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  See Susie's review of this cookbook at The Boston Globe and in her Best Cookbooks of 2008 at NPR Kitchen Window

Notes about Recipes in this book

• Thai red curry paste

  • TrishaCP on August 28, 2017

    Not nearly as good and complex-tasting as the green curry paste in my opinion. The dominant flavor here is heat. (I used chiles de arbol.)

• Thai green curry paste

  • TrishaCP on June 25, 2017

    Wow, this is a great curry paste. I used it to make a variation of the Thai green pork curry in this book, using tofu and zucchini instead of pork. I didn't have Thai chiles on hand, so used jalapeños, and because of their size, the volume of the paste was about twice as much as predicted (and thus I needed twice as much of the paste when I made my dish). The jalapeños I used (including their seeds) were moderately spicy, but that worked out ok for us. I used the food processor method of blending, and I had to leave it running for a long time to get it to some type of usable consistency. I think you would get quite a workout if you attempted this with the mortar and pestle with all of the fibrous ingredients used here.

• Split yellow lentil soup

  • TrishaCP on November 16, 2017

    We liked this a lot. It came together quickly, although my yellow peas were older and required about 45 minutes to really break down. The spices for this dish added a really wonderful flavor- especially the curry leaves. (Great use of curry leaves.)

• Red curry with bamboo shoots, tofu, and zucchini

  • TrishaCP on August 28, 2017

    This was pretty good (my husband loved it). In addition to the Thai red chile paste, the recipe also calls for the garlic-ginger paste from this book. I didn't have it, so simply minced the required amount of ginger and garlic. I don't love the book's red chile paste, but the garlic and ginger helped to bump up the flavor quite a bit. I had been doing a riff on this recipe using the green curry paste, which I prefer, and I think I'll be sticking to that choice from now on. (We skipped the bamboo shoots since we didn't have them. We just added more zucchini. We also skipped the red chile as it was hot enough as it was.)

• Spiced kabocha squash

  • Laura on December 08, 2010

    Pg. 115. The flavor profile was spicy, but not particularly delicious. Ten minutes of steaming was not long enough -- the squash was still a little too hard. This could easily be made with butternut squash.

• Stir-fried bok choy and shiitake mushrooms with garlic

  • Laura on August 07, 2014

    Pg. 117. This was really good and very simple. I omitted the 1/4 cup of chicken broth because I didn't feel the dish needed it, and I would do so again as it was plenty moist without the broth.

  • lorloff on May 05, 2024

    Great simple dish. I substituted Japanese Dashi for the chicken stock. Also added some green garlic and made with very fresh shiitake mushrooms from the farmers market.

• Asparagus with garlic and rice wine

  • Laura on April 30, 2014

    Pg. 118. We both liked this quite a bit. It definitely packs some heat. Very simple to prepare and comes together very quickly. A nice accompaniment to Asian-style fish or meat dishes. I would make it again.

• Basil chicken

  • Laura on June 09, 2010

    Pg. 121. Wow! This was incredibly flavorful. Did add a chopped yellow pepper, but don't think that made much of a difference. Served this over Jasmine rice. Very quick to prep and cook. Will be cooking this again and again. If you really want to serve 4, I would double the recipe -- there were only 2 of us this evening and there are no leftovers :( (Granted we only had 1 lb of chicken, but we did not reduce the rest of the ingredients and added the yellow pepper.)

  • TrishaCP on August 16, 2017

    I agree this was phenomenal. So flavorful and my Thai basil has been growing like a weed this year, so I was happy to find a great use for it. I would say that the two jalapenos that I used for my chiles were very hot- to the point where it was just on the verge of being overly spicy. So if you are sensitive, only start with one and see how it goes, as the white pepper adds heat too. Also, follow your own instincts for cooking the chicken- I think the cook time in the recipe is too long for breasts if you follow the instructions to keep the pieces small so they can best absorb the sauce.

• Whole roasted chicken in tamarind butter sauce

  • Laura on May 16, 2010

    Pg. 122. This is great! The tamarind-butter-sauce is phenomenal. When grinding the spices for the rub, be very careful that the cinnamon stick and star anise grind all the way down. You will need to grind them for a very long time.

  • jayg312 on June 15, 2011

    Agreed, the sauce is great - a perfect mix of sweet/sour/heat (well, I might back up a bit on the palm sugar next time). The instructions for the marinade didn't quite yield a "smooth paste" as indicated, it was more soupy, but it worked fine. I'll try bumping up the coriander. I'll be making this again for sure. Prep note: 6 hours to overnight marinating time.

• Thai green pork curry

  • Laura on January 02, 2014

    Pg. 136. Having found both kaffir lime leaves and Thai basil at my local WF, something that rarely happens, I had to make this. It produced a really aromatic flavor that is exactly like a green curry at a good Thai restaurant. The rest of the recipe needed some work. As I feared, the potatoes did not cook in the 25 minutes, despite my having cut them into eighths instead of the called for quarters. I was also afraid the pork would not cook well and it did take it longer than called for to lose its toughness. If I were to make this again, and I will because the flavors were so good, I'd make some changes. I'd probably use chicken instead of pork, or at least a more tender cut of pork, like maybe a tenderloin. I'd eliminate the potatoes altogether -- I served this over jasmine rice and with the potatoes it was too heavy on the carbs. I'd add other vegetables, perhaps some red peppers. Finally, I'd probably increase the amount of ingredients, as it barely produced 3 servings.

  • TrishaCP on June 25, 2017

    I changed this so much (I used tofu and zucchini instead of pork) so I'll only comment on the potatoes. I had the same problem as Laura - you need significantly more time to cook them even when cut smaller. (I cut them into stew-sized cubes and needed about 15 minutes longer than the recipe indicated.)

• Steamed snapper with tamarind-ginger sauce

  • Laura on May 31, 2014

    Pg. 164. I'm not sure why this is called 'Snapper with Tamarind-Ginger Sauce' since the ginger is not added to the sauce. In any event, I made this with mahi mahi. I eliminated the palm sugar syrup from the sauce as I made another recipe from this book awhile ago and found the palm sugar syrup to be too sweet. Instead, I added a tsp of sugar -- which made the sauce more tangy than intended, no doubt, but still good. The cook time of 15 minutes is too long. I would try 10 minutes next time.

• Broiled cod in chile-tamarind sauce

  • Laura on April 30, 2014

    Pg. 167. I was really expecting to like this a lot. Sadly, I just wasn't crazy about it. It was relatively quick to prep and it's certainly healthy. The sauce, however, just didn't taste very good to me -- it was definitely too sweet -- I might try it again without the palm sugar syrup.

• Salmon with ginger butter

  • mcvl on September 02, 2011

    Very nice, not unusual but excellently balanced and tasty.

  • Laura on December 24, 2014

    Pg. 168. We really enjoyed this -- the fish was cooked perfectly. I made a couple of small changes: didn't have any chicken broth, so subbed a half cup of white wine; also didn't have oyster sauce, so simply omitted that. The most labor-intensive aspect was cutting the ginger into matchsticks; other than that, it came together very quickly. I would make it again.

• Spiced salmon with fennel and tomato

  • jayg312 on May 30, 2011

    Another quick and easy preparation. Gives the salmon a nice earthy spiced flavor.

• Saffron pilaf

  • Shelmar on February 07, 2021

    Reduce the rice.

• Coconut agar-agar

  • sck on February 01, 2026

    The ratio of agar to liquid didn't work at all. Now that I have looked at other recipes I realize the ratio should be closer to 1/4 tsp agar to 1 c liquid. Total disaster.

• Fine Cooking

  ...ONE thing proved TRUE: modern Indian cooking IS FULL of surprises. AND she shares them IN the pages of this remarkably thoughtful book.

  Full review