Thursday, February 20, 2014

Oh, My Gulay!

As soon as I arrived in Hua hin, I learned a few things about how the Thais eat their veggies.  Well, they do have  vegetables here which are found back home, but we could learn a thing or two about how these greens can be used in cooking, or how they can be eaten.

Shown below, clockwise, are green- leaf lettuce, Chinese long beans (sitaw), sugar snap peas, and cherry tomatoes.  We do know that lettuce leaves and cherry tomatoes are eaten raw, because they're common in our salads.  What's new to me is that sitaw and sugar snaps are eaten raw, just like that.  Of course they have to be the young ones and freshly picked, other wise they would be hard and difficult to chew.  They are blanched and served along with sweet-spicy dressing or dip, or nothing at all.  At first, the long beans assailed my palate since I'm really used to eating them cooked, sauteed or in broth.  But I realized that I could get used to it, but that I don't really  have to like it. Just that when it's served, I make no fuss about it and just chomp away.  The sugar snaps are a different story, though. I could eat a whole pack of it in one sitting.  Well, a pack to me means maybe twenty or so sweet, crispy  and fresh pieces.  :-)


Another kind of veggie I learned to love eating raw are the Mung bean sprouts, sweet, crispy and succulent! They are served with an order of pad thai, together with wedges of lime and green onions (scallions) or garlic chives. 


I just learned, too, that Thais do the same with iceberg lettuce, more familiarly known as cabbage, as they do to the sugar snaps and green-leaf lettuce.  They serve shredded cabbage as cole slaw, or just as is, like the lettuce. Cabbage and cucumber slices are usually served along with fish or meat dishes. I could get hooked to this kind of eating veggies the healthy way.  let's see where it gets me in  the days to come.



Next thing to discover are the spicy dishes around here. Thais love spicy food.  I have to learn to eat their kind of spicy food, or keep saying mai pet everytime we go out to eat.#


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