Coconut Milk

The chile-tamarind sauce is a refined, complex variation on classic satay sauce, which is traditionally thickened with peanuts. This rendition owes its silky texture to mashed kabocha squash. At Arun's, this is served both as an appetizer and as a main course.

Round out this menu with a salad of snow peas, cherry tomatoes, and bean sprouts dressed with a rice-wine vinaigrette. For dessert, sliced kiwis splashed with rum would be good. Look for the curry paste, coconut milk, fish sauce, and jasmine rice in the Asian foods section of your supermarket.

You'll need a candy thermometer to monitor the fudge sauce and the marshmallows.

Simple yet sumptuous desserts like this one — where readily available ingredients such as bananas or yams are cooked in sweet coconut milk — are a specialty of Malay cooking. The pudding is traditionally made with pearl sago and palm sugar.

The sweet potato and coconut milk balance the spiciness of this dish. Serve it over white rice, and dinner is ready.

Serve the curry with steamed white rice and Indian beer, and make a stop at an Indian restaurant to get some samosas — savory filled pastries — to pass as appetizers, and the flatbread called naan to sop up the curry sauce. For dessert, how about assorted teas and a carrot cake?

This recipe can be prepared in 45 minutes or less. We were intrigued by the flavored cooking oil, ginger soy sauce and curry paste we found in the Asian foods section of the market last year, and used them to lend flair to this quick dish. Steamed white rice is the ideal side. Use a melon baller to scoop papaya, mango and passion-fruit sorbets into pretty cups, and garnish with crisp ginger cookies.

Remove the kernels from the cobs by holding each ear of corn upright on a flat surface and running a chef's knife along the cob and cutting downward, as close to the cob as possible.

Instead of ordering Thai takeout, whip up this easy classic. Serve with: Steamed jasmine rice and a cucumber and snow pea salad. Dessert: Sliced tropical fruits such as pineapple, kiwi, and mango.

This meatless dish can do double duty as a main course or a side dish.

The mild spice paste is also great used as a base for chicken and shrimp curries.

(Thai Grilled Chicken) For connoisseurs of grilled chicken, Thailand is paradise: Gai yang is a common street food and restaurant specialty. Each region has its own cooking methods, though most recipes begin by briefly marinating pieces of chicken, the bone still in, with the traditional Thai seasonings of black pepper, garlic, coriander root, and fish sauce. In this recipe coconut milk is added to the marinade, making the chicken especially succulent and flavorful. Because coriander root is called for in many classic Thai recipes, buy coriander with the roots on; when finished with the sprigs, wash the roots, wrap them in foil, and keep them in the freezer.

A crisp white wine, such as Sauvignon Blanc, would be nice with this dish.

Suitable accompaniments to this risotto-like dish are crusty bread, an avocado and orange salad with a cilantro vinaigrette and, to top it off, coconut pie.

Any brand of curry paste, which comes in jars or plastic pouches, will be successful in this authentic-tasting curry. Serve the spicy chicken with rice pilaf and stir-fried broccoli; lemon frozen yogurt is a refreshing finale.