Asian Recipes

You’re looking at one uncommonly beautiful cookbook. Lucky Rice: Stories and Recipes from Night Markets, Feasts, and Family Tables, by Danielle Chang, is about as lovely (inside and outside) as a cookbook can get.

What would you expect from a cookbook that was both an O Magazine “Cookbook of the Month” and Yahoo! Food’s Cookbook of the Week? You have to be a pretty special cookbook to achieve either one of these distinctions… but both? Wow!

After I received my copy in the mail, the first thing I thought was, “It’s even more beautiful and nicer than I’d expected.” You can tell, at first glance, that this is a high quality cookbook. Hardback, gorgeous, colorful, and filled with beautiful pictures.

As I always say in my cookbook reviews, though, looks will only get you so far in life. You have to have substance! When it comes to cookbooks, this means you’d better be filled with wonderful information and delicious, doable recipes.

If we’re being 110% honest, when I first began looking at the recipes, I was a little afraid that the cookbook was going to be a complete disaster in the “doable” category.  Somehow, when I flipped open, the first 3 recipes I saw called for ingredients I would either never use or could not easily find in my hometown.  I mean, there’s simply no way I’m going to find a Longgang heritage chicken in western Kentucky.

However, when it comes to cookbooks (remember I’m the avid collector with a collection numbering in the hundreds), I’m not easily dissuaded. I made myself a chai tea latte and got comfortable in my favorite chair. Within 5 minutes, I discovered that the vast, vast, vast majority of recipes in Lucky Rice are completely doable. What’s more, they’re recipes you will want to do over and over again.

Just a few of the recipes that fit this description are:

• Grilled Peaches
• Almond Cookies
• Vietnamese Iced Coffee Pops
• Almond “Tofu” with Fruit Cocktail
• Longevity Noodles
• Lion’s Head Meatballs with Napa Cabbage
• Tea Smoked Eggs
• Indonesian Fried Rice
• Grilled Sticky Rice on a Stick
• Savory Rice Balls
• ABC Beef with Broccoli
• Vietnamese Banh Mi
• Perfect Steamed Rice
• Steamed Turnip Cakes

After I found so many recipes that I could easily find ingredients for (at my neighborhood Kroger, even), I went back and confronted the first 3 recipes I’d seen. I looked them over and decided that even they could be approached with a few simple substitutions.

Substitutions is a word most people don’t take into consideration when judging cookbooks. They fail to remember that just because a particular recipe calls for one thing doesn’t mean they have to make it that way. For example, one of my favorite “go to” recipes – for Spinach Artichoke Dip – was actually tweaked to the point of barely resembling the original recipe and, trust me, it’s a knock out.

As for the ingredients I can’t find at Kroger, they would most assuredly be easily found at an Asian market or even in a super store in a larger city. When all else fails, I turn to Amazon. They haven’t let me down yet.

{Review Continued Below….}

Lucky Rice is so much more than just good looks and exciting and delicious recipes – it’s an education in Asian Food Culture…. and it is completely fascinating. The Asian community’s respect of and love for food is palpable. It makes you realize how they’ve been able to come up with some of the world’s most beautiful and scrumptious dishes of all time.  They have so much pride in what they “create” in the kitchen.

It’s downright contagious!

From Amazon:

In Lucky Rice, Danielle Chang, founder of the festival of the same name—which brings night markets, grand feasts, and dumpling-making sessions to America’s biggest cities—feeds our obsession for innovative Asian cuisine through 100 recipes inspired by a range of cultures.

Here, comfort foods marry ancient traditions with simple techniques and fresh flavors—and include a few new classics as well: chicken wings marinated in hot Sichuan seasonings; sweet Vietnamese coffee frozen into pops; and one-hour homemade kimchi that transforms pancakes, tacos, and even Bloody Marys. With a foreword by Lisa Ling, this lushly photographed cookbook brings the fun and flavors of modern Asian cooking to your kitchen.

I completely love this cookbook and hope you’ll check it out for yourself. Lucky Rice would make a beautiful gift for anyone and an excellent addition to your cookbook collection. It’s a perfect 10 out of 10.

 

Note: I received this book from the Blogging for Books program in exchange for this review. The opinions are entirely my own.