Making Thai dishes at home – What do you need?

Thai food is absolutely delicious. It pretty easy to cook Thai dishes from home, but there are some essential ingredients that you will need to make the dish truly authentic. It may be a little difficulty finding some of the ingredients, especially ones like green peppercorns or saffron, but in virtually every city there is some sort of Asian or Thai food store. If not then many of these ingredients can be found in the ethnic or international sections of your local large supermarkets. Worst case scenario you could always order them online, often times cheaper than what you can find in the store.

Look for Fresh Produce!

The rule of Thai food (and really any “good” food) is that the freshest ingredients will make the best Thai food. Find a place nearby that offers a large variety of fresh produce including mushrooms, ginger, zucchini and bean sprouts. Of course there are dozens of others. Fruits are also a wonderful welcome to some Thai dishes. Some of the fruits that will go well with your Thai recipe include mango, lemon, papaya, and pineapple. Coconut is also pretty integral to authentic Thai food.

Tip: Sometimes judging the freshness of fruits with large rinds on them like mangos can be hard. If you are trying to find the freshest mangos then go by the color of their skin. The most tell tale sign of freshness and ripeness is the firmness of the fruit. Feel the skin; it should be ripe but not too ripe. If the skin is very hard then it has not ripened long enough, consequentially if its too soft then it is too ripe.

One of the last ingredients you’ll want to include in your Thai dishes is Basil. Everyone has seen the plastic box of herbs at the supermarket and this is not what you want. This is typically an American strain of basil that will taste a little off when combining the other Thai ingredients. Look for Thai or Vietnamese basil. The biggest difference is the color. Asian basil will have a purplish tone to it as well as being green.

Thai dishes are an easy, inexpensive and wonderful way to experience ingredients that might not typically be on your shopping list. Remember, the key to any Thai dish is fresh ingredients. Do some legwork and find the best places to find the freshest ingredients and you can’t go wrong!