Thai

Though you don’t see Pad Thai all that much in Thailand (I was told there that it was “a Chinese dish” and therefore inauthentic), it has become a standard at American Thai restaurants—and for good reason. The combination of sweet, salty, sour, and spicy in a variety of textures is irresistible. There’s nothing difficult about making Pad Thai at home. Just make sure you’ve portioned out all the ingredients before you start cooking and, especially if you’re entertaining, take care of the first two steps before your guests arrive. Information on Asian fish sauces like nam pla is on page 500.

The subtle blend of sweet, creamy, and sharp flavors in this Thai classic makes it one of the first Thai dishes most people learn to love. Although the best version I ever had began with cracking real coconuts—a chore I wouldn’t wish on an enemy—if you make coconut milk from dried coconut or use canned coconut milk, the dish is easy to re-create at home and really great. For information on Thai fish sauce (nam pla), see page 500.

Served throughout China and Southeast Asia, sticky rice has become associated most closely with Thailand, where it is the equivalent of France’s bread, eaten at almost every meal. It’s addictive and easily made at home, as long as you plan ahead a bit. Sticky rice is one of the few grains—indeed, foods—that can be prepared without salt and still taste great.

Leftover rice is not only acceptable here but practically mandatory: fresh or warm rice does not fry well, but clumps together and sticks to the wok. You need cold, stale rice, which separates during cooking. If you have neither roast pork (even the Cuban Lechon Asado, page 375, will work) nor Chinese sausage, ham is a fine substitute. No meat at all is fine, too, of course; see the variations.

Palm sugar, or jaggery, is dark, unrefined sugar made from a variety of sources, including the sap of the palm tree. It can be chunky and must be broken up; dark brown sugar is a nearly perfect substitute. This dish is great with slices of ripe fresh mango.

Tod mun—Thai fish cakes—are usually made with mackerel or other dark-fleshed fish, but shrimp are just as good, and most of my friends seem to prefer them made this way. Both mackerel and shrimp have enough natural gelatin to hold together without egg or bread crumbs or mashed potatoes or any of the other binders necessary in so many fish cakes. In fact, they have so much natural gelatin that if you over process the fish it becomes rubbery, which in fact is characteristic of tod mun. My little trick—of pureeing some of the fish and simply chopping the rest—keeps it a little softer; you can do it either way. If you make these with shrimp, they can also be grilled. See page 500 for information on Thai fish sauce (nam pla).

Like the nut and bean preparations on pages 27–28, these savory crisp snacks from Southeast Asia (closely related to the similar recipe from Korea that follows) can be eaten out of hand. Also like them, they’re great with beer. Though unfamiliar to some people, they’re instantly liked by most. (You can buy dried baby anchovies—described on page 25—at most Asian, and some Latin, markets.) In Thailand, they’re sometimes tossed with Fried Peanuts (page 27), a lovely little combo.

I first had this appetizer as street food, near a market in Bangkok. The combination of raw ingredients normally used as flavoring agents for cooked dishes was intriguing and refreshing. The betel leaf used to hold everything together gave an additional bite to the dish. Betel leaves are impossible to find here, but the dish remains delicious with spinach leaves or even lettuce. If you’re not familiar with Thai fish sauce (nam pla), see page 500. You put it all together at the table, so it’s kind of fun. Serve this as the start to any meal featuring other food from Southeast Asia.

In 1995, I was lucky enough to be invited as a guest chef at the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok. I brought my sous chef and pastry chef with me, and for two weeks we toured the temples and markets of the city, seeing (and eating) many unusual and beautiful things. I vividly remember the profusion of flowers and the tasty and sometimes strange street food (such as the edible insect cart, which we avoided), and the gradual change from barely tolerating hot chiles to actually craving them on a daily basis. When I returned, my sous chef, Ronald Carr, helped me develop this dish to showcase the new flavors that I’d fallen for. This substantial salad could be served for lunch, dinner, or as a first course before something light, such as grilled fish. To lighten up the salad, you can add an extra handful of shredded cabbage or even more of the crispy noodles (keep in mind that the salad will be a bit drier if you do this). Small or medium shrimp work just fine in this recipe, and they’re less expensive than larger varieties.

I have loved pad Thai ever since high school when my friends and I found this great Thai restaurant that we went to every chance we got. I have found that making it at home is a more than satisfactory substitute (and, of course, way cheaper). I like to make it spicier and add a little soy sauce, so start out with the recipe here, and then add your own personal touch—that’s what cooking is all about anyway! You’ll see that the recipe calls for vegetarian fish sauce, which may seem like a funny concept, but you can find it online or at some Asian markets (where you can also pick up the rice noodles).

Smooth, well-seasoned meat and seafood pastes have many uses in the Vietnamese kitchen. Here, a pinkish orange salmon paste is shaped into small cakes before undergoing a two-step cooking process: an initial steaming to cook the cakes, followed by broiling, grilling, or frying to crisp the outside. The cakes are sliced and served as an appetizer or dunked into Simple Dipping Sauce (page 309) and eaten with rice for dinner. If you have enjoyed Thai fried fish cakes (tod mun), these will remind you of them. When my mother came to the States, she substituted salmon for the rich-tasting tuna she had used in Vietnam. I have since prepared the cakes with the ahi tuna available here, but the results were too firm and dry. The fattier salmon is superior. If you can’t find skinless salmon fillet, buy 2 1/3 pounds of skin-on fillet and remove the skin before you cut the fish into chunks. The cakes can be frozen after they are steamed and then thawed and crisped for a good last-minute meal or snack. The recipe is also easily halved, but I advise you to make the whole batch and tuck away the extras for when you need a quick dish.

Most people are introduced to galangal, a relative of ginger, by way of Thai curries and seafood soups. The rhizome is seldom used in Vietnamese cooking, but when it is, it is paired with other bold-flavored ingredients. Here, its pungent heat brightens a northern fish kho, with the bittersweet caramel sauce tempering its fire. Use the smaller amount of galangal if you want a dish with less intensity. Although salmon isn’t native to Vietnam, it takes on the robust flavors of the kho remarkably well. Fresh side pork (pork belly), which you can find at Asian markets, is the stealth ingredient here, enrobing everything with its richness to create a unique surf-and-turf combination. The result is spicy, savory, and a touch sweet.

One of Thailand’s signature dishes, pad thai is as popular in Japan as it is here in America. Rice noodles are easy to overcook, so be sure to prepare this dish in small batches. If you do want to serve four people, prepare enough ingredients for four servings (including doubling the sauce), but cook the recipe in two batches, one after the other. Also, use a nonstick skillet, if possible, because rice noodles can stick to a regular pan.

I tasted an unforgettable version of this dish on a trip to Thailand a few years ago, in the city of Chiang Mai, which is famous for its vibrant Thai curries. I love the mixture of aromatic flavors and textures here, and the way this dish is sweet, pungent, and spicy all at once. If you can find them, use Thai eggplants, which are a pale green in color, and have a nice, delicate flavor. Or you can substitute slender Chinese eggplants. This dish has a lot of ingredients but is very straightforward and easy to prepare.

This is one of my absolute favorite recipes and it’s so easy to make. The garlic gets the flavor going, the peanut butter adds the creaminess, and the chili paste adds the heat. I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: if you haven’t used chili paste before, be careful; it’s extremely hot. You may want to start with one tablespoon and add more to taste.

If you enjoy rice pudding, you’ll love these Thai packets of soft sticky rice flavored by coconut cream. Steaming in banana leaves lends an alluring fragrance to the rich rice, which encases soft banana and cooked black beans. The beans offer interesting texture and color contrast in these popular street snacks. According to legend, kao tom padt (also called kao tom madt) was all that some religious pilgrims had on their journey to visit the Lord Buddha. They presented their precious food to the Lord Buddha upon arriving, and that gesture continues today as these packets are still an offering at religious ceremonies. Thai cooks typically make these packets in large quantities and thus soak and boil a fair amount of black beans. For small homemade batches, canned black beans, drained and rinsed of their canning liquid, work fine. Omit the beans for nom n’sahm chaek, a Cambodian New Year must-have. You can also grill the steamed packets and serve them with the Coconut Dessert Sauce (page 221).

Thai food is full of bold juxtapositions of flavor and texture. For these crystalline dumplings, the chewy skin is made from tapioca pearls (saku in Thai). The filling of pork, peanuts, shallot, palm sugar, and fish sauce is crumbly, sweet, salty, and savory. To eat, the dumplings are wrapped in lettuce leaves with fresh herbs and hot chiles. Saku sai mu is a popular street food in Thailand; here in the States, I have purchased them at Thai markets and snack shops. Making the dumplings at home ensures freshness and availability, and the ingredients can be found at most supermarkets. Hard-core cooks may handmince pork shoulder or chicken thigh and seek out cilantro root and palm sugar from Southeast Asian markets, but ground meat (avoid superlean pork or chicken), cilantro stems, and brown sugar are terrific stand-ins.

My first introduction to Thai curries came while I assisted a friend in preparing a luncheon for Nancy Reagan at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. What a surprise: the curry sauce was red! Although Thai curries have many ingredients in common with those of neighboring India, they tend to be tinged with a hint of sweetness from the combination of coconut milk and a traditional dash of sugar, and they are often colored red or green by the red or green chiles in them, rather than the more familiar yellow color of Indian curries. As with most Thai curries, serve this over rice.