South East Asian Cookbooks I: Thai and satay

I was always fascinated by exotic cuisine. Maybe it has to do with personal history: my childhood was spent in a time (and places) where nothing much existed apart from pseudo-Chinese restaurants. That, together for my curiosity for other cultures, is probably the cause why I'm always ready to try something new, is it a restaurant or a recipe. Sort of as if I had to make up for time lost. I "discovered" the cuisine of Southern Asia (or better of India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia) in the year I lived in England and my fascination with the recipes and traditions of these countries has been growing ever since. My book collection has also been growing :-), so I thought I'll take the chance, with this and tomorrow's post, to talk about two books I quite enjoyed and tried out. I'll start today with David Thompson's Thai Food.

Thompson's book describes a cuisine that's miles away from the first "chinese" dishes that my dad would cook every now and then (and which I still remember fondly) from a small recipe book he bought in the states: cellophane noodle soup, fried rice and a curried meatball dish with sprouts, mushrooms and onions (does that even exist in Chinese cuisine?). The book is divided in an introductory and a recipe section, both very exhaustive. First the cooking.

The recipes in the book make no compromise on ingredients, taste or preparation methods. They're taken straight from the Thai tradition with no "western" adaptation. They call for the proper and original ingredients, heat levels :-) and lots of mortar pounding! Quite early one understands that this is no beginners book: short recipe descriptions although sometimes IMO not 100 percent clear. What I find really helpful is the description of how most recipes should taste, something more cookbooks should do. The only thing I would improve is the ingredient description. A couple of photos wouldn't have gone amiss, considering how often some of these ingredients go under other names here in the west. But what makes the book great (or one of the things) is that it manages to transmit many different aspects of Thai cooking: from direct, simple and fresh dishes, to elaborate ones, that work through a delicate balance of strong flavours, ending with dishes, like many sweets, that seem more a work of art than something to eat (though I bet they taste great).

What I liked even more than the recipes is the introductory cultural historic chapters. This information is great to put the food into context. This sort of read always makes a cookbook shine to my eyes. I believe food has to be seen in its cultural context otherwise it loses a lot of the meaning it has, otherwise it becomes just a pile of nourishing substances. On the other hand this chapters made me understand that a nation's culinary history is a bit like an onion (sort of like ogres), or in this case a red shallot :-). Once you get over a superficial knowledge you get to a new "layer" of notions. After a while you discover there's more to know, you have questions... and this can go on and on I guess. This book had exactly this effect on me: I know a bit more about Thai cooking but I'm now a ware that I know so little. I want MORE!!!

One aspect that might be missed at first sight about this book is how little Thompson appears in the book. Given he's so famous, that he's a starred chef (although not everyone is so enthusiastic about his cooking), that's quite unusual. This other very well written review makes a very good point about it.

Reading through the book I found loads of very stimulating recipes to try. Also loads of very frustrating ones, for me. Unless I plan to drive to Berlin I have no chance of finding most of the needed ingredients :-(. Still I managed to find a couple that I could cook. The first test was satay, maybe not the most exotic of choices, but one does what one can :-).

The recipe comes from Mom Luang Nuang who is:

a grand daughter of Princess Sabai Nillaruttana, the head of the royal kitchen preparation for HRH Princess Saisawaleepirom, a wife of King Rama V
Since the recipe linked above gives no amounts here they are:

Mom Luang Nuang's Satay

200g filet of pork (or chicken, or beef)
1/2 cup coconut cream
1 tsp turmeric
1 Tbs condensed milk
1 Tbs palm sugar (I had to use dark sugar)
2 Tbs fish sauce
a little Thai whisky (used aged schnaps here)

4 Tbs chopped red shallot
pinch salt
3 Tbs ground roasted peanuts
1 Tbs coriander roasted
1 Tbs cumin

5-6 long chillies
pinch salt
3 red shallots
1/2 cup white vinegar
1-2 Tbs superfine sugar

Above you see the result, and yes I forgot to make the chilli sauce. Or actually, once we managed to get Saami in bed I was so tired that I just cooked the meat and some rice and used some of the marinade as sauce. Probably a crime against good food as serving pasta with no sauce would be. I hope you can excuse me. That's one of the side effects :-) of having a small kid who's ill, I guess. Apart the evident lack of heat the satay were really tasty, with the ingredients of the marinade well balanced except maybe a bit too much cumin. Definitely worth another try, with chilli sauce next time.

Comments

[Wena]

well done! not easy to make satay especially the spicy peanut sauce. malaysians would search high and low for delicious satay. my granny is addicted to them. great satay is judged by :

amount of chicken/beef meat on the sticks i.e. no fat!
the peanut sauce!!! note of caution : goes bad very very fast. can probably keep for about 1-2 days in the fridge. after that, has to be thrown away.

oh wait a min! sorry! just realised that there's no peanut in the sauce! woopps! errr... too lazy to edit the posting. anyway, peanut sauce is addictive and absolutely *swoon* divine. :)

thai food is not easy to prepare and like pim mentioned, it's usually decided by what the customers want it to taste like as they are the ones that determines the survival of a restaurant.

methinks time for a trip to thailand. :) cheap on www.airasia.com. but that's from malaysia. thai airways have great bargains during summertime. :)

[glovefox]

I'm Malaysian and I can tell you two things:

1. There IS peanut in satay dipping sauce.
2. Malaysia is in Southeast Asia, not South Asia. India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan are South Asia. Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Phillipines, Thailand are considered Southeast Asia.

[Alberto]

glovefox: before posting this I checked quite a few satay recipes, on the web and a couple of books, and I found so many differences that one could write an satay-only book, I guess. Maybe you could point me to a good recipe for Malay satay, with peanuts in the dipping sauce :-). I'd be more than happy to try.
About South Asia. Sorry. Didn't want to upset anyone. Was just looking for a general term for S and SE Asia together. Hope You'll excuse this silly European :-).

[Wena]

after re-reading the posting i put up, realised that i made major grammatical errors.

when i mentioned that i realised that there weren't any peanuts in the satay sauce, i meant the recipe posted up by alberto. talk about being a real ding-a-ling.

as for the part of being in south/southeast asia, nothing to apologize about alberto. even i get confuse! sometimes, southeast asia is known is southwest of the pacific i.e. pacific ocean is the reference point for american reporters, that is. well, when it comes into open from business mags anyway.

[Renee]

hi Alberto,
nice review about the book. I've actually heard quite abit about this book, with some people highly recommending it, and some more ambivalent, so it was nice to read another point of view. I've been debating whether to get the book, as I'm REALLY trying to cut back on cookbook purchases due to space constraints : p.
I haven't gotten a chance to flip through the book as it seems to be out of print (?), so haven't been able to decide for myself if it would be worth my while.

as for satays... I'm trying hard to recall if it is a "true blue" Thai dish... or perhaps one influenced / inspired by Malaysia (one of Thailand's closest neighbours).
the M'sian satay has a different marinade for the meat, and the sauce (as already mentioned) is made up of ground peanuts, chilli and some spices all fried and cooked together.

but even in South East Asia (namely S'pore, M'sia)... they are variations to Satay... the Malay satay & sauce, and the Chinese satay & sauce
(so, not to worry about being confused... even we South East Asians get confused sometimes!)

if I manage to find my satay sauce recipe, I'll send it to you... it's been years since i've even looked at it (so much easier for us to just go out and buy a big tub of the stuff from whichever hawker we feel makes it the best - no pounding, frying and cleaning :) ).

[Alberto]

Renee: I think you're right thinking that satay is not a true blue thai recipe. I chose it mainly because of ingredient availability. Thompson doesn't say anything specific on this dish, ast least as far as influences goes, but states, in the introductory chapters, that quite a few thai dishes have "foreign" influences: malay, chinese, indian even portugese (for the yolk sweets).

If you find your recipe I'll be happy to try, otherwise... I'll just start planning and saving for a trip to SE Asia ;-)

[Wena]

link to malaysian cooking :

http://kuali.com