Thai food wouldn’t be the same without cured condiments like shrimp paste and heady pla ra.
Fish sauce, the amber liquid extracted from salted fish, is one of, if not the most essential, ingredients in Thai food. Mixed with chopped bird’s eye chilis and maybe a squeeze of lime juice, this is a common condiment you will find at most tables in Thailand for an extra kick. Drizzled on freshly steamed rice, it’s a Thai meal in its simplest expression. But fish sauce isn’t the only fermented staple that gives Thai food its distinctive depth and umami.
Take pla ra, for example. Made from aging freshwater fish with salt and rice bran, it is sometimes euphemistically labeled as Thai anchovy sauce. Pla ra is from Isaan, the northeastern region of Thailand, so we called Weerawat Triyasenawat, the chef and owner of Michelin-rated Samuay and Sons in Udon Thani, to ask what he had to say about the murky, pungent liquid.
He told us it packs an olfactive punch, but that shouldn’t discourage people from trying it. He suggested trying dishes like somtam (papaya salad). He serves a sampler of six different somtams that show off pla ra in different lights.
“We encourage our guests to explore flavors that might be new to them,” says Chef Num, one of the best-known ambassadors of modern Isaan food. “But we give them an experience that makes them feel comfortable.” At Samuay and Sons, you’ll also find jaew bong, a spicy relish, and the cured fish itself smoked over sugarcane husks and served sliced like cold cuts.
You don’t want to miss kapi (shrimp paste), the star of khao kluk kapi, shrimp paste fried rice, a food court favorite, and nam prik kapi, another fiery dipping sauce. Chef Supaksorn Ice Jongsiri carefully sources his kapi from small artisanal producers scattered throughout the south at the two-star Michelin restaurant Sorn in Bangkok. One of the restaurant’s signatures is the multi-dish main course served family style. The rice accompanies chili fish sauce and a wafer of shrimp paste that has been charcoal grilled to release all its aroma.
A variation on kapi is kheuy. Krill, small shrimpy crustaceans, are lightly pickled in salt and sugar and ready to eat after a few days. We first learned about the power of kheuy from Khun Patcharee, the owner of The Nature, an organic farm-to-table café nestled in a lush garden of fruit trees and lotus ponds on the island of Samui. Kheuy gets used in their miang kham, a one-bite snack that you assemble yourself in an edible lotus petal, and a colorful southern rice salad in the dressing for their khao yam.
Back in Bangkok, Phuket native Chef Saritwat “Earth” Wanvichitkun at Michelin-rated Saawaan pickles his krill before stir-frying it with tender pork jowl, one of the stand-out dishes on his recently released summer menu.
Fermenting for flavor isn’t just limited to fish. In the north, tua nao is fermented soybean paste often seasoned with chili and garlic. The Thai miso paste can be used as is, flattened into a disk and sun-dried. Crumbled and then pounded in a mortar adds earthiness to sauces and pastes. Tua nao also has the advantage of being vegetarian, making it a great substitute in recipes calling for shrimp paste or pla ra, and it can even be eaten dry as a snack.
Are you hungry after reading this and ready to explore new flavors while you’re in Thailand?
