I’d consider myself a Thai food aficionado and despite having a Thai wife I do all the Thai cooking at home. I also did a 2 week intensive Thai cuisine programme at Sala Rim Nam at the Mandarin Oriental in Bangkok (fellow students included Gary Rhodes). So, even if I blow my own trumpet a bit, I’m a fecking brilliant Thai cook who will cook for Thai people. I don’t do much well in life, but I can cook.
So in my advice the absolute best book you can get on Thai Cuisine is called ‘Thai Food’ by David Thompson. Despite the somewhat unimaginative name it’s absolutely magnificent and will have authentic recipes from basic stuff all the way to Royal cuisine.
Some tips I can give you to make the food taste authentic and avoid the mistakes most Brits make when they try to cook Thai food at home (in order of importance)
1. Do NOT under any circumstances use supermarket own curry paste (inevitably someone is going to pop in here and say Sainsbury’s do a cracking green curry paste or whatever but they are wrong it’s not authentic) so if you don’t make your own paste then buy from a Thai company on amazon (Mae Ploy, Thai Boy etc). Likewise, absolutely nothing from Blue Dragon or Sharwoods should be anywhere near your wok. I’m serious
2. Make sure you don’t serve it piping hot. Those of you who have been to Thailand will note that typically Thai dishes will be left to hang around for a couple of minutes to Cool slightly. The reason is obvious - all those complex flavour combinations are wasted if you eat it piping hot as you won’t be able to taste it
3. Avoid substituting European ingredients for Thai ones as far as possible. Certainly don’t substitute European Basil for Thai Basil as a bare minimum. If you can get the slightly funkier ingredients like Galangal, Kaffir etc in your local supermarket (should be fine if you live in London, probably trickier if you live somewhere where people have gravy more than once a week but then Amazon is your friend). Likewise you must use the correct chilli type where specified (mostly will be birds eye but also banana chillies are used very frequently). Also if the recipe says use palm sugar then use palm sugar not granulated sugar. Makes a massive difference
4. Use chicken thigh/leg meat instead of breast meat. Breast meat will end up dry and it has basically zero flavour.
5. Thai cuisine is mostly all about the preparation. The cooking part is relatively simple.
6. Have fun! It’s very rewarding
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