Kitchen notes

Before you start to cook:
• Wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water.
Ensure that you read the recipe carefully and that you have all the ingredients and utensils on hand.

Notes to recipes
• For your convenience, recipes are for 1 and 4 people unless specified.
All ingredients are listed in the order that you will use them.
Preparation and cooking times are approximate and are for one person.
All spoon measurements should be full and leveled off!
Meats should be boned and the fat trimmed off.
Eggs are the largest size, Thai Size No.1, or your local equivalent!
For vegetable lovers we have included 100% vegetarian alternatives for almost all recipes.
For meat lovers you can substitute any meat or fish other than the one mentioned.
You should of course adapt recipes in accordance with your own personal preferences.
If you don't have a wok then use a frying pan.
If you don't have a mortar and pestle then you can use a grinder or a blender. The best mortar and pestles are made of stone, just pound the ingredients gently. If you use a wood or clay mortar then you can pound more vigorously.

Basic substitutes and notes to ingredients
Remember that when you use substitutes, it will change the flavor of the dish so you can just play around and see how to best balance your available ingredients to your own required taste!

Local ingredients	Substitutes
Chili sauce	Tabasco sauce
Coconut cream	Tinned coconut cream or coconut cream block.
Coconut milk	Cows milk, cream or coconut milk
Eggplant	Large eggplant or green peas
Fish Sauce	Salt or light soy sauce
Green. Mangoes, green Papaya	Cooking apples
Lemons & limes	Substitute one for the other according to availability
Oil	Palm, sunflower, soya, peanut etc. oils
Palm Sugar	Brown or Demerara sugar
Shrimp Paste	Anchovies
Soy sauce	Use 'light' soy sauce in all recipes. Substitute fish sauce.
Tofu	Use 'soft' tofu in soups and 'firm' tofu for frying