Wok, Noodles and Soy Sauce: The Chinese Influence on Thai Food

Walk into almost any Thai noodle shop and you are eating Chinese history. The wok on the burner, the rice noodles in the basket, the bottles of soy sauce on the counter and the pork hanging behind the glass all arrived with Chinese migrants, who have been settling in Thailand for centuries. Over time their food became so much a part of daily life that most Thais simply think of it as Thai.

That blending is one of the defining features of Thai cooking, especially in Bangkok and the Central Plains. Understanding it explains why a Thai menu can move from a fiery coconut curry to a mild bowl of rice porridge without anyone thinking it strange.

Who came, and when

Chinese merchants traded with Siam long before Bangkok existed, and there were Chinese communities at Ayutthaya, the old capital. The great wave of migration came later, in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when large numbers of men left southern China to work in Siam as labourers, traders and shopkeepers. Many married Thai women, and their children grew up in both cultures.

Most of the migrants came from a handful of groups in southern China, and each left its own mark on the food:

Teochew, from the area around Shantou and Chaozhou, by far the largest group in Bangkok. Much of Thai-Chinese everyday cooking, from rice porridge to braised pork, comes from this tradition.
Hokkien, from Fujian, who settled early and in large numbers on the southern coast, particularly in Phuket.
Hainanese, from Hainan Island, remembered in Thai food above all for chicken rice.
Hakka and Cantonese, smaller communities who brought their own noodles, roast meats and dim sum.

When Bangkok was founded as the capital in 1782, the Chinese traders living on the site chosen for the Grand Palace were moved a little downriver to the area around Sampheng. That district grew into Yaowarat, Bangkok's Chinatown, which remains the symbolic home of Chinese-Thai food.

The wok and the stir-fry

Before Chinese influence, most Thai cooking was done by boiling, grilling, steaming and pounding. Curries were simmered in clay pots and chilli dips were made in the mortar. The wok, known in Thai as kata, brought a new method: fast frying over a fierce heat with a small amount of fat.

Stir-frying, or pad, is now so central to Thai cooking that it is hard to imagine a menu without it. Dishes such as pad kra pao and pad pak boong, stir-fried morning glory, are cooked in a wok in a minute or two. Many are Chinese in technique but Thai in flavour, seasoned with fish sauce, chilli and holy basil.

Noodles and soy sauce

Apart from khanom jeen, the fermented rice noodles often said to have Mon roots, most Thai noodles are Chinese in origin. The everyday word for rice noodles, kuay teow, comes from the southern Chinese name for flat rice noodles, and egg noodles are called ba mee, again from Chinese. Noodles are still the one food many Thais eat with chopsticks, while rice is eaten with a spoon and fork.

Rice noodles come in several widths: sen yai, the wide flat sheets; sen lek, the medium strands used in pad Thai; and sen mee, the thin vermicelli. Each suits different dishes, and a noodle stall will usually ask which one you want.

Soy sauce came with them. Thai kitchens use light soy sauce for seasoning, dark sweet soy sauce for colour and caramel depth, and seasoning sauces that sit somewhere between the two. Oyster sauce, fermented soybean paste (tao jiao) and tofu are all part of the same inheritance. Pad see ew is the clearest example: wide rice noodles fried in a hot wok with dark soy sauce, egg and Chinese broccoli (kana), with pork or chicken, until the edges of the noodles char slightly.

Pork and the roast meat shop

Pork is eaten widely in Thailand today, and Chinese cooking did a great deal to put it at the centre of the table. Chinese families raised pigs, sold pork and brought with them ways of roasting, braising and curing it that are still everywhere.

Moo daeng, the red-glazed roast pork, and moo krob, crisp roast pork belly, hang in the windows of shops across the country and are served over rice with a sweet, thick gravy. Chinese-style sausages (kun chiang) and slow-braised pork are just as familiar.

Khao kha moo, braised pork leg over rice, may be the most loved of these dishes. The pork is simmered for hours in soy sauce, sugar and five-spice until it is dark, glossy and soft enough to cut with a spoon. It is served on rice with a boiled egg from the same pot, pickled mustard greens, Chinese broccoli and a sharp chilli and garlic vinegar to cut through the richness. A closely related braise, palo, uses the same spiced, sweet soy broth for pork and eggs at home.

The rice bowl dishes

Several of the most common one-plate meals in Thailand are Chinese dishes that settled in and slowly changed. Khao man gai, the Thai form of Hainanese chicken rice, is served with a fermented soybean sauce sharpened with chilli and ginger that is distinctly Thai. Jok, the smooth rice porridge, is a breakfast fixture, and its thinner cousin khao tom is eaten at any hour.

Kuay jap, a Teochew dish, is usually rolled rice noodles in a clear, peppery broth with crispy pork belly and offal. A different soup sold in the northeast as kuay jap yuan, with chewy rice noodles in a milder pork broth, came to Thailand by another route, through Vietnam.

Late at night, many cities have raan khao tom, Chinese-Thai rice soup shops where plain rice soup is the base for a table of small shared dishes: salted egg, stir-fried greens, omelette, pickled vegetables and dried fish. It is one of the best examples of how Chinese and Thai ways of eating came together.

The shophouse restaurant

Much of this food is cooked in shophouses, the narrow terraced buildings with a business on the ground floor and the family living above. They line the older streets of Bangkok and most Thai towns, and many were built by or for Chinese merchants. A shophouse restaurant often specialises in one thing, braised pork, roast duck or a single noodle soup, and the recipe may have passed through several generations of the same family.

These kitchens are where the Chinese and Thai traditions meet most clearly. A cook may use a Teochew braising method and then set a dish of fish sauce and fresh chillies beside the bowl. Diners add their own seasoning from the condiment caddy, a Thai habit applied to Chinese food.

Seeing it for yourself

Yaowarat is the obvious place to start, but Chinese-Thai food is everywhere once you know how to look. A few things to try:

Order khao kha moo at a shop with a large pot of dark braised pork on the counter, and ask for an egg.
Try pad see ew and its gravy-covered cousin, rad na, side by side to see two uses of the same wide noodles.
Eat jok or kuay jap for breakfast, when they are freshest.
Visit a Chinese shrine or temple during Chinese New Year or the Vegetarian Festival, when food stalls gather around it.
Look for the roast meat shops with ducks and pork belly hanging in the window, and order a mixed plate over rice.

The Chinese influence on Thai food is not a separate cuisine sitting alongside the rest. It runs through the whole of it, from the morning bowl of porridge to the late-night wok, and it is a large part of why Thai food is as varied as it is.