Beat Pandemic Boredom: Explore Delicious & Exotic Flavours from Southeast Asian Cooking at Home
The COVID-19 pandemic that exploded onto the world stage in January of this year has focused our attention on home cooking more than ever before due to the various quarantine measures and stay-at-home orders put in place by many governments across the world.
And this, surprisingly, has turned out to be a positive in a very depressing time. Many of us are now spending more time at home. With many restaurants closed, cooking has become not just a luxury to indulge in over the weekends, or a quick activity to get dinner going on weekday evenings but a necessity to keep us healthy and fed in the long-term.
More Australians are delving into exotic recipes that open up a world of flavours from across the globe at this time, and Asian flavours, mainly Southeast Asian gas stove recipes, seem to be a favourite.
One of the best cookbooks with which to explore Southeast Asian recipes during this Coronavirus pandemic is Leela Punyaratabandhu’s Flavours of the Southeast Asian Grill: Classic Recipes for Seafood and Meats Cooked Over Charcoal.
Leela Punyaratabandhu: An Authority on Southeast Asian Cooking
Flavours of the Southeast Asian Grill is Leela’s third cookbook, which compliments her blog shesimmers.com, with which she has established herself as an authority on Thai food.
If you’ve ever followed her on Instagram, you must have seen the Thai, Burmese, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Laotian, Malaysian, and Cambodian recipes posted.
This new cookbook features updated versions of Southeast Asian favourites from grilled pork and crabmeat crepinettes with pineapple-chilli dipping sauce and smoked satay of baby back ribs with peanut sauce. It is a thoughtful study in the four pillars of Southeast Asian flavours – sweet, spicy, sour, and salty.
Cooking Leela in a Post-Pandemic World on Your Asian Gas Stove at Home
The best thing about Leela’s newest cookbook is its simplicity – all you need to reciprocate her Asian gas stove recipes at home, especially useful in this COVID-19 pandemic, is some fuel and simple grilling equipment.
The book explores the origins of our cooking and highlights the importance of grilling in Southeast Asian cuisine. A charcoal grill is truly an Asian gas stove, and is used in much the same way as we in Australia use indoor kitchen gas or electric ranges. And more than ever Leela and her Southeast Asian recipes are teaching us that in a post-pandemic world, we would do well to incorporate grilling into our everyday cooking and not just for the ubiquitous Christmas barbie or Sunday gathering.
This new cookbook teaches us that even though we’re hunkered down in our homes due to COVID-19, we might as well make something out of the situation and get grilling! Why not explore these exotic Southeast Asian recipes over charcoal or wood? Or up your food-storage game by trying out the several smoking and fermenting recipes like tao-jiao the famous Thai fermented soybean paste that accompanies Chicken Rice, Filipino fish dish tinapa or the Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian, or Thai fermented pork sausage naem?
All these Asian gas stove recipes are easy to make with the slightest improvisation from equipment readily available in Australia like kettle, ceramic, or pellet grills or smokers and table-top grilling equipment like the hibachi.
Wrapping It Up
One of the most surprising realizations in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic is how easy it is for us to switch our thinking in terms of how we cook and source food simply and safely. Less is now more, no matter where in the world the recipes come from, and resourceful, nutritious, and non-wasteful cooking is the name of the game.
If you’re looking for a cooktop that can help you explore these exotic Asian gas stove recipes and others at home, talk to our experts at Goldline today. We have a wide selection of both gas and electric cooktops with high wok-style cooking power that will help you to cook even the most daring of Southeast Asian recipes.
