Articles
78 posts
Thai Long Beans vs. Green Beans: How to Identify Them and When to Swap
How to tell Thai long beans (yard-long or snake beans) from green beans, and how each works in a Thai red curry stir-fry and a pounded som tum–style salad.
Identify Thai yellow bean sauce and choose recipe-specific substitutes
What Thai yellow bean sauce (tao jiew) is, how to recognize it by its Thai name and forms, how it differs from other soy seasonings, and how to substitute miso or doenjang.
Identify water spinach for pad pak boong and prepare the stir-fry
How to recognize water spinach (Ipomoea aquatica) for Thai pad pak boong, what goes into the dish, and how to stir-fry it, with visual cues for each stage.
Identify khanom jeen noodle forms and choose a serving sauce
Learn the names for khanom jeen, how fermented and nonfermented forms differ, which dried noodles cooks use instead, and how to pair them with namya, green curry or nam ngiew.
Identify dried-shrimp sizes and distinguish them from fermented shrimp paste
Learn how to tell papery, medium and large dried shrimp apart, which size suits a Thai recipe, and how dried shrimp differ from fermented shrimp paste (gapi).
Cook Thai sticky rice in a bamboo basket or rice cooker
Can you make Thai sticky rice in a rice cooker? Yes. Here are a no-soak rice-cooker method and two bamboo-basket steaming schedules, with water ratios and doneness cues.
Identify Thai boat noodles and compare broth, noodles and toppings
How to recognize Thai boat noodles (kuay teow ruea) across spellings, and compare the documented broth, noodle, topping and condiment choices.
Khanom Babin: Ingredients and Preparation
How to make khanom babin, the young-coconut Thai pancake: ingredients for four, equipment, mixing and cooking steps, the cue for turning, and how it differs from khanom krok.
Khanom krok: coconut-rice pancakes, ingredients and pans
How khanom krok works: a salty-sweet rice shell and a creamy coconut filling cooked in an indented pan, with ingredients, pan alternatives, the cooking sequence and doneness cues.
Khanom jeen nam ya: fish curry sauce and noodle accompaniments
How to make the coconut-based fish curry sauce for khanom jeen nam ya, prepare the rice noodles, and set out the vegetables, pickles and herbs that complete the dish.