The North East

Phaak Tiew (Leaves of Tiew of the Cratoxylum family) is the Queen of the North-eastern vegetables. Young tops, leaves and blossoms are taken with Laab (a kind of dish of which the most important ingredients are minced meat or fish mixed with chillies and lime juice as well as roasted rice and mint leaves), Goi (a kind of dish like Yam but mostly with raw meat as main ingredient), Naam Prig, soup, and Khanom Chin Naam Ya (Steamed Rice Noodles with Curried Fish Sauce). Soup with Phaak Tiew has sour flavor.

1. Soup Dog Phaak Tiew (Soup with Phaak Tiew Blossoms)

Medicinal value: Soup with Phaak Tiew Blossoms is a laxative, and also medicine to get rid of phlegm, to nourish the water element of the body, and relieve nerve-pain.

The soup is harmful to the people having kidney disease, if taken, the body would be swollen.

2. Khaaw Nieu Som Tam Kai Yang (Steamed Glutinous Rice, Papaya Salad and Roast Chicken)

Medicinal value: This dish, with its delicious flavor, helps stimulate appetite, improves digestion and relieves stomach discomfort as well as urinary problem.

3. Kaeng Oom: According to Dictionary (The Royal Academy Version of B.E. 2525), Kaeng Oom is a kind of curry like Kaeng Kua but with bitter melon and many kinds of vegetables. Kaeng Oom of Isaan area is thicken. Frogs, small green frogs, fish, crabs, shellfish, chicken, pork or beef can be an ingredient of Kaeng Oom.

Qualities: Besides having a pleasing flavor, Kaeng Oom helps nourishment and improvement of he body's chemical elements, as well as provides 5 groups of nutrition. Herbal ingredients provide medicinal values.

4. Plaa Chon Jim Jaew (Steamed Serpent-head Fish with powdered chilli in fish-soy sauce)

Qualities: Fish provides protein; vegetables give vitamins and minerals. According to the ancient Thai medicine, Plaa Chon's meat is good to all chemical elements. Its helps get rid of the wind element, relieves the pain caused by pustles, cures children's disease as well as releases all toxins.

5. Jaew Bon (Minced Fish preserved with salt mixed with local herbs)

Qualities: Jaew Bon gets rid of sweats, releases stomach discomfort, stimulates appetite and nourishes the body's chemical elements.

6. Soup Nor Mai (Bamboo-shoots soup)

The Isaan people have Soup Nor Mai as their daily food. Besides digging bamboo- shoots in the woods, they grow bamboos near houses. Bamboo - shoots which are abundant in their proper season are preserved in metal containers as pickled, or boiled.

Fresh Bamboo shoots have a bitter flavor and a high amount of cyanide. They must be boiled, before taken with food, to decrease the bitterness, and the cyanide acid. Boiling fresh bamboo shoots to get rid of the biter taste and dangerous acid reveals the local wisdom of Thai folks.

Qualities: Bamboo shoots have a great amount of fibres which helps smoothen the bowel movement. Salted fish and vegetables which are main ingredients of this soup provide vitamins and protein.

Op choei Scientific name:Cinamomum bejolghota (Buch.-Ham.) Sweet Vernacular name:Op choei

Op choei is the dried bark of a tree of Cinnamomum bejolghota. The agreeably sweet woody aroma is quite delicate and suite to both sweet and savoury dishes. The spice is widely used for flavouring in making incense, pomanders and pot-pouris. This evergreen, with silky panicles of tiny, cream, malodorous flowers and purple berries, is coppiced to create finger-thick stems for harvesting. The bark quills are added to savoury dishes in Asian and African cookery, and desserts and drink in Europe. Essential oil in the leaves, bark stems, and roots flavour and scent food and perfumes. Leaf oil is used for its antiseptic, tonic and warming properties to treat nausea, and hypertension.