Ultimate Spice Guide: Thai

Last time, we featured the flavors of Cajun cuisine. Let's head to Asia where interesting fusion of flavors can be found. Sawadikrap! and welcome to Thai cuisine, the delicious mix of sweet, salty, and sour flavors that is both refreshing and tasty.

Learn the essential spices of Thai cuisine through this visual provided by Cooksmarts.com.

Let's get to know the spices up close:

• Basil - this well-loved aromatic is well known as the main ingredient for pesto sauce. It's highly fragrant leaves are used as a seasoning herb for most Mediterranean dishes.
• Cumin - sometimes spelled as "cummin", this spice belongs in the parsley family. Native to the Mediterranean, cumin is hotter to the taste, lighter in color, and larger than caraway, another spice it's sometimes confused with. It has a distinctive bitter flavor and strong, warm aroma due to its abundant oil content.
• Garlic - known for its strong and pungent aroma, this versatile spice is used in most cuisines fresh and dried. This herb has a lot of medicinal properties related to the heart and blood system.
• Ginger - one of the most common spice all over the world aside from garlic and onion. This pungent and spicy aromatic is perfect not only for Asian stir-fry but also with sweet dishes and fruit concoctions. It is also known for its medicinal properties particularly aids in gastrointestinal health.
• Turmeric - known as one of a key ingredient in making curries, this peppery warm spice is used not only as an aromatic but also in herbal medicine and textile dye.
• Cardamom - native to the Middle East, North Africa, and Scandinavia, this pungent spice are available in three types: green cardamom, black cardamom and Madagascar cardamom. This spice goes well with chicken, duck, lentils, and rice.
• Curry Powder - a spice mix consisting of  cardamom, chiles, cinnamon, cloves, coriander, cumin, fennel, fenugreek, mace, nutmeg, pepper, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, saffron, tamarind and tumeric hence its yellow color.

Up Next: Mediterranean Spice Guide