Showing 11 - 20 of 29
A sweet sausage for all seasons
B Magazine, Suthon Sukphisit, Published on 26/03/2017
» When it gets to mealtime and you want to cook up something for yourself that is easy to prepare and won't take too much time, the first thing you probably do is look in the refrigerator to see what is there.
Home comforts
B Magazine, Suthon Sukphisit, Published on 05/03/2017
» When you see a country housewife picking krathin shoots along the fence bordering her property and gathering pea-sized eggplants called makhuea phuang, she'll probably tell you that she is going to pound up some nam phrik (chilli dip sauce).
Dishing on noodles
B Magazine, Suthon Sukphisit, Published on 29/01/2017
» It might just be chauvinism on my part, and perhaps I just have it wrong, but I have the impression that Thailand has more noodle dishes than any other country. For starters, there are kuay tio luuk chin plaa (rice noodles with balls of pounded fish meat), ba-mee muu daeng or pet yang (wheat noodles with Chinese red pork or grilled duck meat), kuay tio ruea (rice "boat noodles"), kuay tio nuea (rice noodles with beef), kuai tio khae (Hakka style), kuay tio kaeng (also known as kuay tio khaek, in curried coconut cream sauce) and kuay tio kai mara (with chicken and bitter melon).
Sour notes
B Magazine, Suthon Sukphisit, Published on 15/01/2017
» Sour foods and drinks can play an important part in helping us appreciate the taste of the food that we eat. It is believed that they stimulate the tongue and allow it to perceive flavour more quickly while also increasing one's appetite.
The age of perfectionists
B Magazine, Suthon Sukphisit, Published on 11/12/2016
» This is the age of data. Making food is easy now because there are cookbooks everywhere and ingredients of all kinds are widely available and easy to buy. Any bookshop will have its cookbook section, offering an array of volumes with clear photographs and precise instructions as to measurements and techniques.
Freshly squeezed
B Magazine, Suthon Sukphisit, Published on 20/11/2016
» Those cold fruit drinks, called nam ponlamaipan in Thai, in which fruit juice is blended together with ice to form a slushy mixture, are very popular in Thailand. You can order them made with the juice of limes, oranges, watermelon, guava, tender coconut, and other fruits, or in combinations. People go for them because they combine sweetness, coolness and the flavour of a favourite fruit. Most coffee shops offer them for customers who are not in the mood for coffee, tea, or carbonated beverages.
Devilishly delicious detail
B Magazine, Suthon Sukphisit, Published on 18/09/2016
» Doing your own cooking gives you many advantages. For one, you are able to choose and buy the ingredients, selecting them from the array available at the market to ensure that they are clean and safe, and priced to match your budget. Just as important is the ability it gives you to try a recipe and see how it goes over with your family members, and to possibly make adjustments later to bring it into line with their preferences.
A culinary melting pot
B Magazine, Suthon Sukphisit, Published on 28/08/2016
» Think of a favourite dish and then consider the various ingredients that come together to make it. You'll see that they are drawn from many different sources, some of them borrowed from other culinary traditions. One good example is pad Thai. Almost everything that goes into it is Chinese, from the small-gauge rice noodles to the tofu, beansprouts, hua chai po (Chinese turnip), Chinese leeks, dried shrimp, peanuts and even the duck eggs (in the past, ducks in Thailand were raised by Chinese). In terms of its ingredients, this familiar dish is Chinese from top to bottom, although whether it was a Thai or a Chinese cook who first prepared it, I don't know.
Having enough on your plate
B Magazine, Suthon Sukphisit, Published on 14/08/2016
» By the term "one-dish meal", most people mean a meal where a single plateful will fill them up. But using satiety as the basis if the definition doesn't really work, because people have different capacities. Some eat very little, while others prefer a big meal. For example, some food shop customers might not feel full after finishing off a plate of pork fried rice and order a plate of kui tiao sen yai raad naa (broad rice noodles with meat in gravy) as a follow up, or start off with pork noodles and then move on to a bowl of yen ta fo. Both examples show that it takes a combination of these dishes to fill up some members of the clientele, and that both cooked-to-order food shops and noodles shops will offer a variety of dishes.
Cracking duck eggs' appeal
B Magazine, Suthon Sukphisit, Published on 31/07/2016
» If you compare a duck's egg with a hen's egg, which one comes out on top? The right answer is that each one has its strong points. Most people prefer hen eggs, however, and it is easy to find them for sale in any fresh market or supermarket where they are bought in much greater amounts than duck eggs. Cooked-to-order food shops don't keep duck eggs at the ready for customers, who are very unlikely to ask for them.