page_title: Thai cuisine
section_title: Pastes and sauces
hierarchical_section_title: Thai cuisine / Ingredients / Pastes and sauces
caption_attribution_description: English: Nam phrik long ruea (Thai script: น้ำพริกลงเรือ): "Boat style" chilli paste is a fried chilli paste made with chillies, garlic, shrimp paste, dried shrimp, sugar, lime juice, aubergine and fruit. It is often served, as here on the image, together with khai khem (salted eggs), mu wan (sweet pork), and an assortment of vegetables and leaves. This particular version also came with thinly sliced khamin khao ("White Curcuma", Curcuma Zedoaria) and the slightly bitter and sour bai makok (leaves of the Spondias mombin).
context_page_description: Thai cuisine is the national cuisine of Thailand.
  Thai cooking places emphasis on lightly prepared dishes with strong aromatic components and a spicy edge. Thai chef McDang characterises Thai food as demonstrating "intricacy; attention to detail; texture; color; taste; and the use of ingredients with medicinal benefits, as well as good flavor", as well as care being given to the food's appearance, smell and context. Australian chef David Thompson, an expert on Thai food, observes that unlike many other cuisines, Thai cooking is "about the juggling of disparate elements to create a harmonious finish. Like a complex musical chord it's got to have a smooth surface but it doesn't matter what's happening underneath. Simplicity isn't the dictum here, at all."
  Traditional Thai cuisine loosely falls into four categories: tom, yam, tam, and gaeng. Deep-fries, stir-fries, and steamed dishes derive from Chinese cooking.
  In 2017, seven Thai dishes appeared on a list of the "World's 50 Best Foods"—an online poll of 35,000 people worldwide by CNN Travel. Thailand had more dishes on the list than any other country.
context_section_description: An ingredient found in many Thai dishes and used in every region of the country is nam pla, a clear fish sauce that is very aromatic. Fish sauce is a staple ingredient in Thai cuisine and imparts a unique character to Thai food. Fish sauce is prepared with fermented fish that is made into a fragrant condiment and provides a salty flavor. There are many varieties of fish sauce and many variations in the way it is prepared. Some fish may be fermented with shrimp or spices. Another type of sauce made from fermented fish is pla ra. It is more pungent than nam pla, and, in contrast to nam pla, which is a clear liquid, pla ra is opaque and often contains pieces of fish. To add this sauce to a som tam (spicy papaya salad) is a matter of choice. Kapi, Thai shrimp paste, is a combination of fermented ground shrimp and salt. It is used in the famous chili paste called nam phrik kapi, in rice dishes such as khao khluk kapi and it is indispensable for making Thai curry pastes. Tai pla is a pungent sauce used in the southern Thai cuisine, that is made from the fermented innards of the short mackerel (pla thu). It is one of the main condiments of kaeng tai pla curry and is also used to make nam phrik tai pla. Far removed from the nearest sea, from northern Thailand comes nam pu, a thick, black paste made by boiling mashed rice-paddy crabs for hours. It is used as an ingredient for certain northern Thai salads, curries, and chili pastes. It too has a strong and pungent flavor.
  Nam phrik are Thai chili pastes, similar to the Indonesian and Malaysian sambals. Each region has its own special versions. The words "nam phrik" are used by Thais to describe many pastes containing chilies used for dipping, although the more watery versions tend to be called nam chim. Thai curry pastes are normally called phrik kaeng or khrueang kaeng (lit. curry ingredients), but some people also use the word nam phrik to designate a curry paste. Red curry paste, for instance, could be called phrik kaeng phet or khrueang kaeng phet in Thai, but also nam phrik kaeng phet. Both nam phrik and phrik kaeng are prepared by crushing together chilies with various ingredients such as garlic and shrimp paste using a mortar and pestle. Some nam phrik are served as a dip with vegetables such as cucumbers, cabbage and yard-long beans, either raw or blanched. One such paste is nam phrik num, a paste of pounded fresh green chilies, shallots, garlic and coriander leaves. The sweet roasted chili paste called nam phrik phao is often used as an ingredient in tom yam or when frying meat or seafood, and it is also popular as a spicy "jam" on bread, or served as a dip with prawn crackers. The dry nam phrik kung, made with pounded dried shrimp (kung haeng), is often eaten plain with rice and a few slices of cucumber. French diplomat Simon de la Loubère observed that chili pastes were vital for the way Thai people eat. He provides us with a recipe for nam phrik with pla ra and onions in Du Royaume de Siam, an account of his mission to Thailand published in 1691.
  The soy sauces which are used in Thai cuisine are of Chinese origin, and the Thai names for them are (wholly or partially) loanwords from the Teochew dialect: si-io dam (black soy sauce), si-io khao (light soy sauce), si-io wan (sweet soy sauce), and taochiao (fermented whole soy beans). Namman hoi (oyster sauce) is also of Chinese origin. It is used extensively in vegetable and meat stir fries.
  Satay<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satay#Thailand> is also common in Thailand, grilled or skewered meat served with a spicy peanut dipping sauce made from roasted or fried peanuts.
caption: Nam phrik long ruea.
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