Now quite a few restaurants are open and so the need to scrounge around for various interesting sources of food is not that necessary. But even until two weeks ago I was learning where to go to buy things that were not junk food and could be either eaten the way they are or mixed together to create something different and delicious.
I am not a cook by any means but I learned to do many of the basics mostly to be able to eat the flavors I like when I want and also as medicine. This short blurb will just focus on what I made last night. I’m working on a overall perspective of food in Thailand, not too long, and should have it finished in a week or so. I think that blog will be very helpful all around the world, not just in Thailand.
In the photo you will see what I bought and created. Half the rice from the night before was left over since I try not to eat that much every day due to my fairly strict diet. I might mention here that in general Thai food is not fattening compared to some other foods but it’s pretty easy not to gain weight or to lose weight if you eat the way other people eat here. In the last three months I lost 7 kg (15.5 lbs). That is due to my diet, eating just a yogurt in the morning and then one meal in the evening and also an unusual amount of exercise, swimming in the ocean twice a day, and the healthfulness of Thai food.
On the right you will see the grilled pork sticks which are grilled in slightly sweet seasoning and below the pork you see the spring rolls made of vegetables and noodles. Those were just purchased and reheated in the microwave. The sauce for the grilled pork sticks is right above the bowl. It is a very spicy sauce something that would be considered mildly spicy here but which most non-spicy people might find difficult to eat without somehow diluting. The sauce for the spring rolls is directly above the plate with the spring rolls, the typical sweet pepper sauce you find in the grocery stores. I find that the over sweetening in that sauce needs to be balanced with some pepper sauce like sriracha which I added to give it more of the spicy taste which I like.
Anybody who uses a microwave knows that most microwave cooking will leave food damp and not crispy. That’s because all it does is heat the water molecules. It doesn’t dry out contents like an oven does. But I haven’t found it a big enough problem to try and figure out a way to work around that with no access to an oven. So the spring rolls wind up a little bit mushy but maintain their taste very well so I don’t think too much about it. And it’s easier to cut the spring rolls so they don’t fall apart when they’re mushy instead of very crispy. When they’re crispy and then cut into pieces improperly they tend to just completely fall apart.
Now I get to the main stuff in the bowl. I had some rice left over from the night before and bought some coconut milk which is a good additive especially when adding spices in Thai food. Then I chopped up and threw in some rice/raw pork fermented sour sausage (NAEM). I like that because it has a sour taste and they often put peppers in them so it adds some spice. But that’s not enough spice for me so I added some chili sauce which is very much like a Sriracha base but it has a slight tinge of sugar. That’s it. I enjoyed the combination of little things reheated and leftovers made into something with the tastes I like.