Produktinformation

• Amazon-Verkaufsrang: #1934 in Bücher
• Veröffentlicht am: 2002-10-18
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• 688 Seiten

Amazon.com
"Thai cooking is a paradox," writes Australian restaurateur David Thompson in his comprehensive and thus aptly named Thai Food. "It uses robustly flavored ingredients--garlic, shrimp paste, chilies, lemongrass--and yet when they are melded during cooking they arrive at a sophisticated and often subtle elegance." Pursuing this transformation in depth, his book presents hundreds of recipes that celebrate the Thai meal while exploring its historical and cultural context. Readers will delight in the wide selection of authentic dishes like Duck and Spring Onion Soup, Grilled Beef Salad, and Green Chicken Curry with Baby Corn, and relish Thompson's vast appreciation of his subject. Though the recipes are straightforward and workable once ingredients are assembled and techniques understood, those new to Thai cooking may want a less rigorous introduction to the subject. However, anyone with an appetite to explore it on Thompson's terms will benefit immensely.

Beginning with an exploration of Thailand's history and culture, the book then presents an extended section on rice, the centerpiece of the Thai meal. The "cookbook" follows, with a systematic introduction to the Thai kitchen, ingredients, and equipment. The chapter "Food Outside the Meal" is devoted to Thai snacks and vendor food, such as Stir-Fried Crisp Fish with Holy Basil. Noodle dishes include an exemplary pad thai, and sweet dishes like Grilled Bananas with Coconut Cream and Turmeric are also offered.

Readers should know that the recipes, published primarily for an Australian audience, give ingredients in a mix of metric and American measurements and/or with nonmetric equivalents, and that nomenclature is also sometimes foreign ("minced" for "ground" meat, for example). With photos throughout, the book sets a standard for Thai cookbooks to come while helping many cooks achieve the true, richly exotic cuisine. --Arthur Boehm

From Library Journal
Thompson, an Australian chef with two Thai restaurants in Sydney, opened Nahm in London last year; shortly thereafter, it became the first Thai restaurant ever to receive a Michelin star. Somehow, he also found the time to write this huge, exhaustively researched book, focusing especially on Thai cuisine of the late 19th century, when, he believes, Thai cooking "reached an apex." Although he explores regional and peasant cooking as well, the only recorded recipes of the time are from the upper classes and those associated with the Siamese court, and Thompson has translated and adapted many of those recipes. The first section of the book provides detailed cultural and social history and a guide to the regions and regional cuisines of Thailand. Then a detailed glossary of ingredients and a guide to techniques introduce the hundreds of recipes. These are grouped into chapters on relishes, soups, curries, salads, and sides, followed by one of menus with recipes. Chapters like "Food Outside the Meal"-snacks or street foods and desserts-complete the book. Su-Mei Yu's Cracking the Coconut is an excellent introduction to Thai home cooking, but Thompson's culinary history/cookbook is unique and will be an important purchase for any Asian cookery collection.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Kurzbeschreibung
An exhaustive guide to authentic Thai cookery, by one of the world's foremost authorities on the subject, based on fifteen years of research into Thai recipes and traditional cooking techniques. 100 colour illus.