Bamboo salad

This here is an Isaan dish called supnawmai [ซุบหน่อไม้]. It is basically a bamboo salad in a similar vein as somtom. I really enjoy this dish and for a little while was going on a binge ordering ever day. It is nice and sour from the pickled bamboo that forms it’s base, but it’s got a lot of other tastes as well. I especially like the texture of the stringy, shredded bamboo alongside the crunchy, roasted bits of rice thrown in the mix. Many other bamboo dishes have a firmer, stiffer texture to them. This meal is often served in typical Isaan fashion with some grilled chicken and sticky rice. And to top things off, bamboo is supposedly very healthy for you!

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Unpeeled pak grachet (water mimosa)

This is an interesting, leafy vegetable that is common around Thailand but I’ve never seen elsewhere. In English it is called water mimosa (sometimes water minosa), and in that it is called pak grachet [ผักกระเฉ] or pak runawn [ผักรู้นอน]. The pak grachet name seems to be much more common. It is one of what I consider the three common leafy vegetables of thailand, the others being morning glory (pak boong [ผักบุ้ง]) and kale/chinese broccoli (pak kana [ผักคะน้้า]).

Anyway, this vegetable is aquatic and grows along ponds or near rice paddies. It basically floats on the tops of the water with long stems that can reach to the bottom. It is fairly tedious to prepare. In the first picture you can see how it looks when freshly picked or purchased at the market-covered with a white, foam-like skin which needs to be peeled of and then the gra chet can be broken into pieces. The skin is quite thick so it probably loses half its weight by the time you finish peeling. Afterwards, it can be eaten raw with chili dips, but I believe it is more common to simply stir-fry it with some chilis and garlic. It ends up being a crispy, crunchy, tasty meal.

Water mimosa after peeling

Closeup of the pak grachet

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Fresh jicama

I had a post about jicam before.  Here’s a nicer shot from a different occassion of the jicama found in Thailand.  Look at the other post for more details.

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Thai pumpkins and assorted vegetables

Here’s a shot a small vegetable stand in a market around here.  There’s a variety of vegetables including winter melons, mushrooms, cabbage, and, most notably, pumpkins.  Thai pumpkins, called fak tawng [ฟักทอง], are used in a lot of dishes ranging from main entrees to desserts.  They remind me a lot of acorn or butternut squash in America. I love American pumpkins but unfortunately, while they look much nicer, they seem to be way underutilized.  Not too many common dishes beyond pumpkin pie and perhaps a few other desserts.  This is a clear case where one needs to avoid judging a book by its cover since the ugly Thai pumpkin turns out to be the tastier of the two.

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The so-called weeds

I call this a dinner of weeds because essentially that’s what it seems like to me. Get some chili sauce (nam prik [น้ำพริก]) to dip the veggies, a plate of rice as the base, and maybe a tiny fish for some protein. There’s countless combinations this dish can take with all types of chili sauces and plenty of odd vegetables to use. The vegetables are generally a mixture of fresh and parboiled. Pictured here are some of the standards all though there are many, many more to pick from. From left to right:

• baby long eggplants (makua yao [มะเขือยาว])
• long beans, hidden underneath (tua fak yao [ถั่วฝักยาว])
• water acacia (cha-om [ชะอม])
• ivy gourd greens, under the cha-om ( pak dtamlung [ผักตำลึง]) (I could be wrong about this one)
• round eggplants (makua [มะเขือ])
• some other ‘weed’  (pak gwaangdung [ผักกวางตุ้ง])

The cha-om is interesting in that it has thorns on it! If not boiled enough the thorns are still hard and can really hurt your mouth. Trust me on this. Once soft enough, though, it is a tasty vegetable.

Closeup of the cha-om

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Some massive artichokes

Now this vegetable here, the common artichike, may not seem so strange to most readers but I figured I’d give a change of perspective.  This is one of those things that we ten to take as normal, but many Asians would look at this with curiousity and intrigue.  A bit similar to cheese which, although many of us think of it is as one of the base products of our diet, there are a lot of Asians that look at it with disgust.  Ewww…gross!

I love fresh artichokes, but they are on vegetable that are very hard to find in most of Asia.  Harvested in only a few parts of the world (mostly Europe), it would be too hard to transport them over here.  I guess I’ll just have to settle for the canned hearts, but that doesn’t give the whole effect of eating an artichoke.

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Peanut sprouts

This is an interesting vegetable I’ve had near Phuket in Southern Thailand twice now. Peanut sprouts (tua ngawk [ถั่วงอก], although this is the same as bean sprouts). I think most Westerners have had bean sprouts or alfalfa sprouts, but I had never even heard of peanut sprouts as a food. These ones were slightly pickled and actually served as a condiment for some kanom jiin [ขนมจีน], a curry with rice noodles where you add your own assortment of vegetables and seasonings. I’ll have to do another post about kanom jiin sometime since it is really interesting in all its varieties and combinations.

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