Cracking the Coconut: Classic Thai Home Cooking

I watched Su-Mei Yu's being interviewed locally here in San Diego. After seeing it, I decided to try her restaurant here. It's a great local Thai noodle restaurant and serves her famous excellent Thai Chicken. Upon eating there twice, I decide to buy her 2 books. I absolutely love her book. Her dishes optimizes the combination of sweet, salt, sour, spicy that you REALLY can't figure out the breakdown of elements of spices when you eat the food. After making rounds at the local Asian grocery store to buy all the ingredients one afternoon (couldn't find green peppercorns or Thai white peppercorns), I adventured making her Crying Tiger dish, a Bangkok Chicken dish that they don't serve here in US. It was awesome!! My mouth still salivates when I think of this dish. It's so good that I made it again the next day for dinner. Can't wait to discover some of her other recipes. Being Asian American, Su-Mei Yu also incorporates some famous Chinese dishes as well!!

This is the best book on Thai cooking I have come across. I beleive it would be the only book I would like to be a castaway with. I have a great collection of cook books , including all the classics but this is rapidly becoming my favorite. The recipies work, the text is personal and friendly, and the illustrations marvelous. The Thai names for the recipies are funny and authentic but not found in other books. This adds to the fun of cooking the food.I have just returned from Koh Samui where I had Thai cooking classes and these recipies are right in line with what I learned. The American sustitutions are helpful for cooking here but the book tells how to be authentic too. Actually I have found most of the strange ingredients fresh here in good old Texas.I hope to visit the author's restaurant someday. A truely wonderful book. Buy it now.

Reply to Mr. Eugene Stiles' review of my book, Cracking the Coconut. Su-Mei Yu, authorThank you for taking time to read and review my book. Recognizing that cooking and eating is always a subjective experience, I welcome the opportunity to respond to your remarks. 1. In writing a cookbook merging traditional and modern Thai cooking, I chose to focus on recipes that combine basic techniques and staples. Once the basic techniques are mastered, cooking Thai food is less intimidating and time consuming. This is true with the staples used in Thai cooking. Without recipes on how to make these staples such as crispy fried garlic, crispy fried shallot, dried roasted chile in oil, or even coconut milk, the cook will have to repeat the preparation each time it is called for in a recipe. Organizing it in the book in the manner I did makes cooking easier. Besides, it's the way Thai cooks do it. 2. From my point of view, there is no comparison between canned coconut and fresh coconut cream and milk. This is just as true for coconuts purchased here in the United States. It also applies to canned curry paste. Thailand, is, as many nations today, striving to become westernized and has adapted the fast and busy lifestyle. That doesn't mean the food is better! Supermarkets, as well as local markets do sell pre-made chile pastes. Some are better than others. But this does not mean that Thai people have stopped cooking in the way described in my book. On the contrary, as Thai's have became aware of preservatives added to processed food, many have returned to traditional ways of cooking, which includes making coconut cream and milk, and chile paste. To know this you would have to spend time with traditional cooks, not just visiting restaurants.3. Regarding your claims that Americans are too busy to cook. This may be true for some, but it doesn't hold true for many others who continue to believe that good eating results from good cooking. I believe that cooking and eating are inseparable and speaks for who we are and our cultural heritage. You may wish to cook from canned goods, but there are people like myself who find pleasure in cooking from fresh ingredients. Cooking and eating for me and in traditional Thai philosophy is as much a process and social ritual as a product. Cooking and the time involved for some is pleasurable and a form of relaxation and giving. I am a busy person with a couple of restaurants, writing and engaged in community services and yet I cook everyday for myself and my family. Ultimately, it is a choice of life style. My book is directed at people who seek more from both food preparation, taste and the dining experience. This requires an emotional and time investment. Life, and how we spend our time and to what end and purposes are choices we all make. I am offering an alternative. 4. I encourage you to study Thai recipes closely, or perhaps eat with a more discriminatory palate. Ob

I am always trying to find new and fun cookbooks for my best friend who is an avid kitchen experimenter. I bought the book, Cracking the Coconut, by Su-Mei Yu along with a couple of the basic items listed for her birthday and she loves it. Not only did I receive a wonderful thank you, but I've also enjoyed sampling the recipes she has tried. She even let me try one with her (Namm Prikk Goong Nang)and it turned out great. (If you knew my lack of cooking skills you would be surprise!)The stories and history about Thai cooking make it a differnt and interesting type of cookbook.. and yes, I've actually ended up buying one for myself.

This is a wonderful book on a number of levels. The author has cooked in the US for many years and so does not require impossible ingredients or use foods with strange names without explaining.The recipes are relatively simple - they do not have 37 ingredients. The recipes appear authentic - she goes back to Thailand every year and has friends and relatives there.Every recipe has extensive stories and background to go with it.The graphics are subtle and wonderful. Too bad the designer Ralph Fowler gets only a mention. But do not be mistaken this is not just another pretty/useless coffee table cookbook.This is a cookbook to sit down and read cover to cover, but also one to use extensively in the kitchen. No previous experience required.