This book is very thorough. The question that came to mind when I opened it was that, “can a gwailo teach you things about your own food?” Yes, he can. I am a little bit ashamed by all the things I did not know. Here’s a quick look through. Despite all the nice pictures, this book is a little like a textbook so you need to be a reader. It’s not really a book you can pick up and instantly start cooking.
But if you are a foodie in any shape or form, the stuff in this book will make you want to read. I love the ‘how’ and ‘why’ parts of the book. A lot of the things he explains are things I do instinctively without really knowing the reason behind it. There’s a lot of “Aha!” moments for me with this book.
He also does not take shortcuts. He takes you through making your own curry powders for instance while today most of us will buy it ready pounded in supermarkets. The stuff in here is not hard especially if you do cook on a regular basis but it’s just time consuming. The curry powder for example, you have to dry fry the spices, then pound it and so forth.
All that pounding- makes toned arms
It takes sometime if for instance you want to make Green Curry from scratch but it’s worthwhile if you are a person who likes to cook. On top of giving you a wealth of information, he also gives you good tips, for example: when you are blending ingredients put the wet ones first at the bottom before the dry so that you don’t have to put too much water. It’s also illustrative so you can see textures and colours. This I think is very important especially if you are breaking down techniques. Also I love the fact he gives scientific names for the ingredients. But then again I am a horticulturist by training but to me it’s a great touch because I instantly know which family the fruit or vegetable comes from.
But I am getting ahead of myself. It’s easy to get lost in all the information and descriptions and fascinating things about everyday stuff you see in your kitchen. The real purpose of any cookbook is for you to COOK. So lets get to it.
For the purpose of reviewing this cookbook or any other in the future, I will choose 2 recipes at random and try it ‘as is’. One will be a relatively easy recipe and one will be a more complex recipe. If I’ve made any adjustments I will specify it and the reasons behind it. I will rate it on ease of understanding, methods specified and finally the taste of the finished product. Since this book has recipes from Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand, naturally I tried the ones not from Malaysia as I want to be on more even ground with an inexperienced cook. So I chose one from Vietnam and one from Thailand.
Mango Salad (Vietnam)
Ingredients:
2 tblsp. lime juice
2 tblsp. fish sauce
2 cloves of garlic minced
2 bird’s eye chillies sliced thinly
1 tbspn dried shrimp (pounded)
2 tbspn light brown palm sugar
4 unripe green mangos- cut into strips
½ cup red onions (sliced thinly)
½ cup Asian basil (chopped)
½ cup mint leaves (chopped)
Salt to taste
¼ cup peanuts, dry roasted and pounded
2 tbspn fried shallots
"There’s a lot of 'Aha!' moments for me with this book. "
Method:
Whisk together lime juice, fish sauce, garlic, chillies, dried shrimp and sugar until sugar dissolves
Toss mangoes and onions in the dressing
Fold in mint and basil
Top with peanuts and fried shallots and toss it lightly
Chef Says:
Danhi uses young mangos but the only adjustment I made to this is that I used two really young mangos which is pale green and two that's barely ripe so it’s more yellow. I like the mix of colours.
I like that Danhi says things like 2 tablespoons of lime juice so you know straightaway how much you need. The whole ‘juice of one lime’ can be misleading as lime comes in all sorts of sizes.
I also put in extra nuts because I love them so I used about ½ cup instead of ¼ cup.
Also pound your palm sugar beforehand so you can measure it right and it dissolves easily in the dressing.
Easy peasy, lemon squeezy
Go to page two for the Thai Green Curry review
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