sawasdee's Full Review: Panurat Poladitmontri et al - Thailand: The Beauti...
It was 10 am on the morning after my 24th birthday and the doorbell was ringing. Having gone out the night before to celebrate, I wasn’t particularly keen on crawling out of bed to answer the door. Until, of course I looked out of the window and saw the UPS man walking away from my door holding a box that just HAD to be a birthday present for me! After yelling out the window that I would be right down, I rushed to get my package and find out exactly what it was.
Minutes later, I was sitting in the middle of the floor in my living room, sounded by packages, and one of the most beautiful books I had ever seen in my life. It was titled Thailand the Beautiful Cookbook, a gift that my best friend had sent me knowing how I missed the Thai food that I grew up with. I spent well over an hour looking through the book, exclaiming in delight when I found recipes for some of my favorite dishes.
While looking through the book, I discovered that I had all the ingredients on hand for Curried Shrimp, a dish that I loved but had never known how to cook before. Anyone want to take a guess what I had for lunch that day? What impressed me (well, one of many things that impressed me) was that this cookbook was very well written. The language was precise and clear, making the recipe extremely easy to follow, and the results were outstanding. One bite of my lunch and I was transported right back to my mother’s kitchen in Bangkok, Thailand, where I had grown up eating such delicious meals as these almost every day.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I am a pretty decent cook, and am well known amongst my friends as someone who’s daring enough to try mixing the oddest combinations of foods to get fantastic results. However, I had never really ‘learned’ to cook while I was still in Thailand, instead having taught myself bits and pieces here and there until to the American palette at least, my dishes were extremely exotic. However, having grown up eating the genuine stuff, I knew that my Thai cooking was not quite up to par. Until I got this book that is. After following the recipes in this book, and adding in a little experimentation of my own, my cooking abilities have increased well beyond what they originally were just 6 months ago. And now, all my food is genuinely Thai – I know this, because each bite is a taste of ‘home’ for me.
I would recommend this cookbook to every single person who enjoys Thai food. The recipes cover almost every single style of food imaginable, from Pad Thai and Tom Yum soup – dishes that most people are familiar with from having eaten in the numerous Thai restaurants popping up all over the place – to some of the lesser known dishes, such as the elaborate Pla Dook Foo (Catfish with green mango and lime) or Ba Mee Naam (Noodle soup) which is the staple of every Thai persons palette, much as hamburgers and French fries are here in the US.
The cookbook also includes recipes for a number of Thai desserts, all of which are delicious. Some, admittedly, will seem rather unappetizing to those who are not used to them – that is until they are made and tasted. I have made a number of the desserts as well, since I got the book, and have been thrilled with the results every time.
For those who unlike me, find the ingredients used to make Thai food a total mystery, there is a section explaining what many of the items are and showing what they look like. This comes in extremely handy when shopping for the ingredients. As it is, the bigger grocery stores carry many of the more common ingredients now, with Thai food having become such a craze. The rest can easily be found in Asian food markets where prices undoubtedly will be cheaper than they are in grocery stores.
Not only does this book give us recipes for some of the most delicious dishes ever created; it also has beautiful illustrations and photos of prepared foods. It seems as if no expenses were spared in the creation of this work of art, as I found page after page of full color photos. Here dishes were shown served up in traditional Thai cookware, making this book worthy of a place of honor on a coffee table instead of in the kitchen. The images give you many ideas of how to serve up the foods to make them look even more attractive, and to tantalize you as you prepare the meal.
Once again, I can’t say how much I enjoy owning this book. It is a work or art in itself, and at the same time has helped me create a great number of culinary masterpieces and even taught me how to be an even better cook in the process. I will admit that it is a little pricey (Approximately $45 at Amazon.com– I am not sure I would have bought it for myself if I hadn’t gotten it as a gift. But now that I own it, I think it is worth every penny, and would willingly pay much more than that for the book. So if you are already familiar with the kitchen, and are trying to expand your cooking repertoire, this just might be the perfect book for you!
And may I recommend the Curried Shrimp? I do believe it is on page 109 or somewhere close to there!
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