It is rare for me to find a cookbook that leaves me wanting to prepare almost every recipe – and then to find that each recipe is an instant success around the dinner table. But that is just that case with my newest cookbook, although I had to wait almost six month for amazon to stock and ship it to me:

Hot Sour Salty Sweet: A Culinary Journey Through Southeast Asia by Jeffrey Alford and Noami Duguid.
I am fortunate that most of the ingredients are staples here in Taiwan, cheap, fresh and easy to find, although strangely a few things such as lemongrass, galangal, curry leaves and lime leaves that feature dominantly in other south east Asian cuisine are difficult to find here. So I grow my own lemongrass, hoard the galangal when I can find it and use dried lime leaves.

So far here are some of the recipes from the book we love:

White Fungus Salad (tastes amazing, don’t let the name put you off :), here is how it looks prepared in our house:

Aromatic Steamed Fish Curry
Khmer Fish Stew with Lemongrass
Stir-Fried Fish with Ginger
Grilled Chicken with Hot and Sweet Dipping Sauce (my kids couldn’t get enough of this)
Grilled Lemongrass Beef
Quick Khmer Pork and Green Beans
Jungle Curry
The best Eggplant Dish Ever (no kidding, it really is, even my kids who normally are not crazy about eggplant like it – pictured below)