Fans of Thai cooking, rejoice.
With Nancie McDermott's new cookbook, Quick & Easy Thai (Chronicle, due out April 1, $18.95), you can have a Thai dinner on the table in less than an hour.
About all you need are a few pantry staples, a couple of cans of coconut milk, fish sauce and red curry paste.
McDermott, who learned Thai cuisine as a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand, is true to her word in delivering quick and tasty recipes. The instructions are easy to follow, even for the novice cook, and many recipes are accompanied by tempting photographs of the finished dishes.
McDermott makes a few concessions to the American palate, allowing substitutions of brown sugar for palm sugar and peanut butter for mashed peanuts. But the 70 recipes reach beyond familiar favorites such as pad Thai to regional specialties like Issahn-style Minced Pork Salad With Crunchy Rice and Fresh Mint.
The book is divided into nine chapters, covering appetizers, soups, curries, chicken, meats, fish, rice and noodles, vegetables and sweets. McDermott also includes menu suggestions and lists of pantry items and helpful utensils, although I used nothing more exotic than a frying pan and a colander.
Many of the ingredients you'll need for the recipes are available in your supermarket these days, although my search for Thai tea powder to make iced tea turned up empty, even at a large Asian grocery.
That was the only glitch, however, in testing a half dozen of McDermott's recipes.
The Chiang Mai Curry Noodles, a dish from northern Thailand, proved to be a filling meal of bite-size chicken chunks cooked in a broth of coconut milk, turmeric, curry paste, soy sauce and garlic and served over egg noodles. Spinach With Black Pepper and Garlic was a tasty and easy accompaniment to a southern Thai dish of fried catfish flavored with turmeric.
But the best dish I tried was the Chicken Satay With Spicy Peanut Sauce. This classic Thai snack takes only minutes to cook and becomes a meal when served along with jasmine rice and cucumbers.
Chicken Satay With Spicy Peanut Sauce
Serves 6 to 8
MARINADE FOR CHICKEN:
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut milk
1 teaspoon fish sauce
1 teaspoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon curry powder
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken thighs or breasts
SPICY PEANUT SAUCE:
3/4 cup unsweetened coconut milk
1 tablespoon red curry paste
2 teaspoons roasted chili paste, optional
