Vancouver-based Thai chef Pailin Chongchitnant demystifies the food of Thailand in Sabai
Hot Thai Kitchen founder’s new cookbook features simple recipes that omit tedious, time-consuming steps
Pailin Chongchitnant. Photo by Janis Nicolay.
CULINARY TRAVELLERS KNOW that one of the best places on the planet to experience phenomenal food is Thailand. And yet even the most passionate of home cooks may find it daunting to re-create the country’s flavours in their own kitchens.
Thai-born Vancouver-based chef and cooking instructor Pailin Chongchitnant has been demystifying Thai cuisine for more than 12 years, convincing people that it’s not any harder to make than any other kind of food via her Hot Thai Kitchen website and her YouTube channel, Pailin’s Kitchen, which has amassed over 1.73 million subscribers.
The success of her online presence gave rise to her first cookbook, 2016’s Hot Thai Kitchen: Demystifying Thai Cuisine With Authentic Recipes to Make at Home, which digs deep into the foundational principles and cultural context of Thai food. Now, she’s back with a follow-up, the just-released SABAI: 100 Simple Thai Recipes for Any Day of the Week (Appetite by Random House).
Sabai is a Thai word that describes the state of being at ease or comfortable, of feeling relaxed and unrushed. In the kitchen, it means easy-peasy.
“For people who have always wanted to try cooking Thai food but felt intimidated or did not know where to begin, Sabai is a really great place to start,” Chongchitnant tells Stir. “All the recipes have been pre-screened for simplicity, and there is plenty of information about ingredients to help you go shopping for the right stuff.
“We're blessed to have so many Asian grocery stores in Vancouver, and there are very few things that I cannot get here, but if sourcing ingredients is a hurdle, on my website I also have a page with a map of Asian grocery stores that people from all around the world have contributed to, so that is a good place to start!”
For a good illustration of how Chongchitnant simplifies Thai cooking for beginners in Sabai, consider her Minimalist Pad Thai. The traditional dish is quick to make but tedious to prep for, explains the chef who was born in Hat Yai in the country’s south, moved to Bangkok as a teen, and studied nutritional sciences at UBC (“not because I was interested in health but because it was food-related and I loved food!”). In Sabai, she removes the dried shrimp, pressed tofu, and sweet preserved radish and shares a quick-soak method for the noodles.
Gai Sa Te (No-Skewer Chicken Satay) is weeknight-friendly since the marinated boneless, skinless breasts get tossed on a grill or pan-seared rather than skewered. Pla Tom Kamin (Turmeric Fish Soup) is light and loaded with herbs; Choo Chee Goong (Pan-Seared Prawns in Red Curry Sauce) is luxurious but simple. Tum Galum Plee (Pounded Cabbage Slaw) grew out of Chongchitnant’s mom’s use of cabbage instead of green papaya for som tum, Thailand’s famous green papaya salad, during time spent in the U.S. in the 1980s when the original ingredient was hard to come by. In Tum Tang Kaopoad Mungsawirat (Vegetarian Pounded Corn & Cucumber Salad), the sweetness of corn offsets the tart and spicy dressing.
A modern version of Laab Tod (spicy, sour, toasty ground meatballs); a salty, savoury, and sweet Taohu Neung Song Kreuang (Steamed Tofu Deluxe); and a faster-than-sticky-rice Pudding Sakoo Mamuang Sohd (Mango Coconut Tapioca Pudding) are just a handful of other highlights from the book.
Host of the TV series One World Kitchen on Gusto TV, Chongchitnant has always loved being in the kitchen. While she was growing up, her family had a nanny who cooked their meals, and she would help out any way she could.
“Back then one of my favourite tasks was making coconut milk from scratch, which involved squishing freshly grated coconut meat by hand, which was great fun for a kid,” she says. “I also loved pounding curry pastes in the mortar and pestle, and making ground pork with a big cleaver. Then as I grew older, I actually was allowed to help cook things, and I always took pride in my participation even if it was very minimal.”
Aside from cooking, Chongchitnant’s other passion has always been teaching. Even in her youth, she took on jobs as a tutor and a piano teacher; before becoming a full-time content creator, her plan was to become a home-ec teacher.
“I've always had a knack for explaining things to people in a way that they can understand more easily, and so when it came to Thai food I felt like I was able to demystify it to non-Thais in a way that made them go... ‘Ooooh, I see!’ I now have spent about half my life living in Thailand and the other half living in Canada, and I feel like I have a really good grasp of each culture's perspectives and therefore am able to bridge the two more easily,” she says. “I feel a bit like a translator of Thai food for the Western world!”
For Chongchitnant, food is a way to not only represent and celebrate her culture but also to stay connected to it. In that vein, she dedicates Sabai to her son, Kaan.
“I am so grateful to be able to have a child in Canada, but one of the things that I am afraid of is that he will lose connection with his Thai roots,” Chongchitnant says. “I get a lot of comments on my YouTube channel from Thai people who were born and raised overseas, and many of them have said that they did not have a chance to learn about their food and culture from their parents, and now that the parents are no longer around, they are craving it and that's why they’re looking for it on the Internet.
“I am so honoured when Thai people born and raised overseas tell me that my videos have helped them connect to their Thai culture, but at the same time it makes me realize how easy it is to be disconnected when you don't live in the motherland," she says. "I can't create Thailand in Canada for Kaan, but I can create Thai food and that is the one thing that I hope will help him feel connected.”
Minimalist Pad Thai from Sabai. Photo by Janis Nicolay.
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