Cracking the Coconut: Classic Thai Home Cooking (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Americans love Thai food. Among the best cookbooks exploring this rich, tantalizing cuisine is chef-restaurateur Su-Mei Yu's Cracking the Coconut. Insisting that there can be no true Thai cooking without homemade "core" preparations (such as various chili pastes), Yu includes precise, accessible recipes for these and other essential ingredients while outlining fundamental techniques in vivid detail. Readers learn the proper hand motions for cracking a coconut, how to wrap ingredients in banana leaves, and how to work a mortar and pestle, the central Thai-kitchen implement. The book's 175 recipes are divided between chapters devoted to essential ingredients or dishes. The chapter on Thai curry ("the signature dish") explores the basics of preparing this exciting fare and includes such delicious recipes as Red Curry with Roasted Pork and Green Banana and Sweet Green Curry with Meatballs. A chapter called "The Secret of Thai Salads" offers recipes for a small repertoire of essential dressings and such tempting recipes as Apricot, Shrimp, and Pork Salad and a salad-feast called, simply, Lamb and Roast Duck. Yu provides cultural notes and cooking lore throughout the book, often drawing from her recipe-hunting travels abroad. It's hard to imagine a better start for anyone wishing to "cook Thai" than this fully illustrated book, which perfectly balances recipes and instruction to make it an innovative standout. --Arthur Boehm

From Publishers Weekly

Owner of San Diego's Saffron Restaurant, Yu takes her Thai cooking seriously: she expects readers to pound curry pastes by hand in a mortar and pestle (a process that takes about 30 minutes)Dand don't even think about using canned coconut milk unless absolutely necessary. In compensation for all this work, Yu provides flawless and authentic recipes full of the fresh flavors of Thailand, such as Grilled Mackerel Salad with pickled garlic, coconut and peanuts and Beef and Pumpkin Stew with kabocha squash and cilantro. Recipes are organized loosely according to main ingredients, and in one chapter simply because they represent "The Thai Philosophy of Food," which consists of juxtaposing contrasting tastes. A chapter on fiery curries includes Red Curry with Roasted Pork and Green Banana and Sour-Orange Curry with Tender Vegetables. Aside from the work of grinding the curry paste, these can be assembled relatively quickly. Another chapter focuses on "The Big Four Seasonings," or salt, garlic, coriander root and peppercorns, and provides a recipe for a paste of the four that can be used in everything from fish batter and deep-frying batter to meatloaf. Noodle dishes are both hot (several types of Pad Thai) and cold (Cool Noodles with Jungle-Style Sauce). Thai salads are original and refreshing: Pomelo and Shrimp Salad and Banana Blossoms with Chicken Salad. Yu also writes beautifully of her own experiences cooking and eating in Thailand. For Thai novices and for those who are seeking to delve more deeply into this sophisticated and often surprising cuisine, this book is a must-have.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow Cookbooks; 1 edition (July 3, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0688165427
• ISBN-13: 978-0688165420
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #257,873 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

146 of 156 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars cracking the coconut, August 30, 2000

By	Su-Mei Yu (La Jolla, Ca. United States) - See all my reviews

Reply to Mr. Eugene Stiles' review of my book, Cracking the Coconut. Su-Mei Yu, author

Thank 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.

Observations are not the same as merging oneself into the preparation and practices of Thai dining. In almost all Thai recipes, the four ingredients: sea salt, garlic, coriander roots and Thai peppercorn, are part of the recipe, whether combined into a paste or used in combinations with the others. Fresh herbs you mentioned, including lemon grass, Thai basil, galangal, Kaffir (Makrud ) lime and leaves when used, are to add flavor and aroma. Still, without sea salt, garlic, coriander roots, and Thai peppercorn as its foundation, Thai cooking would not be what it is. Fish sauce also does not take the place of sea salt as a primary ingredient, it is added for flavor. My sources on this issue are both my experience as a Thai cook and the traditional cooks who have taught me. Many are introduced in the book.

5. Prikk Thai is a Thai word for Thai pepper. "Prikk Kee Nuu" is a type of bird chile referencing its shape. I maintain, Prikk Thai, rather than Prikk Kee Nuu is the heart of Thai cooking, and revered as such. The chile pepper, as opposed to the indigenous peppercorn, is a recent import, in terms of Thai cooking, from the Americas. While the bird chile stings and burns, the peppercorn warms one's body and spirit.

6. Ancient recipes in the 16th and 17th century, indeed, contained miso, wine, and whiskey, which the Thai adapted from the Japanese, Chinese and the Europeans. To write a Thai cookbook for westerners, where ingredients may not be readily available, substitutes are regrettably a must. The so-called strange ingredients you refer to have been painstakingly tested to closely resemble the original ingredient, in order to preserve the integrity of the recipe. While we may disagree on which substitutions produce the truest authentic flavor, I place my trust in my palate and training and traditional Thai cooks.

Lastly, next time you are in San Diego you are invited to come and eat real Thai food at my home. Kubb Khun Kai.

42 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An excellent Thai cookbook, February 12, 2001

By	M. Zamorski (Ottawa, CANADA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

After looking at maybe 20 Thai cookbooks and buying a few others, I now wish that I bought this one first.

The author grew up in Thailand, and clearly did extensive culinary research in the preparation for the book. In addition to the recipes, she offers some rather specific techniques as well as background on ingredients. In this sense, it is similar in concept to Rick Bayless' cookbooks on Mexican cooking. While I can't claim an extensive experience in Thai cooking and culture to comment on its authenticity, the ingredients and techniques are identical to those I learned at cooking school in Thailand, and the results taste familiar as well.

I agree with some of the comments above as to the need to some of the somewhat labor intensive preparation of curry pastes she advises. I have made them from scratch (not really that hard, if you have done it a few times and have a strong arm for the mortar and pestle) and used prepared ones, and, while I think the homemade ones are better (more subtle, more complex, more "fresh"), I usually use them only for special occasions. And after the homemade ones have sat in the fridge for a while, the difference is less distinct. But I appreciate a cookbook that at least encourages you to try to make your own paste!

I also agree that the homemade coconut milk exercise is not worth the trouble. The coconuts I can get here in Michigan are just not consistently that good, and I can't tell the difference in the finished product. Still, I was glad that I had a chance to try making it at least once.

Yes, the author does offer substitutions, such as miso for shrimp paste, but she also makes it clear that these are substitutions and describes the rationale for them. In this way, I think she is better than some ethnic cookbook authors who write stuff like: "Don't even consider making this dish unless you have access to the special veal kidney sausages made by my dear friend Pierre Gallimard at his family's boucherie off the Place Vendome....."

My biggest complaint is that there are not enough drawings in the book. The author tries to describe certain techniques (like making sticky rice bundles in banana leaves) that would be much easier to understand with a simple line drawing.

45 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very nicely done!, April 16, 2002

By	Angela Watts "Watty" (Michigan) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I had some hesitation in purchasing this book because the name didn't seem very thai, (half thai myself and was raised on the "real deal" as well as have been in several towns in thailand for months at a time pre-cooking years, I didn't want an americanized version of thai food) but then I had seen you on the show Cooking Live where your methods were in the same manner my mother cooks, but more of an easier measuring manner as opposed to trying to write down her recipes by watching her and her "eyeing" measurements! I just have to know the measurements before trying to alter it!

I love this book and would highly recommend it to anyone who would want to learn the basics in traditional and not americanized thai cooking, and also who is not wanting to take the lazy way out as that other reviewer was referring. The book is to show you how to make it from scratch, and not looking for a review of canned goods or just out of the can. If all of the ingredients were exactly the same and just in a can, why would a cookbook even be needed?

I don't know of many grocery stores, let alone asian markets, ESPECIALLY in California that wouldn't have fish sauce! I've lived in 4 different parts of the country since leaving home, and haven't ever had any problem in finding the majority of the ingredients shown in this book. From Indianapolis, to Phoenix, to Las Vegas and now a very small town in Michigan, they have their own asian section in the local grocery stores!

Also, such as the other reviewer criticized Pad thai, each creation varies in the preparation per cook as it would in any family, just as I'm sure everyone has a different way to prepare something as simple as meatloaf. I love this book and its a good substitution for moms cooking, but yes every time I'm at home, I do put in my orders for my moms home cooking, just as any other person would with a great cooking mom! Khap Kuhn Ka Su-Mei!