H
ammered flank steak. Pig’s brains grilled in
banana leaf. Fried chicken tendons. Delicacy
is not the hallmark of Thai drinking food.
The linking factor in the array of dishes
Andy Ricker, of famed American Thai restaurant Pok
Pok, has collected inThe Drinking Food of Thailandis
often their “insistently spicy, salt, chewy and/or sour”
quality. “They’re meant to keep you drinking, to keep
the night going.”
And there’s a lot of those dishes to choose from.
In Thailand, writes Ricker, you almost never see people
drinking without something to eat. “That impromptu
alley bar, for example, might have set out drinking fare
at its most basic: small bowls of mayom, a tiny, bracingly
tart fruit not unlike a crab apple, or salty fermented
shrimp paste to be eaten by the pinch.
“At a roadside pub outside Chiang Mai, friends down
beers and eat jin tup, marinated flank steak grilled way past
medium-rare, pounded to shreds with a sledgehammer,
and eaten with a dip made from dried chilli and galangal.
“In the north-east of Thailand, glasses of ‘whiskey’
empty steadily around a pot of tom saep khwai, incendiary
soup packed with water buffalo offal and seasoned with
lime and various rhizomes and herbs, from which everyone
takes spoonfuls between slugs.”
This is food perfect for steamy afternoons and hot
nights. Knock the froth off a couple of Singhas, pop the
top on that bottle of Mekhong, and let’s get spicy.4 gm (about 12) stemmed
dried Thai chillies
100 gm rock sugar
36 gm (¼ cup) sea salt
2 green mangoes, peeled,
seeded, and cut into spears 1 Firmly pound the chillies with
a mortar and pestle to a fairly
fine powder. Add the sugar and
pound to a fairly fine powder.
Add the salt, mix, then pound
until the mixture has the texture
of granulated sugar. You should
have about 85gm or ½ cup. It
will keep in an airtight container
in a cool, dark place for up
to 2 weeks.
2 Serve the mangoes with
about 2 tbsp of the chilli
mixture.Salt-chilli dip for green mangoPrik kleua
SERVES 4-8“Even the most informal bars in Thailand have food. By day, a table
on the footpath might host a modest pork butcher shop,” says Andy
Ricker. “By night, a relative of the butcher runs a kerbside drinking
establishment. There’s an ice bucket, a jug of water,assorted
bottles of rice-based liquor, and Sang Som, the ubiquitous Thai rum.
The food is simple – probably sliced fruit with salty-sweet chilli
powder for dipping. I especially like it when the fruit is green mango,
which is crunchy and far more tart than sweet. The green mangoes
you’re after aren’t just firm and unripe but actually green – not
mottled or greenish – in colour.”Pictured page 133.Stir- f
ir
edclamswithkrachai,galangalandThaibasilAndy Ricker and
Anthony Bourdain