The name alone commands respect. An Australian-born chef whose deep understanding of harmony and integrity of flavour in Thai cookery is such that he seasons, seemingly, without even looking. David Thompson pauses to taste a hot and sour soup, then without missing a beat, dips his hand into one of the many canisters set up around his Sydney restaurant, Long Chim, and throws a measure of whatever is in there into the wok over his shoulder as he walks away. Almost like he’s warding off a curse.
He places a few cloves of garlic and some salt in a mortar and pestle and loosely pounds it into a rough paste, takes a handful of raw, fresh sugar snap peas, and fires up a hot wok, the gas jets spewing a thick stream of blue heat. “This is an unorthodox method that no classic wok cook would do,” says Thompson, “but gives the peas a snappy redolent zing.”
He tosses them in the dry wok till their fat bellies start to blacken and blister and adds a spoonful of rendered pork fat, coating the peas in a luxuriously rich and sweet glaze. He adds the garlic, stir-fries briefly and turns off the wok. He then seasons everything with a splash of fish sauce, water and a pinch of sugar. That’s it. “The simplicity [of this dish] matches my fastly deteriorating mind – it’s a loving marriage.”
Simplicity isn’t exactly what the chef is known for. In his highly celebrated ‘big pink book’, the silk covered Thai Food, his curry recipes are enough to turn even the most dedicated and enthusiastic home cook to a quivering mess. His follow up book, Thai Street Food, is a love letter to the Bangkok street corners and alleys he’d been frequenting since his first visit to Thailand in the mid-80s. Capturing the memory of those flavours would be like trying to bottle lightning.
He is uncompromising, difficult and exacting. A preternaturally gifted cook with a rigour that leaves the casual observer wobbly. Which is why every chef in the kitchen stops, and takes out their phone to record him cooking a chicken curry. He starts by chopping up raw chicken thigh till it’s almost a hand-cut mince, folding through chillies as he chops, ignoring the cameras, intent only on building flavour. It’s a special thing to watch up close. The fluidity, the ease, the gimlet eye.
“My problem is, I think too much.You know, sometimes you run your mind, you scratch the surface, and then all of a sudden, there’s that echo chamber that can often occur at 3am. But I’m quite lucky. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become more content.”
His To Do List would beg to differ.
This is an excerpt from issue 2 of Swill. Grab a copy of Swill today to read the whole thing!
