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Quick and Easy Thai: 70 Everyday Recipes
Now busy home cooks can bring the fantastic flavors of Thai cuisine into the kitchen with a simple trip to the grocery store. Nancie McDermott, experienced cook, teacher, and author of the best-selling cookbook Real Thai , presents this collection of 70 delicious recipes that focus on easy-to-find ingredients and quick cooking methods to whip up traditional Thai. With recipes like Crying Tiger Grilled Beef, Grilled Shrimp and Scallops with Lemongrass, Sticky Rice with Mangoes, and Thai Iced Tea, along with McDermott's highly practical array of shortcuts, substitutions, and timesaving techniques, anyone can prepare home-cooked authentic Thai meals -- as often as they like.
168 pages, Paperback
First published February 10, 2012
340 people are currently reading
260 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
March 22, 2022
There are only 70 recipes, and too many of them are angled toward various curries or fish, to the exclusion of staples like Tom Yum soup. The photography is excellent, but more variety is needed.
March 22, 2019
Tasty and quick stir fry recipes. I really like the Thai Fried Rice and the Soy Sauce Noodles with Beef and Greens. It also has some general tips for finding ingredients and for cooking with new types of ingredients that you may not have seen before.
October 14, 2021
Easy to follow delicious
November 17, 2017
I have never really learned to cook, but love Thai food so got this book. It is wonderful! What I especially love about this book is she uses ingredients that are available in my grocery store. I don't have an Asian store anywhere close so this is especially important. I find the recipes easy to follow and very tasty. Last night I made 5 different recipes for a dinner I gave and everyone loved the food.
April 10, 2018
Didn't find one thing I wanted to make without buying a bunch of special ingredients.
June 4, 2019
Many of the recipes look easy, and flavorful! So many yummy looking recipes! I want to try most of them too! Mmmmmm
July 14, 2020
I love Thai food but it is intimidating to make for me. This one offers much easier recipes. I haven’t tried any so not sure they will taste authentic though but will try some soon!
March 21, 2025
Every recipe has been great.
November 17, 2015
Review originally posted 3 May 2015 on Falling Letters.
Whoo, my first cookbook review! It’s been awhile since I read one straight through. The last time must have been in high school, when we were traveling through South Dakota and I purchased a fall recipes book. I remember making some delicious, comforting foods from it... I should go back to it!
Anyway. I chose this cookbook because I love Thai food and I really want to make it accessible in my home. I think it’ll be best for me to start small, learn the basics through a simplified cookbook like this, then build up my Thai cooking repertoire. Once upon a time, I was interested in making curries. I got a book from the library with recipes from around the world and I made one, but I quickly realized it was a tad ambitious for my abilities. :P So, after some exhaustive research (I saved a number of Thai cookbooks on GoodReads, not all as simple as this one), I chose this book as a starting point. I think that was a good idea. I felt reassured to know she lived in Thailand for a few years at least. In the introduction, she recounts her experience with Thai cooking and previously published cookbooks. McDermott decided to write this book in particular as her family began to grow and she “want[ed] to enjoy the dazzling flavors of Thai food even on a weeknight, to be able to cook Thai dishes as easily and happily and quickly as I make other favourite dishes”. She chose recipes for three different classes of food: A) intrinsically easy Thai food that Thai people cook at home, B) street food and restaurant dishes that Thai people don’t cook because they can easily buy them, and C) some complex dishes for which she found “reasonable shortcuts to a simpler but still wonderful version”. I had this book for over a year but I was always too busy with studying, and then preparing to move to Japan…soon I’ll be home with time on my hands to devote to cooking!
I like the cultural notes McDermott includes alongside each recipe, including the recipe’s name in Thai. One day if I feel more ambitious, I could look up McDermott’s other books to find perhaps more ‘authentic’ versions of these recipes. I also really appreciated the informative sections, which include “Useful Utensils for Cooking Thai Food”, “Techniques”, “A Thai Pantry” and “Mail-Order Sources for Thai Ingredients”. I made many highlights throughout the book, colour coding for general information, practical tips, and recipes to try. The recipes themselves seem clear and easy to follow. I saved 35 of the 70 recipes to try, which I think is a good proportion given that I skipped all the recipes that include fish or seafood (creatures from water = blechy) Here are some of the recipes I’m eager to make:
- Meatballs in panaeng curry sauce (panaeng look chin neua sahp)
- Rice soup with chicken, cilantro and crispy garlic (kao tome gai)
- Beef and zucchini in red curry sauce (neua paht peht)
- Pork with spicy green beans (moo paht prik king)
- Rice noodles with lettuce and ground beef gravy (kwaytiow neua sahp)
- Roasted eggplant salad with cilantro and lime (yum makeua yao)
- Nun bananas in coconut milk (gluay buat chee)
I only spotted one odd thing – a beef salad recipe that called for chicken stock. It caught my eye because Pollan gripped about excess use of chicken stock in Cooked. I agree with him. Novice that I am, I think there must be better ways to get flavour than through tossing chicken stock in everything. At the very least, why add chicken stock to dishes that don’t contain chicken? When I make this recipe, I will probably just use water.
Can I review a cookbook without having made any of the recipes? I've done it anyhow. It’s hard enough for me to find familiar ingredients in Japanese store, let alone Thai ones. You know I’ll hit the ground running in September, when I’m back in familiar territory!
The Bottom Line: If you love Thai food and want to learn how to enjoy it your own home, this is a good place to start.
Whoo, my first cookbook review! It’s been awhile since I read one straight through. The last time must have been in high school, when we were traveling through South Dakota and I purchased a fall recipes book. I remember making some delicious, comforting foods from it... I should go back to it!
Anyway. I chose this cookbook because I love Thai food and I really want to make it accessible in my home. I think it’ll be best for me to start small, learn the basics through a simplified cookbook like this, then build up my Thai cooking repertoire. Once upon a time, I was interested in making curries. I got a book from the library with recipes from around the world and I made one, but I quickly realized it was a tad ambitious for my abilities. :P So, after some exhaustive research (I saved a number of Thai cookbooks on GoodReads, not all as simple as this one), I chose this book as a starting point. I think that was a good idea. I felt reassured to know she lived in Thailand for a few years at least. In the introduction, she recounts her experience with Thai cooking and previously published cookbooks. McDermott decided to write this book in particular as her family began to grow and she “want[ed] to enjoy the dazzling flavors of Thai food even on a weeknight, to be able to cook Thai dishes as easily and happily and quickly as I make other favourite dishes”. She chose recipes for three different classes of food: A) intrinsically easy Thai food that Thai people cook at home, B) street food and restaurant dishes that Thai people don’t cook because they can easily buy them, and C) some complex dishes for which she found “reasonable shortcuts to a simpler but still wonderful version”. I had this book for over a year but I was always too busy with studying, and then preparing to move to Japan…soon I’ll be home with time on my hands to devote to cooking!
I like the cultural notes McDermott includes alongside each recipe, including the recipe’s name in Thai. One day if I feel more ambitious, I could look up McDermott’s other books to find perhaps more ‘authentic’ versions of these recipes. I also really appreciated the informative sections, which include “Useful Utensils for Cooking Thai Food”, “Techniques”, “A Thai Pantry” and “Mail-Order Sources for Thai Ingredients”. I made many highlights throughout the book, colour coding for general information, practical tips, and recipes to try. The recipes themselves seem clear and easy to follow. I saved 35 of the 70 recipes to try, which I think is a good proportion given that I skipped all the recipes that include fish or seafood (creatures from water = blechy) Here are some of the recipes I’m eager to make:
- Meatballs in panaeng curry sauce (panaeng look chin neua sahp)
- Rice soup with chicken, cilantro and crispy garlic (kao tome gai)
- Beef and zucchini in red curry sauce (neua paht peht)
- Pork with spicy green beans (moo paht prik king)
- Rice noodles with lettuce and ground beef gravy (kwaytiow neua sahp)
- Roasted eggplant salad with cilantro and lime (yum makeua yao)
- Nun bananas in coconut milk (gluay buat chee)
I only spotted one odd thing – a beef salad recipe that called for chicken stock. It caught my eye because Pollan gripped about excess use of chicken stock in Cooked. I agree with him. Novice that I am, I think there must be better ways to get flavour than through tossing chicken stock in everything. At the very least, why add chicken stock to dishes that don’t contain chicken? When I make this recipe, I will probably just use water.
Can I review a cookbook without having made any of the recipes? I've done it anyhow. It’s hard enough for me to find familiar ingredients in Japanese store, let alone Thai ones. You know I’ll hit the ground running in September, when I’m back in familiar territory!
The Bottom Line: If you love Thai food and want to learn how to enjoy it your own home, this is a good place to start.
March 7, 2013
The biggest selling point here is that these recipes are simplified (or already simple) versions of Thai food, for those of us who don't feel like tackling something that calls for a table's worth of ingredients, an hour of prep work, and a trip to the Asian market.
Most recipes are easy enough to veganize - in some cases the exact type of protein is even said to be wildly interchangeable. The author's white North Carolina PTA-mom roots occasionally shine through in her suggestions for serving baked potato or buttered bread on the side, but you can just ignore that.
This cookbook's layout has some nice touches, like a mini table of contents at the beginning of each section, beautiful photos, and inclusion of each dish's Thai name under the recipe title. There are helpful indices too, including cooking techniques and guides to ingredients and utensils.
Most recipes are easy enough to veganize - in some cases the exact type of protein is even said to be wildly interchangeable. The author's white North Carolina PTA-mom roots occasionally shine through in her suggestions for serving baked potato or buttered bread on the side, but you can just ignore that.
This cookbook's layout has some nice touches, like a mini table of contents at the beginning of each section, beautiful photos, and inclusion of each dish's Thai name under the recipe title. There are helpful indices too, including cooking techniques and guides to ingredients and utensils.
November 19, 2009
I know that this not completely authentic but it is a great introduction to Thai flavors. I love Thai food and one of the hardest things in making authentic Thai is the huge amounts of ingredients and many of them hard to find. McDermott takes classic Thai recipes and streamlines them and then list authentic ingredients you can use but also great subsitutions if you don't have or can't find the original. The recipes are yummy and easy. One of my family's favorite is Hidden Chicken. It's quick to put together - just throw everything in your rice cooker and push start- I am getting hungry thinking of this.
May 10, 2018
If you only buy one Thai cookbook (as a non-Thai person), let it be this one. There are stunning photographs, and the instructions are straightforward and simple. I can't tell you how much I love the recipe for the Roasted Eggplant with Cilantro and Lime. All you do is roast your eggplant in the oven for 15 minutes, mix the sauce which is brimming with fresh flavors like scallions, cilantro, lime, shallots, then combine the two.
Who doesn't love a low-maintenance dish that tastes fantastic at room temperature? I know this is a side dish, but I have often put this on a bed of butter lettuce and called it a day. A good day.
Who doesn't love a low-maintenance dish that tastes fantastic at room temperature? I know this is a side dish, but I have often put this on a bed of butter lettuce and called it a day. A good day.
July 17, 2010
The title is correct - except that not only are these dishes quick and easy (relatively speaking - I'm not a fact cook/prep person), they are delicious! One short cut that she recommends is to buy curry paste, rather than making it from scratch - although she does include a recipe for making it. I have experimented with different curry pastes from H-Mart (an Asian grocery store near me), and found the brand I really like. She includes a list of sources for ingredients, which is helpful. I'm looking forward ti making more!
June 3, 2010
I only tried two recipes from this cookbook (masaman curry and a sweet potato-coconut milk custard) but they were both delicious. I will be trying more recipes in the future. I was somewhat distressed to learn that the characteristic flavor in Thai food is fish sauce, which means that some of the Thai food in restaurants that I've eaten and thought was vegetarian may not have been.
June 29, 2008
Really good-everything is simple, and easily adaptable. Great for someone beginning to cook Thai, or just beginning to cook. Or for people like me, who learned to cook from books, and hence is very bad at weeknight, just-get-it-over-with cooking.
September 1, 2008
This cookbook is awesome. The recipes are legitimate, authentic Thai food but it's so "quick and easy" to make it seems like it will never taste as good as it does. I love this cookbook. It is regularly used in my kitchen.
January 5, 2012
Wow! I got this for Christmas and have made several delicious recipes already. With a few different ingredients such as fish sauce, curry paste, and coconut milk, it's great to have the restaurant come to you. Lots of pictures.
July 3, 2014
McDermott really does take the pain and fussiness out of producing authentic tasting ethnic foods, in this case Thai cuisine. Leafing through this I discovered that I had already read it once because her grilled chicken with garlic recipe is a staple of my kitchen.
December 23, 2007
good book to whip up food after work. not entirely authentic, but does in a pinch. accessible to those who don't have palm sugar handy in their pantry.
February 17, 2008
All of the recipes I've tried have been very easy and have turned out wonderfully!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 11, 2008
Every recipie I've tried has been excellent. You can easily cook Thai food that's as good as most restaurants.
April 28, 2009
This is my favorite Thai cookbook so far. Used it and loved it several years ago and am excited to have found it again.
August 5, 2012
Good for an overview of Thai cooking in an American home, but I really feel her "Quick & Easy Chinese" is the better book, thus far.
September 12, 2011
This book has wonderful recipes, some that I've copied out. Need to track down what I did with them.
March 28, 2012
This had lots of wonderful ideas and yummy pictures. I've definitely got some new recipes to try.
August 3, 2013
One of my favorite cookbooks!
March 21, 2011
GREAT cookbook for making Thai. Wouldn't call all the recipes quick but they are easy and YUMMY!
Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews