Could someone tell me if the following terms all apply to ตุ๋น:

1. Boil.

2. Steam.

3. Stew (as in cook for a long time).

4. Double boil (using a bain marie double boiler - a pot inside another pot)

5. Double steam (basically the same as 5).

I think this word may have originated in China, as the meaning for double steaming in Cantonese is 'dun'. It could be a coincidence though.

Thanks for your help.

ตุ๋น certainly isn't a native Thai word (the tone mark shows that), and since it's used to refer to long, slow boiling in Thai-Chinese cookery, it may well be from a Chinese dialect.

BTW, your transliteration is a bit off. Initial consonant and vowel length wrong. TUN.

Thanks for that AyG. I appreciate you correcting my transliteration too.

I guess that 3, 4 and 5 are OK to use.

Double boiling/double steaming are, I believe, a Chinese technique of steaming delicate ingredients such as birds nests and sharks fin. That's not the same as TUN which probably best translates as braise or stew. The intentions of the two techniques are quite different. TUN aims to make tough cuts of meat tender.

I think you may be reading too much into the similarity to the Cantonese word which does mean double steaming. (Both Mandarin and Cantonese use the same character 燉 and have the same pronunciation, but have different meanings.)

TUN in Mandarin means to simmer or stew - same as the Thai meaning.

In short, only #3 is right.

Thanks again AyG.

I understand. The only reason I was being so persistent is because in the thai-language.com dictionary, they indicate หม้อตุ๋น as DOUBLE BOILER.

thai-language is wrong in this case.

If you do a Google image search for หม้อตุ๋น you'll see lots of pictures of slow cookers.

Dear AyG,

Thank you for that link. I'm satisfied now. Sorry to be so persistent, but I just want to get everything correct (or at least as close as I can).

Sorry for taking up your time.