ChineseCookingDemystified
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Early Look: Are "Thai Salads" (Hakka) Chinese?
🕑 Added 2024-08-23 08:52:59 +0000 UTCThere’s no dish that tickles my brain as ‘Thai’ quite more than a Yam salad.
It’s not just their sheer ubiquity in Bangkok, though to be honest honest that’s probably part of it too. If you were to draw one of those little “15 minute city” maps for any given Bangkok neighborhood, I’d bet solid money that you could find a back-alley vendor slinging up a yam within. In a restaurant setting, Yam’s not only a menu fixture, there’s entire restaurants that specialize in the stuff.
But for me? It's also the flavor that's the thing that hits me as ‘Thai’ above all else. It’s like you took all the stereotypical Thai ingredients - chilis, garlic, lime, fish sauce, a glorious fuck ton of sugar - and smashed them all into one singular dish.
But if you actually look up the etymology of this Thai word word - yam - apparently the term is... Hakka Chinese in origin?
We're not not historical linguists, of course, so let’s try to ground this in food. So in this video, we'll teach you how to make Hakka Yam Beef, then try juxtapose it against a Thai Yam (a beef Yam, perhaps, for an apples-to-apples comparison). After looking at the modern Yam incarnations in their respective cultures, maybe we’ll be able to better piece together what’s going on.
Or maybe not. Worst comes to worst, you’ll just have learned two delicious - and pretty easy - dishes.
Comments
Stephanie Li and Chris Thomas
Yep, should be the same sort of thing. Double-checked the ingredients, it's just sugar and not palm sugar :) MegaChef fish sauce is good but I wouldn't call it... categorically different than Tiparos? I tend to reach for it when they're next to it (and yeah, their oyster sauce is *probably* the best mass produced one out there - can go toe to toe with artisanal stuff from the PRD), but Tiparos is slightly more available.
Emily Balk
Is Thai golden syrup the same or similar to the British Lyle's golden syrup? Also - noticed you're using the MegaChef fish sauce. How does it compare with others? I've seen it around in the US and have been curious. (I LOVE their oyster sauce.) Thanks as always for another great video!
Stephanie Li and Chris Thomas
The dog just comes and goes as he pleases, then we also splice different cuts together.
Adrian Slider
He keeps appearing and disappearing! Is Chris standing out of frame flipping a "dog on Steph's lap" switch?!
Adrian Slider
BOOM all of a sudden there's an adorable dog standing calmly on Steph's lap 😂
Ellen Bloomfield
“Not paranoid well done.” Chris that was classic!
