This week our foodie thought of the week will help you create beautifully fragrent Thai dishes with that perfect balance of sweetness and saltiness for which Thai cooking is so famed. There are a number of store cupboard and fresh essentials you need for Thai cooking. These are:
Fresh ingredients - lemongrass, galangal (like ginger), hot chillies (bird eye would be a good choice), Thai basil, shallots, garlic, kaffir lime leaves, limes.
Store cupboard - coconut milk, nam pla (fish sauce), palm sugar, sweet chilli sauce, Jasmine rice, shrimp paste, rice noodles.
If you live in the Cardif area there's a great Asian supermarket on Penarth Road (not too far once you've come over the river from the direction of the train station, its on the left) called Man Fung. You can get all sorts of delights here, there's so much choice and the prices are very reasonable. They also have a hardware section where you can stock up on little miso bowls, chopsticks, dipping bowls, woks etc. Go and have a browse, the guy in there is really friendly and helpful and then get creating!
