Thai Pantry

Welcome to the building blocks of Thailand’s exciting, multilayered flavors. I know for some, Thai ingredients can feel daunting, but don’t worry, I’m here to walk you through it. And while some items might be unfamiliar to you, the good news is that once you have gathered a few key things, many of which last a long time and are affordable to buy or easy to make, this pantry will set you up for success in cooking out of this book.

Some ingredients used to be extremely challenging to find—trust me, my parents were cooking pad Thai with ketchup back in the seventies—but today we are lucky that with just a little effort almost every ingredient can be tracked down at a specialty market or online, if not at your regular grocery store. It will be so worth it to try to get your hands on these specific items. I travel all over the world, not just in metropolitan cities that have access to everything, and I never have a huge issue finding products. There’s almost always a small Asian grocer somewhere if you let curiosity and an excitement to explore lead you. You also might want to think about reaching out to your local Thai restaurant to see if they’ll sell you a bottle of whatever it is you need. I know I’ve never denied a sale to one of our patrons. Occasionally, there are acceptable alternatives, and I’ll list them. But in other instances, substitutes won’t do—and I’ll let you know when that is as well. In addition, the majority of the dishes in this book can be made using the standard kitchen tools that you probably already own, but there are just a few special things that come in handy for Thai cooking that I suggest you consider investing in, which I’ll also highlight in this section. Let’s build your Thai kitchen!