Thai Cuisine Information

One of the secrets of Thai cooking is the use of spices. Here you can find a list of some ingredients including spices used in most Thai recipes. Each we describe briefly, including its Thai name. It is hopeful that wanted ingredients are available at your local market.

Nothing captures the imagination or the taste buds quite like Thai chilies. Thai cooks capitalize on the chili’s power in a kind of culinary leveraged buy-out that borrows additional funds of heat from garlic, ginger, vinegar and peppercorns. That fire is actually found in the membrane of the chilies in a substance called capsaicin, which stimulates nerve endings and fools your brain into thinking you are in pain.

Many Thai dishes rely on the phrik kee noo, or mouse dropping chili. The name does not do justice to its explosive but sour flavor. It rates up to 80,000 Scoville Heat Units (SHU), a scale devised in 1912 to measure the intensity of chilies. That’s behind the 300,000-550,000 SHU’s of the habanero chili, but well ahead of the Jalapeno pepper that ranks around 4,000 SHU’s. Pure capsaicin is off the charts at an estimated 15,000,000-16,000,000 SHU’s.

Yet, the health benefits are many. Chilies have twice the Vitamin C by weight of oranges, with a single ounce enough for a daily allowance; they’re useful when it comes to weight loss; and - believe it or not - chilies are recommended for lowering blood pressure. Provided, of course, you can stand the heat.