# Cookbooks for Phil, 2022



## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

ebooks I have in my list so far:

The Red Boat Fish Sauce Cookbook-- my current ebook read. Written by the founder of Red Boat fish sauce. The opening recipe of fish sauce bacon has me intrigued.

America's Best BBQ I like Paul Kirk's writing on barbecue.

Putting Czech Recipes on the Map just because I know nothing about the cuisine.

NYT No Recipe Recipes
NYT Recipes of Record

Bress 'N' Nyam a carryover from last year

Lucky Peach Wurst Recipes The Wurst of Lucky Peach

A Simple Art--based on chrislehrer's suggestion.

At the Chinese Table I struggled a bit with her earlier book, but I'll give this a shot. 
Prep School This is from 2013, but came through on a recent epub deal. This is a collection of cooking articles from a Chicago newspaper

The Asian Market Cookbook based on https://www.minnesotamonthly.com/fo...fluencer-cookingbomb-launches-debut-cookbook/

I have Cradle of Flavor checked out from the Library but haven't spent any time with it yet. Butzy has recommended this in the past. I thumbed through it once and thought it interesting but hadn't come across it again until this week.

Still to acquire, but interested in. Some of these release dates are contradictory and seem to reflect when they release in different publishing regions. Or might just be wrong.


The Wok kenji lopez alt 3/8
Jeremy Pang's School of Wok 1/22 5 /31 in US I enjoy his Youtube channel and his prior tw o cookbooks.
Wing Crush 1/22 Paula Stachyra 4/26 on Amazon
Paon: Real Balinese Cooking by Tjok Maya Kerthyasa and I Wayan Kresna Yasa (AU) 4/22
Gullah Geechee Home Cooking: Recipes from the Mother of Edisto Island by Emily Meggett 5/22
Modern Asian Baking at Home: Essential Sweet and Savory Recipes for Milk Bread, Mooncakes, Mochi, and More; Inspired by the Subtle Asian Baking Community by Kat Lieu 6/21
The Vegan Chinese Kitchen: Recipes and Modern Stories from a Thousand-Year-Old Tradition by Hannah Che 8/22 or 8/30
Have You Eaten Yet?: Stories from Chinese Restaurants Around the World by Cheuk Kwan 9/1/22


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## butzy (Jan 8, 2010)

Interesting list!
I'll be following this thread


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

There's a problem with how my phone displays the diacritical marks so common on Vietnamese english characters. The main text works fine. The Bold and Heading displays have problems. I'm not sure why this happens. The book itself bundles three font families. CooperBlackStd, GrotesqueMTStd and HelveticaNeue, so it should display properly. That's the whole point of including fonts in epub and pdf. Maybe there's a setting to tweak.

The RedBoat Salt is described as the crystals formed in the barrels when drained and cleaned for the next batch of fish sauce. This increases my interest in the salt.

And to share the excitement, Red Boat Bacon


> *Red Boat-Cured
> Bacon*
> This recipe for bacon is a riff on the one served at Good Girl Dinette, the restaurant that Diep Tran ran before she joined Red Boat as our R&D chef. To make the bacon, start with an entire slab of pork belly and coat it in a rub made with Red Boat Salt or Fish Sauce, coriander, cinnamon, and other warming spices (as with most spices, the fresher, the better-so grind them fresh if you can). The rub cures the belly beautifully and, after a four-day cure, the belly is ready to be roasted into bacon. Any leftovers will freeze easily. If you don't feel like taking on a four-day project, Diep also has a faster version using store-bought strips (see Quick Red Boat Bacon). Whichever version you make, you'll understand why this bacon was a star of Good Girl Dinette's weekend brunch.
> 
> ...


Butzy, you'll have to do the math conversions to metric. This site may help when you're in internet range.
https://www.convertrecipe.com/


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## butzy (Jan 8, 2010)

Looks like a good recipe!
I can convert OK 
I just struggle with things like "pound per gallon" and so, as thats a double conversion. 440 gr per 3.8 litre still doesnt talk to me, but 116 gr per litre does


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

What I've discovered about fonts and my phone reader apps. 

I use FBreader and Librera for my apps. Both use fonts on the phone for the display, not in the book. Further, I pick a font and size I like. I'm used to being able to control font size, and I recall being able to over-ride default font choices in earlier apps. But using only the phone font, this is news to me. I would think with the rise of unicode font support that the variant characters would be well supported by phone fonts but this is not the case. I wonder if it's about conserving RAM that they avoid loading the supplied fonts? Interesting behavior. 

One of my favorite fiction books of the year, XX by Rian Hughes sidestepped this with a lot of bundled graphics for specialty text. I gave up reading it on a small device and used my tablet only because it relied on the graphics for its content. He really wanted and needed fine control of your reading experience and it was critical to the book.


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

Went looking for Red Boat Salt. Found some and it's expensive. surprisingly punget for salt. Packs quite a punch though. 

Discovered that two of my more Vietnamese oriented grocery stores are gone. One was my preferred banh mi vendor, though I've not gone there for banh mi since the pandemic started. Both of these were smaller grocers and older operations. The newer operations tend to be larger and less culture specific. 

Another store was limiting quantities of fish sauce per customer. 

The market is changing.


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

The Red Boat Fish Sauce Cookbook by Cuong Pham.

The book is about 1/3 non-trational uses and 2/3 more traditional uses. The bacon is non-traditional for example, at least to my knowledge. I've been under the impression that the Vietnamese do bacon much like the Chinese do bacon. I could be wrong.

Some of the non-traditional uses mimic things I've been doing for a while. I use it tomato based sauces in the Italian style, much like you would use anchovies in Puttanesca. Good fish sauce has some similar cheese notes as parmesan from the protein age/fermentation. Pham goes a bit farther with fish sauce replacing anchovies in Caesar dressing. I have fish sauce more readily available than anchovies usually so I'm tempted to by this idea.

As another example, my wife was making split pea soup and wasn't happy with the flavor. I reached for fish sauce and she stopped me saying she didn't want the soup to taste fishy. I added maybe a scant teaspoon and stirred the pot. She couldn't taste the fish sauce but the savoriness and impact of the ingredients now stood out. She is now a convert to fish sauce in other places.

I use fish sauce in my clam chowder and clam dip as well. Pham even does a Mexican chicken tinga with fish sauce.

I was more interested in his versions of the kho braises than most I've seen. He always uses sugar to start the dish but acknowledges there are those that don't. I'm still bothered by the curry powder beef kho recipe from last year...

And he finishes up with a section on pickles and sauces, stocks, custom mayo, a fairly big section. There are a couple of regional nuoc cham variations and a lengthy guide for how to approach making a nuoc cham of your own style.

I was particularly intrigued by a special occasion picked radish using fish sauce. I wonder a bit about the odor though. I once made banh mi for a family reunion. My brother was wondering where that wiff of garbage smell was coming from. It was coming from the pickled carrots and daikon. Daikon and vinegar combine to a bad smell, but taste great. Adding some fish sauce to this would taste good, but the odor in the fridge might be pretty strong.

And there is story content of course. Some discussion of the escape from Vietnam, the weak fish sauce then available, his mom's recipes. how they make fish sauce and the salt. The wooden vats he prefers for making the fish sauce, the source tree is now protected and can't be harvested. Some discussion of sustainability of fish sauce as well.

If you like fish sauce, you'll enjoy the book. I'm usually bothered by brand name recipes and cookbooks, but this one rose above the commercialism for me. I admit that Red Boat fish sauce is my preferred brand. So good.

Strangely, my second place fish sauce is on the other end of the spectrum. Where Red Boat is fish and salt and time, 9999 fish sauce is compounded with added nucleotides and flavor. It tastes good, not as good as Red Boat, but is an opposing approach in many ways.

https://www.vietworldkitchen.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/6a00d8341ef22f53ef01bb0795ca01970d.jpg
https://9999fishsauce.com/


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

Mixed up a batch of the bacon. That's a lot of spice


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

Cradle of Flavor: Home Cooking from the Spice Islands of Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia by James Oseland.

A pretty good book on the topic of cooking this cuisine. Excellent ingredient description and information. Probably too much actually.

And that's my main peeve with this book. It's richly and lovingly written; a loveletter to his experience of learning to cook this way. I think there's a better cookbook here that the editor failed to uncover that's probably only a third the size. Quality writing obscures this but I'd have preferred a more direct delivery of the information.

There's a lot of travel writing, meeting people, discovering dishes and learning to cook them. Which involves a fair amount of culture explanation. And those are all meritorious topics, well written and important to James. Maybe it's pent-up COVID me talking, but I wasn't interested in that this week. It blocked me from the cooking.

Good satay recipes and adaptions to the broiler. Good discussion of using power tools instead of the manual pounding. Good rendang. The Nonya dippiong sauce of worcestershire and soy struck me as the nuoc cham of those without fish sauce. It otherwise matched up pretty well.

I was glad to see a bibliography. They're useful for finding other quality books on the topic. Interesting to me was the mention of Joy of Cooking 1997 ( the oft maligned edition for cutting butter and simplifing some things--I have it, I like it, I like the more recent release better). And also Breath of the Wok by Grace Young. Breath seems so much more modern and cooking oriented. It's not, it's two years older and full of discussion of time and place of wok manufacture, regional technique, coffee table photographs and only some cooking. It just feels less stodgy and less romantic, though it's romance is with carbon steel. I read that in a dffierent time as a different person. If I read it new to me today, I might be a bit bitter about it as well. Hard to say.

My view on that in 2008

https://cheftalk.com/threads/breath-of-a-wok.50302/


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

I'll get to the book in a moment.

Red Boat Fish sauce in the 500 ml bottle has gone from $7.99 to 16.99 US $ in the last two weeks. Ouch.

The Asian Market Cookbook by Vivian Aronson

I started this before Cradle of Flavor, but where that was borrowed from the library, I gave it priority over this one. Asian Market is mostly Chinese content with a few side trips to other Asian dishes.

Organization is fairly simple, Sauces, Condiments, Dry Spices and so on. What's the difference between a sauce and a condiment to put things in one chapter over another? Just for confusion sake, soy sauce is a condiment in her classification and Oyster Sauce is not.

It seems that the difference is sauce ingredients are usually cooked along the way and a condiment is more in the 50/50 camp of cooked or not cooked.

So Sauces covers the use of Oyster Sauce, Miso Paste, Gochujang, Dou Ban Jiang, and Tian Mian Jiang. Condiments covers the use of Soy Sauce, ShaoHsing wine, Black Vinegar, and Sesame Oil. I like that she calls out her preferred brands. It gives you something to look for and helps you find a baseline flavor that is considered "good".

I want to quibble with her explanation of basmati and jasmine rice.



> Xian Mi 籼米
> 
> _Xian mi_ is white rice and comes in long or medium grain. The rice is usually served at a Thai restaurant as Jasmine rice or Indian restaurants as Basmati rice. I often buy the *Kokuho* brand. The Kokuho rice in the yellow packaging is good for everyday rice. Kokuho Rose in the red packaging has a softer texture and is good for everyday use and great for making congee. *Botan Calrose* and *Nishiki* are good brands too.


The cooking itself is pretty good. She teaches the Superior stock practice of a hybrid pork and chicken stock. She uses it on her steamed fish which I don't recall seeing before but don't have an objection to. She gives a recipe for Sichuan Jelly Noodles which I think I've seen in a restaurant and maybe at dim sum, but didn't know what it was, a mung bean starch jelly. Her Scallion Pancakes run to the simple interpretation and looked flat and crisp rather than flaky. My tastes differ, but there is a lot of regional variation in what a scallion pancake is.

I thought it got more interesting in her dry spices section. I've been doing more of this sort of braising during covid so I had more resonance with this section. She touches on red cooking and gives a few different dishes and hints at others--a smoked red cooked egg for example.

So, yes, I like it. I like that it's current on brand recommendations and availability. I think there are better books on ingredients generally, but they are more out of date on brands or don't discuss brands. These books are:

Asian Ingredients by Bruce Cost. There are a couple of different editions of this with slight variations in the title. He doesn't offer as many recipes and is more ingredient focused. His brand recommendations are out of date imho. He also covers produce and other things.
The Chinese Kitchen by Deh-Ta Hsiung. Usually a number of recipes on each ingredient. Also covers produce. A much more complete book and my preference unless you're looking for brand recommendations. 
So while I like it, I think this is book is probably one to get when it's on sale. Not quite a full price value I think.


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

Made the pork belly kho from the Red Boat cookbook. I quite liked it. My kids found it too intense. I knew it would be fatty and I skimmed fat, and used some more for the water spinach side, drained away fat while I scooped it up for serving, still fattier than my digestion will be happy with in a bit.

So, as a family meal, I would use pork shoulder next time to cut the fat, reduce the fish sauce and sugar to appease my children. Worth a repeat performance though even in a lesser production.

Bacon goes in the smoker tomorrow.


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## butzy (Jan 8, 2010)

Looking forwardto the smoked bacon


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

Straight off the smoker, it smells more like dessert than bacon. My wife thought it akin to hoisin in smell. I've found you have to give bacon some time to meld flavors before it will really reveal itself. It's usually very sweet in flavor right out of the smoker and then changes after 12 or so hours into what it will taste like in a stable way.

Now reading Prep School. In the section on knife tips there was something I don't recall seeing before. A simultaenous double knife grip for mincing tender herbs like parsley. In the referenced text below, these are photos 2 and 3. He seesm to be using two knives of different lengths as well.




















> Pinch the blade of one knife between the thumb and index finger of your knife hand (photo 1). Rest the edge of the blade on a cutting board to give yourself some stability.
> 
> 2. Place the second knife's handle between your index and middle fingers so that it becomes parallel with the first knife. Grip the blade of the second knife with your index and middle fingers (photo 2).
> 
> ...


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## butzy (Jan 8, 2010)

Interesting knife handling for sure


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

Testing the bacon. It wants to take on color FASTer than you can really render the fat. And there is a definite bark to it from the spice coat.









Flavor is an aromatic sweet, smoke is light, then some fish funk in the finish. I have no objection to it, but I'm not sure what to do with it. Off hand I'm thinking a Thai Hot and Sour style soup would be good with it.

Probably a noodle dish with some lime too.

Banh mi, heavy on the pickle daikon/carrot and liver pate perhaps.


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## butzy (Jan 8, 2010)

I made szechuan bacon some time ago and I used it in soup, stews, rolls (with lettuce, pickle etc)


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

I tried a bit in my noodle bowl last night. It was a fun contrast from the garlic ginger lemongrass pork. Not something to base the noodles on, but a fun accent.

I'm debating putting it in sous vide to render it a bit more then just a quick time in the pan for color when it's time to use.


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

Prep School by James P. Dewan

This was mostly a skim. It was covering a lot of territory I'm familiar with. So I was looking for refreshing my knowledge, new approaches or a new insight. 

The double knife skill above is a new idea. I was more impressed with his approach to buerre blanc than most others. I think this is because of the vinegar approach rather than wine and lemon juice. I don't drink so rarely have wine on hand for cooking beyond the Chinese ShaoHsing. And they often add tarragon, an herb whose use I struggle with. A bit odd that as I like fennel, fennel seed and star anise. 

Also two things in pastry stood out to me. Pate Sucree made a sense to me it hasn't before. And the Brisee he divides the dough after cutting in the butter. One to make flakey for the top crust and the other to make more mealy for the bottom crust. 

I wouldn't use Prep School as an initial approach to cooking. It lacks structure and some common details for starting to learn. But it was pretty good as a refresh course and worthwhile for me. 

The Paul Kirk bbq book is a revised edition of something I read some years back. So it has dropped off my to-read stack.


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

Bress 'n' Nyam: Gullah Geechee Recipes from a Sixth-Generation Farmer by Matthew Raithford.

Gullah a language/dialect and culture that developed mostly off shore of islands of the US South, after the Civil War largely. This region has struggled with bigotry, lack of funding, emigration to the mainland for jobs, a common story of the world in many ways. New development threatens the traditions and people.






There's a fair overlap with other southern dishes, as you would expect. Raiford has trained as a chef and lived with the military in foreign lands and so has a more diverse taste than just the historical practices. Saffron, coconut milk, berbere spicing and other non-regional things sprinkle the book. So it's more of a contemporary upscale version of this food and with some other heritages included.

The organization is loosely modeled after some linguistic uses

Eart/Earth--plants, grains beans
De Wata/Water--fish, seafood
Fiah/Fire--pork/game usually with a live fire cooking element
Win/Wind--poultry
Sweet'n/Nectar--sweets
De Spirits/Spirits--drinks

Also a sources section. The food is highly regional and ingredient specific, though substitutions are provided for us thousands of miles away.

I was hoping for a more traditional view of the food than contemporary but I'll take what I can get. There's story of course. This is about a threatened cultural group and story is important for context and preservation. But not so much story as you might think given the topic.

Tastes, he relies on some of my favorite seasonings like smoked paprika and sumac. He also uses a modified Montreal Steak Seasoning with smoked paprika and cayenne. That shows up fairly often.

I was intrigued with the collard greens recipe. He boils his in a gallon of water with other seasonings. I don't know if this is his method or common to his culture. But my experience of general southern collards is more of braise with a few cups of water or stock. He uses a two stage cooking, with half the greens cooked 15 minutes, then the rest added. But no instructions on the rest of the timing or what to look for for proper doneness.

He saves the liquid, potlikker, for cooking other things like boiled peanuts. The potlikker is usually considered desirable in its own right for flavor so this makes sense. I've just never seen it cooked in so much liquid.



> Mess o' Greens
> 
> My Aunt Mary Lou used to make what she called a "mess of greens," and I couldn't get enough of them. But it wasn't until I traveled in the military that I learned people either (1) had no idea what collards were, (2) had eaten badly cooked greens, which turned them off of them forever, or (3) were too intimidated to cook them. Greens can be temperamental: pulled too soon from the stove, they can be tough and spiky; pulled too late, they can be a soupy, mushy mess. I love these greens ladled over a bowl of CheFarmer's Grits (page 29) or as a side to Za'atar Roasted Chicken (page 155).
> 
> ...


Just for contrast, this is more what I'm used to





I'm no authority on Gullah cuisine to criticize Raiford's approach. I would have appreciated more timing information. Oh, he always uses the pink Himalayan salt everywhere.

I'm interested in finding some of the Carolina Gold rice and giving it a try. 
https://www.carolinaplantationrice.com/store/products/Carolina-Plantation-Gold-Rice.html
It's certainly southern. It's certainly local. I would have liked more details about what differentiates the Gullah from the Southern in food. Perhaps even just more about tradition and holidays.

The cooking seems pretty good. The cultural context less so. I need to read some other things to better understand what he's doing most likely.


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

I did sous vide the bacon. Improved texture and flavor balance I think.

https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/tips-tricks-the-world-s-best-bacon-cooks-allllll-night-long


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

The New York Time Cooking No-Recipe Recipes by Sam Sifton and the New York Times Company

A recipe is not always necessary. Some things are simple enough a process or description is sufficient. These are usually simple things, relatively. A sandwich, a simple combination of common pantry items and so on.

They talk about pantry stocking. They talk about party boards and breakfast. Things got a bit more interesting to me in the soup section. There's something akin to "Pasta Siduri" https://cheftalk.com/threads/challenge-june-2013-pasta.76049/post-430434 that they make into soup instead. I know the Pasta is good so this certainly seems worth trying.



> Here's a simple, rich, amazingly creamy soup, relatively quickly made.
> 
> Cauliflower
> Olive oil
> ...


Most of the recipes get some modification ideas as well. A lot of it is pretty clear things to do once you understand the common temps and timings of cooking basic ingredients. Useful for some suggested combinations of course.

A few others stood out to me like one with rice and greens with furikake.

I think I disagree that puttanesca doesn't need a recipe. There are too many strongly flavored ingredients that can overpower this dish. It benefits from a more measured balance I think.

If you're looking for some unstructured cooking suggestions, this book fills the bill. But not anything particularly special in it.


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

Food52 Dynamite Chicken: 60 Never Boring Recipe for your Favorite Bird by Tyler Kord

I often enjoy content from Food52 so I thought this would be to my taste. It wasn't. Tyler likes sweetness cooked into the bird. Sugar, honey, lots of maple syrup, chocolate milk, fruit. I have a tough time with sweet savory generally though there are some cuisines that succeed with it that I like. I think the sweet savory thing is part of why Thai and Korean cuisine aren't my favorites. I know it's popular with a lot of people and they would probably like the flavor combos Tyler presents. 

Being Food52, the cooking is competent and well documented. There are useful chart digressions offering techniques, timing and flavor ideas separate from the recipes themselves. And I did go through it all even though so much of it wasn't my thing so it's well done. 

I can't recommend it personally, but it's not that there's anything wrong with it. Just not my taste.


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

Made the roasted cauliflower soup. The pasta is better. To improve the soup, cook the cauliflower longer and in smaller pieces. It needs more toasted flavor conversion.


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

Tokyo Cult Flavor by Maori Murota

Started off reading this book in Librera. The ingredients lists read sort of weird. Checked the formatting in its more native Nook app and it made a lot more sense there. So it's worth having some other apps in your reading arsenal for a book where formatting matters. In most fiction or non-fiction, it's not as critical.

Still, there was one bit of weirdness, even in Nook app, for the Nigiri Zushi


> vinegared sushi rice, made with 300 g (10½ oz) rice wasabi


Yes, I spent a little time searching to see if that was a real item, but I concluded that it was just a missing line return indicating wasabi as a separate ingredient. Probably an artifact of the epub conversion.

I've not read much Japanese cooking material. One of my kids is sensitive to seafood and the heavy use of dashi precludes my cooking a lot of it.

There's a little bit of a hurdle in specialized ingredients I've not looked for specifically before. And some home economics too, in that I don't know if I'll use up that tub of miso before it goes bad. Can I freeze it? What size blobs should I freeze it in for easy re-use? He doesn't address these kinds of things. (Oops, blurb description talks about "her mother", my bad and my apologies if you read this.)

There's not a lot of context or any introduction to individual recipes. This is a time where I would have liked a little more story to better place the dish in its milieu. I liked the Bento section the best because it assembled ideas for meals together.

There is a board game I play occasionally with my friends, Tokaido. The theme is that you're on holiday along the Tokaido road collecting (competing) for various experiences. At the end of each "day", you enter an inn where you'll buy a meal (assuming you budgeted to afford it). Quatities are limited at each inn and you can't repeat a meal either. One of the victory bonuses "Gourmand" is for who spent the most on food.










This book covered each of these foods and for the first time, I now know what Dongo is and how to make it. It's a grilled tofu/rice ball in a sweet syrup, though there are variations too. The six single cards across the top are specialty expansion cards. Fugu and Unagi were not covered here. And yes, I play Sushi Go with them too.

So I learned some things, but I think my overall understanding is more confused than before. I don't blame that on the book. More that I'm just starting to learn. I think the book is worthwhile.


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

Also made the greens and rice with furikake. That was well received. 

Almost done with Soup Club. Had some time while getting tires installed so some extra reading got done.


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

Soup Club by Caroline Wright

This is a vegan cookbook, but soup is pretty easily adapted to other tastes as well. She often includes ideas for other additions that will take it vegetarian and I seem to recall a couple of meaty ideas tossed in as well.

The recipes get a color illustration. There are photographs too, but they tend to be of people doing soupy things and mostly black and white. The soups usually include a haiku or some other rhyme at the end. My favorite was:

cold weather comfort
the big dipper
ladling the moon

Seemed appropriate to soup on a cold evening. The soup for this one didn't interest me though (Fennel Farinata)

Being vegan, there's no stock to speak of or bouillon. Most soups build a broth along the way though she does have some crutches she reaches for over and over. The dijon mustard in the Minestrone Invernale, frequent uses of nutritional yeast. Most every soup finshes with acid of some sort, most often cider vinegar. I think there are better choices depending on the cuisine, but I do agree about finishing soup with acid. The black bean soup would have been better with lime imho; a Parsi squash dish seems to call for verjus--something I see often in the ethnic grocers compared to cider vinegar.

There's a section of simple breads to accompany the soups, some seasoning mixes called for in various recipes, (curry powder and so on) and an Instant Pot section treating a number of the soups to the Instant Pot technique. She gives detailed instructions for each Instant Pot variation which does justify the rehashing of the same soups.

While some of the ethnic bean/lentil dishes were interesting and I'll explore a few of those, I was most interested in the Asparagus with Dill and Lemon.



> Asparagus, Dill + Lemon Soup
> 
> This one goes out to the asparagus fans, in a soup that does not resemble baby food.
> 
> ...


The sorghum is a bit strange to me. I've not used it before. I usually see sorghum syrup called for in some Southern recipes, but I've not seen the grain itself used that I recall. While not called for in this recipe, I do have nutritional yeast on hand. It's good on popcorn and I have doctored soup with it before.

I try to have home-made soup in the fridge for my family to make a quick easy meal of. I usually have one soup meal a week and the leftovers serve the refrigerator duties. It's often a Thursday evening for no reason I can explain, just works out that way.

This has plenty of worthwhile ideas you can easily adapt to your dietary preferences or enjoy as is. Nothing wrong with a vegan meal and soup is delicious way to do it.


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

I've been reading only fiction the last week. I wanted to get through Black Leopard, Red Wolf again before starting the just released Moon Witch, Spider King, both my Marlon James. It's been a few years between releases and I wanted the story fresh in my mind. 

I plan to pick up again with the Czech cookbook soon.


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

Just an update. 
I'm about halfway through both the Czech cookbook and The Wok. The Czech one has been heavy on the pastry and sweets so far. Not in love with that as a cook though good to eat. 

The Wok has been both great and poor. It's very chatty and overwritten. It would be better if Kenji were less famous so the editor would do their job and trim the bloat. But as writers gain fame, editor power weakens. The sidebar content has been my favorite part so for. I disagree with the organization, the intense handholding of the recipes. But Kenji knows a lot and has some good insight.


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## summer57 (Sep 21, 2010)

I'm also going halfway through The Wok. I'm enjoying it. I agree it's very chatty., but that's Kenji and I don't mind. Lots of pictures, which adds to the 'extreme handholding'.


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

Today is the official release of the The Wok. Saw it at Costco today. Barnes & Noble had it on the shelf before the end of February.


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## Daxocyt (10 mo ago)

phatch said:


> Today is the official release of the The Wok. Saw it at Costco today. Barnes & Noble had it on the shelf before the end of February.


Is it available online? I haven't seen this book in any of the local book shops(


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

It should be. Amazon does have it as do the various ebook sources.


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## summer57 (Sep 21, 2010)

They had it at Costco in Washington state a couple of weeks ago.


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

Finished The Wok by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt

This is a Pan-Asian cookbook with a lot of digressions and I would say a somewhat Japanese tilt. I say tilt because the brand preferences seem to run more Japanese. Ingredient discussions seem to be of deeper dive nature on Japanese ingredients like Dashi, Miso and so on compared to chinese bean sauces. And I infer some Japanese heritage in his commentary, though I can't quote a specific one off hand.

As noted earlier, it's very chatty. Most recipes have a lengthy, even rambling introduction. Even parts of recipes get introductions separate from the recipe itself. The recipes do a bowl by bowl break-down of mise-en-place every time. I found it repetitive and too tightly scripted.

The organization runs strangely. There's a linear sense to the book that works, But not so much of a pick up the book for reference. The first time an ingredient is used, you get prep guide for that ingredient, at least as far as that recipe needs. It might occur again later with a different preparation explained elsewhere. But you don't get a single place to look to find it all together. From a western meat-centric perspective, there isn't one place to turn to find all the chicken centric dishes. They're scattered around, some by technique, some by Noodles or Rice, some by the "Science of Stir-Fries". This is true of other organization schemes too, but more pronounced here I think.

There's some good tables about a range of topics. You'll want a larger screen device to get the most out of that content if you're not using paper. The asides about dishes, technique, history, flavor are the parts I liked best. The actual cooking got masked by the tedium of the delivery for me.

His Chinese American dishes are probably the ones of most interest to me. The General Tso's use of vodka is interesting and one I look forward to trying.

It's an educational book. I value that. I disagree with the a lot of the delivery and organization. The content is fairly well tested. But it's not reference friendly for the way I tend to use books. And I don't see myself cooking from this one much. I think it's a book most people interested in Asian cuisine should check out and experience. I don't think it's one that will be turned to a lot after that. So best to borrow from a library.

Why it's a borrower:;


Pan-Asian These books are usually not deep dives into a cuisine. They rarely have the best take on a dish compared to more specifically targeted books. It's also easy to forget what a Pan Asian book includes or excludes when you're looking for something specific. So you can waste time looking for the wrong thing too easily.
Difficult to re-reference on a flip through or general term search. There's little rhyme or reason to where a particular piece of information might be located. So take notes on your first time through. Copy out what you want to reference.
Signal to Noise ratio is troubling. 
Beginner approach. While the details are deep and copious, the recipe presentation goes on and on walking you through everything step by tiny step. You'll probably want a more stream-lined version for your regular use.


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## summer57 (Sep 21, 2010)

I've been a Kenji fan for years, from America's Test Kitchen to Serious Eats, Food Lab, and now, The Wok. I also follow his comments on the serious eats sub-reddit. Not surprising that this book is right up my alley.
I'm going to try his pepperoni XO sauce - it's easy to get regular xo sauce around here but this version looks fun.


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

Be sure to give us a report.


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

Lets catch up a bit. 

The Nimble Cook by Ronna Welsh.

I wanted to like this book more than I did. I'll get to that shortly. This is primarily a cooking theory cookbook. By that I mean she is writing more about an approach to cooking that is based in skills and ingredients rather than recipes and custom shopping. An approach to cooking without recipes using what you have. 

I've read a few of these sorts of things over the decades. Most were overly simplistic and relied on repetition. Ronna specifically derides the bulk cooking approach where you cook everything for the week in one burst. She calls it out as wasteful. And waste reduction/re-use is a key part of what she does in this book. Still, she has her recipes she uses to consume these by products efficiently, for certain values of efficient. 

The principles and ideas here are important. They are what most of us achieve over years of cooking practice, whether professional or home. We build up a sort of holisitic understanding of what's on hand and ways to use it up. 

The practice she presents just isn't my practice at all. It strikes me as very European centric, and probably mostly French. I tend to cook in more Asian styles. So even when she's using up garlic in a ginger garlic sesame oil, she uses extra virgin olive oil. She saves up the inner celery leaves for a Celery Syrup for a Celery Sour. I don't drink.

It also seems to me that she isn't cooking for more than one or two at home regularly. So I don't have the storage room for all the re-use tweaks she's doing along the way. I go through bigger amounts of more things than she seems too. It just isn't matching my current logistics.

The more European your cooking interests are, the better your storage, the better this book will serve you. It is worthy. It just may not be as applicable as one could hope.


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

That Noodle Life by Mike and Stephanie Le

This turned into a skim pretty quickly. They weren't doing anything new really or that struck me as insightful. And I prefer a more targeted cuisine approach than a lasagne recipe here, and a ramen recipe there. Glad I only borrowed it. I've owned a more detailed pan-noodle cookbook than this one before. But I didn't cook from it and I gave it away some years ago.


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

The Magic of Tinned Fish by Chris McDade

This too is Euro-centric, but it bothered me less here. It's organized around the different kinds of fish in a can/bottle. So chapters look like:

Anchovies
Sardines
Mackerel
Shelfish, Squid and Octopus
Trout and Cod

I thought combining trout and cod a bit odd. Although I can't say I've ever seen canned trout or cod that I can recall. And this was true for a few other items he covers.

Still, canned ingredients can be of respectable quality, store well, are quick and convenient and I'm up for learning more ways to use them.

I'd have liked to see some of the asian options covered. Of particular interest here would Dace in Black Beans. This occupies a pretty good chunk of the Asian canned fish section.






I certainly did pick up some ideas and if you use canned fish, it is worth checking out. Pretty specialized topic though.


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

Bagels, Schmears and a Nice Piece of Fish by Cathy Barrow.

I liked this, I've marked a number of recipes to try. I've not cooked any of them yet.

This is short, is pretty picky and specific about certain ingredients, but reasonably so for the quality of the result it seems. And that's part of why I've not attempted bagels from it yet.

The Schmears look pretty good. I've used a vegie smear recipe for a few years and liked it.

https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-veggie-cream-cheese-247211
Cathy's is very similar but starts with a more doctored base. Ideally, she makes her own cream cheese, and then adds some sour cream/creme fraiche and some lemon. Those will increase spreadabiltiy and acid, both things my referenced recipe would benefit from.

The sweet schmears weren't interesting to m, but I've never found one to my taste anyway.

I think the details look right for this to be a good book.


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

Noodles Every Day by Corrine Trang. 

I don't remember anything about this book at all. My notes on my reading list just say "weak". 

This surprises me as I consider Corrine Trang a reliable cookbook author and I own and enjoy a number of her books. 

I think I will want to revisit this one. I may have had other mental noise going on that distracted me or something. I still have it, so that says something about it was worth keeping.


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

If you're just jumping to the end of the thread, there were a few new entries on the 2nd page of this thread you should go back and look at too.


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## chrislehrer (Oct 9, 2008)

I love this thread, and always read it.
If that canned seafood cookbook were more comprehensive and included more Asian flavors (and Asian tinned ingredients!) I would buy that. I pick up these cans and then think, "what the hell am I going to do with this?"


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## butzy (Jan 8, 2010)

Thanks for continuing this thread 
I'm born and raised in Northern Europe. Never seen tinned trout either.
Tinned tuna, sardines, pilchards, herring, mackerel, anchovies, salmon, but no trout


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

Woks of life blog has their book release on 11/1


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## butzy (Jan 8, 2010)

phatch said:


> Woks of life blog has their book release on 11/1


Interesting
I like their site


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

I enjoy their site too.


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

I've lingered longer in the canned fish section of groceries lately. I've now noticed canned baby scallops I don't recall seeing before. 

Today I ended up in Walmart and they actually had a more diverse canned fish section. Tuna in small jars in oil with different seasonings. Mackerel, herring, and yes, smoked trout, Bumblebee brand. So whether it's that Walmart targets a different demographic, or that this one is an East-side (wealthy) part of Salt Lake City, I'm not sure. But if you want to see something different in canned fish, Walmart may be that, at least in the US.


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

Wing Crush: 100 epic recipes for your grill or smoker by Paula Stachyra

It's all wings (seasonings, sauces, rubs too) No sides, tipples or desserts. I actually like the strict focus. I also like that this is grill/smoker centric. I like what that does for wings compared to the fryer. Though I don't complain about fried wings either. 

There's usually a rub, some sauce work and some extras for serving. She's definitely in a bit of a rut with her rubs. the teaspoon each of garlic and onion powder along with paprika to hotter ground chiles is nearly universal. I think there's more that could have been achieved. 

And from over here in my superior rut, I can tell you that the one true rut is based on a 2:1 ratio of onion to garlic powder. I fall back on that ratio when I'm building rubs so I guess I can't blame her totally.

For my sense of gimmickry, she falls into that area. Nacho wings with cheese sauce. Pizza wings with pepperoni, a whole chapter of wings based on alcholic drinks. But those might be what you think are interesting and they seem competently constructed. 

Worth while for fans of spicy wings. 

Street Food Vietanm by Jerry Mai. This shares a lot of design sensibilities with the Hong Kong Local book from last year. I think it's part of the same line of books. And both have no ebook version available. 

Overall this struck me as either somewhat under-researched or simplified. Ingredient count seemed a little low. 

There were two variant ideas of bahn xeo I found interesting. Let me say that I'm not sure which dish came first and influenced the others, or maybe not at all , but that since I know xeo first, that's why they look related to me. 

Bahn Khot is another rice flour coconut cream cake rather than a crepe. It needs a specialized pan that is not pictured. But probably something like an abelskiver pan would seem about right. Topped with savory things.

The other was Bahn Beo, a rice flour and water cake topped with savory things again. 

And in the Pho Bo topic he includes a head of roasted garlic along with the roasted ginger and onion. He does this for Pho Ga and for Pho Chay as well. This is the first I remember seeing Pho Chay, a mushroom based version. I think garlic and mushrooms belong together so the garlic seems right there. But in the other pho, I don't recall seeing garlic in a recipe before. 

Not an essential Vietnamese Cookbook. But if you really get into street food, there are some brand new things for you to try out.


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

Jeremy Pang's School of Wok by Jeremy Pang.

This book presents some conundrums for me. And one I'll have to address again with Woks of Life in November. Or whenever Mandy of Souped Up recipes releases her book, or Chris and Steph of Chinese Cooking Demystified.

But what is the value of a cookbook from web content? I enjoyed Mooncakes and Milkbread last year. That was based on a blog. I was unaware of that before reading the book. So to me it was just a new cookbook. That is not the case here where I've followed Jeremy's School of Wok channel on youtube for years. I can't say that any specific recipe is one I remember seeing. Checking a few, I don't see that they were done exactly on youtube, but they seem to share many similarities to presentations on youtube.

And this is a pan-asian book with minimal context for the recipes, two things I tend to dislike.

I did like it overall. Jeremy is a bit of a simplifier, tending to decomplicate things. I talked about it once
https://www.cheftalk.com/threads/oyster-sauce-beyond-condiment-status.107581/#post-608407
In that link, Jeremy cooks oyster sauce alone in the wok to develop the sea flavors as the base for a wonton soup dish rather than building it all from shrimp shells and so on. Usually such shortcuts turn me off, but I've had pretty good success cooking from Jeremy's recipes.

You get some discussion of equipment and technique. One of the gimmicks here is the "Wok Clock" doing your mise en place on a plate as though the numbers on the dial represent the order things are getting added. The Wok Clock has long been part of Jeremy's process and I don't mind it here. Most of the time, there is a small illustration showing the setup. Too often though, you get a whole page of this illustration which is just wasteful and not really contributing to the value here.

This is organized largely regionally, if you can call combining Japan and Korea a regional cuisine. I'm not going to argue about it. I'm disappointed that the usual serving size is only for 2. This complicates scaling up for family use in wok cooking and is a disservice imho.

Chinese chapter, you get some deeper cut selections such as egg wrapper dumpling and saliva chicken--here renamed Sichuanese Mouth-watering Chicken. He also takes the cumin lamb skewers into the wok, something he does a few other times with dishes like chicken satay. This is a wok oriented book, so he leaves the skewering to the diner. I have mixed feelings, though I admit doing it in a wok simplifies it in a way I'm more likely to try when I'm cooking alone. If I have my family to help, I'm more likely to do something more labor intensive.

in the Thai chapter he starts off with what look like pretty good curry pastes. Then into things I'm not that interested in. I did think the steamed fish with lemon grass and lime broth looked quite good. This is one of the recipes I checked for on youtube. And there is a similar steamed fish, but not the same.

Vietnamese chapter, he starts with Chicken Pho. I've never gotten into the chicken variants much They don't really seem to save any work, just simmer for less time. A couple of kho style and another fish dish are appealing to me.

Singaporean and Malaysian is the next Chapter. To my taste, a chicken fried in sesame oil looks interesting with the sesame as the cooking oil. Not a common use for it. The wok satay is here. Char Kway Teow is also here looking simple. It never is. It's like Beef Chow Fun, deceiving you about stir frying rice noodles as easy. You need high quality fresh rice noodles, an intense heat source, great wok skills. Any mistake or ingredient flaw is only magnified in the result.

He uses dried noodles in the book. I've never come close from a dried noodle. Massive sticking, breaking and disappointment abound. He uses dried noodles in his most recent video for these as well. He gives better directions in the video than in the book. The video also uses shrimp paste, the book uses oyster sauce.






Clicked post too soon, see below for the rest.


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

Indonesian and Pinoy is next. My favorite bit here was the addition of dark soy to the chicken adobo. I thought that was a good touch. I don't think I've really seen dark soy called for in Filipino cooking before? But I like it. I also liked the more complete instructions on a beef tapsilog breakfast, including the garlic rice. He doesn't build the more european gravy I usually see, letting the marinade and beef juice do that duty from the wok cooking. 

In Japan and Korea chapter, I was mostly interested in the Chicken Katsu Curry. No curry block was used. Curry powder in the seasoning for battering the chicken, In building the curry sauce, he used Garam Masala in addition to the curry powder, a nice touch. 

A final chapter of side dishes didn't stand out to me. 

So I enjoyed the book. I think there are worthwhile ideas and he tests his recipes well in my experience. And you're not getting repeats of the public information. There are refinements along the way.


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

At the Chinese Table by Carolyn Phillips

A memoir with 2 recipes per chapter, 11 chapters.

I quickly ceased reading the body of the chapters and just looked at the recipes. It's heavy on pork and garlic as she acknowledged at the beginning.

Skip this one IMHO. Really shouldn't be classed as a cookbook.


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

One Knife, One Pot, One Dish by Stephane Reynaud

There's a lot I like about this book, and it isn't the food. 

I like the simple idea about cooking expressed in it's title. That idea is one of things I like about so much of Asian cooking. 

EVERYTHING is short and to the point. White space abounds--usually a sign of clear design and understanding of communication--but it's expensive as you "waste" a lot of space. 

The recipes are like I write recipes for my own use, but in complete sentences instead of just verbs or adjectives. 



> One-pot carbonnade
> 1 flameproof casserole dish
> chopping board
> Low heat
> ...


There is no story, how-to or instruction beyond the very simple. If you need more info, you need an even more introductory cookbook. 

As a cookbook reader, this was a breeze to read, easy to comprehend and intensely focused. It's not entertaining. It offers no context beyond your own interest in eating. And while its allegedly about French food, it roams afield some. Chilli (Spelled as in the book), Nachos, Osso Bucco, Tacos and some others. 

There are some language hurdles for me, especially with potatoes. Bintje, and Kipfler potatoes? I can look that up, but it's not written for an American audience. Tomato sauce (ketchup) is a common entry too, I suppose offering a simple substitution? 

And, well, I'm just not particualarly interested in French cuisine. So the flavor approach and combinations didn't really interest me a lot. But the book is so well done and refreshingly focused that I quite enjoyed the experience and education. And if you like French food, even better.


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## butzy (Jan 8, 2010)

Sounds like an interesting layout, but like you, it's not really French food I'm interested in.
Bintje, by the way, is one of the biggest potatoe varieties I know and used extensively in NW Europe.
Tomato sauce is not tomato ketchup 
It is more like passata, or in between passata and tomato puree.
Yep, I originate from Europe


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

Chinese-ish: Home Cooking Not Quite Authentic 100% Delicious by Rosheen Kaul and Joanna Hu

Written from a diaspora-Australian perspective, and a few others too. I differentiate between diaspora and fusion along the lines of familiar fuel vs intent and design. While both authors have restaurant backgrounds to varying degrees, this is about home eating. The recipes start off more traditional and then diverge. The section titles indicate this as well.

Introduction: On feeling Chinese-ish
Part One: Chinese Cookign 101
Part Two: The Rebellion: How to Disappoint Your Parents
Part Three: My Love Language is a Fruit Platter

Some of the book is illustration, some is photographed and always with some fashion irony, for my sense of fashion irony. I could be and likely am also wildly out of fashion.










A Singaporean eatery concept was new to me also, the _zi char. _A Guide to Zi Char - 21 Popular Zi Char Dishes Everyone Should Know About some of these dishes do show up as recipes. SpicenPans has a recipe guide for zi char dishes. I follow SpicenPans on Youtube. 20 Zi Char Recipes You Can Easily Recreate at Home I'll need to spend some time with those links myself.

Part one is very much in line with standard authentic cooking. This book is not following the trend of slipping basics into the back but puts them up front. And this is keeping with the way this book flows. Serving sizes are usually small, 1 or 2 people. The Char Kway Teow is only for one. I'm coming to understand this better with the hassles of frying broad rice noodles to a good result. They specify fresh ones which are hard to source. I really respect Jeremy Pang for using dried ones in his version.

I also like their use of a commercially roasted Cantonese Duck to use for a high class soup in the same way I might use a rotisserie chicken.

And maybe it's an Australian thing, but it seems that Dan Dan Mian is more like Zhajiangmian than she prefers. So here she gives the recipe she's proudest of for Dan Dan that is like her childhood with the sesame paste. I agree that it's often short of the sesame and heavy on the chile. I was confused that she opted for white tahini instead of roasted sesame paste though. Maybe that's what her parent used from lack of the traditional one? Still looks well balanced and restrained from the excess common in Westernized Chinese food.

Part two is fairly short. I liked the corruption of Prawn Toast into Fried Prawn balls in Panko. The non-sweet but still sticky ribs look good, and very heavy on the garlic. And while I have Queso Fundido and Nachos readily at hand for my spicy cheese desires, they went with Swiss Fondue topped with half a cup of chilli oil.

And in Part Three there's an interesting ginger chicken. She calls it a braise, but the liquid is so low it's more of steam I think. She specifies 'old ginger' for it's intensity compared to young ginger. I don't think I've ever seen young ginger. I should try to grow some I guess. it will grow here allegedly, but not bloom.

Also a cereal crusted prawn dish, specifying Nestum. I've never looked for it but my asian grocer might carry it. Corn Flakes would likely sub just fine. Seasoning includes dried milk powder and a good dose of chicken bouillon powder. Seems a bit odd for a shrimp dish. But this is the part with the wider variation from authenticity.

Still, they return to their roots when feeding a crowd with Big Plate Chicken, Dong Bo Pork and similar dishes.

Then come desserts (they don't hate). I'm fully on board with their rejection of sweet red bean paste. Mango pudding calling for a mango flavored jelly crystal (Aeroplane brand and a jingle reference I don't get) I've not noticed such a thing before. Usually I see a complete mix where I'm only adding hot water/milk.

The Ube Canoli were something of interest to my family. Many of my family members love ube. I'm indifferent about it. They use wonton wrappers to build the canoli tube for fying and fill it with a sweet potato custard. I suspect I'll be eating these a few times in the near future.

I have to give the Index a failing grade.


> The page numbers in this index refer to the page numbers of the printed book and are reproduced here for reference only. Please use the search facility of your device to find the relevant entry.


They should have generated links for the entries. Pretty simple to automate as index generation is all about tagging and linking in the first place. So this is a fail in my view.

I liked the approach to the cuisine. Not too much story. Modern convenience twists that i appreciate. I recommend it if you're not a stickler for authenticity.


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## butzy (Jan 8, 2010)

Sounds like the type of food I appreciate 
Phatch, is it by any chance possible to include whether the cookbooks are metric or imperial? 
I am imperially challenged and since I buy mostly kindle books I would like to know. ("normal" books just get their equivalent written next to it)


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

Chinese-ish gives both measurements.


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

Got to look at a few books I was interested in. None of these ended up making it to my read stack but may be of interest to others here.

Have You Eaten Yet? by Cheuk Kwan I was hoping for some restaurant cooking, but it's all just Asian restaurant stories. 

New Wok Cooking by Rosa Ross. Pan-asian and a more modern "world" approach to flavor. I think her other books might be more to my interest, Beyond Bok Choy-- this book was what the blurbs on New Wok Cooking were endorsing. And 365 Ways to Cook Chinese


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

My Kitchen Table: 100 Weeknight Curries my Madhur Jaffrey

I was redirected to this page recently.





My Kitchen







www.penguin.co.uk





I'd seen and read the Ken Hom books. Rick Stein I've heard the name. Mary Berry I've seen on the Great British Bake-off or whatever it's called. And Madhur I know. But not this book. The premise intrigues and I like Madhur's approach. This is from 2011, but it draws from others of her works as well going back into the 80s. Still a collection of her quicker dishes is a nice focus. 

And yes, I like it. Even though it commits Pan-Asian cooking, the curry focus is working for me. So Southeast Asian food from Malaysia, Thailand and India all appear, maybe another country I failed to remember. And curry is global in many ways. Africa, Jamaica, Japan besides the regions we westerners usually think of. 

Quite a few egg dishes, making me think of Butzy's egg curries which were the first of that I'd seen. Those are certainly quicker cooking than many choices. More liver than i can remember her cooking before, or at all.

I like her Tikka Masala being based in Tandoori chicken and recycling the leftover yogurt marinade into the Masala. Though that's maybe a stretch for a weeknight meal. The marination prep is simpler than many and once you're past that the rest flows pretty quickly.

I was surprised there was no pressure cooker. That's usually a fast method of this type of cuisine. I suppose they wanted to keep this more mainstream? With the rise of the insta-pot and its clones, it might be worth revisiting this concept. 

On a similar note I also have Indian Cookery Course by Monisha Bharadwaj. I'm not very far into that. Very different book. So far I'm reminded of when I read The Satanic Verses. That was a slog. I read 7 other books while getting through that one. There is one part where she's discussing Buddhist monk diet restrictions. She says that they can eat meat as long as they didn't see it slaughtered. That struck me a bit odd. Upon looking into it, it's more that they should not have meat if it was killed for the direct purpose of feeding the monk. As a secondary effect, a left-over if you will, it's permitted. So yes, seeing the slaughter probably fits within that but that's not really what's going on it seems. Or with the Jain, she says that the root alliums are avoided for the possibility of killing life in their harvest. I've always read that it was more about arousing the passions in the Jain that was to be avoided. Though it is certainly true that the Jain are quite scrupulous about avoiding harm to insect life. Not sure what to think about that one yet. 

I started Bharadwaj's book first but have bogged down a bit. The Jaffrey was a much simpler and direct read.


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## chrislehrer (Oct 9, 2008)

Phil, Madhur Jaffrey did a whole cookbook devoted to the pressure cooker, so maybe she didn't want to overlap? BTW I'm hoping you'll review that one before I buy it!


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

Instantly Indian is from 2019. That has my favorite saag recipe though it is not pressure cooked. And is more Indian focused and more depth than 100 weeknight curries. I reference it for lentil seasoning though I don't usually pressure cook lentils. I still use a stovetop pressure cooker and don't own an instapot so i have to fiddle a bit more with the cooking and can't say how it compares to the instapot experience. It seems quite well liked.i like it too.


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## butzy (Jan 8, 2010)

I like madhur jaffrey's book and got the 100 weeknight curries on kindle.
Curry easy & veg curry easy are also worthwhile. As the title says: easy curries, but still tasty.
And a couple of days ago, I came across a short interview with her. The woman who taught the West how to cook Indian food


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

Recent Titles that may be of interest but haven't risen to my read list

Asia: The Ultimate Cookbook 

Asia: The Ultimate Cookbook (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, Asian): Huskey, Brian, Cecena, Vanessa, Sullivan, Jim: 9781646432417: Amazon.com: Books 

First Generation:Recipes from my Taiwanese-American Home








Amazon.com: First Generation: Recipes from My Taiwanese-American Home [A Cookbook]: 9781984860767: Gaw, Frankie: Books


Amazon.com: First Generation: Recipes from My Taiwanese-American Home [A Cookbook]: 9781984860767: Gaw, Frankie: Books



www.amazon.com




I should like this one, but the blurbs are too Americanized for my tastes. Like Cincinnati Chili with Hand-Pulled Noodles. The noodles aren't what need fixing in Cincinnati Chili. Or lap chong corn dogs. I'll probably flip through it when I actually see it somewhere, but the ideas I've seen from it so far aren't interesting to me. 

The Vegan Chinese Kitchen








The Vegan Chinese Kitchen: Recipes and Modern Stories from a Thousand-Year-Old Tradition: A Cookbook: Che, Hannah: 9780593139707: Amazon.com: Books


The Vegan Chinese Kitchen: Recipes and Modern Stories from a Thousand-Year-Old Tradition: A Cookbook [Che, Hannah] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The Vegan Chinese Kitchen: Recipes and Modern Stories from a Thousand-Year-Old Tradition: A Cookbook



www.amazon.com




I do have some interest in this. More so if she's making vegan food for its own sake and taste rather than vegan versions of everything else. Haven't seen it yet though.


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## butzy (Jan 8, 2010)

Any more books read recently @phatch ?
Always interesting to check your choices


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

I've not finished one. I've got a couple in process. Haven't been getting as much reading in. More local travel, more time taking care of my 94 year old dad, a lifestyle change or two. So I haven't found my new balance point for it all yet.

The vegan Chinese kitchen is not so trapped in remaking meat centric dishes. It did a few but it's mostly vegetables for their own sake and taste. So that's good. Only flipped through that one so far.


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## butzy (Jan 8, 2010)

Thanks @phatch 
Always on the look oit for more. Wish I had the excess money for the balinese cookbook.
Pet peeve of mine is that Indonesian food is so underrated. 
And with this whole vegan/vegetarian drive: why is tempeh not more popular?
Really don't get it as I'm an omnivore, but will happily forego a meat dish for tempeh!


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## cheflayne (Aug 21, 2004)

butzy said:


> why is tempeh not more popular?


Yeah, I don't understand that either. I almost always have tempeh as part of my dinner. Good for me, my wallet, and the planet. The last time I was at the grocery store NY steaks were $18.99. _I don't think so!_ Yeah I'll take tempeh.


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

The book I'm liking best currently is German Meals at Oma's: Traditional Dishes for the Home Cook by Gerhild Fulson

It's pretty much what you'd expect it to be, but seems to be from a wealthier class of the culture. So more meat, more mixing of meat types, more spices, more sweet/sour. But it might also be that they found a higher class income as immigrants and played to their view of what wealthy cooking would be like maybe? My experience living in Germany was certainly working class and this is not that kind of eating. More upscale but not exclusively rich.


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## butzy (Jan 8, 2010)

I can't really say that German ranks high in my favourite list. Except for bread, beer and sausages 

I saw you had "paon" on your list (Balinese food). Did you ever get around reading it?
Sounds interesting.

And another thing: Madhur Jaffrey's "curry easy, vegetarian" is on special at amazon uk (£ 0.99) May be worth checking out.


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

It's in my list. I haven't made a move on getting it yet.


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

German Meals at Omas by Gerhild Fulson

I've now finished this book. And I do like it. 

It's organized by state region though it may not look like it by calling out Berlin and Hamburg. These two are city-states essentially so it still holds. 

Hamburg included a dish new to me, Lost Eel soup. Because of dialect conflicts and labeling requirements, this mish mash soup of most everything in it "aal drin". But aal in the proper german means eel. And so because it rarely contained eel, it became the lost eel soup. The other oddity to me as the use of mix dried fruit or prunes. It is seasoned with vinegar too so there is a little sweet sour in play here. 

Hamelin Rat Tails from the Niedersachsen region ties into the Pied Piper story, also a new dish to me.



> *When you visit Hamelin in Lower Saxony, you’ll know right away that you’ve arrived in the Pied Piper’s town. The* *glockenspiel* *(carillon) at the Hochzeitshaus (Wedding House) recounts the sinister tale. Restaurants join in by offering their famous* *rattenschwänze* *for dinner. Using pork strips flambéed at your table, nestled among veggies in a rich wine gravy and served over a bed of rice, these “tails” are a yummy end to a day of touristy travels.
> 
> The actual recipe is a secret, so I’m using culinary license and giving a child-friendly version with chicken and omitting the apple brandy and wine, just like an* *oma* *would do.*
> 
> ...


In Hessen, there was a Chicken Cordon Bleu with a claim to it originating in Switzerland and of german rouladen heritage. I have no idea as to its true origins, but that story was new to me. And why it was included in Hessen? That remains a mystery. 

I learned that the traditional buttery crouton at the center of potato Knoedel/Klosse is to solve the problem of not getting the dumpling cooked through the center. The crouton is already cooked so it doesn't have to be cooked again to be good. I've only attempted these once and the dumplings dissolved on me in cooking. I'll have to give her recipe a try and see if it works for me. 

Her version of braised red cabbage is very similar to what i've developed to my own preferences. My Southern German sources tended to omit the sweet spices like cloves and cinnamon, both of which I use lightly. She goes for allspice and cloves. I might give that combo a try. She includes some options for increasing the sweet aspect with orange juice and currant jelly. But I don't think I would like it sweeter. 

Probably not of general interest, but if you like German cuisine, and I do, then this is a good cookbook with the right flavors and techniques.


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

Opened up Paon. I recognized maybe 5 percent of the dish names. I'll probably recognize more when I get into it and see what is actually going on. More new usage to learn.


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

From the Table of Contents, The hierarchy didn't come through the copy and paste so I'll try and bold the section headings.

*FOUNDATIONS*
_You are what you eat_
Base Genep
Base Rajang
Base Wangen
Base Kuning
Suna Cekuh
Base Bawang Jahe
_Clans and climates_
Air Kunyit
Uyah Sere
Kaldu Sayur
Kaldu Ikan
Kaldu Ayam
Sambal Goreng
Wayan’s Sambal Matah
Sambal Mbe
Niang’s Sambal Matah
Sambal Ulek Bongkot
Sambal Kukus
Sambal Tomat
_The tree of life
Coconut guide_
Santen
Lengis Nyuh
Gula Bali
Kacang Tanah Goreng
Kacang Mentik Goreng
Nawa Sanga
*From the Fields*
_Rice_
Nasi Putih or Nasi Merah
Nasi Kuning
Nasi Sela
Nasi Jagung
Nasi Bakar
Lontong
*From the Land*
_Edible Edens
Rare edible plants_
Tepeng
Bubuh Mengguh
Urab Timun
Urab Kacang
Urab Don Sela
_Dragonflies and other strange proteins_
Paku Tumis
Urab Pusuh
Tempe Bumbu Tomat
Taluh Mepindang
Gecok
Jukut Nangka
Ayam Sisit
Tum Bebek
_Magic in her fingertips_
Babi Genyol
Keladi Metambus
Rujak Bengkuang
Tempe Manis
Nyoman’s Rujak
Bubur Injin
Pisang Rai
*From the Sea*
_Where rice doesn’t grow_
Nasi Sela Gayot
Pulung Pulung
Sambal Poh
Pepes Be Pasih
Lempet
Be Panggang
Kuah Pindang
Gurita Suna Cekuh
Jero Yudi’s Ikan Bungbung
Pindang Sambal Tomat
Serosop
Ledok-ledok
Urab Gedang
_Seaweed_
*From the Pasar*
_Pasar Senggol Gianyar_
Tipat Cantok
Sate Tusuk
Sate Plecing
Sate Tusuk Sere Tabia
Sumping Waluh
Godoh
Bubur Sumsum
Es Kuwud
*Rare and Ceremonial*
_Food and the universe_
Bebek Betutu
Lawar Nangka
Lawar Babi
Lawar Kacang
Balung
Saur Kuning
Bekakak Ayam
Sate Lilit Be Celeng
Sate Lilit Ayam
Nasi Yasa
Urutan
Nasi Bira
_Lungsuran_
Jaje Wajik
Loloh Kunyit
Daluman


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## butzy (Jan 8, 2010)

I've put the book on my wish list (together with Fire Islands and The Nutmeg Trail by Eleanor Ford)
Real curious to see what you think. I'm lucky in having most ingredients available to me


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

I'm not far into Paon. But there are some things. 

I'm uncomfortable about the ethnocentrism. We're all ethnocentric to varying degrees. And to another degree, I want an ethnic/cultural cookbook to be (somewhat) ethnocentric. That's part of why I'm reading it. 



> _Cooking with fire:_ All Balinese cooks and food enthusiasts will agree that the best dishes are cooked the traditional way: over a wood fire. There are a few reasons for this. Firstly, it adds depth to the food, lacing it with a smoky, rustic, earthy flavour. Rice is particularly delicious when it’s cooked this way. Secondly, it connects the cook and the food to the raw element of fire, which in many traditional medicinal schools is believed to be beneficial for digestion and vitality. So, try and cook with a gas flame at the very least. If you have access to a fire pit or charcoal grill, even better. For dishes that normally require grilling or smoking, a barbecue or oven can be fine substitutes also. We’ve included instructions for how to use modern kitchen equipment in the recipes where appropriate.


Imho, this is starting to veer toward ethnography. Live fire cooking is good. It is also very different than cooking over a Western stove. And their directions so far don't include anything about fire management, control or temerature. It's written as for western stoves, high heat, medium heat and so on.



> USE YOUR HANDS
> 
> Cook with them. Eat with them. Let them feel for ripeness, texture and seasonings.
> 
> ...





> Plastic has no place in a true paon. Banana leaves, coconut shell bowls and containers and baskets woven out of bamboo are used for wrapping and covering foods and storing ingredients. Most dishes are consumed on the day they are cooked, so try and reduce the amount of plastic you use by adopting this principle. If you happen to be in Indonesia, we recommend you head to your nearest market or a traditional home appliances store (known locally as a toko prabot) to source as many of these tools as you can. They’ll take the flavours and textures of your cooking to whole new heights.


Yet, shortly thereafter



> These days, most people use a cupboard or a fridge for storage, or they’ll leave the food on the dining table, covered with a bamboo or plastic food cover to keep the flies at bay.


So either the true Paon doesn't exist, or plastic is OK. I'm getting picky, I admit it. But the tone is so preachy, yet the content is contradictory to the tone and actual cooking. Claiming ALL and TRUE Paon is usually a sign of the logical fallacy of the excluded middle or No True Scotsman.



> CEDOK
> 
> There are probably more than fifteen different household tools made from coconut shells. The cedok is one of the most prominent. It’s a deep ladle made with a curved coconut wood handle, used for scooping water into rice and other dishes as you cook. It can be replaced with a bamboo or wooden ladle. We don’t recommend using plastic ladles and cooking spoons.


I like to know the tradition. I don't want the tradition preached to me as superior or "true".

Does any of this affect the cooking? Probably not. But it makes reading and understanding the cookbook and culture harder. You're constantly in conflict with the assertion of their cultural reality against yours rather than as an intermediary between the cultures.

For Butzy, the book is metric first, Imperial in parantheses.

And the food is interesting, if very difficult to find specific ingredients in my area. Lesser galangal, salam leaves, torch ginger flowers, limestone paste, daluman leaves. I don't recognize any of these from my asian grocers. I'll have to look specifically. 

I do find it interesting. But the experience is harder than it should be in a better written book, to my values of better writing.


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## butzy (Jan 8, 2010)

Thanks Phatch,
That does indeed sound a bit like "holier than thou"....
I'm interested to see what you think of the recipes. Once you find the ingredients.
I have to admit to not knowing all of them, so not knowing how to sub them either.
Lesser galangal could go as wild ginger (David Thompson uses that name in "Thai Food") or kentjoer/kencur
Daun salam is used like bay leaves
Daluman leaves are apparently mint like (thank you google). I had not heard of them before.
I've never had torch ginger, and never used limestone, but I found this The Use of Limestone Solution (น้ำปูนใส) in Thai Cooking


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

So the limestone is like alkaline water it seems? The crisp batter about was mentioned in Paon. Perhaps the Chinese alkaline water might substitute.


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## butzy (Jan 8, 2010)

It's what i understand from googling
I've never used it, but Leela P (she simmers) is normally very reliable


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

YouTube channel My Name is Andong announced their cookbook for early next year, Kitchen Passport.

Rarely a primary source for me, I still enjoy his attempts at home kitchenification of things usually highly specialized.

I'm way behind on reading and likely to fall further behind with holidays and travel upcoming. Maybe on the plane I'll catch up some.


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## butzy (Jan 8, 2010)

I'm not helping you much Phatch. 
Did you ever go through "Thai food" by David Thompson?


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

I haven't


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

YouTube channel Aaron and Claire have their coobook release on December 20, Simply Korean.

I've not had good luck cooking from them but I do look to them for ideas.









Amazon.com: Simply Korean: Easy Recipes for Korean Favorites That Anyone Can Make: 9780744063523: Huh, Aaron: Books


Amazon.com: Simply Korean: Easy Recipes for Korean Favorites That Anyone Can Make: 9780744063523: Huh, Aaron: Books



www.amazon.com


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

Finally got into the Asian stores. Found limestone paste, which surprised me. I thought that one might be the hardest. The freezer section didn't have the leaves, nor did I see them fresh. The makrut lime leaf is readily available fresh usually.

Turns out Lesser Galangal is also known as Sand Ginger. This is readily available dried, which is how I usually see it used in Chinese cooking. And is related to another dish I found interesting recently that called for Salt Baked Chicken Powder. I can't find that locally so far either. I could find that brand's Fried Chicken Powder...

Where it was used--turn on subtitles, they're in english, or can be set to auto-translate to english at least.





But Salt Baked Chicken is a common dish itself so I think I can mix up my own powder. 
Made with Lau has a simplified version








Salt Baked Chicken (東江鹽焗雞)


Learn how to make this easy alternative to a classic Cantonese chicken dish!




www.madewithlau.com




Woks of LIfe does it the more traditional way.








Salt Baked Chicken


Salt Baked Chicken is a signature Hakka (客家) dish, and this is the best tasting original and authentic version of the famous Hakka Salt Baked Chicken recipe




thewoksoflife.com





I've seen it include a bit of five spice and white pepper powder too that I think would work well in Lau's simple approach.


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

Finished Paon, was coming down with a head cold for the last half so that may influence my understanding. 

It's not so condescending in the main text. There are these "flavor text" sequences at the start of the chapters that don't really seem to tie in to the specific food that well, but were more interesting than many of these kinds of digressions. Lots of photos of no food things too. In print, they may have been more interesting, but they were rendered quite small on my phone.--This carries over also to the photos of wrapping various banana leaf parcels.

While it's clearly related to the Singapore/Malay things I've been reading, it's more similar to Indonesian things of course. But it's also different. Here there are a few base pastes, literally romanized as base but pronounced something like basur? Or maybe taken from English? I don't know. And you make the pastes in around 1 cup batches that will store refrigerated for about 3 weeks. You usually use between 1/4 -1/2 cup of the a base in the other dishes. Most of the dishes use one of these bases. In the more northerly cuisines, it seems you're more likely to make the amount of paste as needed by the dish and use it directly

I'd have liked some discussion of the freezability of these pastes. I know chiles and garlic tend to become more pronounced in the freezer and spices weaken. But I'd have liked at least a hard don't freeze or do freeze recommendation. Freezing would make it more likely I'd cook from the book as I don't think I'd use up a whole batch of base with my approach to home menu. 

I admit there is a subtext to this book of capturing the practices that are being challenged under modernization, tourism and shifting economics/ecology. Which includes a number of references to the Hindu-Budhist religion of the writers. I somehow expected more Muslim influence? But there is plenty of pork and no beef if that is related at all. But I'm thinking it has more to do with the issues of raising beef among the islands.

In this line of thinking, the seasoning seems to have more shrimp paste, more garlic, and no shortage of chiles. Only a few occurrences of kecap manis. No soy sauce or fish sauce. No noodles. No fried rice. I can recall only one use of the limestone paste for a fried banana. I should check my Latin grocers for better banana choices. 

So the food of this book is challenging. It diverges from what I know so I'm not able to say much about authenticity or tradition. It uses many new flavors unfamiliar to me. It requires some difficult to find ingredients and could be wasteful to incorporate into my regular cooking. I should try out a more focused set of menus to try it out and use up the special shopping and preparation quantities. 

The food held my interest once I got into the cooking more. The recipes in the ebook are well linked to reference pastes, sides and specialty ingredients. It has no index. Because of the hurdles to the cooking, I would say this for someone with better access to the ingredients. Or just someone who likes learning about things they may not actually encounter. But not for most American cooks I think. 

On a silly side note, I had my first packet of Indo Mie instant noodles today, the Mi Goreng. I had seen the brand rated highly in an article rating the trade value at college of various instant noodles. Indomie were the most valuable. The 9 Best Instant Noodles, According to Bon Appétit Editors (Ok, my memory of the whole article is off a bit) I cooked them with a few spam slices and a fried egg. It was surprisingly good, at least when cooking and eating with a cold.


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

It does give grams and mils for measurement


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## butzy (Jan 8, 2010)

I'm not even going to try phonetical English, but as far as I know "base" is used in Bali for a spice paste (pronounced continental European way).
I know it as Bumbu (boemboe).

As for freezing...
Just a thought. Make 2 pastes. One containing chili & garlic. The other containing the other spices. Freeze in ice cubes. Then you could use relatively more spice to chili.
But first time, I would make the paste as described so you know what it should taste like.

I've not really noticed chili's getting stronger in the freezer though

The book is still on my list 

And as to mie goreng, not sure if I've had those, but I quite liked Indo mie (they came with little sachet of kecap, peanut oil and chili powder (all seperate))


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

The Washington Post has it's list of top 10 cookbooks for 2022


https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/11/22/best-2022-cookbook/



Not my list. I dissed That Noodle Life back in post 38 Cookbooks for Phil, 2022

I do look forward to The Vegan Chinese Kitchen still and it's on the list.


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## butzy (Jan 8, 2010)

Not much in there that interests me.
Just only the baking book


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

Smitten Kitchen Keepers by Deb Perelman.

This was a skim for me. The food is composed and constructed-- more formal and just doesn't fit how I cook. Often I already do something similar and simpler.

I was most interested in a skillet chicken parmesan.

Very chatty, lots of introduction. Recipes look like they'll work so I can't complain about the cooking. Well, except maybe the biscuit. 12 tablespoons of butter into 2 1/4 cups of flour, plus sour cream and cheese. The rise on that looked a little sad and what a grease fest.

She gives weights for anything over 30 grams. Except salt where the cut off is 3 grams. It's a reasonable approach but I'd rather she just gave weights throughout.

Not a book for me. I think people looking for a more structured informality, driven by social media food photos.


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/13/dining/best-cookbooks-2022.html



Vegan Chinese Kitchen and Works of Life made their best of list.

There's a plant based Indian one that looks interesting too.


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

This is a Book About Noodles by Brendan Pang. Published this year, it seems Pang is a contestant/winner? from Australia's Master Chef. I was confused by his calling his grandparents by French terms and cooking mostly Chinese and being from Mauritius but now in australia. There seems to be a hole in my knowledge of Mauritius History. But then I only see Mauritius mentioned at the Olympics and a few oddball web URLs (those ending in .mu)

Anyway, I got to spend some time with this but not in depth, but found it worthy of discussing.

It's marginally Pan-Asian-fusion, but seems to play pretty straight up the middle in the way the noodles are handled cooked and seasoned. It's very approachable.

It's organized around what the noodle is made from so Wheat, Egg Noodles, Rice, and so on. He tends to use a Western name (usually a commonly used one) for the recipe but usually give it's more traditional cultural name in the description. I'm of divided opinion about this. Readers deserve both, but which to give priority? I'd probably give them both with a slash between and index them each.

I was a little surprised by how he plays down or eliminates heat from some commonly spicy dishes. Fried Sauce Noodles and Dan-Dan specifically. It is my opinion that both of these are originally not spicy, but it's rare to find them in a no-chile variation today.

And going back to the review of Chinese-ish (also of Australian origin) they both specify tahini in their Dan-Dan noodles instead of roasted sesame paste. It makes me wonder about the tahini commonly available in Australia. Is it usually roasted? I've seen roasted tahini, and yes, it is interchangeable with its Asian roasted counterpart. Just odd to see it called out as regular tahini to my US western accustomed eyes.

He gives pretty good instructions on making the different noodle types from scratch, which I consider a non-trivial task. Especially for things like Cold Skin Noodles. Also any of the pure starch-based noodles, mung, potato starch and so on. But I think these are lacking in pictures, something I think these processes benefit from.

Also good sides and sauce bases.

The sort of fusion bits were weaker imho. Garlic Cheese Noodles, equating pecorino to soy as salt and complexity. I can see where he's going, but why not just let it be what it is? Or maybe that actually reflects how he got there?

So yeah, this is a book worthy of spending more serious time with. He also has This is a Book About Dumplings from 2020 that now has my interest.

Gives Metric units in parentheses


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

We talked a bit about Modern Asian Baking at Home last year. It's been released this year for a while now. 

This is definitely modern in comparison to Mooncakes and Milkbread. As I've said before, I'm not much of a baker so there's a lot here that I'll not ever pursue. 

The items that most intersted my kids who bake were the Halaya Jam and the Ube Butter Mochi that uses the Halaya Jam. You get both grams and ounces for measurements. 

For me, I'm probably more interested in the Tangzhong Milk Bread Five-Spice Cinnamon Buns. Not interested enough to cook them for the Holidays it seems though. There's a Japanese Cheesecake I have some interest in as well. Most recipes for these can be sized for bakery production. Hers has more cream cheese than the few other home sized ones I've seen.

I'm not recalling much or or anything steamed in it. Lots of matcha this and that. Very on trend it seems to me. 

If you bake, this is probably something that will expand your horizons pleasurably.


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

Travel The World One Recipe At A Time With The Most Anticipated Cookbooks Of 2023


Get your shopping carts ready.




www.delish.com





It shows Jerry Mai with a new Vietnamese Cookbook next year. I reveiwed one of his this year, it was just OK. 

Win Son Presents Taiwanese American. Looks interesting to me. 
Cooking for the Culture also looks interesting to me. 

America's Test Kitchen has updated their Cooking School book. There is The New Cooking School Cookbook: Fundamentals and just recently, The New Cooking School Cookbook: Advanced Fundamentals.

I've borrowed the Advanced Fundamentals and am disappointed. There is no shortage of good recipes, but it's not teaching you fundamentals really. For example, in the pasta/noodles section, various dishes get a page each, with a photo of your "teacher" and some fluff. Lasagna says, don't cook the noodles to al dente because they'll keep cooking in the oven. True as far as it goes. But Lasagna has myriad variations. You're not given any theory on when to maybe use ricotta vs bechamel. How to deal with wateriness in vegetarian versions, or ratios of "fillings" to cheese, to "sauce" to give you a basis generating your own variations. There's no real lesson. Just a tip and a recipe and now you know lasagna. Baloney. 

Give me a technique, fine mince. Now point me to some recipes where I'm going to practice that. Maybe only a finely minced garnish in the beginner recipe, but the advanced recipe might be dumpling filling or something with multiple fine minces. Generate that skill by doing and up the intensity from practice session to next session. But structure the book around skills, ratios, techniques, with recipes that reflect the progression of the lesson instilling in you the principles of the skills and the dishes. 

What America's Test Kitchen has supplied is the illusion of learning. As a cookbook, it's fine. But it's no school.


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

Turns out Makan was pulled last year for plagiarism allegations. Strange I didn't hear of it sooner. I'd have thought I'd have come across that sooner. Explains why she's dropped off youtube and Uncle Roger. 









Former MasterChef contestant’s book pulled amid plagiarism accusations


Copies of Makan, a collection of Singaporean recipes by Elizabeth Haigh, have been withdrawn after suggestions that she ‘copied or paraphrased’ another author




www.theguardian.com


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## chrislehrer (Oct 9, 2008)

Re ATK and what you nicely call "the illusion of learning": I am absolutely in agreement. There are not a whole lot of books that actually teach cooking intelligently, and what I notice is that they all do it very differently.

For example, Jacques Pépin's "techniques" books demonstrate classic technique, and the recipes are just there to give you something to practice on. Then there are the many, many Japanese "how to cut stuff" books, usually intended essentially as textbooks for budding professionals, which take the Pépin method to extremes: here is all the theoretical and practical detail of X cutting technique as applied to Y vegetable, and now in recipe Z you will do X to Y several times (or possibly several hundred times).

Julia Child worked the other way around, explaining the theory and fine details of recipes, and then suggesting that one might make certain kinds of intelligent alterations to create an exciting or convenient (or both) variant. Paul Prudhomme, at his best, again built on this method: his recipes would be very long and detailed, and along the way he'd say, "taste this now -- see how it's extremely spicy and salty, and kind of unbalanced? see how it feels like it 'wants' something like butter or another flavorful fat? OK, continue." Then you'd add a pile of salmon or something, and he'd be back with text saying, "see how the heat and salt are in balance now, and there's a kind of high sweetness? OK, so now...." I've never seen that elsewhere, but it was brilliant.

All of which is to say, I think there is now no excuse whatsoever for a "how to cook" book that does not have obvious, clear justification for its emphases, and from this it should be clear what the pedagogical approach is. Instead, ATK and so many others are just trying for a bit of a cash-grab based on the home-gourmet-wannabe market.

<rant off>


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## JohnDB (10 mo ago)

phatch said:


> Turns out Makan was pulled last year for plagiarism allegations. Strange I didn't hear of it sooner. I'd have thought I'd have come across that sooner. Explains why she's dropped off youtube and Uncle Roger.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Oh yeah....this was really bad karma. 

MasterChef and Gordon's contestant winners have been having a string of "bad luck" with the press. 
First the girl who won the spot of running his Vegas restaurant couldn't even start that job because she literally couldn't pass a cocaine drug test....pissed a hole through the cup because it was that hot. 
How she won that year is something of a mystery. They had to just give her the salary and wave "good bye". 
Then there are a steady stream of non-winners saying the exact same things that have nothing to do with the quality of the food they produce. That his competition is "made for television " because the food and the competencies of those who "lost" are most often better than the "winners". Of course the suspicion of the winners being decided long before the competition even starts is not without merit. 

Now this story of anecdotes of "mom teaching me how and why" copied almost verbatim into a cook book....

Sounds too much like Hollywood...all show and no substance of those who win. 

Great cooks often aren't glamorous or pretty. Some of the famous ones with Bistros can't even competently work their own station in their own restaurants. (Puck working pantry bitch is a really bad idea)

But nobody really likes the truth...it isn't glamorous or pretty or have a great story behind it. The world simply doesn't work that way.


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