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Shortcuts that make Thai food easy enough for everyday
03/22/2000
Ellen Sweets/ The Dallas Morning News
Thai food is hot - and not just with those wicked little chiles that command attention. Having worked its way into dozens of restaurants around town, Thai is now working its way into home kitchens. This infiltration is helped along by an explosion of convenience products that make it easy to serve Thai at home.
Evans Caglage / DMN
Next time you fire up the grill, create some quick Thai taste using peanut sauce from either a bottle or a mix.
Kimberly Coatney, a legal assistant who works in the Turtle Creek area, drifted toward Thai because she and her husband enjoy a lot of different ethnic foods. So far, she's made chicken satay, coconut chicken, coconut chicken soup and different noodle dishes.
"Thai flavors are more subtle, yet very distinct," she says. "In some foods, the spiciness gets in the way. With Thai, the spiciness enhances."
Product lines like Ka-Me and Thai Kitchen minimize the probability of overseasoning because sauces are ready to use. Or, you can make jasmine rice without rinsing and re-rinsing until the water is clear. Just simmer, cover and serve.
"Sometimes I use packaged seasonings," Ms. Coatney says, "or I'll use packages of Thai rice that has seasonings already in them - you know, like you use taco seasoning for Mexican foods?"
Make-your-own-Thai meal kits with condiments bypass a lot of mashing, mincing, chopping and mixing. Asian Home Gourmet makes a Thai stir-fry rice that includes a spice paste of lemon grass, shallots, pineapple juice, lime and coriander. Just add shrimp, tofu or veggies and voila! shrimp-fried rice for two in less than 20 minutes.
Most of the packaged products include simple recipe ideas. Thai Kitchen offers boxed Thai basil noodles that cook up into dinner for two, complete with suggestions for finishing the dish out with stir-fried shrimp, fresh basil and asparagus.
Asian Home Gourmet makes an extensive line of Thai products, including tom yum soup mix for four. Just add water or seafood stock, shrimp, mushrooms, coriander and fresh lime. The package suggests squid, fish and chicken alternatives and such gourmet touches as lemon grass.
Canned sauces from Satay let you make a hot green curry or a medium yellow one. One even includes how to make a Thai-style pizza.
For the family weary of meat and potatoes, Thai is a pleasant, colorful departure. Although an authentic Thai meal includes several dishes, you can start with one or two. Even without convenience products, many are very easy.
Take the dish called larb. (Kids will love just saying the word. Some not-quite-fully-developed adults have fun saying "larb," too.) It's just seasoned ground beef wrapped in lettuce leaves like a soft taco, and it's as much fun to eat as it is to say. Normally found among the appetizers, it can work as part of a meal with pad thai or shrimp-fried rice. Heavenly Chicken Wings is another easy dish to start with; it can be paired with jasmine rice.
"Thai food has become very popular," says Soon Chan, who has owned Thai Soon restaurant on Lower Greenville for 13 years. "And now it's easy to make it at home. They have lots of ingredients at Minyard and Tom Thumb, lots of places."
"Until recently, you found them only at small Vietnamese or Laotian markets or Hong Kong Market. "Now people can pretty much cook the same as we did where I came from in Bangkok."
But even those who grew up making the real thing, like Thai-born Sandy French, admit to taking shortcuts from time to time.
"Sometimes, when I'm just cooking for me, I buy some canned things," says the cashier at Thai Soon. "The big difference is that at home [in Thailand] we would go and pick the food from the garden, wash it and cook it. It's the same for the fish. We catch it, clean it and cook it. You can't do that here."
No, but we do the next best thing: buy it, drive home, cook it.
If you're cooking up a Thai meal after everybody's home from work, soccer, basketball, softball and dance class, take advantage of convenience to put something exciting and different on the table; help is only a grocery shelf away.
Thai iced coffee
This beverage is like a bracing latte on ice. Make it by brewing very strong French roast or espresso-style coffee. While the coffee's brewing, add canned condensed milk - between 2 and 3 tablespoons - to glass tumblers. Follow with ice to the top. Then pour the hot coffee over the ice.
Ins and outs of make-your-own
Thai food - a kind of fusion of Chinese, Indian, Indonesian, Vietnamese and Thai cultures - is generally understated, but beware. An aromatic dish can be deceptive because of its fragrance. It isn't until a mouthful erupts like Krakatoa that tiny, fiery chiles make themselves known.
It's always a good idea to have lots of steamed rice standing by to cut the heat of too-fiery food. Sweet drinks and chunks of fresh pineapple also help neutralize the heat.
Some basic ingredients to have on hand besides the convenience foods include bottled fish sauce, called nam pla;limes; tamarind (don't worry; it's in stores); roasted peanuts and soy sauce (even Tabasco makes one).
If you run into other must-have ingredients, don't panic. When a recipe calls for burdock root, look to Whole Foods. If a recipe calls for palm sugar, brown sugar will do. Don't fret when you see "thin" soy sauce in a recipe; light soy sauce will work fine. Maggi, a liquid condiment that has been on pantry shelves for ages, is now a popular ingredient in Asian cooking. You don't have to make your own coconut milk, either. It comes in cans.
Remember when treading unfamiliar culinary turf to proceed with caution. Use a little seasoning at first; if that's not enough, add more. Once it's in a dish, there's no getting it out, no matter what "it" is.
By the way, cooking Thai doesn't demand a wok. If you want to buy one, go ahead. But if you've got a sturdy iron skillet, you're in business. Chinese bamboo steamers are cool to cook with, but a metal one will do.
Thai dishes are traditionally eaten with a fork and a spoon, so when the kids ask for chopsticks, tell 'em Thai kids don't use 'em. (They do use chopsticks and spoons for traditional noodle soups served "big-bowl" style.)
- Ellen Sweets |
