The type of food I miss the most from staying in Thailand is "nam prik", literally "chilli water". That's a group of dishes that can be described as thick sauces or relishes, usually eaten as dips with sticky rice and veggies. They are typical home-cooking comfort food, made with staples that are cheap and generally on hand in a Thai household. That means lots of chillies, garlic, dried fish, fish sauce, palm sugar, tamarind and gapi. Gapi is fermented shrimp paste, if you think fish sauce is hard core, you haven't come across gapi yet. I keep my jar enclosed in two plastic bags in the fridge because the smell can wake the dead.
I haven't ever seen nam prik in a Thai restaurant here is Sweden, but fortunately Mr. Thopmsons book delivers, there is a whole chapter on different nam priks in there! The nam prik I chose to make yesterday was nam prik tua, peanut relish, containing the exact ingredients mentioned above plus peanuts. Put everything in the mixer and mix it up good, then fry it in lots of oil and it's done. Takes at most 10 minutes.
The taste of these things usually make me sit and giggle uncontrollable by my self, it's amazing how they can pack such an insane amount of flavours into such a small volume of dip. Balancing that strong flavours together, making the result taste good, is nothing short of an art form. However, it's really not advisable to go breathe on anyone for a while after eating it. And there is no picture today, I gobbled up all the nam prik before I thought of taking one :)
This reminds me of a cooking class I took in Chang Mai. I went undercover and when people asked I said I was a primary school teacher. There I realized how inspiring thai food is: A lot of sizzling and fire, grinding mixing action, adding colorful and funky ingredients. Quick, very tasty and for the most part quite easy to do. People had a lot of fun to cook this stuff.
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