Cookbook Preview: Maenam – A Fresh Approach to Thai Cooking

Today I’m browsing through my advance copy of Maenam: A Fresh Approach to Thai Cooking, (via Amazon) by Angus An. I haven’t often attempted Thai cooking here at home, and I’m hoping there are enough vegetable and noodle centric recipes here that I can adapt them to my vegetarian kitchen.

This new international cookbook comes out August 4, 2020.

(Disclosure: I received an advance copy of this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, we will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you.)

The cookbook begins with not one but two Forewards, an Introduction, and notes on Thai cooking. It explains that “Maenam” is the Thai word for “river.”

Chapters include:

• Snacks
• Noodles and One-Bowl Meals
• Soups
• Salads
• Stir-Fries
• Curries
• Desserts
• Condiments
• Cocktails

I’m excited to learn more about Thai cocktails, but I’ll hold off and begin my explorations of this cookbook with the Snacks chapter.

Aleady, I’m delighted by the gorgeous flat lay food photography. The Snacks chapter includes Thai street food inspired recipes. Many of the snacks listed so far involve seafood, so I won’t be able to utilize them (by my choice to not eat fish). In case you are interested, the recipes include Scallop Ceviche, Chicken Satay (a Thai restaurant staple!), Squid Ink Cupcakes, Crispy Fried Oysters, Prawn Cakes, Hamachi Crudo, an Uni Sundae (I’ll have a no thank you helping), Steamed Mussels with Lemongrass Basil (my boyfriend would LOVE this), and a Northern Style Grilled Hen. (That sounds like a big portion for a “snack”). Recipes for things like “Coconut-Cream Relish of Fermented Pork and Spot-Prawn Tomalley” make me think this is a better cookbook for advanced cooks or people with a bit extra time on their hands.

I’m eager to check out the Noodles and One Bowl Meals chapter. Besides staples like Pad Thai and Pad See Ew, there are recipes for Boat Noodles, Chiang Mai Curried Chicken and Noodle Soup, Hot Sour Pork Soup, and Hainanese Chicken on Rice (Khao Man Gai). These all seem doable and like my boyfriend would be the happiest man on earth should I make one or two of them for his next dinner. I’m noting that these recipes are said to make either one large serving or two to four family-style servings.

The Soups chapter may be a bit difficult to source items for, depending on where you live. It begins with Hot Sour Soup of Sablefish, Clams and Turmeric. There are also Hot Sour soups of Prawns, Clams and Matsutake, Chicken and Chanterelles, Chicken with Tamarind Leaves and Bamboo. There’s a Clear Soup of Roasted Duck and Winter Melon, Hot Sour Soup of Braised Beef Shin, and Hot Sour Soup of Halibut and Thai Basil. I’m sure I could edit the Chicken and Chanterelles recipe to be vegetarian (it wouldn’t be so flavorful, that way, I know).

I’m delighted by the Salads chapter.. especially now that I’m trying to eat healthier in quarantine. I want to dive right in and make the Green Papaya Salad, the Heirloom Tomato Salad, and make some tofu substitutes to the meat and seafood salads that continue. I want to try making Orange-Chili dressing and Chili Jam, and I can think of a couple vegetarian ways to make the sour mango salad. There’s a seafood Banana Blossom salad I’ll never taste but I am interested in at least reading the ingredients and instructions on how to make it – fascinating!

The Stir-Fries chapter includes recipes for Pork Cheek Braise, Three-Flavor Pork Ribs, Black-Pepper Crab, Lobster Clay Pot, and a few vegetarian-tweakable stir fry items. I’ve never heard of some of the kinds of fish mentioned in this cookbook, but I bet I could get ahold of them in some of the international markets here in Seattle.

In the Curries chapter, you can learn to make curries with lamb, beef, sea urchin, duck, and several types of seafood and fish. There’s also a recipe for curry paste.

We’ve now made it to the much-anticipated Desserts chapter, with recipes for rice doughnuts and yam doughnuts, panna cotta, lychee sorbet, rice sorbet, and coconut shave ice. And, blessedly, no seafood!

The Condiments chapter is perhaps the most useful to me in this cookbook. I can learn how to make my own homemade chili oil, chili vinegar, sweet vinegar, fermented soybean sauce, tamarind water and tamarind sauce, fried garlic and fried shallots, and other things I can use to spice up and flavor my vegetarian tofu Thai dishes.

You know I love cocktails, so I’m peeking through the Cocktails chapter avidly. There’s a Scotch Tom Rick, a Rusty Bumber, a Siam Sunburn, Thai Ginger, and several cocktails I don’t know how to pronounce. The ingredients for most of these aren’t things I have laying around my house (cassia bark, galangal, stalks of lemongrass, ginger juice, Chinese salted plums, etc) but I do have turmeric to make the Scotch Tom Rick.

Overall, this cookbook is too meaty, too seafoody for my vegetarian diet preference, the dishes too fancy for my meat-and-potatoes boyfriend, and the recipes are far too involved for an amateur cook. For now, I think I will stick to ordering Thai takeout from our favorite local small business. If you are a confident cook and can source unusual ingredients, I definitely recommend this Thai cookbook with the gorgeous photos and fresh, vibrant looking dishes to you.

Maenam: A Fresh Approach to Thai Cooking, (via Amazon)

-Carrie