Thai food is known around the world as spicy beyond compare. My wife Golf has been kind enough to add to Thailand Musings by sharing her wonderful authentic Thai recipes with us and as a small thanks I am doing a Thai recipe roundup for her tonight. But not just any Thai recipe roundup, no these are the top 5 recipes rated in terms of hotness. I guarantee they will have you running for the water pitcher (unless of course you’re Thai).

The five recipes below are arranged from spiciest to most mild, but even the mild recipe will be spicy for most people. Recipes can be altered to some extent to make them more or less spicy by changing the amount of chili’s you add, but you run the risk of compromising the authentic Thai flavor.

Give them all a try and then come back to let us know what you thought. I know for me I was hardly able to eat Laab Gai 18 months ago and now I beg her to make it. Spicy food may be an acquired taste, but I think once you acquire that taste it becomes almost an addiction.

So, here they are without further ado…the top 5 Thai recipes hotter than global warming from Thailand Musings. I am not responsible for any pain you may experience through trying these recipes.

Laab Gai (Thai Spicy Chopped Chicken) – Thai’s have many variations of Laab, this one is made with chicken and is not for the faint of heart. Make sure you serve with plenty of rice and water.

Neua Naam Tok (Thai Spicy Grilled Beef) – One of my first and still favorite spicy Thai dishes this will knock you’re socks off. I love the combination of shallots and lemongrass with the chili and smoky flavor of the barbequed beef.

Naam Prik Ong (Thai Tomato Chili Sauce) – This is not meant to be eaten by itself, but should be served with white rice (preferably jasmine) and fresh vegetables such as cucumber or long beans.

Lon Dtao Jieow (Coconut Soup with Fermented Soybeans) – For those that like coconut (like me) this soup is great. Just be careful – if you breathe in while sipping this soup the chili aroma hits your lungs like a whiff of fire. Coughing is guaranteed to follow.

Khao Man Gai (Thai Steamed Rice with Chicken) – This recipes comes last as the most mild of the spicy dishes and if you make it as written it is pretty mild with just a slight kick. Of course you can always add more chili’s to kick it up a notch!

Thai Chili’s – This is not a recipe, but rather a short guide to Thai chili’s. Knowing a bit about what you’re eating sometimes enhances the eating experience.

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There are many spicy foods, but none seem to come even close to Thai foods. I’ve had Indian food in India and Mexican food in Mexico and neither one brought tears to my eyes the way Thai food, real Thai food, did the first time I had it.

It seems like Thai’s like to add chili’s to every dish and you’ll find a variety of chili condiments on the table at any Thai restaurant. The most common are simple dried chili powder and nam prik which literally means “chili water” and is a combination of fresh chili’s, vinegar, fish sauce and lime juice.

Thai’s use a wide variety of chili’s in their cooking, but the most common are the prik kee nu and the prik chee faa chili’s. Both will curl your hair, but the prik kee nu is definitely the hotter of the two. Tread carefully with these chili’s if you’re not used to spicy food and I mean REALLY spicy food, not what you typically find in America.

Prik kee nu chilis are green or red and about one inch in length. You can find them in most major cities in the U.S. in Oriental grocery stores and they freeze well (up to one year) so if you’re just visiting the city for the weekend you can buy lots and freeze them. Simply wash the chili, dry thoroughly and put it in a Ziplock freezer bag to freeze.

When the prik kee nu is dried it is called prik hang and is even hotter if that’s possible. You can also find these in Oriental groceries and the smaller the chili the hotter it will be. Golf and I get these shipped to us by her dad from Thailand by the kilo, we typically use about ½ pound a month. You will very likely get better mileage

When I started eating with Golf she would always tell the waitress to make our order paed mak mak. I had no idea what that meant for weeks until finally she told me, paed means “spicy”. So my introduction to spicy Thai food was extra spicy from a Thai perspective. In years before that I know that any Thai food I got was served for Western tastes and even now if I am by myself and order food paed mak mak they won’t make it nearly as spicy as they do when I am with Golf.

Don’t think though that Thai food is just about the spicy chili’s. The spicy dishes usually combine other elements such as sweet, sour and salty together in intriguing ways. If you haven’t tried real Thai food yet then I suggest you subscribe to my feed and keep coming back. Golf has promised to start posting at least one authentic Thai recipe a week so you should be able to build quite a recipe base very quickly.

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