that mixture while cooking were intense! After sautéing the herbs and spices, we added chicken and onions and let them cook through; the next step was adding the water, coconut milk and soy sauce (instead of fish sauce) and letting it simmer for half an hour (note: while the recipe calls for a lot of fish sauce/soy sauce, it's not at all overpowering--if you're concerned about sodium content, consider using a reduced-sodium soy sauce variety). Truly the most difficult step of preparing the soup was chopping up the herbs/vegetables--quite the simple soup! I also cooked some rice noodles to eat with the soup, which I prepared separately by the advice of another tom ka gai recipe. To serve, I put noodles in bowls and then ladled soup over them. The salad was also easy to prepare, with the most difficult/time-consuming steps being cutting up the fruit and vegetables and preparing the simple dressing (oil/soy sauce [fish sauce/shrimp paste]/lime juice). While the recipes required a lot of prep work, the difficultly level/cooking times were not much at all.

Som Tam

Although Rick did not partake in this meal, those of us who did (me, mom and Courtney) absolutely LOVED it! Mom and I actually craved more salt for the soup in spite of the large amount of soy sauce in the recipe, but the flavor of the soup was great--a bit spicy but creamy from the coconut milk. The bok choy gave a slight taste of cabbage, but not to an overpowering extent (considering Courtney enjoyed the soup and does NOT enjoy cabbage). The salad was quite refreshing and was excellent with a sprinkling of crushed peanuts on top. I can definitely foresee this meal being made again and I'll be glad to have it (and share it with you, if you'd like!).

We've drawn for Week 6 tonight--we're going to Africa--Zimbabwe to be exact! I think we've already got some ideas for what we're making, and it's going to be very fun (and perhaps the most authentic experience so far)--who wants in?