First things first and full disclosure- I’m a subscriber to Lucky Peach and must say it is the most enjoyable and informative food and writing magazine I’ve run across to date. Each issue is themed and covers a wide range of topics from drunken conversations about the responsibilities of today’s chefs to where your ingredients come from and should end up in your recipes. Ramen, Chinatown, Breakfast, The Plant Kingdom- all are fair game. Expertly written with just the right touch of irreverence and humor from the likes of David Chang, Anthony Bourdain, and lesser known but just as capable chefs, it’s one of a few magazines I look forward to each season. Beautifully illustrated as well. Four issues a year. Worth every penny of the subscription.
Secondly, I’m what can only be described as a feeble cook. I do breakfast, rice, and a few crockpot dishes. That’s it. Lucky Peach doesn’t overwhelm the feeble, but also has challenges for the accomplished home cook with some ingredients listed that require a road trip to find.
So when Peter Meehan and the editors of Lucky Peach came up with “101 Easy Asian Recipes”, I grabbed a copy and took a look.
The book starts out with two ground rules: No frying, No sub-recipes(with a few exceptions). Asia is defined in very broad strokes here, with a “cavalier and labradoodle-enthusiastic” approach to what’s describes as Asia. After all, with 101 recipes, how complete of a geographic approach is possible? Though most Asian countries are represented in some fashion.
Before the reader is pulled into the recipe section, there’s a pictorial pantry section at the front, right after equipment and noodle sections. The pantry section is divided into Basic, Intermediate, and Champion, where the necessary ingredients are described in detail with hints as to where to find them if not in the local grocery store. Pictures are oh-so helpful when my foray into the international section of my local store gets a bit touch-and-go. Is it in a bottle, a box, or a colorful box? Is the name on the package in English, Japansese, Chinese, or another language? For the feeble cook, knowing sort of what you’re looking for makes the difference between confidently pulling the item from the shelf and looking (and feeling) completely lost.
The recipes are all six steps or fewer. Good. No page turning with fingers coated in oil or sauces while cooking. The book stays open while cooking. Perfect. The recipes have a facing page (usually) with a photo of the finalized dish. Excellent. And the photos aren’t even intimidatiing! They look good, but not Martha Stewart perfect. I can make dishes that look like these photos. There’s a little blurb on each recipe explaining how the recipe came about, or about the cultural importance of the dish, important technique hints, or just a quirky note for your benefit.
Categories of recipes are: Cold Dishes, Apps, and Pickly Bits; Breakfast; Pancakes; Soups and Stews; Noodles; Rices; Warm Vegetables; Chicken; Meats; Seafood; Super Sauces; Desserts.
The recipes are all able to be made as is or upgraded for the more adventurous cook. Almost all can be made in a reasonable time. As the authors indicate,
“We appreciate hyperspecific, traditional recipes that call for truly hard labor and criminally obscure ingredients as much as the next nerd; we and many of our friends often cook and write recipes in that vein. But we all work long hours and come home hungry to cold kitchens, or have kids to feed, or want to cook because, when days are chaotic, there is a restorative beauty to the order and purpose of cutting things up and turning them into sustenance. For whatever else you can’t control, you can put dinner on the table. The recipes in this book are meant to be fuel for these moments, solutions to those situations.”
This is my kind of cookbook. It’s useful, pretty to look at, informative, and it doesn’t try to be anything more than helpful for those who want to cook Asian food without a lot of fuss. They are delicious, and they have made me go out to get ingredients I’ve not thought to buy before, toss them together in a controlled way, and take satisfaction that a feeble cook can turn out a dish that is delicious and horizon-broadening.
Buy this book. Give it to your kids in college or just starting out and don’t have all the fancy cooking implements you might have. It’s a good read, it’s confidence-building, and if a book were delicious, it’d be that too.
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About Peter Meehan:
Peter Meehan has written for the New York Times, Saveur, and Travel + Leisure and has collaborated on several books.
Product Details:
Hardcover published by Clarkson Potter
October 27, 2015/ 272 pages/ 7-7/16 x 10-1/4
ISBN 9780804187794
I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.