Thai

Set out these smoked shrimp on a paper-lined picnic table, set a bowl of sauce in the middle, and go to town.

These delicious banana leaf packets conceal warm, slightly sweet sticky rice perfumed with the smokiness of the charred wrapper and with a piece of banana at the center.

Crispy, flaky, chewy, sweet, gooey—you get all of these sensations at once when you bite into freshly made roti.

This vegetarian pad Thai gets its tangy-sweet flavor and flush of heat from a sauce made with tamarind pulp, soy sauce, brown sugar, and Sriracha.

This take on a very popular Thai bar snack—freshly fried cashews tossed with salt, chiles, scallions, and fragrant lime zest—is simple but so good with an ice-cold beer.

To add earthy heat to your cooking, roast dried Thai chiles in the oven before grinding them to a powder.

This dish is inspired by a Thai-Chinese favorite, bami haeng, served from food carts and casual open-air eateries in Thailand.

Make coconut sticky rice in the microwave for creamy, perfectly tender results in under 10 minutes. Serve it with shredded coconut, toasted sesame seeds, and of course, ripe mango slices.

If Thai food were laid out as one of those nutritional pyramids they showed you in health class, green papaya salad would be at the bottom, right above rice. In other words: It is fundamental. 

This low-effort, high-flavor tomato demonstrates how the Thai concept of balancing flavors can be achieved in different combinations.

Add these seasoned peanuts to your som tum.

This recipe is inspired by the grilled chicken served at Jeerapan, a 77-year-old restaurant in Bangkok, Thailand. Their version is baked in a tandoor-like oven, but I've adapted it for a grill or oven. The two-stage cooking method is essential: The initial roasting at moderate heat partially cooks the meat while dehydrating the skin, getting it ready to crisp up later on and allowing all the scattered bits of fresh aromatics and dried spices in the marinade to adhere. The final stage of cooking is hot and fast, using saffron-infused coconut oil as a basting liquid. The end result is a juicy, fragrant, and intensely flavorful bird, tinted canary gold—its skin smoky, charred, and crisp. The pineapple-chile dipping sauce lends its sweet tang and a mild kick of heat to round out the meal.

This coconut rice recipe appears in Leela Punyaratabandhu's cookbook, Bangkok, as part of a meal that includes green papaya salad, sweet shredded beef, and chicken red curry.

Green curry with chicken and eggplant from Chef Hong Thaimee.