welcome to hungry for travel on carol yelverton type food is so hugely popular and that's because the flavor of the spice combinations are really addictive since the first thing everyone thinks about and tries is pad thai let's take a look at how this dish is made has been famous  my love pad thai it is usually the first dish that i order in a restaurant but there are so many more and by the way that video comes from the tourism authority of thailand our thanks to you for that is in thailand one of those bucket list items so many of my travel clients are into going there because the culture is really nasm arise and you just feel like you've been transported into another dimension and thai cuisine has its own unique character too it's just really distinctive from other asian cuisine yes and there's a key to understanding why great thai dishes are the result of a balancing act of spice bitterness sweetness saltiness and sour ness the complexities of these flavors when they're all in harmony are spectacular so once we understand that then we can wrap our heads around how to make great thai food ourselves if you want to develop a good repertoire of thai dishes the best way to start is with sauces and curries so let me show you how to make green curry paste i've got my handy vita mix blender here and so a lot of the stuff that we're going to do is going to happen here in the blender so the first thing i've done is i have gotten these are red tie chilies and these are super hot guy got them on line very easy to do but you can also get them in an asian food specialty store so no problem so what i did is i took these and i soak them in water for about fifteen then wearing gloves because the oils get on your skin and they could be really hot i just added some salt to them and let them sit for a little bit and now they're going to go into the have that then we're going to put in about four shallots that have been chopped i've got a bunch of garlic and this says five close to close of garlic depending on the size and i know that seems like a lot but once it's all mixed up you really don't taste a lot of garlic i've also got some ginger and i'm putting in maybe oh you know two little small little sticks like that of it so that you know not a lot of ginger we don't want the gender to overwhelm the dish but it's a presence that we really need to have in there i also have something that's really special and it is called and i have a and here so you can see it this is coconut palms sugar now this is made from palm trees and it has a really smooth texture very creamy has a little aroma of coconut in it and it's really really delicious so i'm putting in a tablespoon of that and you know if you can't find it or you don't want to order it online you can just use so the next important gradient we're going to add is fish sauce this is really really salty and it's going to really counteract that that sugar sweetness and it's going to work really well with all the vegetables so i have about three tablespoons that are going in and again this is one of those things you can add more but getting that to balance is one of the big important parts of this dish so i've got that the gender and now i've got some lemon grass and sometimes people feel really intimidated by lemon grass and i don't want you to feel like that in the supermarket it's sold in a little product a little container and it has this kind of big grassy stalk and we don't know what to do with it so here's just an easy way to figure that out what you want to do is just cut it like this and open it up you  that there are tender leaves on the inside so you basically just going to get rid of this stock and you know outer layer and then you just are going to chop these leaves stems rather the lemon grass and and that's what you'll see just have a chopped up lot of that so i've got a bunch of it now already chopped i'm going to put that right in and that because it's a green curry paste we're going to work some coriander and we have stems and leaves of coriander now we know this as salon tro in the united states when we go to the supermarket you'll see salon but in thai cooking we're going to refer to it as coriander because that's what it's called there so we put all these and then we're going to let them get acclimated together on the blender and what happens  if i turn it on it works first of all this is going to be like just come together and then we're going to do is going to turn up the intensity with you and i think i might have to just get in there right now and stir things around a little bit because sometimes it gets a little plugged in about and that's all right me on that and then you're finished product is going to be this real shiny beautiful green paste and it is going to smell very pungent if you taste it it's going to feel really really strong but don't worry about that it's just got to come together and  once you start cooking with it then it's going to be really really different now the last thing you're going to do once you've done all the blending is to add some spices to this and so the spices are really important got ground coriander got about two teaspoons in here two teaspoons of cumin and about a quarter to half a teaspoon of white pepper white pepper is very very important in the curry so once it's all been ground up then you have that pace and then you add this and you get a blend a little bit more and then you're going to have your green curry paste again you want to maybe taste correct the seasonings if you want more fish oil or sugar or anything you can add it then and if you do want more heat you can add that in as well again make sure everything is with the ground finely together so that's our green curry paste and it's used in all kinds of delicious dishes that i know you're going to enjoy the para lot of other things to look at in thailand things to do food to eat things to enjoy so here's what twenty four hours in thailand could mean for you just letting this cook until everything really really is melted together and it's just got this this nice warm consistency and then i have a ton of vegetables and i'm going to put in this is again a vegetable curry and the idea is to make it not just a side dish but a whole meal this with some jasmine rice and you're very content and satisfied and happy with what you've got so first of all i'm going to put in some broccoli then i will put in some green beans and i have c and i actually was able to get purple kali flower at the store which i think is so gorgeous and that's going to add some nice color to the dish so that's all going in that pretty white color flower today again just to add some color there so now these vegetables are great but they're going to take the longest to cook so they're going to go in here for about five minutes i have a big broccoli and what there is that didn't get cut for some reason i cut these in a tiny little florets as you can see and  had fun doing it but it's takes quite a bit of time so after that it's all kind of cooked for about five minutes then we're ready to add our other vegetables so we have some baby corn because who doesn't love baby corn and our asian food and i'm going to start using my tongue as i like to cook with tongs that just it's so much easier to control the food and i like it better than a spoon so i tend to use of tongues almost every time i cook so i'm going to do that i have some bok choy that again i sliced long so everything is kind of the same you know laying thing consistency there's no big surprises vakil way either then i've got some squash and you can use to chini this is actually a yellow zucchini again i found at the market but you zucchini or yellow squash whatever is going to work for you and then finally i have some pretty red peppers and aren't those nice there's again we're going to have such a ton of color and taste and crunchiness so these things are going to cook together now and then i want to show you another kind of secret to thai cooking these are coffee or limes leaves they are from the cafe or lime tree now the cathedral lime grows in thailand and it's a really pungent aroma these leaves are one of those things that are really basic to thai cooking they're kind of like the bally thought of type cooking they have a beautiful lime aroma and they enhance the stitch so much so what i do is i take the middle part off and then i'll throw maybe three or four of these leaves and just as i would do with with a bailey for i'm going to let this cook and then at the end when i'm ready to serve i'll remove it so this is going to cook for maybe another ten minutes and just watch it you just wan make sure it's cooked through till it's done and what is done mean in this dish well we want the food to be tender but we wanted to be crisp so we don't want to overcook this decide all because the christmas of the vegetables with the curry   together it just you know that the crunch the texture the mind blowing essence is the curry and the coconut milk and everything is so so good together and actually here is a little finished product so you can see i put some salon try on top of it to make sure that we can get a shot of this i've got so many bowls here i got to move them out of the way right but here's a shot of the finished product let's just take a little taste so so so good oh my gosh but my goodness really tasty i have a mouthful of flavor going on here it's almost like a mysterious flavor because there's so many things happening at once and these vegetables are just wash creamy nice taste so i hope you enjoy this i hope you'll cook it it's really worth all the time that you put into it and make the curry ahead of time and that way you can just concentrate on the vegetables in the stir fry you can make the curry and put in the refrigerator or the freezer and then when you're ready to do a stir fry to cut your veggies and you're good to go i have this under some jasmine rice thai jasmine rice i really like that all together taste now there are a lot of other flavors for you to try in thai cooking david thompson has a video that we're about to watch where he introduces us to the flavor of some of his favorites including green c just scratching the surface of the thai experience but i hope it's whetted your appetite for more many many thanks again to the tourism authority of thailand for those lovely videos that they've generously shared with us and thank you for spending time together today i'm carol y until i see you again stay hungry for travel