Thai Store-cupboard Ingredients

No recipes just today I’m afraid! We’re just about to put our house on the market so unfortunately I’m having to lay off cooking so many strong smelling dishes as apparently it’s ‘not popular’ with potential buyers to have a house smelling of fish sauce and curry pastes!! It does mean I’m getting to eat lots of Som Tam (green papaya salad) and other Thai salads but recipes for these can already be found on the blog.
Instead, here’s a run down of what I consider to be my basic Thai store cupboard ingredients; things I couldn’t do without and recommend you buy if you’re serious about cooking Thai food. I stopped buying little bottles of sauces ages ago as I was just going through them too quick!
From L-R:

• Palm sugar (nam tan puk)- rock hard and needs to be chipped off, somewhere in between white and brown sugar in taste.
• Soy sauce (see ew)- light soy is used more commonly than dark but and adds saltiness; dark soy adds colour but is less salty.
• Roasted chilli paste (nam prik pao)- a thick sticky jam like paste that’s actually quite mild and contains other ingredients for flavour.
• Fish sauce (nam pla)- the most commonly used condiment in Thailand. Adds salt/fishiness- the lighter the better, dark fish sauce is often old.
• Tamarind paste (makham)- a puree of tamarind fruit,  provides a sweet/ sour element. Easier to use use in this form than the solid block type.
• Shrimp paste (kapi)- extremely pungent fermented shrimps, keep sealed in the fridge and use is small quantities as it easily overpowers.
• Yellow soy bean paste (tao jeow)- fermented soy bean paste adds a deep savoury/salty flavour, Used for Khao Man Gai or Rad naa
• Oyster sauce (nam man hoi) a thick dark sticky sauce, commonly used in stir fried dishes. It’s slightly fishy, salty and a little sweet
• Massaman paste (gaeng Massaman)- Milder southern Thai curry paste that contains lots of spices typically used in India.
• Green curry paste (gaeng khiao waan)- a hot green curry paste from central Thailand,lots of green chillies and fragrant herbs go in it.
• Red curry paste (gaeng ped prik)- another hot curry paste made from dried red chillies, also the most used and versatile of the curry pastes.