‘There is no one flavor profile that encompasses all of Thailand’s food but there are some complex flavors conjured by combining ingredients in balance.’
By FAYE, YAKIR LEVYthai curry soup 521(photo credit: MCT)
Whenever we’re looking for ways to add piquancy to our soups, we find Thai flavors particularly useful. They do wonders to wake up everyday ingredients.Our Thai dishes do not need to be elaborate like those served at some restaurants we’ve been to. In fact, they are usually downright homey.Like our friend Robert Danhi, author of Easy Thai Cooking: 75 Family-Style Dishes You Can Prepare in Minutes, we use a few select Thai ingredients to give our soups big flavor.Take vegetable soup, for example.Danhi turns a traditional Thai orange curry into a vegetable soup. “Tart orange curries,” he explains, “are inherently simple to prepare and versatile in the ingredients you can use, including many types of seafood and vegetables.”To make this soup, he cooks onions, green beans, cabbage, tomatoes and chopped greens in chicken broth. It’s the flavorings that make it special – turmeric, tamarind, lime juice, sugar and fresh coriander, as well as another key Thai seasoning – curry paste. For this soup, he uses sour curry paste or red curry paste.You can buy Thai curry paste in Asian markets and in many large supermarkets, or you can make your own following the recipe below.Our friend Nancie McDermott, author of Real Thai: The Best of Thailand’s Regional Cooking, makes a quick red curry paste by whirling soaked dried hot red peppers in a food processor with other seasonings, most of which are familiar – garlic, ginger, shallots or onions, cumin and ground coriander. Other popular additions are fresh coriander, lemongrass, and lime leaves or lime peel.Red curry paste has many uses beyond curries and soups. The chefs of Thai Kitchen, a producer of Thai flavorings, recommend using the curry paste as a stir-fry seasoning and in marinades – for example, mixed with coconut milk and spread on chicken or eggplant before broiling them. To make tasty meatballs or burgers, add curry paste to the ground meat or chicken.When making butternut squash coconut soup, Danhi gives it pizzazz by stirring in a flavoring paste called Thai chili jam or chili paste in soya bean oil. It gives a spicy flavor to the creamy squash-and-shiitake mushroom soup made with coconut milk and chicken broth. To contribute a fresh touch, he simmers lemongrass and ginger in the soup, and sprinkles green onions and basil leaves at the end.WE WOULDN’T have thought of looking for ideas on Thai cooking in Minnesota, but in fact, according to Asian Flavors: Changing the Tastes of Minnesota since 1875 by Phyllis Louise Harris, Thai food became popular at the Minnesota State Fair nearly 40 years ago, shortly after Supenn Harrison moved to the northern-midwest US state as a student.At first, when she cooked a Thai curry for the American family with whom she was living, “the aromas were so strong that her hosts demanded that she ‘stop cooking her stinky food.’” Still, the Thai egg rolls that she made and sold at the state fair proved very popular. Eventually she became a restaurateur, and her “stinky” curry is a favorite of diners at her restaurant in Minneapolis.Her experiences are helpful guides to preparing Thai food when special ingredients are not available. At first she did not have coconut milk, so she made her curry with dairy milk; instead of Asian vegetables, she used peas and carrots.To make the popular Thai tom yum soup, Harrison simmers chicken or meat in chicken broth with mushrooms, onions, chili paste, lemongrass, lemon juice, cilantro (fresh coriander) and green onion, and serves the soup with rice. She cautions to be careful when adding chili paste, starting with only one-third of a teaspoon for four servings.We find this advice useful; once, when we ordered a noodle soup at the Wat Thai Temple in Los Angeles and added hot pepper flakes to our bowls following the recommendation of a Thai woman standing in line with us, the soup was so pungent from the chili flavor that we could hardly eat it.IN DEVELOPING simplified Thai recipes, Danhi writes: “There is no one flavor profile that encompasses all of Thailand’s food but there are some complex flavors conjured by combining ingredients in balance... that produces tastes that are distinctively Thai.”The Thais achieve this balance by using what they have. Flexibility is the key. Thus Danhi feels free to suggest substituting ginger for the stronger-flavored Thai root galangal, and light or low-sodium soy sauce for Thai fish sauce.If you don’t feel like making a trip to a specialty market to search for Thai flavorings, you can still make tasty, Thai-style soups from ingredients in your pantry and your refrigerator. Just keep these flavoring principles in mind: Use citrus for tang, and finish the soup with chopped green onion, basil or cilantro for a fresh touch. For pungency, use ginger, garlic and hot peppers. If you’d like to add the hot peppers in the form of chili paste, use any kind you have. We’ve even used Yemenite s’hug.Faye Levy is the author of Faye Levy’s International Chicken Cookbook.Thai chicken noodle soup This simple noodle soup is based on a recipe we learned from our good friend Somchit Singchalee, a Thai chef who taught us Thai cooking when we all lived in Paris.As in the usual chicken soup, the chicken simmers with onions, carrots and celery. It’s the finishing touches that make the soup different – rice noodles, Chinese cabbage and bean sprouts. At serving time, the soup is sprinkled with chopped fresh coriander and chopped roasted peanuts, and each person flavors it at the table with condiments – soy sauce, Asian (toasted) sesame oil, rice vinegar, sugar and hot red pepper flakes.Makes 4 or 5 servings.2 lbs. (900 gr.) chicken pieces 2 carrots, sliced 2 celery stalks, sliced 1 medium onion, halved, sliced 2 quarts (8 cups) water 1⁄2 lb. (225 gr.) dried rice noodles or rice sticks 2 to 3 cups bite-sized pieces Chinese cabbage 2 Tbsp. soy sauce 2 to 21⁄2 cups bean sprouts, rinsed, ends removed 1⁄4 cup coarsely chopped cilantro, green onion or both 1⁄2 cup chopped toasted peanuts Additional soy sauce, Asian sesame oil, rice vinegar, sugar and hot red pepper flakes (for seasoning at the table)Put chicken, carrots, celery and onion in a pot and add water and a pinch of salt. Bring to a simmer and skim foam.Cover and cook over low heat 1 hour.Discard chicken skin and bones; shred meat. You can either discard the soup vegetables or leave them in the soup.Meanwhile, put rice noodles in a large bowl, cover with hot water, and let soak 10 minutes. Remove noodles and rinse in a colander. Add them to a saucepan of boiling water and simmer, lifting strands often with tongs, 1 minute or until just tender. Rinse with hot water and drain.Skim fat from soup. Bring soup to simmer, add Chinese cabbage and cook uncovered for 2 minutes or until cabbage is crisp-tender. Add chicken and reheat gently 1 minute. Stir in 2 Tbsp. soy sauce.Put noodles and bean sprouts in soup bowls. Ladle soup into bowls. Sprinkle each bowl with cilantro and 1 Tbsp. peanuts. Serve more peanuts and bowls of seasonings separately.Tart orange curry soupThis vegetable soup is from Easy Thai Cooking. It is a soup that author Robert Danhi created based on a curry from central Thailand, which is thinner than most others and doesn’t use coconut milk. To make the soup into a complete meal, he recommends adding noodles and flaked grilled fish. Danhi calls for lime juice, but you can substitute lemon juice.Makes 4 to 8 servings.2 Tbsp. oil 5 Tbsp. sour curry paste or red curry paste 1⁄2 tsp. turmeric powder 4 cups chicken or fish stock or broth 2 cups water 2 Tbsp. sugar 1 cup onions, bite-sized slices 1 cup green beans, bite-sized pieces 1 cup cabbage, bite-sized pieces 1 cup bamboo shoots, bite-sized slices 1 cup cherry or grape tomatoes, cut in halves, or large diced tomatoes 3 Tbsp. tamarind concentrate 2 Tbsp. fish sauce or light soy sauce 2 Tbsp. fresh lime juice 1⁄4 cup chopped coriander leaves 2 cups arugula or spinachHeat a large saucepan over medium-high heat and add the oil, curry paste and turmeric. Stir while roasting the spices for 1 minute.Mix in the stock, water, sugar, onions, beans, cabbage, bamboo shoots and tomatoes. Bring to a boil for 3 minutes.Stir in the tamarind, fish sauce and lime juice. Adjust the seasoning with fish sauce, salt, sugar and tamarind.Divide the chopped coriander leaves and arugula among the serving bowls.Ladle the hot soup into the bowls and serve.Quick red curry paste“Dried red chilies are the definitive ingredient of this curry paste,” writes Nancie McDermott. This recipe is from her book, Quick & Easy Thai: 70 Everyday Recipes. She notes that you can expand the flavor by adding any or all of the following to the paste before you grind it: 2 Tbsp. minced fresh lemon grass; 2 Tbsp. cilantro (fresh coriander) roots, or stems with leaves; or 4 finely chopped wild lime leaves.Makes about 3⁄4 cup3 large semi-hot dried red chilies 10 small dried red chilies 1⁄2 cup coarsely chopped shallots or onions 1⁄4 cup coarsely chopped garlic 1 Tbsp. coarsely chopped fresh ginger, or fresh or frozen galangal 1 Tbsp. ground coriander 1 tsp. ground cumin 1⁄2 tsp. freshly ground pepper 1⁄2 tsp. saltStem and seed the large and small dried chilies, break them in large pieces and place them in a small bowl. Add warm water to cover and set aside while you prepare the remaining ingredients.In the work bowl of a small food processor or a blender, combine the shallots, garlic, ginger, coriander, cumin, pepper and salt. Add the softened chilies, along with 1⁄4 cup of the soaking water.Process everything to a fairly smooth puree, stopping now and then to scrape down the sides, and add more soaking water, a tablespoon or two at a time, if you need it to help grinding. Transfer the paste to a small jar and cover tightly.The paste can be stored in the refrigerator for about 3 weeks, or in the freezer for about 3 months.
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