Foundations
Where the cooking starts
Before the hundred recipes, the book sets out what they are built on — 27 pantry studies and 24 sauces, sambals and pastes.
The two are different kinds of thing. A pantry study explains an ingredient: what fish sauce is, how the grades differ, how to buy it and keep it. A component is a recipe you cook — a paste, a dip, a relish — with quantities and a method.
Pantry & ingredients
27 reference studies
Reading, not cooking. Each one covers where an ingredient is used, what it tastes like, how to choose it, how to store it and what can stand in for it.
These studies are drafts. Local names and cultural notes are still being checked, and are presented as the author's working text rather than settled fact.
Sauces, sambals, pastes & condiments
24 component recipes
These you make. Each has a yield, a time, an ingredient list and a method, grouped by the chapter it belongs to.
All 24are untested development drafts. Quantities and timings are the author’s working text and have not been kitchen-tested.
Thailand5 components
Vietnam2 components
Indonesia4 components
Brunei1 component
Thailand1 component
Imagery is produced with generative AI tools and reviewed by the author. It is illustrative, not documentary photography. Component recipes are development drafts and are not described as tested; pantry studies are drafts pending verification. How these images were made.