'KA NOM' ... DESSERTS

Even though it has only been a week but one thing I learned is the position 'ka nom' holds in the fine art of Thai cooking. The Thais really take 'no meal is complete without dessert', literally. If there is a choice my vote always goes with savories as I love salt. Not impassioned with sweets I have to realign my attitude at Wandee, as I am told. It seems the key ingredients for desssets are: coconut, sugar, pandan leaf & salt. (1) Coconut means meat from a young coconut only, its juice, coconut cream, and lastly milk which is water diluted cream (2) Sugar means palm sugar mostly, also used widely in cooking, plus castor sugar (3) pandan leaf is a must for fragrance and (4) salt to balance, and to yield that unique Thai dessert flavor.

Then comes the 'derivatives' such as mung beans, black beans, taro, pumpkin, sago, tapioca, sticky rice, mangoes etc to prepare a wide range of desserts. The one at the top is sticky rice with a pudding made from duck eggs, served with dry roasted mung beans and coconut cream. At the bottom is a black bean 'soup' made from a mixture of sago, young coconut meat and topped with coconut milk. Using salt to balance the strong sweetness of cream and sugar is sheer genius, not to mention how it adds a different dimension to the taste. Yes, what you remember in Thai desserts some of it is the taste of salt. We also made coconut agar, the Thai version of my favorite 'almond agar or tofu' that is garnished with Del Monte fruit cocktails (God forbids) in old style Shanghainese restaurants at home. One last comment, I do not see them on the Wandee syllabus but there is an entire line of 'ka-nom' products, prepared by specialist-patissiers on Bangkok streets who must also be key players of the dessert culture as well.