You don't put noodles in meatballs?

And other culinary practices not done in N. America

Sawaddee Ka!

After living in Canada for many years, I’ve noticed several culinary practices that are common in Thailand, but are not done here. Here are a few off the top of my head:

• Cooking cucumber. Cucumber cooks beautifully, just like any other vegetable, yet they only seem to be relegated to salads here. We love to make soup and stir fry with them; try this cucumber stir fry recipe!

• Mixing tofu with meat. Tofu is used mainly as a meat substitute in N. America, but in Asia it’s just an ingredient! We often use it WITH meat, creating a contrast between tender tofu and chewy meat, such as in mapo tofu.

• Steaming main course. People steam vegetables as a side here, but few steam their actual main course, such as a whole fish or savoury custards. Steaming is a very common cooking method in Thailand, and by contrast, we don’t roast because most people don’t have ovens.

• Putting noodles in meatballs and/or sausages.

The last point is something I just realized, so I wanted to introduce this in my latest recipe. We use glass noodles for this, which works better than other noodles for various reasons as discussed in the blog post.

Glass noodles that end up on the outside of the meatballs fry up crispy, which means you get crispy meatballs without having to mess around with any kind of breading. They also lighten the meat, add texture, and extend the meat volume - which comes in handy when you gotta feed a lot of people during the holidays! The latter is probably the original reason people started putting noodles in meat mixtures.

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Comprehensive Guide to Thai Salads

I wrote another article for Serious Eats explaining the 4 major types of Thai salads. This is the latest article in the series of “guides” that I’ve written for SE. Also check out this guide for cooking (or ordering) a well-balanced Thai meal.