CORNUCOPIA
Growing your own vegetables at home is a great way to get better quality produce and cut costs when cooking
Suthon Sukphisit explains all you need to know about setting up a kitchen garden so fresh ingredients are always at hand.
If you like cooking for yourself, why not get serious and try growing your own vegetable right at home? The ones that you really need all the time are chillies ( phrik khee nuu), lemon grass, galangal, saw-tooth herb ( phak chee farang), and the different types of basil, known in Thai as bai kraphrao, bai horapha and yee raa.
Others to add to the list, if have the space, are limes, makrood limes, makhuea phuang
(pea eggplants), the fragrant rhizome called krachaai and ginger. These plants should satisfy your needs for preparing almost any dish.
Thais have always liked to raise their own herbs and vegetables. One feature of Thaistyle cooking is a preference for using ingredients that are right at hand. Then there is no need to pay money for them and the assurance that they are convenient, clean and safe. Quality will be high because they have been carefully raised at home.
Kitchen garden fruits and vegetables fall into two categories. First, there are short-lived ones that reach maturity and then die or lose their quality as food. Once this happens they must be removed and new replacements planted. In some cases the old branches and leaves can be stripped off so that new, fresh ones can appear. These short-lived plants include phrik khee nuu (bird’s eye chillies), lemon grass, galangal, ginger, the various basils and makhuea phuang.
The other category includes long-lived plants like limes, makrood limes and taling pling. Besides these two main types of plants, there are a few special ones, such as those that can be planted as borders, but also eaten — krathin, cha-om and tamlueng vines, all of which are seasonal and at their best during the rainy season.
A body of folk knowledge that has accumulated over the centuries is put to use in cultivating these plants, much of it relating to the natural environment. Phrik khee nuu, for example, likes filtered light more than it does direct sunlight, and prefers a location near plants that bear acidic fruit, like mango or tamarind trees. Plants grown in this way develop beautifully, with lush leaves, and the more chillies that are picked from them, the more that will appear to replace them. So many, in fact, that the person who grows them might not be able to use them all.
One way to make full use of them is to cook kaeng phrik khee nuu, a variety of kaeng khio waan nuea (a spicy beef curry made with coconut cream). When the curry has been fully cooked and seasoned, the last vegetable ingredients to be added are makhuea phuang, leaves from the phrik khee nuu plant and the chillies themselves. The result is delicious, and not too hot as the phrik khee nuu loses much of its heat when cooked, while still retaining its fragrance. Conventional kaeng khio waan is made with makhuea phuang, bai horapha and a different chilli, the somewhat milder phrik chee faa.
We don’t generally see kaeng phrik khee nuu being listed on restaurant menus because the leaves of the chilli plant are not available in most markets. The best place to taste it is at a household where there are phrik khee nuu plants growing in the kitchen garden.
There are many Thai recipes that could not be prepared without the basil called kraphrao. Even tom yam smells more appetising when it is added. The plant likes full sun and, once again, the more leaves that are picked for use, the more the plant produces. If there are too many to use and some are not collected, flowers appear at the ends of the branches, and these are followed by seeds that can be carried by the wind to produce new plants far from the parent plant, introducing wild kraphrao into the environment.
Once the kraphrao leaves have been picked, they should be used immediately while their scent is at its most intense. Even when bought at the market, once kraphrao is brought home, it is usually too late. After two days it loses all of its fragrance.
The life cycle of the basil known as horaphaa in Thai is different from that of kraphrao. For the home garden, it should be grown from seeds or seedlings. When the plants are fully mature, they are no longer good for use, and should be taken out and replaced with new seedlings. The young plants are very useful in Thai cooking, and like the kraphrao, must be used directly after they are picked.
Takrai, or lemon grass, is another sunloving plant, and like the others, the more it is gathered, the more it proliferates. It grows in clumps that continually spread to form new plants. As with the other aromatic herbs, it loses its best fragrance soon after it is harvested and should be used fresh from the garden.
The makrood lime tree is an extremely valuable plant with a wide range of uses. The leaves have their place in a long list of Thai recipes. At the end of the hot season after the first rainfall, the tree will immediately produce tender new leaves that have a refreshing fragrance. Villagers gather them to cook briefly in hot water and then eat with nam phrik kapi. Simple and delicious.
The zest from the makrood fruit peel is an ingredient in seasoning pastes used to make all kinds of kaeng phet (spicy, coconut creambased curries). The makrood lime juice is no less sour than that of ordinary limes, and the tree produces the fruits all year round. During the hot season, when ordinary limes are very expensive, makrood limes can be used as a substitute. Before they are squeezed for juice, the peel must be removed, however, so that none of its strong aroma remains. They contain more juice than ordinary limes, too.
Makrood limes are also useful in the kitchen when scaling or cleaning fish. The fishy smell can stick to the knife or cutting board as well as the hands. Some sliced makrood lime soaking in water will get rid of it.
Another tree well worth growing in the kitchen garden is the taling pling. Its fruits are stunningly sour, but very useful. They appear periodically, and in great numbers. Taling pling fruits can be added to kaeng phet ped yang (a mild coconut cream curry made with grilled duck meat) and kaeng khua phak boong (another coconut cream curry, made from the morning glory-like phak boong vine). They can be slivered and sprinkled on pad Thai or added to nam phrik kapi. The spicy southern sea bass curry called kaeng lueang plaa kraphong is especially tasty if unripe papaya and taling pling fruits are added.
These are examples of a few herbs and fruits that are essential for committed Thai cooks, and that should have a place in any home garden. But some may ask: where can you find the space to grow them? If you live in the countryside, there is no problem, but for Bangkok residents, every square centimetre of space might already be in use. There may not even be any available ground at all.
No problem, though, just as there was no problem in the past for families who lived on boats and spent more time on the water than they did on land, or those whose houses were built on stilts over water. They would always have a basin or two that was worn out and past any other kind of use that could be recruited as a planter. The household might be limited to growing only phrik khee nuu, lemon grass and bai kraphrao, but they had at least those essential herbs fresh daily. Everyone could find their own way to manage it.
People in Bangkok who live in condos or town houses can grow these small plants in hanging pots, choosing the ones that will be most useful. When the herbs are past their prime, they can be thrown out and new ones planted. Anyone who is seriously committed to good cooking will find a solution to the space problem, and their families will appreciate the result.