Sensational news! My first cookbook collaboration project is releasing on August 25. I've been working on it for over two years with a dear friend and extraordinary chef, Pim Techamuanvivit. She's the chef and restauranteur behind three Michelin-starred Thai restaurants in San Francisco (Nari and Kin Khao) and Bangkok (Nahm). I've long wanted and needed a Thai cookbook that explained key techniques, flavors, and ingredients. Pim asked me to help her on the cookbook making journey and I leapt at the chance to get a master class on Thai cuisine. Cooking Thai book is beautiful and useful. It's packed with information and recipes that you'll cook from for years. We'll certainly be cooking from it for a long time.
Get an inside look at Cooking Thai in this video
Chances are you won't be seeing us at book talk nearby. No problem! You can learn about the book at your leisure by watching this virtual book talk. It's a Zoom video playback of a virtual book talk Pim and I did for the International Association of Culinary Professionals. I've been a long-time member of the guild, which is for anyone interested in the food industry.
You'll understand how we structured the book so you can max out on its valuable contents.
Thai ingredients and explainers
How to handle chili heat? Many people are concerned about the chile heat in Thai cooking. I get it. It's like the Paul Simon song, "One Man's Ceiling Is Another Man's Floor". Chili heat is central to Thai cuisine but you won't incinerate while using this book. For instance, post-menopause me is a moderate-to-light heat seeker. There are tips in the book's 'frontmatter' (front section) to explain what you need. Additionally, we identify the chile types and how you can dial up or down the heat. Here's a page from the ingredient discussion that we mention in the video.
There are ten (10) recipe chapters total. As mentioned in the video, the recipe are written to help you master techniques and flavors. Be sure to peruse the "Anatomy of a recipe" for a sense of the Cooking Thai ground rules.
In the recipe chapters, pages like the one below are major explainers of key Thai culinary concepts. Here, the explainer is about what laab is and how it's enjoyed. We want you to understand the basic principles, use our recipes to craft great Thai flavors, then create your own with confidence.
Other 2-page spreads contain recipes. Here are the formulas for making som tum beyond the usual green papaya version. As Pim says in the video -- you can't always get green papaya!
100 recipes for cooking the best Thai food
Recipes in the book range from easy to complex projects. For a taste of a very easy, riffable recipe, check out the savory citrus-herb salad that Georgia Freedman shared in her recent newsletter dispatch My California Table. You can make the salad (below, left) with summertime fruits like nectarines and plums too.
Other recipes, like khao soi (above right), northern Thai chicken and coconut noodle soup is a tasty project. Pim's recipe is a signature of her restaurant, Kin Khao. You'll want to make it over and over. It freezes well too.
All 100 recipes in Cooking Thai were photographed by Ed Anderson (who was among the recipe testers) and styled by Alison Attenborough. To whet your appetite . . .
What are these dishes? From the top left: roasted sweet potato massaman curry, curry puffs done with chicken plus a veggie version, Kin Khao chicken wings (a favorite at Pim's restaurant), crab rice noodles, grilled tofu, chicken and lamb, crab with black pepper, and seared scallop in spicy coconut sauce.
Here's a 2-page spread of one of my favorite meals from the book -- Thai grilled chicken, som tum salad, lettuce and herbs, sticky rice, and two sauces -- jaew and Thai "chicken" sauce.
Cooking Thai cookbook FAQ
How were recipes developed tested? These are mostly Pim's recipes. I've made every Cooking Thai recipe and we've written them all for home cooks. Pim was a home cook before a restaurant chef so she understands the possibilities and limits of a home kitchen. Additionally, a team of thirty recipe testers -- all home cooks -- got the ingredients, tackled the recipes, and tested them out on their family and friends.
What about vegetarian options? There are many vegetarian recipes and variations. Check the book's table of contents for the full recipe listing. We had vegans and lacto-ovo vegetarians in our recipe testing team!
How to buy Cooking Thai?
So, if you have not already purchased Cooking Thai, head to a local bookshop or check out various online vendors. If you're in the Bay Area, meet us here:
- Wed., Aug. 26, 6:30pm book talk @ Omnivore Books, SF
- Tues., Sept. 1, 7pm, book talk and tastings @ Bookshop Santa Cruz
Praise for Cooking Thai
The early reviews for the book were stunningly positive. They come from heavy hitters as well as our peers:
"Whether you're curious about Thai cuisine or are a veteran in the Thai kitchen, this book will be a revelation. It's a deep dive into the intricacies and delights of Thai food, chockful of important practical information and sparked with personal insights. Pim has long been a master of this cuisine, and in Cooking Thai we learn that she's also a brilliant teacher. We're lucky to be her students."-Dorie Greenspan, food writer, baker, and cookbook author
"This book, like everything Pim does, is an indelible achievement. Cooking Thai is a rich piece of work-rich in every sense-blending memoir, pantry‑building, and an exhaustive recipe collection that immediately sucked me in."-Yotam Ottolenghi, chef and cookbook author
"I'm buying a copy for every passionate eater I know."-Ruth Reichl, food writer and author
"Every page of Cooking Thai abounds with warmth and generosity-pulsating flavors that invite us to the table, and intimate, poignant stories that compel us to stay. It is a real privilege to learn Thai cooking from Pim Techamuanvivit and her elders."-Hetty Lui McKinnon, food writer and cookbook author
"In Cooking Thai, Pim shares her recipes with easy instructions (and substitutions for hard-to-find ingredients) so you can recreate her tantalizing dishes at home, no matter where you are."-David Lebovitz, author of Ready for Dessert, My Paris Kitchen, Drinking French, and The Great Book of Chocolate
"I've been lucky to enjoy Pim Techamuanvivit's cooking for more than twenty years, including some of the best tasting meals I can remember. I've cooked my way through over a dozen of the recipes, and the resulting meals are arguably the best (and most exciting) cooking to come out of my kitchen in memory."-Heidi Swanson, author of Super Natural Cooking
"In Cooking Thai, Pim Techamuanvivit captures the living, breathing soul of Thai food-its heritage dishes, its bold modern expressions, and the ingredient intelligence that makes it all sing. Drawing from decades of kitchen notebooks and family traditions, she guides you through curries, salads, stir-fries, noodles, and more with the rigor of a chef and the warmth of a storyteller."-J. Kenji López-Alt, author of The Food Lab, The Wok, and Every Night is Pizza Night
"This is a wonderfully creative and engaging Thai cookbook-one that's truly hard to put down once you start reading. The book is perfect for both home cooks and professionals alike, offering clever tips for cooking abroad-especially when certain ingredients are harder to find outside of Thailand."-Earl Ninsom, chef/cofounder of Langbaan, EEM, Yaowarat, and James Beard Award Outstanding Restaurant Winner
"This book is definitive. It shows that great Thai cooking is about fundamentals, which she lays out for us so simply. It's quite thrilling what you can cook from a little book like this."-Justin Pichetrungsi, James Beard Award-winning chef of Anajak Thai
"Cooking Thai is a down-to-earth, candid, practical guide, always alert to the cook's step-by-step experience, and offering alternatives and adjustments and reassurance just in case unfamiliar ingredients are hard to find or don't behave."-Harold McGee, author of On Food and Cooking, Nose Dive, and Keys to Good Cooking
We hope you enjoy Cooking Thai as much as we do!
Leave a Reply