Cookbook review | ‘Simply Vegetarian Thai Cooking’
In an area that boasts only a few Thai restaurants, a cookbook like “Simply Vegetarian Thai Cooking” by Nancie McDermott is something that belongs on every shelf.
Thai cooking changes what you will think of far Eastern cooking. It’s fresh, full of ginger (literally) and is in general lighter than that of its neighboring cuisines.
McDermott is an expert on the food and culture of Thailand. She spent three years there as a Peace Corps volunteer and has traveled extensively. She has produced 10 other cookbooks, including one called “300 Best Stir Fry Recipes.”
Credentials prove their worth in the passion she expresses in sharing these recipes. In the introduction she notes, “Keep in mind that these (the recipes) are guidelines and not commandments. If you take anxiety into the kitchen it will get into the food.”
Her lessons on Thai culture are scattered throughout the book. Recipe category sections are prefaced with a couple of pages that explain how that particular type of food fits into Thai culture. In fact, the book offers classic dishes from all regions of Thailand and provides banquet style curries and street food alike.
By some of the recipes, she posts little cultural notes, making the recipe for what is to many of us a less-known culture a much more “home” food. The recipes are fun to read in and of themselves. She avoids the ordinary in her descriptions, poetically treating us to noodles that curl into ringlets in her Paht Thai recipe.
This particular vegetarian cookbook is more than a simple compilation of 125 very interesting meatless recipes. The book also acts as a guide to making “vegetarian” a more interesting meal choice, no matter the origin of the food.
Variety is more than the spice of life for McDermott; it’s a mission to achieve variety in the dishes she serves and the effort put forth to place them on the table.
In the introduction, McDermott advises the way to ensure variety in vegetarian food is to avoid repetition of main ingredients. She notes making mushrooms or tofu a “major player” in more than one dish in a particular meal can become boring.
Leafing through the cookbook in a casual way, my husband found several recipes that he wanted to try, including cabbage, mushroom and peas in the main courses; I was intrigued by a soup made with rice noodles spinach, and shitake mushrooms and her version of Phat Thai (aka Pad Thai on many menus).
Of course, the standard for any Thai cookbook is its take on Paht Thai. McDermott explains, “This dish is the signature of Thai ingenuity in the kitchen.” Thai noodle chefs always include their own touches, something the author of this book encourages us to try after we make her basic recipe.
While the Thai ingredient section of the Grand Strand supermarkets is not large, Thai ingredients are available via phone or email ordering. I can attest to the reliability of the Thai Kitchen in Berkeley, Calif., which is where I order Thai ingredients, and to Penzeys Spices in Wisconsin where I purchase spices from many ethnicities for home cooking adventures.
If you want to lighten up your home meals by going meatless, this book will be a useful stop on your culinary journey.
This story was originally published September 2, 2015 at 3:14 PM with the headline "Cookbook review | ‘Simply Vegetarian Thai Cooking’."