Any Thai Cooking ingredient enthusiasts?

[svendrix]

Hey all, I'm looking at growing some plants that are common ingredients to Thai cooking, as being far away from a big city, the local stores don't stock many of the necessary ingredients. I'm just curious if anyone here has done the same thing?

I can find seeds for lemon grass and Thai Basil pretty easily. I've found the following source for Kafir (Kaffir?) Lime trees (for the leaves):
http://www.fourwindsgrowers.com/lore/kaffir_lime.html

Unfortunately it may be quite some time before I'll be up and using the latter ingredient?

Anyone else here try growing their own Thai (or other family of ingredients) at home?

Or anybody into growing various citrus trees that will be wintered indoors (the only way I can do it here). Looking at that site above I am also interested now in trying out some of the Bearrs Limes and Blood Oranges (the latter I got into big time while in Italy for a few weeks!).

---Sven

[ChrisM]

I just started working with a few citrus myself. I got a small meyer lemon, key lime and two very small honey tangerines. Also a flying dragon to eventually try using as root stock. Got all through trades on GW. We will see how it goes. I would love to get a blood orange and a minneola tree going as well. But I am patient.
Chris

[svendrix]

Yeah, the Meyer Lemon tree was one of the "indoor" trees I was going to try from that site that offers the Kaffir Lime tree. Minneolas would be great too! They also had Tangelos trees, I absolutely love those when I can find them. Very tasty fruit.

As part of the Thai ingredient project, I also want to try growing Ginger, as I can usually only get old and nasty ginger around here. Has anyone else tried "the other rhizome"? =D

---Sven

[ocimum_nate]

You mention Thai basil, Do you have a source for holy basil? I hate it when I go to a Thai restraunt and they use Thai basil (horaphaa) instead of Holy basil (Kaphraaw). Any how I have a bunch of seeds for Thai basils, peppers, tomatoes, and egg plants along with lemon grass. I grow the authentic stuff because that is what I like. I lived in Thailand for almost 2 years and loved the food there. If you have any interestest in any of this or want some authentic recipes drop me a line.

[svendrix]

Hi Nate,

hirts.com has "Organic Holy Basil" seeds.

http://www.marketworks.com/storefrontpr ... =107821266

I was just going to go for Thai Basil as my mom prefers that over regular Basil, but I will now add the "Holy Basil" to the list, as I've never tried it, let alone heard of it!

I plan on trying different chilis as well as lemon grass, ginger, and possibly galangal. Maybe some more things as well. I need to go through the ingredients list from my mom's Thai cookbook (it's HUGE!).

I would have loved to spent some time in Thailand like that! Not only hopefully a fun experience, but authentic food as you mention! I also would like to try Vietnam at some point, as I am a huge fan of Pho (after living in Seattle for quite some time I got to love it a LOT). If anyone here have a super easy and tasty recipe that they use for Pho please let me know! Most of the authentic recipes take a couple days and use ox tail, etc which we can't get around where I live.

I'll definitely touch base to see what kind of recipes you like!

---Sven

[ocimum_nate]

I don't know if the holy basil that they sell is the same as what is in the picture. I bought some holy basil seeds from Parks seed company once and the seedlings that resulted looked like the ones in that picture and tasted nothing like the holy basil that I was used to. I then bought some seed from Johnny's which was true holy basil. I have tons of the authentic stuff. I have tried to ID the other stuff but the closest I have come is some vauge reference that it may be spice basil.
The imposter basil
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/11616/
The real stuff
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/23805/
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/60592/

[svendrix]

Hi Nate!

Wow, now that I have finally found out what the ocimum refers to in your nickname here, I'm definitely going to have to get the proper "Holy Basil" at johnnyseed.com , heh!

As for the chili peppers, do you have a source for those besides Johnny's? It looks like the most common pepper is the Thai Dragon, aka prik kee noo (which comically translates to Mouse manure Chilis" according to a couple sites!). I guess these are pretty darn hot (which I can handle but the rest of my family can't). Do you have any others you like to use in it's place?

One website I found ( http://www.thaifoodandtravel.com/ingredients/pkn.html ) mentions these, but they also don't seem to be available on the seed sites I've been frequenting (now including Johnny's):

"Besides prik kee noo, there are many other kinds of chillies used in Thai cooking. Among them are prik leuang, an orangish yellow chillie with good flavor and quite hot, though nothing close to a prik kee noo suan; prik chee fah, dark green or bright red when ripe, about the same size and hotness as a serrano; and prik yuak, a larger, light green pepper similar to the yellow wax pepper. Most are larger than prik kee noo and come in varying colors, shapes and spiciness, but none is quite as hot as the little mice. Because these other types of chillies are not yet readily available in Western markets, the jalape?o, serrano, fresno and yellow wax peppers, carried by many American supermarkets, may be substituted, as they have been in many of the my recipes."


On a side note, I also found this comment in the above article pretty interesting as I've never heard the claim it makes before: "Researchers believe all the different kinds of chilli peppers around the world are descendants of the original "mother" pepper that grew on Bolivian soil."

---Sven

[Bamboo Outlaw]

http://www.ajiqueen.com/index.html

http://www.peppermania.com/

Here is a couple of sites on peppers. Beth is a friend of mine. She is the Chile Queen for sure.

[rfgpitt]

Hi Nate!
Wow, now that I have finally found out what the ocimum refers to in your nickname here...

ocimum_nate is much more mature/masculine that basil_boy!

Nate,
I'm impressed with your pics on davesgarden .

[rfgpitt]

Sven,

Here's a link to a site that has a list of ingredients to keep you busy. Don't forget the bamboo shoots!

[svendrix]

rfgpitt, that is a cool link! I like how you can click the ingredients you have on hand, and it lets you know some recipes you can make using 1, 2, 3, etc of the ingredients!

Hmm, now I can't wait to see which of my 12 varieties of bamboo tastes the best next spring! No... must not kill the boo.... Yes you must try the flavor!!!

---Sven

[bambooweb]

Thai Dragon peppers are a perennial so plant them in a pot and grow them indoors in the winter and put them outside in the summer. When you dry them try to keep the summer peppers separate from the winter ones because the winter ones will be milder.

I had a plant for over three years before I had so many in my freezer that I could not use them fast enough and my friends and relatives stopped accepting packages of 'vegetables' from me. I finally sat the plant outside in the snow and let it freeze.

Bill

[ocimum_nate]

Sven,
As far as the peppers go I have had a hard time finding peppers that I am satisfied with here in America. I never bought the Thai Dragon because it was a hybrid. I wanted to get peppers that were open pollinated so that I could maintain a line of them. The closest to authentic I have gotten was this year, I found some seeds in an Asian market the seeds came from China and said Thai Hot Chile Pepper on the description the picture was what convinced me. The plants were extremely productive and tall they reached a height of 4.5 feet tall and the heat and shape of the peppers was consistent with what was sold in the markets as prik khii nuu in Thailand. I have another selection that I got from a Filipino lady in California that was good as well. All in all I have tried about a dozen or so varieties from Thailand or with Thai in the description. The Chii Faa pepper translates as sky pointing pepper is one that I have been able to find a good equivalent pepper for or one that matches its description. As far as the prik yuak I would say a good banana pepper or hot banana pepper is an acceptable substitution. For the most part the only time I had that one used was in sweet and sour chicken and pork. Thai sweet and sour is radically different from the sweet and sour dishes served in Chinese restaurants. It is basically a stir fry with milder peppers, onions tomatoes, garlic meat and for the sweet component pineapple and sometimes straw mushrooms and baby corn.

I do grow a lot of things from seed and have a very large seed collection which I store in my freezer to preserve it for a long time. If you want seeds I can send them along to you so you can save some money. I have plenty of seed to spare and wouldn't mind sending it along to some one else that is interested.

One of my other sources for authentic seeds is Baker Creek Seed Co. Out of Missouri. I posted something about them on the Daves Garden, Garden Watch Dog site and subsequently got yanked from his mailing list though. I think he has a great business and I have been pretty happy with his product. I guess that he didn't appreciate me calling him a hippy freak and an alarmist for his views.....
http://rareseeds.com/
I had to submit a request under a false name just to get a catalog last year.

Well I had better go now or I will be late for work

[needmore]

Now they've been in my refer for about a year but I have a few dried peppers left that a friend brought me from Thailand. All of the text is in Thai so I can't tell you what they are called but dried they are pretty small, red, and just the perfect heat to give a burn but be edible tossed on nachos, pizza, salads. I don't bother with them in the Thai green curry dishes we fix, the canned Thai curry paste is a nice heat already.

I can send you a few Nate if you want to see if they have any viability, my friend is currently there again and may well bring me some new ones?

[foxd]

I have some variegated cayenne pepper plants and one I planted this year tended to produce chillies with a small growth on one side. In one case the growth turned into a second chili. I kept the chillies from this one separate so I could see what the seeds produced next year.

I also had a pepper plant near a Datura inoxia, it produced rather squat, round chillies. I kept those chillies separate too and plan to see what sort of chillies they produce next year.