#141 in Cookbooks, food & wine books
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Reddit mentions of Thai Food
Sentiment score: 8
Reddit mentions: 11
We found 11 Reddit mentions of Thai Food. Here are the top ones.
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- Ten Speed Press
Features:
Specs:
Color | Multicolor |
Height | 9.82 Inches |
Length | 7.01 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Release date | August 2002 |
Weight | 4.1 Pounds |
Width | 1.71 Inches |
Agree with /u/X28.
Andrea's book should be considered as a primary text for Vietnamese cooking (much like David Thompson's Thai Food for Thai, or Paul Bocuse: The Complete Recipes for French).
Luke's books are great (as well as his shows that sort of accompany the books, or the other way around).
Asia's a big, ancient place. Even within each nation there are unique styles of regional and ethnic fare.
With that in mind, I'd love to see some recommendations here for awesome Indian, Filipino, Hmong, Uzbek, etc. cookbooks.
Japanese
Lets get beyond sushi and hibatchi.
Shizuo Tsuji's Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art is a great starting point. If you want to get technical you should check out Ando's Washoku or Hachisu's Preserving the Japanese Way.
If you want to start simple, Hachisu also has a great book on Japanese Farm Food. Ono and Salat have written a great noodle slurping opus in Japanese Soul Cooking.
Chinese
What we've come to think of as Chinese food in the US is a natural part of human appropriation of food styles, but with all due respect to Trader Vic's, crab rangoon and other buffet staples really aren't the real deal. Food in China is extremely regional. You don't have to go very deep to see the vast differentiation in spicy Schezwan recipes and Cantonese Dim Sum culture.
For your reading pleasure:
Mastering the Art of Chinese Cooking Eileen Yin-Fei Lo.
Breath of the Wok by Grace Young and Alan Richardson.
Phoenix Claws and Jade Trees by Kian Lam Kho and Jody Horton.
All Under Heaven: Recipes from the 35 Cuisines of China by Carolyn Phillips.
Some people might freak out that I'm placing Erway's The Food of Taiwan under the Chinese category, but I'm not going to get into a political debate here. Taiwan has had a lot of different culinary influences due to migration / occupation and that is really the take away here.
Go forth, make bao.
Korean
Korea is having it's moment right now and if you want the classics, Hi Soo Shin Hepinstall's Growing up in a Korean Kitchen is a good baseline. It has all the greatest hits.
You also can't cook Korean food without kimchi. The only book I've read is Lauryn Chun's The Kimchi Cookbook which is kind of underwhelming considering the hundreds of styles of Kimchi that have been documented. The process of making kimchi (kimjang) even has a UNESCO world heritage designation. With that in mind, I think it's only a matter of time before we see a English book on the subject that has depth.
Given the cuisine's popularity, there are several other cookbooks on Korean food that have recently been published within the last year or so, I just haven't gotten around to reading them yet, so I won't recommend them here.
Thai
David Thompson's Thai Food and Thai Street Food are both excellent. /u/Empath1999 's recommendation of Andy Ricker's Pok Pok is excellent but it focuses on Northern Thai cuisine, so if you want to venture into central and southern Thai fare, Thompson's the other farang of note.
Vietnamese
Nguyen's Into the Vietnamese Kitchen provides a nice survey to Vietnamese cooking. Charles Phan also has a couple of cookbooks that are quite good but I'm sure that there are zealots out there who would bemoan authenticity in either Vietnamese Home Cooking or The Slanted Door, but seriously, who gives a shit, the dude has Beard Awards under his belt for fuck's sake.
TL;DR OP means well but its long past time to bury "Asian" as a catch-all for such a large and diverse part of a continent, no?
FYI I'd recommend this book if you're into Thai Food
I got my first copy many years ago and it's a bit of a Thai food Bible.
Fuschia Dunlop is a good source for Chinese food. Her published recipe for Kung Pao Chicken is pretty killer. Eileen Yin-Fi Lo is also a well respected Chinese recipe author, check out My Grandmother's Chinese Kitchen.
For Thai Food, Andy Ricker's Pok Pok is pretty interesting (and the restaurants are pretty awesome). There's also a tome, simply called Thai Food from David Thompson, as an outsider, looks complete and exhaustive (it's also daunting to me, but nice to have).
Hot Sour Salty Sweet also features Thai (as well as other SE Asian flavors). And I really like Asian Flavors of Jean-Georges as a more upscale cookbook.
Also, I find this little, unsung book to be a great resource. It has fairly simple recipes that can yield some nice flavors, great for weeknight dishes.
And, Momofuku is a fun contemporary twist with some good basics, but it's not a beginner book by any stretch!
Finally, The Slanted Door is on my wishlist. Looks divine.
Well, I'm half-Chinese. I'll give you two cookbook recommendations which are full of recipes which really resonate with that part of my background:
In addition to the aforementioned Chinese food, I'm just a fat piggy who loves to eat. Here are a few more recs:
Feel free to drop me a line if you need more recommendations. I've got quite the cookbook collection (I love to cook, it's not just cookbook porn) and love to share my thoughts.
Pick a classic in a cuisine with which you're generally unfamiliar but for which you feel confidant you can get good ingredients. A few ideas:
You'll be forced to learn new techniques and deal with new ingredients, and get a sense of an entire cooking tradition. Any of those books will give you at least a small sense of the culture that inspired the cuisine, the human context, in addition to culinary knowledge.
Thai
http://www.amazon.com/Thai-Food-David-Thompson/dp/1580084621
http://www.amazon.com/Simple-Thai-Food-Classic-Recipes/dp/1607745232
http://www.amazon.com/Pok-Stories-Roadside-Restaurants-Thailand/dp/1607742888
My favourites for a few of the countries you list:
> Thailand
https://www.amazon.com/Thai-Food-David-Thompson/dp/1580084621/
> India
https://www.amazon.com/India-Cookbook-Pushpesh-Pant/dp/0714859028/
> Korea
https://www.amazon.com/Growing-up-Korean-Kitchen-Cookbook/dp/1580082815
a giant granite mortar and pestle is a good tool to have. This is a good book, as long as you can track down the ingredients. Andy Ricker's is probably also good, as I'm sure David Thompson's other book is too.
Yeah, yummo, love Tom Kha Gai, so quick and easy to make for something that impresses the pants off people. I usually add baby corn, bean sprouts, coriander to mine. I also add quite a bit more chilli.
Have you made Tom Yum? Similar but a thinner broth with no coconut milk made by boiling up prawn (shrimp) shells and heads.
David Thompson's book is amazing.
Basically gonna echo most of the answers already posted, but just to pile on:
Cookbooks
Nothing inspires cooking like a good cookbook collection. The great news about cookbooks is that they're often bought as gifts or souvenirs and they make their way onto the used market cheap and in great condition. Here are my suggestions for a great starter shelf: