The Evolution of Thai Cuisine: Exploring the Southeast Asian Maritime Chinese World

In modern Bangkok cuisine, two ingredients play a crucial role in shaping the flavors and textures of a dish: seafood and evaporated milk. The latter is an ingredient commonly used in the Southeast Asian Maritime Chinese world, where it has been incorporated into various dishes for centuries. This combination can be seen in foreigner favorites such as Tom Yum Goong and Wingbean salad.

When creating a Thai-inspired curry, the addition of evaporated milk adds a creamy texture that complements the bold flavors of the dish. The use of seafood is a staple in Thai cuisine, and it's not uncommon to see fish and shellfish used in various curries. However, this recipe takes a creative approach by incorporating beef, fishballs, or other protein sources into the mix.

For this recipe, we'll be working with two small squid, cleaned and boneless, cut into two-inch sections. We'll also add sliced shrimp as our second seafood component. The shrimp will be marinated in a mixture of salt, white pepper, and cornstarch before being pan-fried to perfection. Once the shrimp are cooked, they'll be added to the curry along with the squid, Chinese celery, scallion, onion, and fresh chili.

The sauce for this curry is what sets it apart from other Thai curries. A beaten egg is added to create a rich, creamy texture that holds everything together. To make the sauce, we'll combine evaporated milk, oyster sauce, chicken bouillon powder, Shaoxing wine, fish sauce, and sugar. The mixture will be heated until it thickens, creating a velvety consistency.

The addition of the beaten egg is what makes this curry come together so quickly. It's also a clever way to incorporate a common ingredient in Southeast Asian Maritime Chinese cuisine. By combining the egg with oyster sauce, chicken bouillon powder, Shaoxing wine, fish sauce, and sugar, we create a flavor profile that's both familiar and unique.

So, let's get started on making this delicious Thai curry! To begin, heat a tablespoon of oil in a pan over high flame until bubbles can form. Add the shrimp and fry until cooked through, about one minute. Remove the shrimp from the pan and set it aside, leaving only half a tablespoon of oil. In the same pan, add the squid, Chinese celery, scallion, onion, and fresh chili. Stir-fry everything together for about 30 seconds before swapping the flame to medium.

Add the prepared sauce to the pan, along with a half tablespoon of curry powder. Mix well and let that cook to come together and thicken, stirring occasionally. Taste and season with a touch more fish sauce if needed. Finally, add the cooked shrimp back into the curry and stir-fry everything together for another minute.

And there you have it – a delicious Thai-inspired curry made with evaporated milk and seafood! To make this dish even more interesting, we'll be comparing it to two other versions: Hong Kong-style and Japanese-style curries. Both of these recipes use different ingredients and techniques to create unique flavor profiles that are sure to impress.

First up is the Hong Kong-style curry, which has a complex, depth-filled flavor profile that's reminiscent of nostalgia for this author. The Japanese version, on the other hand, has a sweet, rounded flavor that's perfect for those who enjoy a richer, more comforting curry. And then there's the Thai version, which has a refreshing, herbaceous quality that's sure to tantalize the taste buds.

Ultimately, all three curries are delicious in their own right, and it's difficult to rank them in terms of preference. However, they each offer something unique and exciting for adventurous eaters looking to explore new flavors and techniques.

So, if you're feeling inspired, be sure to check out the recipe in the description box and give these Thai-inspired curries a try! And don't forget to subscribe for more Chinese cooking videos and support us on Patreon.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enToday, in our newly ongoing ‘western food in Asia’ series, we’ll show you three different  curries from three different countries – Japan, Thailand, and Hong Kong China. And yet,  as soon as those words come out of my mouth, I do feel like we’ve probably got a little  explaining to do, because I mean, I think most people tend to categorize the word ‘curry’ as a  little more next to the Rotis and the Saags and a little less with the Fish and Chips.It is definitely a bit of a hornet’s nest, because… the ‘Indian-ness’ of  curry is probably one of the most controversial topics in food. After all, there’s no spice mix  called ‘curry powder’ traditional to Indian cuisine – it was something crafted for and by…  foreigners. So for some people, this bottle is a simplification, a bastardization, a textbook  example of appropriation. But for others, the idea that it’s a bastardization is… classist BS,  discounting the lower caste servants and porters in the bags of which it truly spread around the  world. But around the world it did spread, becoming probably the first truly global  dish. Because following the trails forged in blood by the British imperial project, you can  find ‘curry’ from South Africa, to Jamaica, to Nigeria, to Guyana, to of course, England. In the United States, there’s records dating all the way back through the civil war and  for a hot second became a national obsession in form of a dish called ‘country captain’,  still eaten today in pockets of Carolina. Why ‘country captain’ is relevant to our story today,  as explained by one of the OG Gweilos, William Hunter in his classic book the Fan Kwae at Canton: The local name for was the 'Country Trade' the ships were 'Country Ships'  and the masters of them 'Country Captains.' Some of my readers may recall a dish which was often  placed before us, when dining on board these vessels at Whampoa, viz., 'Country Captain.'And… from that early anchorage at Whampoa, curry didn’t have to travel far to Hong  Kong. In the early days, the dish was more or less synonymous with the imperial Brits,  their military, and the Ghurkas they employed… but from there it spread down into the police force,  where it’s still served in canteens today?. But as the 20th century wore on,  ‘curry’ found a new home –‘western’ food in Hong Kong began to get increasingly localized,  becoming a cultural mainstay in the form of kind of restaurant called ‘chacaanteng’, purveyors of  Canto-western fusion that serve up outrageously fun dishes like deep fried French Toast,  Cheesy seafood rice, and curry in various forms.That said, what makes a Hong Kong curry a Hong  Kong curry is that it doesn’t rely on that good ol British bottle of curry powder,  it leans instead on… this – Hong Kong curry paste. It’s a concoction that pretty obviously takes cues  from Hong Kong’s sister colony of Singapore – but interestingly, the connections don’t stop there:  there’s a smattering of Straits Chinese curry sensibilities in the mix, and legend has it  that this paste was first whipped up by none other than a vendor of coconut milk. We showed you how  to make the stuff in a previous video, I’ll put the recipe down for y’all down in the description  box too, but today we’ll be starting with the bottled stuff as is usually standard in Hong Kong.Of course, there are a lot of different directions that you can go with the protein here,  but today we decided to opt for chicken. So here we’ve got one full wing and two chicken thighs,  latter deboned and cut into inch and a half chunks, former sliced into their components  and then haphazardly cleaved in half. Then just marinate those together with a quarter teaspoon  each salt, sugar, and chicken bouillon powder, a half teaspoon of curry powder,  quarter teaspoon soy sauce, half teaspoon liaojiu aka Shaoxing wine, one teaspoon  of cornstarch and then give that a real good mix. Then to that toss in a quarter of an onion  cut into chunks, an inch of smashed ginger, and optionally one dried bay leaf. Mix well,  coat it all with about a tablespoon of peanut oil, mix again and then let that  marinate for at least 30 minutes.And then… together with that,  for our curry today we’ll also prep some potatoes - these were two fingerling potatoes, 250 grams,  peeled of course, then sliced in half and cut into roughly inch and a half chunks  via the Chinese rolling cut. Then… to a pot of boiling water, toss in a half tablespoon salt,  and boil those up for ten minutes over a medium flame until soft, and then set aside.So, then with those prepped, at a high level, a Hong Kong curry is usually a two step process,  first of which is making a curry base. To do so, to about a tablespoon half of peanut oil,  toss in ¾, ‘er the rest our onion, finely finely minced. Fry that for a couple of minutes until  it’s softened, then go in with three cloves worth of finely finely minced garlic. Fry til fragrant,  then toss in two tablespoons of your Hong Kong curry paste together with one teaspoon of curry  powder. Fry that until fragrant, then go in with one cup of water, a half teaspoon of chicken  bouillon powder, and one chunk worth of your previously boiled potatoes, mashed up. Then over  a medium flame, let that bubble and reduce away for 30 to 40 minutes. What you’ll be looking for  is for everything to be pasty, goopy, no longer watery… and then you can just set that aside.So then… with the base in hand now, now we can fry up our curry. So in a wok over a medium-high  flame, swirl in about two tablespoons of oil, then go in with your chicken and its marinade.  Spread it even to allow it to cook, and then stir fry that for about 90 seconds or so. Once you’re  looking at something that’s almost flirting with scorching, swirl in a tablespoon of Shaoxing wine,  quick mix, and then add in your curry base. Quick fry together, swirl in a teaspoon of soy sauce,  then after a quick mix go in with one cup of water. Swap your flame to medium, cover,  and then let that boil for ten minutes. And then… after that time, we can toss in our previously  boiled potatoes chunks, let it boil for another five minutes, and then at this stage we should  be looking at something a bit like this.If it’s still a little on the thin side  you can let that reduce on high for about a minute or so to your liking,  then season with a quarter teaspoon each salt, chicken powder, MSG together with one  teaspoon of sugar. Then finish that with a tablespoon half of evaporated milk and  a half tablespoon of coconut milk… though also do feel free to use instead solely of them or  the other. So now just ladle your chicken on to a plate together with a good helping of rice,  and then with that, your Hong Kong Chacaanteng-style curry chicken is done.Now, if Hong Kong curry betrays a couple of Southeast Asian influences,  I think this Japanese curry might actually share a little more philosophically with the Brits.  And that’s because fundamental to a Japanese curry is… this stuff, that is, a curry roux.Because like, one of the hallmarks of a British style curry – particularly  the historical sort - is the gravy, which leans on the ever-so-familiar  English-slash-western technique of using wheat flour to thicken soups and stews.  And so when Curry first hit Japan during the Meiji era, it did so via British traders in Yokohama,  and it did so with flour in the mix. And while this was a time when Yoshoku, western food,  was getting increasingly popular in Japan, it was curry rice that was particularly a hit,  even becoming standard ration in the Japanese navy. A common approach during the Meiji era  became to toast flour, mix that with some good ol fashioned British curry powder,  and then slowly mix that with stock to get a base – an approach still used at times in Japan today.But… Post war, that whole song and dance was thoroughly streamlined with  this product. Instant curry roux, first concocted by a company called Oriental in  1945 and’s become a mainstay in Japanese home cooking ever since. To use the stuff  really couldn’t be any simpler, like honestly, you can just follow the box  with solid results… but there’re also a few ways that people spruce this up.The most common being? an onion base, as this is a curry as all. To make it just  thinly thinly slice a half an onion, kinda feels like a good job for the mandolin,  then toss that in a non-stick together with a ¼ tsp of salt and one tablespoon of oil. Over  a medium-low flame first fry that until it’s soft, about five minutes, then add in one cup of water.  Then just slowly fry that until all the water’s evaporated and the onion’s so soft that its  almost disintegrating, or about fifteen minutes more. Then just reserve and set that aside.Then, for our Japanese curry today we decided to go with classic combination  of beef, this was brisket, 175 grams, cut into one inch chunks, carrot, 75 grams worth,  sliced in half then into half centimeter slices, and potato, 100 gram of fingerling,  quartered then cut into 1 cm chunks.Then to fry this all up, to our non-stick  we’ll first melt in a pat or about two tablespoons of butter, then over a medium high flame go in  with our beef and fry that for a couple minutes until it begins to brown. Then add in the carrot,  fry it for about a minute, then the potato and fry for another minute. Then also in with two  cloves of garlic and one centimeter of ginger, both grated, fried until fragrant then go in  with your previously softened onion. Squeeze in one tablespoons worth of tomato ketchup,  one teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce, and after a good mix one cup of water. Then…  hit that a half teaspoon of chicken bouillon powder, an optional one tablespoon of the juice  from some Japanese Fukujinzuke pickles, and – betraying the English roots – 20 grams worth  of grated apple. Swap the flame to medium low, and then simmer that until the beef’s as tender  as you want it, or about 30 to 40 minutes.Then… in the meantime, we’ll quickly fry up  a bit of a curry oil that we’ll use to finish the dish. To do so, just heat up a tablespoon of oil  until it can just start to bubble around a pair of chopsticks, then shut off the heat and toss in  a half tablespoon of curry powder. Mix well, set aside, and then swing back to the curry.  And it’s at this point that we can toss in a half pack or two good chunks of our boxed curry roux,  letting it melt and thicken right up… then the seasoning, up on the screen,  and finally finishing it with the curry oil.Mix well, serve it alongside some rice of course,  a bit of the aforementioned Fukujinzuke pickles if you can get your hands on them,  a little side salad, and, of course, a juice box of milk for the full naval rations effect.But, even easier than that boxed Japanese curry is one of my personal obsessions as of late – a… Thai  curry variant called curry powder fried seafood.Now, I do need to be clear here up front. We’re  covering this dish mostly because we… want to, it’s super delicious and might  just be the quickest way humanly possible to arrive at a curry. But know that it’s  not categorized as ‘western food’ in Thailand the same way ‘curry’ is in Hong Kong or Japan,  it’s squarely thought of as a Thai dish, maybe Thai-Chinese if you really pressed.And… I dunno, I mean the obvious response is “well duh Chris, Thailand’s probably got the  most famous curries in the world outside of the Indian subcontinent”. But the inclusion  of this dish into this video isn’t quite as crazy as it might first seem. You see,  there’s two words that could be translated from Thai into English as ‘curry’. There’s ‘kaeng’, which’s…. practically every Thai curry that you know and love. Green curry,  Red curry, Massaman curry, plain curry… curry-over-rice counters are… Khao rat kaeng.  If we were starting from scratch, I’d personally be partial to translating gaeng as ‘soup’,  because there’s also “kari”. If you want to buy a British style curry powder, it’s phong kari;  if you want to make a southern muslim style soup with that powder, a.k.a. the beloved-worldwide  ‘yellow curry’, it’s kaeng kari or… I guess it’d have to be… ‘curry curry’?So this dish belongs with the latter, with ‘kari, literally ‘curry powder  fried seafood’. The thing is descended from a dish called ‘curry powder fried crab’,  which was first served up in a pretty legendary Thai-Chinese seafood restaurant called Somboon  Seafood. It’d be a fair guess that that dish was likely a riff off of Singaporean curry crab,  which itself seems to have evolved from Goan Portuguese Crab Curry. It’s… a stretch,  I get it. But, I dunno, it tastes good, it’s super easy, so let’s show you how to make it.So. The fundamental flavor of this dish is going to be a classic combination that  you see again and again in modern Bangkok cuisine – Nam Phrik Phao,  a seafood-laden Thai-Chinese chili jam and… evaporated milk, an ingredient itself seen  quite a bit in the Southeast Asian Maritime Chinese world. This is the same combination  that creates the foreigner favorites of Tom Yum Goong, Wingbean salad, etc etc. What’ll give this curry body though is – geniusly – a beaten egg, which is what makes this comes  together just so quick. And conveniently together with those we can also add in our  base seasoning – one teaspoon oyster sauce, a quarter teaspoon each chicken bouillon powder,  Shaoxing wine, fish sauce, and a half teaspoon of sugar. Then just beat well and set it aside.So. Protein wise, in Thailand this dish is basically synonymous with seafood,  but I’ve totally gotten creative before with beef, fishballs… it’s actually sneaky versatile. Still,  today, we’ll work off a base of two small squid, cleaned, bone removed, cut into two inch sections…  plus little groves sliced in a checkerboard pattern to improve the final texture. This’ll  then be together with seafood number two – I like five to six medium shrimps, peeled,  butterflied, deveined, and marinated together with an eighth teaspoon salt,  white pepper, and a half teaspoon of cornstarch.And then… to fry it, because Cantonese habits are  hard to break I guess, we’ll first give our shrimps a quick pan fry – quarter cup of oil,  heated over a high flame until bubbles can form aro und a pair of chopsticks, then in with the  shrimps and fry until cooked through, about one minute. Then… remove, take out all but a  tablespoon half of your oil… and over the same high flame add in the totality of the seafood,  brief 15 second fry, together with one stalk of Chinese celery – leafy tops of celery celery,  also good – one scallion, about an eighth of an onion and one fresh spicy chili. Stir  fry that all together for about 30 seconds, then swap the flame to medium and add in your  previously prepared sauce together with a half tablespoon curry powder. Mix well  and slowly let that cook to come together and thicken – for us about 90 seconds or so. Taste,  then season with a touch more fish sauce to taste – we added another eighth teaspoon. And  with that? That’s… honestly it – remove, serve, and devour with rice.So! We made three curries today, and of course I’ve had all of them in isolation… however,  I never tried them next to eachother. So I’m pretty excited to see how they  compare. Hong Kong one first. Okay. Japanese one. They do taste different! Thai one. Okay!So, first of all, they are all very good, of course… for me personally,  the Hong Kong one tastes pretty nostalgic, and it’s pretty complex, and has like a depth… for me,  it’s my favorite. The Japanese one has like a sweet, kind of like rounder flavor… and it’s a  definite rice killer. And as for the Thai one, it tastes more like, how to say, the herbs and  everything in it just tastes more, a little bit more refreshing? It smells really nice. It has a  really nice aroma. So… um, I don’t know, they’re all good, I don’t want to rank things. So… I hope  you can give them a try. So right! Check out the recipe in the description box, a big thank  you to everyone supporting us on Patreon… and of course, subscribe for more Chinese cooking videos.\n"