Chaophraya Thai Restaurant
“The stock is made from boiling a chicken bone in water, nothing more than that,” says Pum. “Add any chicken or prawns you have, put in the lemon grass, lime leaf, chilli and galangal, leave that to boil. Then you season with fish sauce and a little bit of sugar.” She suggests adding any “non-juicy” vegetable, like cauliflower.
Sometimes the spice ingredients are used whole. As a sandwich-style dish, pickled plums, pickled ginger, lemon grass, galangal and soy sauce go on top of a piece of fish which are then wrapped in banana leaves and steamed. Banana leaves are used instead of clingfilm – better, says Pum, because they impart another flavour of their own.
Dishes vary enormously across Thailand, according to local ingredients.
In the North, away from the sea, spicy pork or beef sausage tend to be very popular.
Very hot dishes tend to come from Southern Thailand, often seafood-based. “Where I come from, we’ll chew a chilli along with our meal as a side dish if it’s not hot enough.” A favourite dish is tamarind curry, which is very easy to make.
“You take lime leaf, galangal, tamarind, sugar and salt and put them in a pot with chicken stock, vegetables and fish. You just cook it until the water is boiling, only a couple of minutes.”
The sweet Pad Thai, which means rice noodles, is popular in central parts of Thailand.
Says Pum: “If you have the ingredients, Thai food is simple to prepare, healthy and very tasty.”
CHAOPHRAYA, Liverpool One, 5/6 Kenyon's Steps, Liverpool (tel: 0151 707 6323),
emma.pinch
