Essential Thai Flavours | Thai Cooking Tips | Rosa's Thai (2024)

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Essential Thai Flavours | Thai Cooking Tips | Rosa's Thai? ›

These are: salty, sweet, spicy, sour, and creamy. For the dish to taste authentic, all five flavors need to be in a perfect balance. Cooking Thai food isn't easy, and if the flavors don't complement one another, something will taste off.

These are: salty, sweet, spicy, sour, and creamy. For the dish to taste authentic, all five flavors need to be in a perfect balance. Cooking Thai food isn't easy, and if the flavors don't complement one another, something will taste off.

Today, the harmonious combination of the five flavors - sweet, sour, salty, bitter and spicy - is the basis of Thai cuisine. If you have been to a Thai restaurant once or twice, it does not give you a reason to believe that you are familiar with the local cuisine.

The essence of Thai cuisine is all about balance. The perfect harmony between sweet, sour, hot and salty is the foundation of any Thai dish. Flavourful aromatics, such as galangal and lemongrass, tone down overpowering spices, while salty sauces are mellowed with sugars and offset by acids, such as tamarind and lime.

Lemongrass, galangal, lime (rind and leaves), coriander leaves, sweet Thai basil leaves and garlic are used in one way or another is all Thai dishes. Other spices, including cardamom, nutmeg, cumin and coriander seeds are added to some pastes.

The name of this establishment refers to the five flavors (ha/ห้า=five, roat/รส=flavors) which are present in a good pad Thai: salty, sweet, sour, spicy, and savory.

Thai cuisine achieves this remarkable fusion by incorporating a diverse range of ingredients. From aromatic herbs like basil, cilantro, and lemongrass to spices like ginger, turmeric, and galangal, every bite is a tantalizing mix of bold and balanced flavors.

Traditional Thai cuisine loosely falls into four categories: tom (boiled dishes), yam (spicy salads), tam (pounded foods), and kaeng (curries).

So here are the two real tricks to achieving that great Thai taste when cooking at home. Firstly, always use entirely fresh produce whenever you can. Secondly, avoid pre-made or off the shelf seasonings, instead prepare them yourself using the raw ingredients.

1. Pad Thai: Stir-fried noodles. An iconic Thai dish, Pad Thai is usually made with flat rice noodles, combined with seafood (or chicken or pork), egg, sauces and vegetables such as bean sprouts and shallots, served with a sprinkle of fresh herbs, chilli and roasted peanuts (optional).

What are the 4 pillars of Thai cooking? ›

When I balance flavors, I generally start out with the hot (if it is a spicy dish), then the salty. This is followed by the sour (if it is a sour dish). The sweet flavor is added last to balance. Usually, sweet balances both the sour and salty, and vice versa.

Traditional Thai cooking calls for a whole range of fresh herbs and spices, from ginger to galangal, and Thai basil to turmeric. However, none is more prominent than the fiery chilli, featuring in just about any Thai dish in its various forms—dried, fresh, pickled, and so forth.

Thai cooks commonly use coconut oil, palm oil, peanut oil, or soybean oil; traditionally, lard was also used in Thai cooking. These types of oil are low-smoke, as is desirable for frying or grilling, and they do not break down quickly. Peanut oil is often used for stir-frying and deep-frying.

Most Thai pastes start with shallots (or onions), garlic, and green or red chilies. Added to this may be a variety of other spices and herbs, including dried or fresh coriander, Thai chili powder, galangal, green peppercorns, lemongrass, and turmeric.

In Thailand the first two condiments below (Nam pla prik and Prik dong) are likely be on every household's table together with a separate small dish of plain white sugar and a separate small dish of ground chili powder. Spoonfulls of each are added to suit individual taste.

The main characteristic of Thai food is that each meal should comprise of four fundamental taste areas: spicy, sweet, sour and salty. The spice comes from chillies, the sweetness from cane or palm sugar.