Cooking is something most of my friends do not believe that I am capable of. I cooked for my family since I was in high school as one of my house chores. I remember that I didn’t like it that much, not that I didn’t like to cook but I didn’t like to think what to cook.

Cooking Thai food is like many Asian food, it’s quick to cook but requires a fair amount of preparation. It also requires a good understanding of balanced flavours. In Thai cooking there are salty, sweet, sour, bitter and spicy flavours which we created balanced flavours for each dish although not every dish has all these five flavours. When I balance flavours I start out with salty. The saltiness in Thai food comes from fish sauce, soy sauce or salt. I personally prefer soy sauce than fish sauce. If it turns out to be a bit too salty, I would use sweet flavour to balance the taste. If it is too sweet, add a little saltiness will balance it. Sweet flavour comes from sugar, in Thai cooking we use palm sugar for sweetness. In my experience, soft brown sugar can be used to substitute for palm sugar.

Even though I like to cook but when it is time to make curry, I hardly made my own curry paste. The disadvantage of using ready-made curry paste is they are quite salty. When using it, make sure you taste it before adding fish sauce or soy sauce.

Sample Recipes

Thai Green Curry with fish Tofu

Thai beef curry with pineapple

Beef with tamarind

Chicken with garlic and black pepper