Thailand
Most Thai food ranges from hot to incendiary. The heat comes from a variety of fresh and dried chiles as well as chili sauce. The familiar Sriracha sauce, an all-purpose table condiment, is made in Thailand and is as commonplace there as Tabasco is in the American South. Roasted chili paste (nam prik pao) also adds heat to soups and stir-fries. Americans sometimes find Thai food impossibly hot because they don't eat it as Thais do, with a great deal of rice.
The tartness in Thai cooking usually comes from lime juice or tamarind. Thais are fond of sour flavors; the well-known hot-and-sour prawn soup being a good example of how deftly they balance sour with hot, salty, and sweet. The sweet element often comes from palm sugar or nam prik pao, which contains sugar. For saltiness, Thai cooks turn to fish sauce, soy sauce, bean sauce, or shrimp paste. Lemon grass, galangal, and kaffir lime are the "holy trinity" of Thai herbal seasonings, the aromatic foundation of many curries.
Signature ingredients
Rice (jasmine rice, sweet rice), cellophane noodles, coconut milk, bean curd, eggplant, mushrooms (fresh and dried), tomato, bok choy, bamboo shoots, baby corn, mango, papaya, pineapple, durian, lime, banana (leaves, blossom and fruit), tamarind, chiles, ginger, lesser ginger (kra chai), galangal, shallots, lemon grass, fresh turmeric, cilantro (including the roots), Thai basil, holy basil, kaffir lime (leaves and rind), pandan leaf, mint, palm sugar, bean paste, shrimp paste, fish sauce, oyster sauce, soy sauce, chili sauce.