A typical village kitchen in Thailand is built around the stove. The stove could be a simple earthenware charcoal pot or gas fired rings. Because many Thai dishes require frying the ingredients on a high heat, it is essential that the kitchen is well ventilated. Some older kitchens are built without walls. Steaming, boiling and frying are the main cooking techniques therefore an oven is rarely required.
 Until recently, refrigerators have not been widely available. Therefore ingredients are bought on a daily basis only sufficient for the day’s needs. There are few dishes that are constructed from leftovers with the exception of some fried rice dishes. There is also a wide range of preserved foodstuffs which include such as pickled garlic (khrathiam dong), dried chilies (phrik haeg), dried fish (plaa haeng), salted eggs (khai khem) and fish sauce (nam plaa). |
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Thai cooking uses special ingredients to make that unique taste that Thai food has. Below is a list of the most common ingredients used in Thai cooking. |
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The basic cooking utensils are the wok (katta), saucepans and steamers. The wok is generally of the larger variety. An important technique in stir frying in a wok is to use just a little oil and bring it up to a very high heat very quickly. The food to be stir fried is added all at once and stirred constantly with a spatula. Thai saucepans are generally deeper than western equivalents. Steamers consist of an aluminium saucepan for the boiling water, over which fits a perforated tray and a tight fitting lid. Generally whole fish dishes use the steaming method of cooking.
Mortar and pestles are essential for preparing virtually every Thai dish. The lighter duty mortar is made from wood or ceramics and is used with a wooden pestle. For heavier duties there are heavy stone mortars used with heavy stone pestles. |
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