For the last week or so I have been trying to think of my Top 10 for Thai street food. One of the good things about living in Thailand is the easy availability of some of the best food in the world. But this leads to my difficulty of being able to list a top 10. So, what I will do over the next few weeks is produce a "nomination" list first.

The criteria for the first list is food served on the street just around the corner from where I live! I have only included meals, so none of my favourite snacks and no desserts yet. You also won't see any ready cooked food so no curries on the list. All of these will come later.

Here is the list in no particular order:

1. som tam - a spicy salad with shredded papaya
2. khao mun gai tod - fried chicken served on rice cooked in chicken broth
3. rat naa - noodles and pork in a thick gravey
4. ba mee nam - egg noodle soup with wonton
5. pad thai - fried noodles with dried shrimp and tofu
6. jok - a thick rice soup excellent for breakfast
7. pad see iew - pan-fried noodles
8. khao pad - fried rice
9. moo pad krapow - pork fried in basil
10. khao moo daeng - red pork with rice

Well, that is the first attempt. Just reading through it is making me hungry! I will be posting more nominations soon. I will also be going through the list one by one with pictures of the foodstalls and finished product. I will be attempting to cook some of them so I will also be giving you some recipes.

Lots of food pictures to come over the following weeks!

I think one of the best things about travelling to a distant land for your holiday is having things turned upside down on their head. What you always saw as normal practice in your home-country, is seen as abnormal or strange in another place. And vice versa.

I think one of the first "strange" things I saw when I arrived in Thailand was the street hawker selling ice cream. Nothing strange in that you might say (see picture above). However, it was how they served the ice cream (or "i sa-creem" as the Thai call it or "i-dtim" as the kids call it). You can choose to have your ice cream in a familiar cone or plastic cup, or in a bread roll! At first that was too weird to contemplate. But after tasting it, I soon became addicted. If I ever go back to England, I think I will start the craze of selling ice-cream sandwiches. They are really delicious.

That isn't really the only difference. In the West, we are used to ice-cream made from dairy products. However, Thai people have trouble digesting the lactose that occurs in milk. (Most people in Asia are the same however Thai students today drink milk at school daily and presumably are building up a tolerance.) As an alternative, they make ice-cream in Thailand from coconut milk.

Our local "i-dtim" man comes around every day. Probably more often now as it is summer holidays. He rings his little bell which tells us straight away what he is hawking before we even see him. To catch his attention, you can call out "dtim dtim". The ice cream he sells in his push cart (others have bicycles attached to their carts) cost 5-10 baht depending on the size. Today I chose a big cup for 10 baht and he then asked me what I wanted with the coconut ice-cream. The choice was between glutinous rice or chopped glaceed fruit. I chose the former. He put the sticky rice in the cup and then gave me several scoops of ice cream. He then poured a little condensed milk on top.

Very nice on a hot summer's day.

Let's have a bit of fun trying to guess what the food is in these pictures. Some you might guess without ever having set foot in the Kingdom of Thailand

(1) This first one is an easy one. They sell a lot in our city of Paknam. As you can see it only costs 5 baht per stick. What is the dried snack at the back of this picture?

(2) These ones are a kind of pancake sandwiches. Can you guess what the stuffing is?

(3) This is one of my favourites. First had it while in India though the Thais have adapted it a little to their own tastes. What is the name of this snack?

(4) This last snack is being deep fried. It is not really Thai but popular at fairs. The sharp pointy stick is a big clue!

If you think you know what the food is, make your guess by clicking on the "comments" link below. You don't need to register in order to post a comment.

I am not one of those persons that go on diets one after the other. My feelings on the subject has always been, "You only live once, you might as well enjoy yourself and eat what you like!" I have always felt sorry for the people who go on strict diets for years on end, eating very boring meals, and having very little to show for it.

A few years ago, I twisted my knee pretty badly and was out of action for probably nearly a year. It is a bit embarrassing really. I don't really tell many people what happened, but the fact is, I twisted my knee while bowling! The floor was a bit slippery and I went down rather hard. Anyway, that happened during the October holidays and I didn't have surgery until the April holidays. Then after that it took a few months to recover. As a result of all this inactivity, I just started putting on weight. Until finally last year I decided I had to do something about it.

My problem wasn't just a question of limited exercise. It was also to do with mixing a diet of Thai food together with Western food. I first came across the Atkins diet in a newspaper report in The Nation newspaper last June. It sounded interesting but I didn't pay it much attention. But then, by coincidence, my sister, later the same day, sent me an e-mail detailing how much weight she had lost by using the Atkins diet. It seemed like fate and I decided to look more into it. That weekend I went to Asia Books in Seacon Square and bought a book about the "Atkins New Diet Revolution".

Basically, Atkins is very different to low-fat diets. It asks you to limit your carbohydrate intake in the form of sugar, white flour, and other starches found in breads, pasta and potatoes. The idea is that if you limit your carbs then your body will have to burn fat instead. The induction period lasts for 2 weeks (longer if you like) and limits you to only 20g of carbs per day. After a month you can start adding more carbs each week. The idea is that you stop adding carbs when you start to gain more weight. That is then how many carbs your body can cope with.

Before starting the Atkins diet I had to decide whether it would be possible (or realistic) for me to maintain the diet and what foods I could eat. First I will list the foods and drinks that I wouldn't be able to have:

[b]Western foods such as:[/b] bread, potatoes, pasta, cereals, fruit, marmalade, ice cream, yoghurt, cakes, cookies, pies...

[b]Thai foods such as:[/b] rice and noodles!

That is the bad news. On the surface it would seem that it would be impossible to keep to this diet in Thailand. After all, most people eat rice or noodles for just about every meal. Then, personally, I also eat a lot of bread, pasta, cereals etc. However, there was some good news.

[b]Food that I could eat:[/b] All meat and most fish, eggs, salads and vegetables. It was at this point that I decided I could do this diet. I loved eating steak. Egg and bacon for breakfast was fine. I was also happy with salads and stir fried vegetables.

I took about a week preparing myself, looking at labels in the supermarkets to see how many carbs were in each package, and basically buying what I was allowed to eat. I then started the diet the first week in July last year. Each day I ate about 15-20 grams of carbs. To give you an idea of how much this is, a can of Coke has 38.7 grams, a bowl of corn flakes has 88 grams, a pork chop has zero, eggs have zero and tuna has zero.

Personally, I found it easier than expected to keep below 20 grams a day. Though you must make sure you drink plenty of water and take multi-vitamins. After about a month I wasn't bored at all and was losing weight all the time. During the second month I had the occasional meal of rice or noodles. By the end of the third month I had reached my target of losing 15 kilos. I can tell you that felt pretty good. Now the teachers were saying how thin I looked. The only thing is, some asked if I had been ill and others inquired whether I had just stopped eating altogether! I always replied that I ate a lot each day and was always very full. And that was true. The good thing about eating protein is that it fills you up.

The next thing I knew was that my Thai colleagues starting asking how I did it. I explained to them about the low carb diet and how strict you have to be. Some were interested and did make a start at doing the diet. However, all of them found it very difficult not being able to eat rice or noodles. Eating steak for them was actually quite an expensive option. So, I think they have all quit now.

More than four months have passed since I reached my target. Although I am no longer strict about counting my carbs, I do try and choose foods that don't contain so much. However, that doesn't mean I can no longer eat rice or noodles. I now enjoy eating them again though in moderation. (Meaning not every meal and not every day.) I still like cooking steak and vegetables for myself. Also eating salads. And of course I like experimenting with Thai foods as there are a lot of recipes out there which don't contain a lot of carbs. The good news is, I haven't put on any weight!

I talked before about the eating habits of Thai people (see Thai People and Meals). I mentioned that they seemed to snack all day and still remain quite slender. However, this is not saying that there are no obese people in Thailand. Far from it. There are quite a few very chubby students at my school. I would go and take a picture of them now but my Western sense of decency would forbid it. However, if I asked one of my Thai computer teachers to take a picture, they would go and do it. Not only that, they would also tell the student and everyone within hearing distance exactly why I needed the picture! (see picture above)

To Thai people there is nothing wrong about this. After all, some people have nicknames from birth until adulthood that mean “fatty” or “piggy”. If you are fat then they will tell you without any malice. In fact, I had quite a few teachers last year point at me and say “fat” and “big big” and gestured with their hands which parts. (I had put on quite a bit of weight over the last year or so and the teachers were only too happy to point this out to me.)

I do believe that the reason why some people can snack all day and not get fat and others do is a lot to do with their diet. Many of the children today are snacking on Western junk food. Take a look at the canteen in our school for starters. Everything is deep fried. Then there is the toast which is covered in sugar and cream. I think that if the Thai people stick to Thai food only, then they would stay thin.

Newspapers are now reporting that 14% of Thai children are obese. They are mainly blaming Western fast food, like McDonalds. However, they also note that the new generation spends too much time watching t.v. and playing video games. They are not going out to play as much as they did in the past. I think all of these are contributing factors. At our school they are now trying to promote a healthy lifestyle by having a big aerobics session every Friday after assembly. What they probably need to do next is sort out the snack shop menu.

As I mentioned before, last year I became overweight and so I decided I should do something about it. I was getting too many jibes from the other teachers about it. I will tell you tomorrow which diet I went on and how I managed to lose 15 kilos in less than three months.

INTERESTING FACTS: According to the Kasikorn Research Centre, the country's quick-service restaurant industry is now worth about 12 billion baht a year. Of the total, chicken menus account for about 6.2 billion baht, 2.9 billion for burgers and another 2.9 billion baht for pizza. A survey in 2004 by market researcher ACNielsen showed that KFC was the leader in the chicken market with a 72% share, followed by McDonald's with 15% and Chester's Grill at 11%. In the burger market, however, McDonald's is the leader with a 72% share, followed by KFC with 24% and the rest shared among other brands.

I read in the newspaper the other day, that a research team from the UK had proved that an extract of galangal can both kill cancer cells and protect healthy ones from the disease. As this is a common ingredient in Thai stir-fries and soups I was intrigued to learn more. I went onto the Internet and googled "galangal". I eventually found a recipe for Tom Kha Gai (chicken coconut soup). As this is on my favourites list I decided to have a go at cooking it.

My first stop was my collection of cookery books. I soon discovered that although each book had a recipe for Tom Kha Gai they were quite different from each other. From my memory of eating this dish I decided to use the recipe from "Thailand The Beautiful Cookbook". I made a list of the ingredients before setting off to the supermarket. I needed: coconut milk, galangal, lemon grass, kaffir lime leaves, lime juice, coriander leaves and some chili. They wanted green but I wanted red.

On the left is the galangal (kha). As you can see, it is similar in appearance to ginger. It is pinkish and has a peppery flavour. The label on the pack said it cost 45 baht per kilo. This pack cost 5.75 baht. More than enough. On the next shelf I noticed another pack with both lemon grass (right), galangal and kaffir lime leaves (below right). These are the ingredients for Lemon Grass Soup (more famously known as Tom Yum). As this was only 7 baht I decided to go for that. (1 US$ is presently 38 baht.) As far as I understand, although these two dishes have similar ingredients, Tom Yum focuses more on the lemon grass and Tom Kha Gai focuses more on the galangal. If you are wondering at this stage what "tom" means then I will tell you that it means "boiled".

Next I needed the coriander or "pak chee" in Thai. There were two varieties on the shelf. One was "pak chee tai" and the other "pak chee jeen". I guess the former was Thai and the latter Chinese. As "pak chee jeen" was translated into "coriander" on the label I knew which one to pick. This only cost 4 baht. Next on my list was the small green limes, coconunt milk, chilis and of course the chicken. Oh yes, did you know that the red chilis that are labelled in English as "red bird chili peppers" are called in Thai "mouse shit chilis"! I wonder why they didn't translate that properly in the supermarket?

Tom Kha Gai - Chicken coconut Soup

Ingredients:
2 cups of coconut milk
6 thin slices of galangal
2 stalks of lemon grass (cut into 1 inch strips and crush with cleaver)
5 fresh kaffir lime leaves (torn in half, not cut)
250 g of boneless chicken
5 tablespoons of fish sauce (naam blaa)
2 tablespoons of sugar
Half a cup of lime juice
1 teaspoon of black chili paste (nam prik pow)
Quarter cup of coriander leaves
5 green chili peppers (I will use red chilis)

Method 1:
(1) Combine half the coconut milk with the galangal, lemon grass and lime leaves in a large saucepan and heat to boiling. Add the chicken, fish sauce and sugar.
(2) Simmer for about 4 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked. Add the remaining coconut milk to the saucepan and heat just to boiling.
(3) Place the lime juice and chili paste in a serving bowl then pour the soup into the serving bowl.
(4) Garnish with the torn coriander leaves and chili pepers, and serve.

Other recipes I have read don't include the lemon grass. I also saw another one that said add the chili at the same time as the chicken. I will do that. This next version of the same recipe comes from a book called "Simply Thai Cooking". I am thinking I will go for a mixture of the two. However, they say add lemon juice which I don't have!

Method 2:
(1) Slice the chicken into thin strips.
(2) Smash lemon grass with the flat side of a chef's knife once and then cut into 1 inch pieces; slice galangal into thin rounds; tear lime leaves into thirds; cut chilis in half.
(3) Heat coconut milk and water in a saucepan for 2-3 minutes. Don't let it boil. Reduce heat to a medium and add lemon grass, galangal, lime leaves, chilies and cook for another 2 minutes, stirring continuously and not letting it boil.
(4) Add chicken strips and cook for 5 minutes, stirring over medium heat, until the chicken is cooked.
(5) Add 2 tablespoons of lemon juice, 1 tablespoon of fish sauce and quarter tablespoon of sugar. stir, and continue cooking for another minute or two/
(6) Transfer to a soup bowl and serve immediately, garnished with fresh corriander leaves.

Well, I think everything is ready. I am off now to cook some Tom Kha Gai. Wish me luck!

One of my favourite meals, which is definately in my Top 10, is Som Tam, otherwise known as Papaya Salad.

The meal is quite simple to make. The main ingredients are shredded green papaya, chopped green beans, tomoato, dried prawns, unsalted roasted peanuts, chillies, garlic and lime juice. These are all pounded together in a mortar using a pestle. The sound it makes is "pok pok". Whenever I hear that sound while walking down the street I always turnaround to look for the som tam stall.

The papaya salad is best served with sticky rice (khao neow) and grilled chicken. That is the way I like it. But you can have fish instead. There is also a recipe which has crab.

When you come to buy Papaya Salad, it is nearly always prepared in front of you. This way you can tell them how many chillies you want! I like mine hot. Papaya Salad with sticky rice from a roadside stall will cost you about 20 baht.

[b]Recipe:[/b]

1 medium dark green papaya
4 garlic cloves (kratiem)
6 green Thai chilies (prik khee noo)
2 tomatoes, cut into wedges
1/2 cup chopped green beans, in 1-in (2.5-cm) pieces
2 tablespoons anchovy sauce
1/2 teaspoon sauce
1/4 cup (2 fl oz/60 ml) lime juice or tamarind juice (ma-kaam piag)

[b]How to make:[/b]

1. Peel the papaya and rinse with running water to remove the acid. Remove the seeds and shred the papaya with a grater. Set aside.
2. Place the garlic cloves and the chilies in a mortar and mash with a pestle until crushed into chunks. Place the papaya and the remaining ingredients in the mortar and gently combine all ingredients by mixing with the pestle and a spoon. Serve cold.

[i]Source: "Thailand the Beautiful Cookbook" by Panurat Poladitmontr[/I]