Which Three Cook Books?

[bconnery]

Thai Food
David Thompson
Penguin Books Australia Ltd

Nearly 700 pages of inspiration from an Aussie who not only had Darley Thai and Sailors Thai in Sydney, but has been
retained by a culinary school in Thailand to help "preserve Thailand's culinary heritage".

The Cooks Companion
Stephanie Alexander
Viking - Penguin Books Australia Ltd

Catalogued by ingredient and brings a real passion to her craft. Another restaurateur who can write. Everything from how
to get the perfect boiled egg to formal banquets.

The Complete Asian Cookbook
Charmaine Solomon
Summit Books - Paul Hamlyn Pty Ltd

That's three pretty top ones right there...
I love those three, plus the silver spoon one mentioned further down is very good.
I have a great little book from a Thai cooking course I took when on holiday.
Nothing flashy but I found that following those gives me the tastes of recipes exactly as I tasted them there especially now you can but the same brands I used in the class here for the most part.
I quite always, and in fact not often really make a particular "type" of curry or stir fry, just something on the fly but the just the ability to make chicken and cashew nuts that tastes like I used to get from the dodgy thai place run by the guy and his wife who lived in a caravan out the back and only took cash but made great food, plus the thai style fried rice makes the book worth keeping...
I love chicken and cashew nuts...

We also have a great how to cook everything type book, can't remember the name, with instructions on everything from boiling an egg onwards. Great for reference but not so much for inspiration...

I don't know the author but there's a great book called 'The Curry Bible' I used to borrow off my little brother a lot.
A little story with each recipe made it a great read.

 

[leiothrix]

1. My laptop with my own personlly written recipes from the last 15 years of cooking which I am planning on publishing in my own cook book hopefully next year. (plus saving my laptop means I can go on line and order the cookbooks that were lost in the file not to mention search for recipes on the net.)

Silly question - how do you store, format, typeset, etc the recipes?

I'd like to make a cookbook of the recipes that I've cut out of things, made up, changed around (though this will be just for me, not published).

Do you just have a text document and the publisher sorts out the rest? Or have you typeset the whole lot and just send it off to get printed?

 

[Tanga]

If I'm looking for a specific recipe I often use the internet these days, but if I do look things up in a book it's generally the Women's Weekly cookbook. It's got most of your 'tried and true' recipes - jam and lollies to steak and stews.

Most of the foods I cook regularly I either make up the recipe myself, or I've cooked it so often I know it off by heart. Soups are my thing lately, and they're pretty easy to just make up on the fly. Though that doesn't always work. The stew I made today tastes like arse. I knew there was a reason I hadn't eaten eggplant since coming back to Australia. Our version sucks! The tiny little asian ones are where it's at.

Wish I knew how to do the chicken mince and eggplant dish they have at 'tongue thai'd' - damn that's good. Wish I knew where they got their great tasting eggplant too.

 

[buttersd70]

For someone who cooks a lot (it is my number 1 passion, even surpassing brewing) I actually have very few books on the subject, thanks to electronic media......

But a couple I would save are....
Margaret Fultons Encyclopedia of food and cookery. The first 'real' cook book I ever got. (and the only remnent of ex wife#2 left in the house).

Yorkshire Cooking by Shirley Kaye of the Halifax Evening Courier. Outdated: yes. Interesting: definately. Some of the recipes in this date back to the first half of the 19th century. Some are incredibly dated, some are trendy again (at least in the UK....for example, lots of game recipes.)

And 2 non book items - my Global knife and diamond hone.

Edit - the Yorkshire Cooking has some old wine and beer recipes in, too.....typical West Riding country stuff....no grain in sight, out on t'moor.

 

[ozpowell]

Cookery the Australian Way (LOL, not really, but it brings back some great memories from school days - traffic light sandwiches anyone?)

:lol: We still keep this one in the bookshelf - and we do refer to it on occasion!

 

[bconnery]

If I'm looking for a specific recipe I often use the internet these days, but if I do look things up in a book it's generally the Women's Weekly cookbook. It's got most of your 'tried and true' recipes - jam and lollies to steak and stews.

Most of the foods I cook regularly I either make up the recipe myself, or I've cooked it so often I know it off by heart. Soups are my thing lately, and they're pretty easy to just make up on the fly. Though that doesn't always work. The stew I made today tastes like arse. I knew there was a reason I hadn't eaten eggplant since coming back to Australia. Our version sucks! The tiny little asian ones are where it's at.

Wish I knew how to do the chicken mince and eggplant dish they have at 'tongue thai'd' - damn that's good. Wish I knew where they got their great tasting eggplant too.

The thai eggplants are great in a curry/stir fry, but don't dismiss the big fellas...

Cut them into big thickish slices, salt them for a while, then rinse and dry. Rub with olive oil and a morroccan spice mix and cook them on the BBQ...
Or just BBQ them with any nice spice mix really.

Years of my folk's using eggplant as a filler had put me right off them, until I had some in morrocco done like that.

Otherwise, do the salt thing above (some people swear it is necessary, I don't always do it, depends a bit on the age of the eggplant...) then roast one side in the oven.
Take them out and put in a good mince mixture, rolling the eggplant around a spoonfull, and bake them again with some pasta sauce and chosen cheese on top.
Basically using them like a cannalonni...