Photos of Ingredients for Unique Thai Flavors

Last week in a restaurant review, I wrote about Tom Ka, Thai hot and sour soup. A couple of key Thai ingredients float freely in a well-prepared Tom Ka, so you can taste their unique savory contributions. I thought I’d post photos and descriptions of them here.

The first is the Kaffir Lime Leaf. It is shiny, and appears as two leaves joined end-to-end. Although it may be ground or thinly sliced in curries, it’s rather inedible when left whole. Bite one and you will release oily aromatics reminiscent of lemon but more robust and slightly bitter. Both the juice and peel of the bumpy, tangerine-sized kaffir fruit are also used in cooking.

The second interesting ingredient is galangal. It is a rhizome related to ginger, with smooth skin and a peppery, then eucalyptic flavor. It is thinly sliced and tender when used fresh, while its dry form is woody, it is equally pungent. In this photo you can also see the small Thai chili peppers, that while very hot, have unique flavor that cannot be duplicated with similarly shaped serranos.