The Thais Have a Word for It: <i> Yum</i> : Delicacies: In traditional Thai cuisine, <i> yums</i> stand alone as dishes to be nibbled at leisure.

When the back-to-school blues sap culinary spirits, take a lesson from cooks in the Southeast Asian kingdom of Thailand. Thai people aren’t always in the mood to toil in the kitchen, but they’re never too worn out to eat wonderful food. That’s why their cuisine includes an array of fresh, simple dishes that sparkle with intense flavors.

Thai salads make terrific autumn fare whether you’re escaping Bangkok’s turmoil in a riverside cafe or seeking an easy, appealing way to feed family and friends without wearing yourself out. Hearty, colorful jumbles of meat or seafood are intensely flavored with lime juice, chiles, cilantro and mint. Since most Thai salads are dressed without oil or cheese, they’re also intrinsically healthful and tend to please first-timers and dedicated Thai food fans alike.

I learned to love Thai salads during my Peace Corps days in Thailand. The Thai word for this particular category of dishes is yum. Unlike most Thai dishes that are created to season platefuls of plain, unsalted rice, yums stand alone as spicy, enticing dishes to be nibbled at leisure.

In Thailand, yums are either the prelude to a meal or else a stand-alone snack. These robust, fiery dishes are usually paired with ice-cold beer or whiskey-and-soda, but I find that frosty glasses of lemonade or sparkling water temper the chiles equally well.

California cuisine has ushered warm salads onto the list of dishes currently in vogue, and Thai salads fit into this niche. Meat or seafood predominates, which means they work nicely as a main course. And since they’re best served warm or at room temperature, I can do all my chopping and other preparation work in advance and then assemble the yum when I’m just about ready to serve it.

Thais prefer a meal full of contrasting flavors, and I quickly became a fan of this idea myself. I like to let my yum provide an exotic accent on a buffet of simple standards, leaving me free to enjoy my guests. Any leftovers provide me with a quick lunch or supper the day after the party.

When I use a Thai salad as part of a buffet, I keep all the other dishes as simple as possible. Tortilla chips with salsa and several kinds of olives are out when guests arrive. Along with a Thai salad, I offer a pasta salad or potato salad, made up hours in advance so that it’s cool and ready for presentation whenever I am.

For a touch of color, I saute a skilletful of sugar snap peas or snow peas in a little olive oil just until they’re shiny and brilliant green. In the same pan I saute cherry tomatoes for a minute or two, removing them when they’re shiny and before they split open. Then I season to taste with salt and pepper the peas and tomatoes and transfer them to a platter.

I round out the meal with two old Southern stand-bys that my North Carolina grandmother always used to please her guests. One is deviled eggs, which I spike with curry powder and minced green onions; the other is a homey bowl of carrot-raisin salad that the food processor can transform into a quick and easy dish.

For a more elegant meal, I start with a simple leek and potato soup, which I can make the day before, and serve either warm or chilled. Plated servings of the beef or seafood salad follow, along with garlic toast. Since this menu leaves me ready for dessert, I finish up with either coffee ice cream with butter cookies at lunch or a luxurious, cool creme caramel at dinner.

The four yum recipes that follow all use freshly squeezed lime juice for a burst of sharp, clean taste. If you’re preparing things in advance, I suggest you postpone squeezing and mixing in the lime juice until serving time because its flavor turns harsh quickly.

The beef salad is a standard in northeastern Thailand where robust grilled dishes are a specialty. It’s delicious with leftover grilled beef, so I like to cook an extra steak whenever I’m grilling or broiling beef and make this salad the following day.

In Thailand, cooks add crunch and fragrance to the beef salad with a spoonful of roasted rice powder. If you’d like to try this traditional touch, dry-fry grains of raw rice in an ungreased skillet over medium heat until they are wheaty-brown and fragrant. Then pound or grind them to a coarse, sandy powder, using a mortar and pestle or a coffee or spice grinder.

The seafood salad works just as well with shrimp alone if you can’t find or don’t care for squid and bay scallops. An attractive way to present it as finger food is to place spoonfuls of the dressed seafood in lettuce cups, which are small crisp leaves of limestone or Boston lettuce. Using a slotted spoon to do this makes the lettuce cups neater. Guests pick up a seafood-laden leaf and roll it into a tube, taquito-style, before taking a bite.

The pork salad also works well in lettuce cups. I like to garnish each cup with a sprig of fresh cilantro or a sprinkling of sliced green onions after arranging them on a serving platter.

The Southern Thai salad is rich with its creamy dressing of coconut milk and peanut butter. It works as a crudite platter for dipping as well as a composed salad to be passed at the table. Potato chips may not strike you as a traditional Thai ingredient but in this dish they are.

You can expect some oil to separate from the peanut sauce as it cools. I stir it back in before serving, but you can also pour it off. If it thickens too much, thin the peanut sauce with a little additional chicken broth.

If you like the spicy peanut sauce, also use it on satays, which are skewers of pork, chicken or shrimp, grilled or broiled. It’s also delicious on a pasta salad, tossed with sliced green onions and minced cilantro on the corkscrew pasta called rotelle and served either warm or cold.

Three exotic ingredients are called for in the following recipes: fish sauce, red curry paste and coconut milk. These are now widely available in Asian markets and even in some supermarkets. Fish sauce and red curry pastes will keep for months, the fish sauce at room temperature and the curry paste transferred from the can to a glass jar and refrigerated. Coconut milk is much more fragile once the can is opened, so be sure to chill any leftovers and use them up within a day or two.

GRILLED BEEF SALAD WITH CHILES AND FRESH MINT

(Yum Neua Yahng Nahm Toke)

1 pound flank steak, rib eye or any cut beef suited for grilling or broiling

1/2 cup chicken broth

2 green onions, trimmed and coarsely chopped, with some green tops

1/4 cup thinly sliced shallots

1 teaspoon coarsely ground dried red chiles, about

1/2 teaspoon sugar, about

1/4 cup fish sauce

Juice of 2 limes, freshly squeezed (about 1/4 cup)

1/4 cup mint leaves

Several limestone or Boston lettuce leaves

2 pickling cucumbers, peeled and thickly sliced

5 cherry tomatoes, halved

Grill or broil beef until charred or well done outside but still pink and rare at center. Let rest 10 minutes, then slice as thinly as possible, cutting across grain. (Slices should be about 2x1/2-inch or smaller.) Transfer meat and juices to large mixing bowl.

Bring chicken broth to rolling boil in small saucepan over high heat. Turn off heat and quickly stir in beef (heat again briefly if beef cools off too fast). Remove beef with slotted spoon and return to mixing bowl, reserving broth in pan.

Add green onions, shallots, chiles and sugar to beef, mixing well. Stir in about 1/2 of fish sauce and lime juice and 2 tablespoons chicken broth. Adjust seasonings to taste (more fish sauce or broth for saltiness, more lime for sour punch, little sugar to bring all together, chiles for heat).

Tear any large mint leaves in halves. Toss into salad. Arrange lettuce leaves at one end of serving platter and mound beef over top and into middle of platter. Arrange cucumbers and cherry tomato halves at other end. Serve as soon as possible. Makes 4 to 6 servings.

THAI SEAFOOD SALAD

(Yum Talay)

1/2 cup chicken broth

1/2 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined

1/4 pound small bay scallops

1/4 pound baby squid, cleaned and sliced crosswise into 1/2-inch rings

2 tablespoons lime juice, about

1 tablespoon fish sauce, about

1 teaspoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon coarsely ground dried red chiles, about

1 tablespoon thinly sliced shallot

1 tablespoon thinly sliced green onion

2 tablespoons coarsely chopped cilantro

Small handful mint leaves

Limestone, Boston or romaine lettuce leaves

Cucumber, peeled and sliced crosswise into rounds

Cilantro and mint sprigs

Bring chicken broth in small skillet to rolling boil over high heat. Add shrimp and cook about 1 minute, turning after color changes. Transfer shrimp to mixing bowl.

Add scallops and squid to skillet, cook and toss until bright white and firm on all sides. Add to shrimp. Turn off heat.

Spoon broth from skillet over seafood. Add lime juice, fish sauce, sugar, chiles, shallot and green onion and stir well. Adjust chiles, lime juice and fish sauce to taste. Add chopped cilantro and mint leaves, tearing any large ones in halves.

Using slotted spoon, mound seafood on lettuce leaves arranged on serving platter. Drizzle little extra sauce over seafood and garnish with cucumber slices and cilantro and mint sprigs. Serve at once. Makes 4 to 6 servings.

MINCED PORK SALAD WITH FRESH GINGER AND CASHEWS

(Naem Sote)

1/2 pound ground pork

1 (1-inch long) piece peeled ginger root

1/4 cup thinly sliced shallots

2 slender green onions, sliced crosswise into thin rings

1 tablespoon finely minced garlic

1/2 cup roasted salted cashews or peanuts

2 to 3 tablespoons lime juice

1/4 teaspoon sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

6 romaine or Boston lettuce leaves

6 small, whole dried red chiles or 1/2 teaspoon coarsely ground dried chiles

3 thin slices peeled ginger root

3 thin slices lime

Warm medium-size nonstick skillet over medium heat. Crumble in pork and dry-fry 3 to 4 minutes, until color changes and meat is cooked through. Turn and press meat to break down large lumps and keep from browning. Transfer to mixing bowl and let cool.

Slice 1-inch ginger crosswise into very thin circles. Stack circles and slice into thin slivers. Combine with shallots, onions and garlic. Add to pork along with cashews, 2 tablespoons lime juice, sugar and salt. Mix well. Adjust seasonings to taste, adding more lime juice or salt as needed.

Arrange lettuce leaves on one end of small platter and mound seasoned pork on leaves and in center. Garnish with chiles, additional slices ginger root and lime. Serve at once, warm or at room temperature. Makes 4 to 6 servings.

SOUTHERN THAI SALAD WITH SPICY PEANUT SAUCE

(Salaht Kaek)

6 to 8 romaine or Boston lettuce leaves

10 cherry tomatoes, halved

3 small pickling cucumbers, peeled and sliced crosswise into thick ovals

1 small onion, thinly sliced crosswise

3 hard-cooked eggs, peeled and cut lengthwise into quarters

1 cup bean sprouts

Handful potato chips

Peanut Sauce

Salt, pepper

Arrange lettuce leaves, tomatoes, cucumbers, onion slices, eggs, bean sprouts and potato chips on large platter, along with small bowl in which to serve spicy Peanut Sauce.

Lightly salt and pepper tomatoes and cucumbers, if desired. Each guest selects salad ingredients of choice, along with some spicy Peanut Sauce, either on side or as dipping sauce or drizzled over salad ingredients. Makes 6 to 8 servings.

Peanut Sauce

2 teaspoons oil

1 tablespoon finely minced garlic

1 tablespoon finely chopped onion

1 teaspoon peeled and finely minced ginger root

1/2 cup unsweetened coconut milk

2 tablespoons red curry paste

1/3 cup chunky peanut butter

2 teaspoons brown sugar, packed

1/2 cup chicken broth

1 to 2 tablespoons lime juice

1/4 teaspoon salt

Warm medium non-stick skillet over medium heat about 2 minutes and then add oil. When oil is hot, add garlic and saute until fragrant and just beginning to change color, about 1 minute. Add onion and ginger root and saute until onion is tender, 1 to 2 minutes. Add coconut milk and simmer, stirring occasionally, about 3 minutes, until sauce reaches gentle boil, has sweet fragrance and thickens slightly.

Add curry paste, mashing and lightly stirring until incorporated into sauce. Add peanut butter, brown sugar and chicken broth and simmer about 4 minutes, mashing and stirring again as needed to blend into smooth sauce. Remove from heat.

Stir in 1 tablespoon lime juice along with salt. Add more lime juice or salt if needed. Let cool to room temperature. (Some oil will separate as sauce cools. Pour off or blot off with paper towel.) Makes about 1 1/2 cups.