FOOD:Cocorino in Thailand

Coconut is the protagonist of Thai cuisine, and is often cast in starring roles. We bring you the hits 
With climate and foliage not very different from the Konkan belt, the coconut is ubiquitous in Thailand. Ask a street vendor about the ingredients of a particular dish, and chances are, he'll reply one of three — kho-kho-naat (coconut), ekk (egg) or poke (pork)! To be fair, there is also 'chi-kaan'. Forget green and red curry, as you travel from the north to the south, coconut shows up in other surprising forms. To sample most of it in one place, make sure you land in Chiang Mai on Saturday morning to eat your way through the midnight weekend market in the old city. 

Stuffed waffles 

Waffles are the vadas of Thailand, and almost every food market has a stall selling them. Options include pork, chocolate, blueberry and our tropical hero. Thai waffles are chewy and coconut is added into the batter itself, in the form of chunks of tender flesh and its milk, too. The result is a stretchy coconut loaf that could be the breakfast of suspicious vegetarians. The waffle too disappears as you move south — it's more commonly seen upwards of Chiang Mai. 

Sandwich pancake 

Spotted during breakfast hours on the streets of Bangkok, the pancake here is of the spongy, porous variety, with a crisp crust. Inside, is the all-too-familiar egg cream and salty or sweet desiccated coconut. Hiding between the two is a slathering of palm sugar syrup. In one bite, you've had enough sugar for the day. 

Coconut ice-cream 

No-no, not the tender coconut variety; this is a full-bodied mature coconut icecream topped with roasted peanuts. It is an odd combination that is churned at home using double-barrel hand-churners. At mostly five Baht, unless it's the Bankok variety, it's hard to pass it up. The taste is not delicate at all: the peanuts give a crunch more associated with a curry or a salad. If you are travelling to the very north of Thailand, beyond Chiang Rai and towards the Golden Triangle at Chiang Seam, look for cyclists peddling large aluminium drums. These either contain the icecream, or tender coconut slush. The latter makes a satisfactory compensation prize: ice water and tender coconut flesh churned into packed ice consistency that you can slurp away on, on a hot afternoon. 

Crispy pancakes 

You'd find this in Chiang Rai, Chiang Mai and Krabi, at varying prices. The foundation is a thin, crisp pancake, folded and dented to hold light egg cream and desiccated coconut. The coconut is the game changer — it comes in a salty and sweet variation, dividing the pancakes into sweet and savoury varieties. The bite-size form is insidious, as your blood stream soon finds out. At the Chiang Mai weekend market, you'd buy them at five Baht a pop, while at the Chiang Rai night market, you'd get 15 for 20 Baht. Down by Krabi, look for the lone Japanese stall that also offers a mashed taro root stuffing — that will be eight for 15 Bahts. 

Coconut dumplings 

The north of Thailand is dense with scenic motoring routes. The ride to Chiang Seam, the town where Laos, Burma and Thailand meet, winds through national parks, forests and hills for eight to 10 hours. You reach famished and weary at nightfall and the food street has killed an entire generation of fowl, insect, fish and egg-encased embryo for your dining pleasure. Even the white folk head to the Indian food cart. It's you and the cup noodles from Tesco. But if you can, find the cart with coconut dumplings. The mysterious batter is made from coconut milk and steamed into semi-liquid globules. Pop a few of these into your mouth, and then move on to the instant noodles. 

Malay pancake 

As you travel down to the south towards Krabi and the island, you'll meet Muslim Malay women making their way up, towing pancake carts behind them. The Malay pancake is made out of refined flour dough. To thin them out into rotis, the women hold down one end of the flattened ball and stretch out the other ends in circular motions. Coconut does not play a stuffing role here; it's called in at the frying stage. In its plain 'n' crispy form, the roti is shallow-fried crisp in coconut fat, shredded and then sprinkled with castor sugar and condensed milk. You could have one stuffed with bananas and flavoured with cinnamon, or just plain lemon and sugar, or all three at once. What doesn't change is a light after-taste of extra virgin coconut, quite unlike the heavy oiliness we are accustomed to.