The correct consistency of Thai curries

[Jenise]

On Monday Bob and I tried a small Thai restaurant and ordered a beef-noodle dish, which was excellent, and a green chicken curry which I wasn't so happy with. The liquid part of the curry was thin, like soup broth or simple stock cut with a little coconut milk. Dairy milk is more viscuous than what I had. Too I found nothing particularly 'green' about it, no complex seasonings, just heat and coconut plus some flavor from the bell peppers included in the dish, but that's really beside the point. The liquid part--it's not the first time I've been served a soup broth-like curry, though best I can recall I've only had it that way in this area.

Anyway, I did not like it at all. What I'm struggling with is understanding what a true Thai head would consider the correct consistency. I have been to Thailand and the curries I had there were thicker. Thick enough to scoop up with wads of stickie rice. But maybe I just got lucky and this other way I find so offputting is equally correct depending on what part of the country you're from.

Can others weigh in on this please before I write my damning review of this place?

The Thai word usually translated as "curry" is variously spelled in Latin script as "gaeng" or "kaeng". Thai red curry, for example is "gaeng ped" ("ped" meaning "hot"). But the term gaeng covers a whole range of soupy preparations in addition to the thicker, usually coconut-milk-based dishes we think of as curries. Perhaps you encountered a dish that is one of these soupier gaengs whose name had been translated into English as "curry" when "soup" would have been more accurate?

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

The Thai word usually translated as "curry" is variously spelled in Latin script as "gaeng" or "kaeng". Thai red curry, for example is "gaeng ped" ("ped" meaning "hot"). But the term gaeng covers a whole range of soupy preparations in addition to the thicker, usually coconut-milk-based dishes we think of as curries. Perhaps you encountered a dish that is one of these soupier gaengs whose name had been translated into English as "curry" when "soup" would have been more accurate?

-Paul W.

Possibly. But they offered green, red and yellow curries--three only by those names, and served it in small cereal bowls on a platter along with a scoop of rice. So it seemed one was meant to eat it in the curry manner, vs. the soup way. Anyway, sure took all the fun out of a good curry!

That certainly does sound as though it's meant to be gaeng kaiwan, but just made wrong.

-Paul W.

[Robin Garr]

I think there's a lot of room for variability in Thai cookery, as in any ancient cuisine in which every home cook has his or her own traditions.

But that being said, I'd be unhappy with any Thai curry dish that couldn't "coat the back of a spoon," as the old saying goes.