Adventures in The Spice Market Pt 2: The Ingredients

Galangal, Thai Basil, Kaffir Lime Leaves, Shrimp Paste, Fish Sauce, Lemongrass, Tamarind Paste, Shaoxing Wine, Pickled Turnip, Palm Sugar, Vietnamese Coffee. It may surprise you, but most of these ingredients cannot be found at your local Superstore.

Now, Toronto is as multicultural as a city gets so there is no doubt in my mind everything I need is here. But where to find it? I've attempted searching Kensington Market and Chinatown for Galangal in the past with poor results. Kensington had nothing and the chinese markets had no english labels on any of their produce so it was obvious I wasn't there preferred clientele. I'm sure if I asked someone would have helped, but it wasn't a must at the time. I was just tempted to try Tom Yum Soup at home. And I am a bit of a coward when it comes to asking for help.
So I thought for my next attempt, I was going to educate myself on the ingredients as much as possible, what it looks like, what the best quality brands are, AND most importantly, decipher the chinese spelling of the ingredients. Jean-George also gives some brand name suggestions he uses as well as websites to get any obscure ingredients. Here are some sights that came in handy for finding ingredients.

importfood.com - Almost everything Thai food related can be found here.
Kalustyan's - A New York based Asian Spice market that has plenty of imports.
Temple of Thai - Very useful site for putting images to thai brand names.
Thai Table - My personal favorite, full of recipes, images and descriptions of ingredients. A real asset.

As luck would have it though, I live in an amazing part of town. And a T & T Asian market opened up about a 20 min walk from my house. I've been tempted to check it out before but haven't had a reason, well now I do. My first trip there was merely a reconnaissance mission, with my list of obscure ingredients I hit the market to see what they had and didn't have. And to my delight everything was labeled in english as well as Chinese. And to my further delight, everything I needed, except for the good quality Shaoxing Wine was there. Jean-George suggests you don't use the overly salted cooking wine that goes by the same name but if not available, a good quality sherry would do. After searching one of our largest liquor stores for the Shaoxing I decided on the sherry.
But wait!!! What about the vegetarians? Can't be using Fish Sauce and Shrimp Paste on their dishes. What do I do? For this I turned to my library again to find a Thai Vegetarian cookbook called Bhudda's Table by Chat Mingkwan. In which the author points out that Fermented Bean Curd could be used in place of Shrimp paste and Light Soy Sauce (not to be confused with Lite Soy Sauce which is a lower fat version. Light Soy is lighter in colour, but a hell of a lot saltier).

So there I was, in a market full of strange exotic ingredients. What's my next step? Well to really know a cuisine I figured I'd have to play with the ingredients before attempting the recipes on the menu, So my next course of action was to make some Traditional Thai as well as some of the Spice Market dishes to get a better understanding of how and why each ingredient is used.

Adventures in the Spice Market Pt. 1: The Menu

First things first, I needed to decide which dishes I was going to make for the evening. There were certain must that had to be included the Char Grilled Chicken with Kumquat Lemongrass Dressing, the "best chicken I've ever tasted" according to my wife. And I really wanted to make a simple but thoroughly pleasing Ginger Fried Rice, it had a sunnyside egg on top that when cuinto the rice made for an unbelievable yolky rich flavourful side dish.

I would have loved to make the beef skewers for appetizers, but without a vegetarian substitute, felt some of my guests would feel left out so I opted for spring rolls, chicken for the meaties and mushroom for the veggies. As for a vegetarian main, Originally I was going to try to substitute Seitan or Marinated Tofu for one of the fish dishes but then thought why not make my life easier and just do the chicken dish with the Tofu. And for dessert, we had the Ovaltine Kulfi which I found a bit too rich, but we also had a very pleasing dish called Thai Jewels and Fruit w/ Coconut Crushed Ice, which was subtle in sweetness and refreshing at the end of the meal. but I'm sure it wouldn't have been a show stopper for anyone else, so I opted for a tart, but to lighten it up I thought I'd add a scoop of Coconut Sorbet. So here's the final menu.

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Appetizers

Mushroom Spring Rolls & Chicken Somosas (ended up as Spring Rolls)
with 4 dipping sauces: Nam Prik, Galangal Emulsion, Peanut Sauce and Cilantro-Yogurt Dip
Main
Char-Grilled Chicken Breast w/ Kumquat Lemongrass Dressing
Sides
Ginger Fried Rice
Mango, Cherry Tomatoes & Long Bean Salad
Lime Noodles w/ Vegetables, Basil and Sesame Seeds
Dessert
Chocolate & Vietnamese Coffee Tart
Coconut Sorbet

With the recipes selected, my next task would be the most difficult. Finding the ingredients. Ingredients I've never used and some I have never seen.