Pok Pok: Food and Stories from the Streets, Homes, and Roadside Restaurants of Thailand Author: Visit Amazon's Andy Ricker Page | Language: English | ISBN:
1607742888 | Format: PDF
Pok Pok: Food and Stories from the Streets, Homes, and Roadside Restaurants of Thailand Description
Amazon.com Review
Featured Recipes from Pok Pok
Download the recipe for Kai Kaphrao Khai Dao (Stir-Fried Chicken with Hot Basil)
Download the recipe for Tam Taeng Kwaa (Thai Cucumber Salad)
From Publishers Weekly
In his introduction, Ricker makes the modest proclamation that his cooking knowledge is limited when measured against Thailand’s vast cuisine. However, this limitation has had no visible effect on his success, given that his eatery, Pok Pok, was recently rated by Bon Appétit as the eighth most important American restaurant. All one really needs to know about Ricker, and this finely detailed cookbook and travelogue, comes at the start of his recipe for fish-sauce wings. Sounding like a gourmand Allen Ginsberg, he writes, “I’ve spent the better part of the last twenty years roaming around Thailand, cooking and recooking strange soups, beseeching street vendors for stir-fry tips, and trying to figure out how to reproduce obscure Thai products with American ingredients.” He spills out his acquired knowledge here across 13 chapters and nearly 100 recipes. Lessons learned along the way include the beauty of blandness as exhibited in his flavor-balanced “bland soup” with glass noodles, and waste not, want not, as showcased in recipes for stewed pork knuckles and grilled pork neck. Ricker’s prose, as aided by food writer Goode, is captivating, whether he is discussing America’s obsession with sateh, or when profiling characters he’s encountered in his travels, such as Mr. Lit, his “chicken mentor” and Sunny, his “go-to guy in Chiang Mai.”
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- Hardcover: 304 pages
- Publisher: Ten Speed Press (October 29, 2013)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1607742888
- ISBN-13: 978-1607742883
- Product Dimensions: 10.7 x 8.2 x 1.2 inches
- Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
This is probably the most detailed cookbook I've ever read. The directions for each recipe are ridiculously thorough, down to the ingredient list (for example: "1 (14 gram) piece peeled fresh or frozen (not defrosted) galangal, thinly sliced against the grain." Each recipe also has a flavor profile section that tells you what flavors to expect, and what other dishes in the book pairs with it. Besides the recipes, there are tons of pictures, some of which serve as guides to help you identify ingredients (the herb gallery on pg 16-17 for example). The only problem I might come across is how to get my hands on some of the ingredients locally (the book does offer suggestions on which websites to source the goods).Overall, really good book, definitely worth my money.
edit (01/09/2014): To date I have made the Stir-fried water spinach, Stir-fried brussels sprouts, Whole roasted chicken, Salty-sweet mango coconut rice, and Pad see ew. Let me tell you how they went:
Stir fried water spinach: Didn't have a scale on the first try, big mistake, used too little spinach, too salty. Problem solved when I bought a kitchen scale for the second try and got the portions right, tasted delicious.
Stir-fried brussels sprouts: Mis-read the measurements the first time and used too much fish sauce, ended up stinky. Followed the book to the teeth from the second try on-ward, delicious results.
Whole roasted chicken: used a 1.75lb hen instead of two 1.25lb chicken because that's the only small chicken I can find at the grocery store, decided to cut all the ingredients to 70% of the amount listed in the book since that's how my chicken's mass compares to the ones in the recipe.
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