Thai Hotel

The most popular salad of Thailand and Laos is the Green Papaya salad. On the first bite, your tongue should taste extreme heat, salt, and sour all at once. The taste is invigorating!

Ingredients:

1-4 chilies

1 garlic clove

3 cups shredded green papaya

1/2 cup sliced tomatoes

1 tablespoon fish sauce

1 tablespoon shrimp paste

3 tablespoons squeezed lime

1 tablespoon sugar (optional)

2 tablespoons dried shrimp (optional)

In a mortar and pestle, crush chilies and garlic until they are separated. Add the papaya and the remaining ingredients into the mortar. Using the pestle to crush and a tablespoon to stir, mix all the ingredients in the mortar. When the sugar and shrimp paste are dissolved the papaya salad is ready to be served. Toss the papaya salad over rice noodles and sprinkle some toasted peanuts on top to make this salad a meal.

Watch a video on how to shred a green papaya with just a knife. Also watch a video on how to make the papaya salad on my blog at www.thai-laos-food.blogspot.com. The video shows the traditional method. Some Thai / Lao restaurants mix all the ingredients in a large bowl using chopsticks. In my opinion, for an authentic texture, the tomatoes need to be crushed.

Manivan Larprom, a Thai / Lao girl, on a mission to teach, through her video blog, how anyone can cook Thai / Lao food.

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Ingredients:

1 garlic clove;

1 Red Chili;

1 Green Chili;

1 tablespoon squeezed Lime;

1 tablespoon Fish Sauce

In a mortar and pestle, crush the garlic and chilies until they are in small pieces. Add squeezed lime and fish sauce and mix. Pour the Classic Thai / Lao Hot Sauce into a small dipping bowl for serving. The above ingredients can be multiplied to suit the number of servings.

Most Thai and Lao chili sauce starts with these basic ingredients. You can substitute soy sauce for fish sauce but it would not be authentic nor classic classic.

Pour this sauce over rice or dip the sauce with sticky rice and grilled meat.

The basic ingredients that are used in Thailand and Laos include: garlic, chilies, fish or soy sauce, lime or rice vinegar, and sugar. However, the proportion of each ingredient varies depending on the dish. With the exception of dessert dishes, these ingredients are in most Thai and Lao dishes. Every dish has a unique balance of these basic ingredients.

For more recipes on hot sauces and Thai / Lao dishes, visit my blog. As well, there is also an instructional video on how the sauce is made by using the traditional method of a mortar and pestle.

A Thai / Lao girl who has a mission to teach others on how to cook Thai and Lao food. Her blog at http://www.thai-laos-food.blogspot.com/ lists many recipes. As well, there are some instructional videos that show the traditional cooking methods that are used today in Thailand and Laos.

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Thailand has seen coups before, but this is the first one in a long time. If you have been to Thailand recently, or follow the politics, this coup is not surprising for many reasons. Many people see to much corruption at very high levels, the extrajudicial handling of the drug problem, the sale of a major Thai communication asset to a foreign country, the way that the Prime Minister handles his opposition using whatever means to silence them, and for the military, the Muslim uprising in the three southern most provinces. The political fighting in the capitol is further making the military nervous with the now ousted Prime Ministers plays to keep his power, despite a large and vocal group of people that want to see him out.

The military involvement with a Muslim insurrection in the south has to be troubling to them, and they want to open negotiations with the insurgents to work through the problems and come to a peaceful solution. Towards this end, Thailand has for the first time a Muslim General, General Sontai, controlling the military, and who appears now to be the new Prime Minister. Thailand being a mostly Buddhist Country, is very tolerant of minorities and this would seem to be a better track to travel, rather than trying to muscle through the issues using force, which is seen as not working, and counter productive? All Thai people love the King! The Thai King is the longest ruling monarch in the world today, whose 60th anniversary was a huge celebration. When you walk through Bangkok, it is amazing to see all of the Thai people that are wearing yellow shirts proudly proclaiming their love for the King, several weeks after the celebration.

This new Commander of the military is close to the King, and if he has suport of the King, the people will support him as well. No one has been hurt yet! However, it is pretty much assured that in the rush to cover the story, and be the most dramatic and sensational, the international news outlets will wreak more damage on the Thai people than the Coup, or the ousted Prime Minister. Not only will Thailand suffer, but the smaller countries that border Thailand will suffer as well, notably Cambodia and Laos, which receive a lot of overland tourist traffic from Thailand. Tourists that are in Bangkok now are a little nervous, but they will be safe, and will have a great story to tell when they get home. Thailand is a great place to visit, as it always is, and will continue to be. Book your tickets now and come and see the new Bangkok airport, with the current situation, you are sure to find some great rates, for the near future, see you here!

Fred Tittle has lived in resorts his entire life, from the famous Lake Geneva Playboy Club , Aspen Colorado where he was a rock jock for KSPN FM, Waikiki on Oahu in Hawaii and now as a owner of EcoSea Dive in Sihanoukville Cambodia where he teaches PADI and SSI Scuba Diving and runs adventure tours. Fred’s new project www.CheapCharliesHotels.com is basically an excuse to travel more. His main website is www.ecosea.com find his blog at www.ecosea.com/blog/Scuba

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