Has this been explored? Having just been to LoS and Chada, a week later, I’m ready to fly there, eat, and fly back before I’d go to French Laundry or similar. Instead gonna learn. How hard can it be? Starting from zero. Don’t even know what a great curry cookbook would be. Anybody got real game in this arena, speak up.
You want
David Thompson’s “Thai” and “Thai Street Food”
“Pok Pok Cookbook”
“Rice & Curry: Sri Lankan Home Cooking”
in that order
I have a friend who swears by this lady:
https://www.youtube.com/user/PailinsKitchen
I personally haven’t spend much time with the videos yet, but it’s on my list of things to do. Generally I haven’t had much success cooking Thai at home. It’s always much easier & cheaper to get carryout. If I preferred results from my own kitchen, then that would be better, but none so far.
I’ve done quite a bit of it. Even with great recipes, it’s tough at home. You need real tools and authentic ingredients, which are difficult to source or time-consuming to make for your own pantry. Then there is a lot of trial and error to discover the right balance of those elements that make Thai food so special, given your specific ingredients and palate. I know great cooks who find Thai cooking at home even more intimidating than Indian. And remember that a high percentage of Thais themselves (at least in the cities) eat out often - so much street food out there and so little space in their kitchens at home! I’s a large investment of both money and time, so unless you enjoy the process - and I do - then I agree that take-out is the way to go if you have good options near you.
If you want to go for it, another great book, though it’s not strictly just Thai is “Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet: A Culinary Journey Through Southeast Asia,” by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid. Both a great read and useful guide to balancing flavors and turning out authentic dishes.
LOTS of work to cook Thai at home, but can be very satisfying (especially if you live in a culinary wasteland like Boise). I’ve used “Cracking the Coconut: Classic Thai Home Cooking,” by Su-Mei Yu. It gives a good overview of Thai cooking/ingredients/flavors. I’m intrigued by some of the other suggestions in this thread though…
You can spend days and a lot of money here - http://www.importfood.com. Everything you could possibly need to make real thai food along with recipes and videos on how to make many thai dishes.