"Nice Evening, innit?" I mused to the lady at the checkout, not expecting a response.
"It certainly is," she answered as if to prove me wrong.
Between scanning the barcode of the mushrooms and the baby corn and while maintaining eye contact, she dug within a bottomless plastic bag under her register and hastily flung 5 sachets of the mysterious sample into the Lord Vader grocery swag. She made no comment about her actions, accepted the money, and we parted ways. I shall probably never see her again.
The Thai Seasoning is not to be eaten from a spoon on its own. It's a far more social animal than that. Yet it does not mix with milk, nor many other beverages. Its use as a substitute for hops in a batch of beer would be utter madness and result in cursing and hysterical lamentation.
The instructions read: Simply coat meat...
"Right," I thought, "That's precisely what they're expecting me to do then." The only way to examine its taste then would be to stir-fry a potato (cut into 1.5ish cm lumps), and see how this powder reacted to that manner of treatment.
For best results, the seasoning should only be added closer to when the potatoes are cooked and coming out of the wok - and not when they are on their way in. Too much heat for prolonged periods will cause the seasoning to burn and create smoke. I imagine it to do the same on the barbeque with the aforementioned meat.
The taste is a mix of garlic, lemon grass and turmeric. The rest of the ingredients blend into the background, and while there's a hint of the chilli feeling, there's little of it to taste.
It will fill a kitchen with a pleasant aroma.
It is a bugger to get the little black bits out of your teeth.
Reviewed on Tuesday, 26 September 2006