Charmaine Solomon's Thai Cookbook (H)

I own this hardcover edition along with Solomon's Complete Asian Cooking book and her Encyclopedia of Asian Food. This is a physically large book, resplendent with lovely color photos and yummy recipes. I would use it for the Mee Grob alone, which I cannot get for love nor money in the Minneapolis area. The Kaeng Masaman is just like in the restaurants (I'm getting hungry) and the noodles with bbq'ed pork are great. This is a good book for those wanting to delve far into Thai cooking, but for more generic "world" cooks like me I find I actually reach more often for Solomon's "Complete Asian Cooking" book, which also has many tempting Thai recipes as well as recipes from at least 15 other Asian countries. However if it's only Thai you want, this is the book for you, complete with glossary of ingredients and notes on pronouncing Thai words. Beware Pad Thai lovers -- there's no recipe for it in this book.

Charmaine Solomon has written a wonderful book for all those interested in the flavours and tastes of Thai cuisine. Charmaine, now a long time resident of Sydney which boasts thousands of Thai restaurants, de-mystifies many of the staples of Thai cuisine. She easily conveys how to make a green curry paste from scratch, how to get the perfect textured fish cake and how to make a wonderful pepper and coriander marinade for chicken.The only downside to the paperback version of this book compared to the hardback version is the lack of colour photos. I have tried many of the recipes and found her writing style easy to follow and her instructions concise and clear. Charmaine also adds cultural and historical notes to round out the full picture of this great cuisine. I have had the pleasure of attending a Thai cooking class conducted by Charmaine and her husband Rueben. The book is filled with the same infectious love for cooking Asian food as her class was.

This was the most complete relatively authentic Thai cooking book I've found. It's missing Phad Thai, but otherwise is excellent, going into creating curries from scratch. The basil chicken and panang beef were especially good.