The Ultimate Chinese and Asian Cookbook: The Defintive Cook’s Collection – 400 Step-by-step Recipes
May 25, 2011 by admin
Filed under Chinese food cookbooks
Thе Ultimate Chinese аnd Asian Cookbook: Thе Defintive Cook’s Collection – 400 Step-bу-step Recipes
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Worst asian book ever!!! (Best doorstop ever),
ok where do i start, i threw this book out and i borrowed it from the library again just to give it an accurate review after seeing that this monstrosity of a cookbook was being given 5 stars on here!!!!
THIS IS NOT GENUINE ASIAN PEOPLE!!!! these are slapped together recipes from people just after a quick buck, the publishers of this book are a subsidiary of hermes house publishing, which recycle recipes between different titles under their name, you will find many recipes in here that are found in about 5 other hermes house books, giving the book no originality or uniqueness. STAY AWAY FROM HERMES HOUSE COOKBOOKS!!!
Now as for the recipes, if this were a genuine cookbook you would expect to find at least the recipes are but no no no, not here you dont. there are many dishes, but for an ‘asian’ cookbook it only really covers thai, chinese and very lightly touches (maybe 4-5 dishes) on indian, japan and other regions. However how many chinese cooks do you know who use tabasco or celeriac? Or an entire asian cookbook without reference to kecap manis? (its not even used in their nasi goreng). Lions head without bean thread? Hell even the miso soup contains no seaweed in it. Genuine cookbook, i think not. They even recommend using ginger and garlic in a jar for the indian meals!!!! A travesty if ever i saw one.
The recipes in many case contain a ridiculous amount of vegetable to meat ratio. for spicy chicken stirfry (which uses lime juice and honey as the sauce only) about 1.3 kilos of veges to 450g of chicken!! there are many examples of this throughout the book. Most are bland and boring, and the ones that are not bland taste awful.
Now i have given this book a fighting chance, i am an experianced cook for many years and made well over 30 of the recipes in here, maybe 5 turned out nice and all of them were soups or entrees. They do have pretty pictures and instructions, all of these are to distract you from the fact that what you are cooking is about as tasty as rat poison.
What are the other options then? well anything beats this, even the womans weekly cookbooks. culinaria asian specialties is a terrific book for southeast asia, wei chuans chinese cuisine and china the beautiful cookbook are great for china and real thai for thai cooking (david thompsons book is good but wayyyyyyyyy too thick to be practical).
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Let’s start cooking,
It is the ONE and ONLY Chinese/Asian cookbook that any household would require. Illustrations and Instructions are top shelf. Does not require a trip the far east to start cooking. ENJOY
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Not authentic (best for making a pressed flower),
I got this book as a gift. So, there’s no damage to me (yet). When the book was wrapped, I thought it was a muscle training aid or something and was worried about dropping it on my foot. It’s so heavy.
I’m a Japanese. Naturally I read a recipe of Sukiyaki Beef first. I was surprised:
1) The recipe uses rice noodles for Sukiyaki. Actually Japanese people use noodle-shaped Konnyaku (or Konjak or devil’s tongue) but it’s completely different from noodles.
2) Also this recipe uses leeks. Japanese people use Japanese green onion (it’s fat and taller than American green onion but it’s not obese like leeks). If you can’t get Japanese green onion, you can replace it with American green onion not with leeks. (The writer of this recipe is a Welsh, I guess.)
3) This recipe uses suet. Japanese people use lard or beef fat not suet. (ditto)
4) This recipe suggests cutting “the steak into slices using a cleaver or sharp knife.” Sukiyaki beef should be very thin (not see-through-thin like Shabu-shabu beef, though). It’s impossible to prepare thin beef if you don’t have a food slicer. If you cook thick sliced beef, it’s not Sukiyaki.
Bottom line. This is not an authentic Sukiyaki recipe at all. Then I have to think the authors of this book do the same thing for Chinese and other recipes. As you know, “He that once deceives, is ever suspected.”
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