When my mom and I were travelling in Bangkok and Pattaya many years ago, we ate Som tam (raw papaya salad) in almost every street-food stall that we went to, accompanied with aromatic bowlfuls of noodle soups and the best dessert of all time – sticky rice with mango. <br /> <br />If there’s one thing I’ve leant from cooking Thai food, following a recipe to a tee never works; it’ll be close, but a little tweaking is always required to get the perfect balance of flavours that you envisaged. I agree that this is the case with whatever dish you cook, but it’s more so with Thai since most (if not all) dishes use sour, umami, sweet and spicy elements in their base—lime, shrimp paste, fish sauce, palm sugar, and chilli. You will need to add a little pinch of this, and a dab of that, to really make it sing. <br /> <br />*Adapted from Vatcharin Bhumichitr. <br /> <br />

Share: