Ingredients

It has taken but a few decades for Thai food, with its unique ingredients, to become popular outside Thailand with both home cooks and master chefs alike. Given the popularity of Thai cookery, it is quite understandable that Thai ingredients have now become a valued staple in the pantries of both home and restaurant kitchens far away from their origins.

This has been driven partly by health consciousness: most Thai cookery is light and clean and based on little added animal fat, such as cream, cheese or butter. Also, as Thai emigration expands throughout the West, cooking becomes ever more cross-pollinated. Greater exposure to Thai cooking flavours and tastes through books and television programmes has broadened the reach of Thai culture and lifestyles. And, with global connections now commonplace, many formerly exotic Thai ingredients have become familiar and readily available.