Khao Chae: Royal Thai Cuisine

Thailand is known for its amazing food, but one type of Thai cuisine that I have never written about before is Thai royal cuisine, a very special subset of Thai food historically only available at the royal palaces. Today, it can be found at a few extremely rare royal cuisine restaurants which still take the time and effort to make these special dishes in the traditionally and labor-intensive way and commoners like me can now enjoy it.

Read more: Here's a wonderful article from Michelin about Thai royal cuisine >>https://guide.michelin.com/th/en/article/features/a-guide-to-royal-thai-cuisine

My wife loves this dish, but it's rare, hard to find, and a bit of an ordeal to put together. However, she ordered it in for us for a special occasion a while back. When the package arrived, I didn't quite know what to make of it. There was a small box of food, a package of rice, and something that looked like a water bottle. However, Pinky quickly got to work assembling this special dish for us.

Khao chae was developed during the reign of King Rama II, modified and adapted from an ancient Mon recipe. Khao chae is meant to be enjoyed cold. It's a delicate and elegant dish designed for the royal family and was served at the palace during the summer months. As ice was historically not available in Thailand, water was stored in large earthenware urns in the shade to keep it cool. 

To properly enjoy this dish, you must pour the bottle of chilled flower-scented water over the jasmine rice. Normal jasmine rice won't do, however. It has to be specially prepared rice which has been rinsed in a specific way to remove all excess starch.

Royal cuisine must be prepared according to specific instructions. All bones, stems, pits, and seeds must be removed from every item, and none of the dishes can be too spicy or have an overly-strong smell or flavor. Everything is meant to be perfectly and delicately balanced.

Several items are served with the chilled and scented watered rice. I'm not 100% certain of what each one was, but every bit was extremely light and delicate. To properly eat the dish, one must take a small bite of each item in succession, alternating with a small spoonful of the rice.

 

It's a lot of fun to encounter brand-new aspects of this world-famous cuisine. Although royal cuisine is based upon central Thai cuisine (i.e. Bangkok / Ayutthaya food), it's very much its own thing. It's certainly a unique dish, and so very different from any other Thai food I've ever had before.