Thai cooking builds flavour from fresh herbs and aromatics pounded into pastes, balanced with fish sauce, lime, palm sugar and chilli, and varies widely by region.
Overview¶
Thai cooking is less about dried spices than almost any other cuisine on this list. Its character comes from fresh aromatics — lemongrass, galangal, makrut lime, coriander root, garlic, shallot and chilli — pounded together, and from a constant balancing act between four tastes: hot (chilli), sour (lime, tamarind), salty (fish sauce, shrimp paste) and sweet (palm sugar). A good Thai cook tastes and adjusts at the end of every dish, and diners adjust again at the table with khrueang prung, the condiment set of fish sauce with chilli, chilli in vinegar, dried chilli flakes and sugar.
Before chillies reached Southeast Asia in the sixteenth century, heat came from black and white pepper, which still matters in Thai cooking — white pepper and coriander root pounded with garlic is one of its oldest seasoning bases.
The core palette¶
- Fresh aromatics: lemongrass (the pale lower stalk), galangal (sharper and more piney than ginger, which it does not substitute for well), makrut lime leaves and zest, shallots, garlic and coriander root.
- Herbs: three basils — Thai sweet basil (horapha) for curries, holy basil (kaphrao) for stir-fries, and lemon basil (maenglak) — plus coriander, mint, culantro (sawtooth coriander) and Vietnamese coriander (phak phai).
- Chillies: tiny bird's eye chillies (phrik khi nu), longer milder fresh chillies, and large dried reds for pastes.
- Dried spices, used sparingly: toasted coriander and cumin seed in red and massaman pastes; cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, nutmeg and mace in massaman, which reflects Persian and Indian-Muslim influence at the Siamese court.
- Others: turmeric (fresh, especially in the south), pandan for desserts and rice, and fermented shrimp paste (kapi).
Regional differences¶
Central¶
The Bangkok and central plains style is the one most exported: coconut curries, sweet-sour-salty balance, jasmine rice, and dishes like tom yum and green curry. Royal court cooking refined elaborate carving and complex pastes.
North (Lanna)¶
Northern food is less sweet, uses little coconut, and eats sticky rice. Spice pastes include dried spices unusual elsewhere in Thailand, such as makhwaen (a prickly-ash relative of Sichuan pepper) in larb. Khao soi, a curry noodle soup, shows Burmese and Yunnanese influence.
North-east (Isan)¶
Isan, bordering Laos, is hot, sour and funky: grilled meats, som tam (green papaya salad), larb dressed with lime, fish sauce, fresh herbs and toasted ground rice, and fermented fish (pla ra). Herbs are eaten raw by the handful.
South¶
Southern Thai food is the hottest in the country and heavy on fresh turmeric, seafood and coconut. Kaeng tai pla and kaeng som are fierce, sour curries; the Muslim south has its own biryani-like dishes and massaman.
Key techniques¶
- Pounding pastes: a granite mortar crushes fibres and releases oils better than a blender, which chops. Pound the hardest, driest ingredients first (dried chilli, seeds, lemongrass, galangal), then add the softer, wetter ones (garlic, shallot, shrimp paste). See pestle-and-mortar.
- "Cracking" coconut cream: the thick cream is fried until the oil separates, and the curry paste is fried in that oil until fragrant before the rest of the coconut milk goes in. This is the Thai equivalent of blooming-spices-in-oil.
- Adding herbs at the end: basil and lime leaves go in off the heat or in the last minute. See when-to-add-herbs-and-spices.
💡 Tearing, not chopping
Makrut lime leaves are often torn and the tough central rib removed; for salads they must be sliced as finely as hair or they are unpleasantly leathery.
Landmark dishes¶
Tom yum and tom kha (galangal and coconut soup), green curry, red curry, massaman curry, jungle curry (no coconut), pad kaphrao (holy basil stir-fry — often made with Thai sweet basil abroad, which is a different dish), som tam, larb, pad thai, khao soi, and nam prik — the family of pounded chilli relishes that are arguably the true heart of the cuisine.
Stocking the cupboard¶
- lemongrass, galangal and makrut lime leaves — all freeze well; buy fresh when you see them (see freezing-herbs)
- Fresh bird's eye chillies and large dried red chillies
- White peppercorns
- Coriander seed and cumin seed
- Fresh coriander with roots on, and Thai basil where available
- Fish sauce, palm sugar, shrimp paste and tamarind
- A jar of good red curry paste for weeknights — Thai home cooks buy paste from the market too