This is (almost above all else) a lovely book. Silky pages and full-color photographs make it nearly as home on your coffee table as in your kitchen. The book begins with a gentle lesson in the geography of the region, complemented by the subsequent travelogue throughout the various chapters. The authors do an admirable job of both showing the uniting cultural forces of the region as well as the differences: many peoples populate these chili-laden and war-torn lands.
The cooking begins, appropriately enough, with sauces, chile pastes, and salsas. Fresh Chile-Garlic Paste is vastly easy, delicious, and the perfect complement to otherwise bland dishes (particularly chicken). Occasionally, as is the case with Thai Fish Sauce with Hot Chiles, the recipe simply consists of combining store-bought fish sauce with chiles, which seems rather like a cheat, although I suppose no one really wants to know how to make their own fish sauce, or would make their own even with directions.
Most of the soups have the advantage of sounding tempting: Home-Style Pork Soup with Vegetables which is as simple as it is good, and the exotic Silky Coconut-Pumpkin Soup (try serving that to the in-laws next Thanksgiving!) Salads, with their cooling properties, are an important part of this cuisine, and the most famous may well be the Vietnamese Green Papaya Salad. A compelling concoction of papaya, tomato, star fruit, lime juice, fish sauce, garlic, chilies, shallot, peanuts, and cilantro, it is evocative of the region and a perfect complement to any summer meal.
There are many rice recipes, as might be expected, some having as much to do with a difference in technique as ingredients, such as the preparation of 'plain' jasmine rice and sticky Thai rice. Very happily, one recipe is for Fresh Noodle Sheets. I haven't been thrilled with the quality of dried rice noodle available locally, and now I have a way of making my own. More work, but well worth the effort.
The classic Pad Thai is included, that favorite of Thai restaurant goers. 23 ingredients there, and one of those is Chile-Vinegar Sauce that you've made up earlier, so, say 27. It's a commitment, more of shopping than cooking, since the dish cooks in a matter of minutes--you'll likely spend longer driving to the grocery store than actually frying. Curry noodles, Vietnamese Beef Noodle Soup--all here, and all highly flavored and delicious.
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