Thai cuisine is known for its balance of five fundamental flavors in each dish or the overall meal - hot (spicy), sour, sweet, salty and bitter (optional). Although popularly considered as a single cuisine, Thai food is really better described as four regional cuisines corresponding to the four main regions of the country: Northern, Northeastern (or Isan), Central and Southern. Southern cuisine, for example, usually contains lots of heat from chillies while northeastern tends to include lime juice in the ingredients.
Thai cuisine is influenced by Chinese stir-fries and Indian curries while maintaining a unique taste of its own. Like Vietnamese food, Thai food is known for its enthusiastic use of herbs and spices as well as fish sauce.
Thai food is popular in many Western countries especially in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, the United States, and Canada.
Serving
Instead of a single main course with side dishes found in Western cuisine, a Thai full meal typically consists of either a single dish or rice with many complementary dishes served concurrently.
Rice is a staple component of Thai cuisine, as it is of most Asian cuisines. The highly prized, sweet-smelling jasmine rice is indigenous to Thailand. Steamed rice is accompanied by highly aromatic curries, stir-fries and other dishes, incorporating sometimes large quantities of chillies, lime juice and lemon grass. Curries, stir-fries and others may be poured onto the rice creating a single dish called khao rad gang (Thai ข้าวราดแกง), a popular meal when time is limited. Sticky rice (Thai ข้าวเหนียว) substitutes ordinary rice in Northern and Northeastern cuisine. Noodles are popular as well but usually come as a single dish, like the stir-fried Pad Thai or noodle soups.
There is kind of meal called nam prik (Thai น้ำพริก) which refers to a chile sauce or paste. It is prepared by crushing together various ingredients such as ginger, garlic, chilli, etc. by mortar and pestle according to the recipe. It may then served with vegetables such as cucumbers, cabbage and string beans. The vegetable may be dipped into the sauce and eaten with rice. Nam prik may also be used as a spread for toast or eaten alone with rice.
Thai food is generally eaten with a fork and a spoon. Chopsticks are used rarely, primarily for the consumption of noodle soups. The fork, held in the left hand, is used to shovel food into the spoon. However, it is often common practice for Thais and hill tribe peoples in the North and Northeast to eat sticky rice with their right hands by making it into balls that are dipped into side dishes and eaten. Muslims also frequently eat meals with only their right hands.
Ingredients
One of the important ingredients is nam pla (Thai น้ำปลา), a very aromatic and strong tasting fish sauce. Many Thai dishes in the Central and Southern regions use a wide variety of leaves rarely found in the west, such as kaffir lime leaves (Thai ใบมะกรูด). Usually fresh - kaffir lime leaves' characteristic flavour appears in nearly every Thai soup (e.g., the hot and sour Tom yam), stir-fry or curry from those areas. It is frequently combined with garlic, galangal, ginger and/or fingerroot, together with liberal amounts of chillies, blended together to make curry paste. Fresh Thai basil is needed for the authentic fragrance of certain dishes such as Green curry. Other typical ingredients include the small green Thai eggplants, tamarind, palm and coconut sugars, and coconut milk. As mentioned earlier certain dishes from the northern region of Thailand are known to use lime or lime juice.
