Thai Cooking Offers Unique Blends And Flavors

When on the hunt for recipes for Thai cooking, it may take awhile as most Thai foods are made without the benefit of what westerners consider a recipe. Typically, Thai cooking may offer some guidelines, but the actual meal is put together to the taste of the cook.

When people claim to have sampled Thai cooking, they may have experienced a single dish or a single meal and have not fully realized the potential assault on the taste buds that Thai cooking often exhibits. By combining the five senses of taste equally or by allowing one to overwhelm the rest, the art of Thai cooking can actually begin an argument with your senses of taste.

Sweet, sour, salty, bitter and hot can combine for unique tastes with the ingredients used in different portions on the same foods to give five or more unique flavors to the same dish. Most Thai cooks flavor their dishes to taste and do so while the meal is being prepared. Many Thai dishes are flavored with chili peppers or peppercorns, either dried or fresh, to give Thai cooking its reputation of being hot.

Flavors Combine For Different Finishes

The majority of true Thai cooks will begin with the basic ingredients of fish and rice and then, through the use of spices and oils, will flavor the dish to meet their own tastes. Seldom are recipes used except by those attempting to copy a dish they tried and liked. Some however will make minor changes to the recipe as they become more familiar with the concept of flavoring to taste and are open to experimentation.

Thai cooking varies by regions in that country and claiming to have access to true Thai recipes is open to debate and different regions in the country often offer different foods with different flavors. There are numerous means of preparing most Thai recipes depending on the foods in season, especially vegetables and fresh seasonings, as well as the cook's taste.

Being able to balance the ingredients used to treat the five taste senses is also a key to the flavor of Thai cooking and with the proper spices in season and using only fresh ingredients Thai cooking can offer taste sensations like no other. One of the key ingredients in most recipes for Thai cooking is fish sauce, although many westerners are turned away by its natural taste and odor, when mixed in with original Thai recipes it adds a depth to the taste of the dish.