(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best international cookbooks

Aight girl-

Foreign Cuisine-
How to Eataly - Oscar Farinetti - We made the most AMAZING brisket meatballs and a super simple yet completely delicious red sauce out of this book
Around My French Table - Dorie Greenspan - Where the Cornish hens and gougeres came from.
Real Korean Cooking - Maangchi - Korean Fried Chicken. We've made them twice now because they're so good and can't wait to do more.
Mexican Everyday - Rick Bayless - Learned how to make perfect guac from this book and so far we've made these v tasty chorizo/mushroom/potato tacos. The recipe is SO cheap and SO voluminous that we had it as a taco filling, a quesadilla filling, and we're making a hash with it for brunch this morning.
Every Grain of Rice - Fuchsia Dunlop - We haven't tried anything out of here yet but there are sooooo many good-looking recipes in here.
Entice with Spice - Shubhra Ramineni - Likewise, haven't made anything out of here yet but looking forward to trying it all out soon.
Jack's Wife Freda - Dean & Maya Jankelowitz - This is actually a book from a restaurant that my fiance and I LOVED when we last visited NYC. It's got a lot of fusion recipes. Mediterranean/Israeli/South African/etc. Really unique flavors and also v comfort-food based. We're making rosewater waffles out of this book tomorrow!


Baking-
Rose's Baking Basics - Rose Levy Barenbaum - This book is incredible. She has tons and tons of step-by-step photos which is SUPER helpful. We made the dark chocolate caramel tart out of this book, but pretty much everything in here looks amazing.
Modern Baking - Donna Hay - I mean... There is some INSANELY decadent looking stuff in here. We haven't tried any of these recipes yet but I can't wait to!


Misc-
Cook Like a Pro - Ina Garten - It was really hard to pick just one Ina book but I liked most of the recipes in this one. She has this ridic recipe for a dijon mustard chicken that is INCREDIBLE. Also, this bitch knows how to cook some veggies. Big fan of this one.
The Food Lab - /u/j_kenji_lopez-alt - I just love this guy, tbh. We've made a really fantastic beef tenderloin out of this book and an incredible red wine sauce to go with it and of course, his famous roasted potatoes which are now my holy grail recipe for roasted potatoes. This book is like a science textbook only instead of boring stuff it's FOOD science, which is my favorite kind.


Those were all the ones we purchased ourselves (though technically Eataly was a gift BUT we love it and plan to use it often.) We have other cookbooks in our stable that we've received as gifts, which is what resulted in my fiance and I deciding we wanted to embark on this journey. We kept being given cookbooks and never doing anything with them. But man, do people love it when you send them pics of stuff you cooked out of a book they gave you. If people give you cookbooks, use them!! It will make their day to see it's being used. Here's what else is on our cookbook shelf-


The Forest Feast Gatherings - Erin Gleeson - This is a vegetarian book my fiance's mom gave us a few years ago for Christmas. We have a bunch of veggie friends (and friends with a lot of different allergies) so we turn to this book to have a few things that are edible by all of them when we have them over, as we often do. This book has a really delicious salad that has pomegranate seeds, pear, and hazelnut that is out of this world good. I also got my HG salad dressing from this book.
The Salad Bowl - Nicola Graimes - Another gift from my fiance's mom. Is she trying to tell us something?? Honestly haven't looked much into this book yet but it sure is pretty.
The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook - Dinah Bucholz - This was a gift from the assistant in my office. Everyone in my office knows me as the Harry Potter girl because I have a lightning bolt tattoo, haha. We haven't made anything out of this yet, but we probably will have some sort of epic feast with recipes from this book when GoT starts back up later this year.
Talk About Good - Louisiana Lafayette Junior League - My boss gave this to my fiance and I as part of an engagement gift. My fiance went to school in New Orleans. It's primarily New Orleansian/Cajun food. Haven't made anything out of it yet, but we are looking forward to it.

And that's what's on our cookbook shelf for now.

edit also omg thanks for the gold!! <3

I'm a bit of a cookbook junkie, so I have a bunch to recommend. I'm interpreting this as "good cookbooks from cuisines in Asia" so there are some that are native and others that are from specific restaurants in the US, but I would consider these legit both in terms of the food and the recipes/techniques. Here are a few of my favorites:


Pan-Asian

• Asian Dumplings - the masterpiece on all things dumpling
  
• Asian American - Dale Talde's (Top Chef) book with lots of Asian cultures' food in the US
  
• Asian Pickles - pickles and fermented foods from throughout Asia
  
• Lucky Rice - recipes from the Asian festival of the same name
  
• The Asian Grandmother's Cookbook - traditional cooking passed down to American cooks
  
  Burmese
  
  
• Burma:Rivers of Flavor - good focus on difference in Burmese cuisine from other regional
  
  Cambodian
  
  
• Num Pang - Cambodian sandwich restaurant in NYC
  
• Cambodian Cooking - GREAT book on Cambodian cuisine, supporting refugees
  
  Chinese
  
  
• Ken Hom Complete Chinese Cookbook - great primer for cooking Chinese food using ingredients commonly available in US
  
• China Moon - classic SF Chinese restaurant food
  
• Feeding the Dragon - modern culinary journey through all of China
  
• Mastering the Art of Chinese Cooking - omnibus focused on the home chef
  
• Breath of a Wok - focus on wok technique at home
  
• Every Grain of Rice - wonderful Sichuan food for home cooks
  
  Indian
  
  
• Madhur Jaffrey Indian Cooking - actually, any of her cookbooks are wonderful for Indian cooking
  
• Savour Mumbai - looks at Indian cuisine as a melting pot in Mumbai
  
• The Indian Family Cookbook - modern South Indian food
  
• Indian Harvest - Vikas Khanna's family cookbook
  
• Made in India - classic Indian food, from street to home
  
  Indonesia
  
  
• The Food of Indonesia - everything you need for a rijstaffel!
  
  Japanese
  
  
• Japanese Farm Food - authentic rural Japanese cooking
  
• Preserving the Japanese Way - how to make awesome Japanese pickled vegetables
  
• Sushi Chef - not strictly speaking a cookbook, but "Jiro Dreams of Sushi" book in English
  
• The Japanese Grill - authentic hibachi and Japanese grill recipes
  
• Japanese Comfort Food - lots of traditional Japanese recipes
  
• Nanban - Japanese "soul food"
  
• Tokyo Cult Recipes - hip modern urban food from Tokyo
  
• Yum Yum Bento Boxes - updated modern take on bento boxes
  
• Ivan Ramen - traditional ramen for a Western audience
  
• Izakaya - traditional Japanese pub food & small plates
  
• Nikkei - emigrant Japanese food culture in South America
  
• Donabe - traditional Japanese hot pot recipes
  
• Kyotofu - very unique Japanese dessert cookbook
  
  Korean
  
  
• K Food - modern take on Korean street food
  
• Maangchi's Real Korean Cooking - great resource for Korean cooking in a non-pro kitchen
  
• Traditional Food - omnibus of four regions of Korean food
  
• Koreatown - authentic, approachable guide to Korean food in a US context
  
• Smoke & Pickles - Edward Lee's fusion of his Korean heritage and southern barbeque
  
• The Kimchi Cookbook - many, many recipes for kimchi...
  
  Malaysian
  
  
• Malaysian Cooking - good overview of Malay cooking
  
  Middle Eastern
  
  
• The New Persian Kitchen - modern Iranian food
  
• Ottolenghi - Israeli-Palestinian collaboration
  
• Persiana - dynamic modern recipes from throughout the Middle East
  
• Zahav - modern Israeli food
  
• Sweet Middle East - traditional and modern desserts
  
  Philippine
  
  
• Filipino Homestyle Dishes - good intro to classic Filipino dishes
  
  Russian
  
  
• Mamushka - focus on Ukraine
  
  Sri Lankan
  
  
• Hidden Kitchens of Sri Lanka - beautiful photo-cookbook on Sri Lankan cuisine
  
  Taiwanese
  
  
• The Food of Taiwan - um... food... from Taiwan
  
  Thailand
  
  
• Nong's Thai Kitchen - she beat Bobby Flay in pad thai
  
• Pok Pok - Portland's most AWESOME Asian restaurant
  
  Turkish
  
  
• Istanbul:Recipes from the Heart of Turkey - lovely focus on urban Turkish food
  
• Anatolia - wonderful approachable approach to Turkish cuisine
  
• Essential Turkish Cuisine - focus on history and evolution of Turkish food
  
  Vietnamese
  
  
• The Slanted Door - great Vietnamese restaurant cookbook
  
• Vietnamese Market Cookbook - focus on simple Vietnamese from fresh ingredients
  
• Into the Vietnamese Kitchen - traditional Vietnamese home cooking
  
• The Banh Mi Cookbook - the greatest sandwich in the world!
  
• Vietnamese Home Cooking - another great overview
  
  (edit: screwed up a couple links)

Get a slow-cooker at the thrift store. Slow-cooked pintos require very little prep but a lot of time - get a bag for $nothing$, wash and soak the night before, set to low when you leave and come home and there's lots. They also freeze very well.

Whole chickens are infinitely cheaper than boneless skinless and easy to cook. You can feed two people for three days on a chicken; take the plastic off, wash it, pat it down, stuff some veggies in it for flavor (celery, half an onion, an apple) and bake it in the toaster oven (uses less juice than your range). The bones and such will make stock, but I find that I never really need "stock." That may change...

Rice cookers make rice trivial and cheep. You can get a 10lb bag of rice for 12 bux. 10 lbs of rice will last you and a friend months.

Ground turkey in bulk (5+lb) is very cheap. Buy it, take the plastic off, cut it into 1/2lb chunks, pick them up in ziploc baggies like dog poop, push out all the air and huck 'em in the freezer. Try and keep them ball-shaped if you intend to thaw them in the microwave or thin and flat if you intend to thaw them on the counter.

Any vegetables you buy at your local farmer's market will be fresher, healthier and cheaper than what you get at the supermarket. Not only that, chicks dig farmers' markets. Go every week. Find your local farmer's markets here.

Successful cooking is a blend of two important things: good ingredients and careful, light-handed preparation. Chances are you're naturally inclined to over-season the crap out of things; most people are. You will find, however, that a good cut of meat with a little salt and pepper will beat the shit out of a mediocre cut of meat slathered in K.C. Masterpiece. I recommend Edouard de Pomaine's 1930 classic French cooking in Ten Minutes not so much for the recipes but for the philosophy. Most every preparation in it is "take something, do something to it and eat it." Pomaine demystifies cooking in ways Erma Bombeck and Betty Crocker never could.


Ask at your local nursery what herbs grow easiest where you are and try and cultivate them yourself. That chicken? A sprig of fresh rosemary will make it awesome. But maybe bay or dill or rosemary or something will grow better near you. I guarantee you can grow mint where you are. Mint makes any savory dish better.

Finally, learn to appreciate the art of cooking and eating in and of itself. It's always cheaper to cook for four or six than it is for one or two if everybody chips in; inviting friends over to cook and eat makes for a cheaper meal as well as an evening of entertainment. Always seek out especially good produce, poultry, fish or meat and make it a focus of your cooking. Believe it or not, you can entertain a houseful of people for an evening over the simple fact that the raspberry harvest is in.

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(...and if that fails, you can do what my uncle did in college - he went down to the feed store and sampled. If it was palatable, he'd buy 50 lbs of it, pick the rocks out of it and chow down. If I recall correctly, there's a certain type of buffalo feed that's mostly rolled oats, molasses and vitamins. And rocks.)

(Be sure to pick out the rocks.)

I have the answer for you. Yes, a lot of cookbooks and videos will attempt to give you the "authentic" kind; I myself was consistently disappointed until I found the key. Or keys, actually. A few things they tend to do wrong:

• Too little onion. The gravy in Indian food is based on onions. It's what gives the sauce its smooth body; it acts as a thickener and a very subtle but important flavour enhancer. Can't make Indian food without it. It's not just one onion chopped and then "fried for 5 minutes until translucent". No — you need a whole bunch of onions, cooked (sweated) until tender and then blended into a fine pulp. Some Indian restaurants will also cook the onions with peppers, cabbage and tomatoes, among other things. Sweating the onions for 45-60 minutes is absolutely paramount. Sweated onions develop complex aromatics that taste completely differently from onions that have been just lightly fried in some oil.
  
  
• Too much unconcentrated tomato. Rather, a lot of recipes call for you to plop in a can of chopped tomatoes. This makes no sense: Tomatoes have a lot of water, so you don't get a concentrated gravy out of this, not unless you cook it for hours. It's the same shoddy deception as the classic cook-book illusion that pretends you can caramelize onions in five minutes. No, you need tomato paste: A really concentrated reduction of tomato.
  
  
• No ginger-garlic paste. One of the cornerstones of Indian food (and coincidentally also some middle-eastern cuisines and Thai) is the ginger-garlic paste, but it almos never comes up in recipes. In India you'll find jars of this in the supermarket. Making your own is better. It's what it says: Chopped garlic and ginger, minced in a blender until a fine paste.
  
  
• They skip the blending step. A lot of recipes ask you to combine chopped onions, tomatoes, spices and what not, and you get this chunky mess that is nothing like a true tikka masala. All the flavour is distributed in bits of onion, bits of coriander, watery tomato sauce. A great tikka masala sauce must be blended for about 5-6 minutes until perfectly smooth.
  
  
• Not enough fenugreek. This one is a matter of preference. I think tikka masala absolutely needs to be made with (a modest amount of) fenugreek leaves. To me, it's what turns something good into something awesome.
  
  
• Not enough paneer. Again, this is a matter of preference. Some cooks apparently only add paneer to butter chicken, not tikka masala. For me, the sauce is exactly the same thing (and historically, I think that is right: tikka masala is butter chicken sauce + tikka chicken). Anyway, adding crumbled paneer to a sauce makes it a lot better.
  
  The only recipe I have found to match the stuff you find in restaurants is an ebook by a British cook named Julian Voigt: The Secret to That Takeway Curry Taste. It's amazing. (I'm not affiliated with the author, just a happy customer.)
  
  Voigt runs a small "BIR"-style (British Indian Restaurant, pretty much what you associate with Indian food in the West) takeout place in England. His own recipes come from recipes he learned by working in Indian restaurants before he started his own. And unlike many recipes which claim to be "authentic", they truly are. The book is charmingly amateurishly put together and completely unpretentious.
  
  Voigt's recipe is basically a three-step process, from memory:
  
  
• Onion gravy base. This is, at its most basic, sweated onions + lots of neutral vegetable oil + fresh chili + some tomatoes + garam masala, cooked for about 90 minutes and then blended until perfectly smooth. The base smells like old gym socks and has a brown, goopy, unappealing exterior. It's used as the base for the actual sauce.
  
  
• Tikka masala sauce base. This is yogurt + tomato paste + spice paste + red food dye. Voigt uses a combination of several off-the-shelf Indian spice pastes as a shortcut.
  
  
• Final sauce = heat onion base, add a few spoonfuls of tikka masala sauce base + ginger-garlic paste + coriander leaves + coconut powder (aka coconut flour; a BIR oddity, I believe, but it does makes the sauce mellower) + fenugreek leaves + paneer (optional, it's not in the book) + a little heavy cream to finish.
  
  The whole book is made from the perspective of a restaurant chef, so everything is scaled to large batches. That's why the sauce bases are separate. The nice thing is that you can make 5 liters of onion base and freeze what you don't need; the onion base can be used for all sorts of dishes since it's pretty flavour-neutral.
  
  I highly recommend the book.
  
  Edit: Didn't read the Guardian recipe until now. Yeah, they make those mistakes. The author knows about ginger-garlic paste, but uses a can of tomatoes and doesn't sweat the onions.

Asia's a big, ancient place. Even within each nation there are unique styles of regional and ethnic fare.

With that in mind, I'd love to see some recommendations here for awesome Indian, Filipino, Hmong, Uzbek, etc. cookbooks.

Japanese

Lets get beyond sushi and hibatchi.

Shizuo Tsuji's Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art is a great starting point. If you want to get technical you should check out Ando's Washoku or Hachisu's Preserving the Japanese Way.

If you want to start simple, Hachisu also has a great book on Japanese Farm Food. Ono and Salat have written a great noodle slurping opus in Japanese Soul Cooking.

Chinese

What we've come to think of as Chinese food in the US is a natural part of human appropriation of food styles, but with all due respect to Trader Vic's, crab rangoon and other buffet staples really aren't the real deal. Food in China is extremely regional. You don't have to go very deep to see the vast differentiation in spicy Schezwan recipes and Cantonese Dim Sum culture.

For your reading pleasure:

Mastering the Art of Chinese Cooking Eileen Yin-Fei Lo.

Breath of the Wok by Grace Young and Alan Richardson.

Phoenix Claws and Jade Trees by Kian Lam Kho and Jody Horton.

All Under Heaven: Recipes from the 35 Cuisines of China by Carolyn Phillips.

Some people might freak out that I'm placing Erway's The Food of Taiwan under the Chinese category, but I'm not going to get into a political debate here. Taiwan has had a lot of different culinary influences due to migration / occupation and that is really the take away here.

Go forth, make bao.

Korean

Korea is having it's moment right now and if you want the classics, Hi Soo Shin Hepinstall's Growing up in a Korean Kitchen is a good baseline. It has all the greatest hits.

You also can't cook Korean food without kimchi. The only book I've read is Lauryn Chun's The Kimchi Cookbook which is kind of underwhelming considering the hundreds of styles of Kimchi that have been documented. The process of making kimchi (kimjang) even has a UNESCO world heritage designation. With that in mind, I think it's only a matter of time before we see a English book on the subject that has depth.

Given the cuisine's popularity, there are several other cookbooks on Korean food that have recently been published within the last year or so, I just haven't gotten around to reading them yet, so I won't recommend them here.

Thai

David Thompson's Thai Food and Thai Street Food are both excellent. /u/Empath1999 's recommendation of Andy Ricker's Pok Pok is excellent but it focuses on Northern Thai cuisine, so if you want to venture into central and southern Thai fare, Thompson's the other farang of note.

Vietnamese

Nguyen's Into the Vietnamese Kitchen provides a nice survey to Vietnamese cooking. Charles Phan also has a couple of cookbooks that are quite good but I'm sure that there are zealots out there who would bemoan authenticity in either Vietnamese Home Cooking or The Slanted Door, but seriously, who gives a shit, the dude has Beard Awards under his belt for fuck's sake.

TL;DR OP means well but its long past time to bury "Asian" as a catch-all for such a large and diverse part of a continent, no?

Not a recipe, but I recommend Jamie's Italy if you like Italian food. Italian food has the advantage that a lot of it is relatively simple to make. Even though I now get recipes from Marcella Hazan and The Silver Spoon I still refer back to the Jamie Oliver book. It's one of the first cookery books my wife and I owned when we moved in together.

There are some of the recipes available onine, some highlights:

• Spaghetti with prawns and rocket
  
• Aubergine Parmigiana
  
• Spaghetti alla Norma
  
  You might also get some inspiration from the cooking shows on YouTube, some of my favourites:
  
  
• Binging with Babish (also /r/bingingwithbabish)
  
• You suck at cooking
  
• Chef John from Food wishes
  
• Bon Appétit
  
• Pro Home Cooks
  
• J. Kenji López-Alt
  
• Adam Liaw
  
• Not Another Cooking Show
  
  Not all of them are completely beginner friendly, Binging with Babish, Chef John, Bon Appétit and Not Another Cooking Show are probably the most beginner friendly, but they're all pretty good.
  
  A couple of unsolicited tips:
  
  
• Quality of ingredients matters. You will get a better pasta sauce out of a nicer tin of tomatoes than a cheaper one. Better meat tastes better. Buy the best you can within your budget.
  
• Buy tins of whole tomatoes and chop them yourself, not pre-chopped, the chopped ones are apparently not as good.
  
• Don't splurge on kitchen equipment. Rarely does equipment make stuff possible, mostly just easier. Buy stuff when you've worked out that you need it.
  
• Single use kitchen gadgets are mostly things you will regret.
  
• You probably don't need a knife bock with a selection of knifes, a good chefs knife, paring knife, and a cheap bread knife are all you really need to get started and your money is better spent there.
  
• Don't let looks or mistakes get you down. Everyone makes mistakes, even top chefs, and if it tastes good it is good. You will improve over time.

Hey there. Came into this thread for other reasons, but saw the mini-discussion on Indian food and felt compelled to chime in, lol.

A lot of great Youtube chefs exist that focus on the cuisine; VahChef and Manjula in particular stand out. Also sites like ShowMeTheCurry and VegRecipesOfIndia are great, too.

I hear a lot of good things about Madhur Jaffrey's cookbooks, though I don't personally own one.

It's a really fascinating and diverse cuisine, since it covers many different regions of the Indian subcontinent with very different cultures, agricultural heritages, religious beliefs, etc., that all influence the food. From super healthy ultra vegan stuff to deep fried goodies, it's got it all :-D

Good luck learning more, and if you wind up with any specific questions, always feel free to shoot me a message :)

I'm glad I'm vegan long enough now that I don't even really realize it anymore and don't feel the need to frequent any online vegan spaces. Like any place for any group online there's a lot of stupidity and of course plenty of misogyny.

Vegan spaces I'd put on par with libfem ones for the degree of misogyny that is celebrated. Lots of nudity, lots of imagery of violence. Libfems pretend it's 'for female empowerment'; vegans pretend it's 'for the animals'. Either way it's the same ol' standard rank and file 21st century western misogyny at play. Don't people ever get sick of not thinking for themselves? Not creating anything themselves? It's all so boring and uninspired. I realize that's like the least pressing issue about all of it, but sometimes I just wonder, don't people at least tire of that aspect?

Kind of off topic now but for practical purposes honestly I don't even seek out vegan websites (or subreddits) for recipes anymore. Either figure out my own these days, like the lentil bolognese I made last night (amaaazing), or far better resources are simply picking up non-'western' cookbooks. My latest acquisitions are Samarkand and Taste of Persia. So many amazing, exciting, fresh, flavorful vegetable based recipes that have stood the test of time, that you know are good cause all these countries full of non-vegans are eating them. Next on the wishlist is probably The Malaysian Kitchen, and old favorites are Lebanese Home Cooking and Middle Eastern Vegetarian Cookbook. Sorry I know OT, but I just love cookbooks. What's the word for the cookbook-obsessed? Like foodie, but... cookbookie?

But anyway for fucks sake come on. I assumed most vegans would feel the same as I which is jesus christ people drink some damn almond/soy/oat/rice/bean/flax/whatever milk. I can understand wanting a meat substitute since it is pretty inimitable, but milk? It's just creamy white stuff with some fat protein and sugars. Not hard to imitate, and frankly the plant based versions are superior anyway. I would challenge anyone to stop eating dairy for a year or two, then tell me it doesn't smell rancid and sweaty. You get desensitized to it when you consume it regularly but give yourself a break from it and your nose will pick up on those things big time. But bottom line it's just not necessary. It's the most frivolous, weird, and frankly disgusting part of non-vegan eating. I would think that would be the message (ok probably in more marketable inviting terms), not "well let's just have human women do it". ??? Ultimate facepalm.

I like to cook French and Asian/Indian foods the most. Here's my base list for any type of cooking: kosher salt, fresh cracked pepper, olive oil, canola oil, eggs, flour, potatoes, onions and shallots, cream, butter, bacon, cheese, rice, canned diced tomatoes, garlic bulbs, red and white wine, vinegar (rice wine or balsamic). Root vegetables can be added too, but I prefer to get them specific to the meal.
A few extras I tend to use a lot are ginger root, oyster sauce, and red cabbage. Not exactly stock-worthy to some people though.

But actually, I think this is the wrong approach. I suggest finding a good cook book, perhaps Ad Hoc at Home, and just start reading it. I did this with Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles book and it revolutionized how I think about cooking. I wish I had done it from the start to develop the thought process first, which then leads to better food preparation. When you cook a specific meal you can go to the store and look at each food separately for the meal you're preparing. When I'm at the market looking for specific ingredients and not "grocery shopping" I'm able to think about the food in a different way. Gradually, you can build up foods and spices over time, but in doing so you'll build good habits, good recipes, and a more mature approach to food in general. My approach before was very much like a shotgun blast of spices, whereas now I'm able to more precisely pinpoint the flavor profile I'm going for.

A word on spices: Buying in bulk will save you lots of money. People suggest dating them, so as to know when they're going bad, but this might be out of your scope right now. I know Central Market here in Texas has a pretty nice bulk spice section, and I imagine other whole foods places do as well.

Herbs: Fresh herbs are key. You want something to have at the ready? Fresh herbs you can get from the store. But really you should invest in a $.25 pack of basil seeds, rosemary seeds, and thyme seeds. These plants are hardy and tough to kill (maybe not so much with basil) and will make everything taste more expensive.

I am a professional chef and while watching people prepare food is entertaining and sometimes also educating I actually recommend you to buy books and learn the basics first.

You can then use youtube pretty well in order to watch how to do specific things, like i.e. deboning a whole chicken for a gallantine, or how to trim certain pieces of meat.

Start with french cuisine. Once you have understood how things are connected you'll actually understand everything else.

If you want something simple and entertaining for the start I'd choose Anthony Bourdaine's Les Halles Cookbook. It's amusingly written and the recipes are fairly easy and they are all legit.

Then there is Paul Bocus. Living legend with three long-term girlfriends.

And of course you want to have Escoffier at your home. Doesn't get much more classic than that.

If you want to get a sense of what drives a top notch chef, watch In Search of Perfection by Heston Blumethal. Very very good stuff.

And finally, if you want to learn something about culinary history I highly highly recommend Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany and to learn about our lifes as a chef you need to read the (admittedly exaggerated) autobiographicly Kitchen Confidential by Bourdain.

All this provided, you won't learn cooking without actually doing it.

Edit: Depending on your budget, I also heavily recommend Alain Ducasse's Grand Livre de Cuisine.

You don't write where you are from or price range so it is a bit difficult to answer your question.

Juhls in Bergen is an internationally acclaimed and excellent jeweller and designer. This is where I got my wife something for our 10yrs anniversary a while back. See http://www.juhls.no

For something more tasty but not as lasting... good quality smoked trout or salmon, or dried cod for bacalao (klippfisk). Specialties like cheeses ("brunost", "gamalost"), or meats like smoked cured lamb (fenalår) or reindeer are also an option. Artisan quality jams, flours etc are an option too. Meny, Mega, Ultra are three of the higher end grocery chains that typically have a broader selection of foods.

Cheese slicer, for hard cheese? We like to think it is unique... http://www.bjorklund-1925.no/index.php/en/

Waffle iron? Just kidding. But do try waffles with sour cream and jam. Or Svele with butter and sugar. Or flatbreads. And fårikål, lapskaus, grandiosa (uh, no, skip that last one), well prepared fresh fish at a high end restaurant, traditional rice porridge, Skillingsbolle (mandatory in Bergen, it is a spiral bun with cinnamon).

We have a couple of michelin star restaurants that are worth a visit. And some that are close. See the slightly more inclusive http://www.whiteguide-nordic.com/ Look up the place you are going to before eating, Norway has just too many crappy restaurants.

Not sure about what to recommend regarding bread, as too many bakeries in Norway are crap, but if you get to Lom, there is some really nice eating to be done...

The Nordic Cook Book, or something by Andreas Viestad, Ingrid Espelid Hovig or Eyvind Hellstrøm om Norwegian or Nordic cuisine should be available in English.

High quality woolen mittens, caps, sweaters. Wool underwear/longs are probably the best you can get anywhere, but get them where the locals go (sporting stores). Dale, Oleana, Devold, Aclima are some brands of various quality and purpose.. ("Pierre Robert" on the other hand is supermarket imported stuff.)

All weather and rain gear ... in Loen, Olden and Stryn and a couple of other places you have factory outlets of major Norwegian brands for outdoor apparel. Skogstad for example have outlets that have some good deals (e.g. minor defects major discounts). Look up factory outlets (fabrikkutsalg) on google.

There are a few Norwegian artists of international acclaim, like painters, illustrators and such.

Most of all do try to get the experiences, the nature and sights are our best "goods" to offer.

> the most flavorful cuts of meat are the ones that scare you and you'll never purchase them

This. In some of my favorite recipe books, several potentially great meals are skipped because they're calling for unorthodox cuts that scare the shit out of me. Half the time it takes days to find a place where I can get it. Two butchers will tell me they don't sell that, one will tell me they can get one for Thursday. With some luck I can find a frozen specimen. Truly, it feels like I'm hunting for some piece of extraterrestrial belly.

Bones, fuck even bones can be complicated to get. Lamb bones for stock. Sorry, we throw them away unless a customer asks, come by Thursday. No problem, please cut them in 3 inch pieces, I'm making stock, not a marimba, thanks! As for what body part or appendage those bones from are (legs, ribs, shoulders) I never dared to ask.

Fish, I hate shopping for fish. Hello, do you have sable fish? No we rarely do, except sometimes at the end of the season. Well thanks good sir, how can I subscribe to your newsletter? I'd feel like an ass to call and ask what fresh fish they're carrying today so I can select a recipe accordingly BEFORE going out shopping. The short shelf life of fish creates an egg or chicken dilemma: do I choose a recipe and hope to find the fish, or go get some fish and go back home to find a recipe and again back to the store to get other ingredients.



> most (not all) restaurant cookbooks dumb down recipes for you

That's strange, my best cookbooks are from restaurants. I find that most non-restaurant cookbooks (rachel ray stuff, cooking the italian way) contains a multitude of beginner meals I don't care about. If I want to mix pasta and pancetta with some vegetables, I can do it myself thanks. And thai cookbooks that calls for "store-bought green curry paste" goes directly to the trash. Googling recipes works just as well.

On the opposite side, you you have the classical hardcore style "French Cooking" stuff that calls for killing and brining a living rooster in every other recipe. That sounds fantastically rewarding, but I have a day job.

For fine, modern, complex and layered yet approachable recipes, locally oriented & world-inspired restaurants seems to be where it's at. I'm not sure how dumbed down those recipes are from the real thing (as I've never been to them), but those 2 from Vancouver have provided quite fantastic culinary learning and experiences for me:

• Warren Geraghty's West, The Cookbook
  
• Vij's Elegant and Inspired Indian Cuisine
  
  If anyone has recommendation of great restaurant cookbooks, I'd love to hear them.

Talk About Good!!!

One of the best cookbooks with some fabulous Cajun and creole recipes. The Lafayette and Baton Rouge junior leagues had a friendly rivalry and both put out some of the best selling junior league cookbooks.

For those interested here’s an amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/Cookbook-Louisiana-Lafayette-Junior-League/dp/0935032029

And here’s a great article in the Washington Post about it: How a 50-year-old community cookbook became a mainstay in almost every Cajun kitchen

Source: from Lafayette, LA. Mais cher dat cookbook good good yeah.

I won't be much help with this, but Indian food is insanely varied. It's not just as simple as "North Indian/South Indian" or "Vegetarian/Meat". I think one of the challenges with finding great "authentic" Indian recipes, is that each family has their own adaptation, and these are passed down through each generation through sharing the love and need to cook quality food in the home.

I guess what I'm saying, is that regional authentic dishes often don't make it onto paper.

I've had great success making Vikram Vij's recipes, he's from Vancouver, BC.

https://www.amazon.com/Vijs-Elegant-Inspired-Indian-Cuisine/dp/1553651847/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1510071514&sr=1-1&keywords=vikram+vij&dpID=41J5kSp1EuL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch

There are loads of dishes that you can cook a pile of that will last several days, but keep it interesting by varying them. Just pick a country at random and google some of the dishes. You won't always have the ingredients at hand (you'll struggle to create an authentic Burmese dish, for example) but Spain, Italy and France all have cheap regional dishes that are easy to make and tasty.

Sounds obvious? Maybe it is, but there are a lot of dishes that are under the radar. So don't do spag bol, knock up Tagliatelle Amatriciana - tomato, bacon, onions and a bit of garlic. Bing bong.

This is also a great source of easy meals: http://www.amazon.com/French-Cooking-Ten-Minutes-Adapting/dp/086547480X

And don't overlook less obvious countries! Finland, for example, has a ton of nutritious and awesome food: http://thedomesticman.com/2014/09/16/nakkikastike-finnish-hot-dogs-in-sauce/

• Microplane graters if she doesn't have one yet. Accompany the super fine grater with a few nutmeg nuts so she can grate her own fresh nutmeg.
  
• Digital kitchen scale
  
• America's Test Kitchen / Cook's Illustrated cookcooks or magazines. I have The Best Recipe and I love it for when I want to make the "perfect" version of a recipe. All the recipes have an accompanying article about how they modified/perfected the recipe. Warning: don't get this unless she enjoys slaving for hours on a recipe!
  
  Those ideas aren't super creative, but they are good staples that she will use constantly if she doesn't already have them.
  
  Personally, I am too particular about my cooking stuff... I have to pick it out myself. What about getting her a gift smaller gift that you are comfortable with, and then get a gift card to a local foodie store? This way you can shop together and she can pick exactly what she wants.
  

One of my favorite books out there is Best Recipe.

This book has a great compilation of recipes, but also goes into great detail as to why things are done certain ways historically and how different methods during the cooking process give different results, even down to methods for selecting the best produce for certain dishes.


(I linked the more expensive hardcover edition, because it's that good.)

*Edit: Read the reviews on Amazon. They tell it better than I can.

The Silver Spoon is like the Italian food bible - it is more like an encyclopedia than a cookbook.

But the one that I think you must have on your shelf is Giorgio Locatelli's Made In Italy. It's as much for the recipes as it is for the stories - you get such a sense of what food means to Italians and what a massive part of its culture food is. It's a cookbook you can happily read in bed. I love it.

I also picked up this on a recent trip to Bocca di Lupo and it's pretty special as well.

If you don't find yourself drawn to meat dishes, and you've got the basics of French technique down, why not try exploring Indian cuisine? Obviously, they have a whole different take on spices --- it's a whole different layer in your cooking that should teach you how to draw out different flavors from the same ingredients, learn new flavors, and different ways of combining them -- there was an interesting study recently suggesting that in contrast with most Western cuisines, which tend to put complementary flavors together, indian cuisine tend to combine contrasting flavors, balancing them against each other. The thing with a lot of that California farm-to-table style is that a lot of it's about finding great ingredients and doing as little as possible to them, but if you're finding yourself bored with that something that's a little more sophsticated and layered might be an interesting challenge.

There's lots of places to start -- Madhur Jaffrey, of course, or Manjula on youtube, but I've always liked this cookbook, myself --- 50 Great Curries of India. has a solid introductory section on spices and really showcases a huge variety of stuff from differnt parts of the continent.

Nothing formal, really! Throw a bunch of onions, bell peppers, mushrooms, and whatever other veg you like (broccoli, green onion, summer squash, carrots, that random bunch of whatever needs to get eaten ASAP from the back of your fridge) in a cast iron skillet with some oil, salt and pepper, cumin, and garlic. Cook it until it looks delicious. Serve with black beans, rice, avocado, cilantro (if you're not the kind of person who's genetically predisposed to hate it), fresh lime, pico de gallo (or just tomatoes if you can't be bothered) and warm tortillas. Or whatever suits your fancy. We make our own tortillas at home, but throw some store-bought ones in the microwave or a warm oven with a bit of lime juice sprinkled on them and they'll do just fine.

If you're into this kind of thing, The Taco Cleanse is a tongue-in-cheek cookbook made up entirely of plant-based taco recipes. It's hilarious and very tasty as well!

Decolonize Your Diet is vegetarian rather than vegan, but also has amazing Mexican and Mesoamerican recipes.

I might own too many cookbooks. :D

I always like a good curry in cold weather. Have various recipes but recently was recommend this book, The Curry Secret, so hoping you try it soon.

Something else that I came across last summer, is a dessert. Super simple, unhealthy but seriously delicious.

Apparently, it’s called a Malaysian pudding - not sure why though.

1lt of good quality double cream yoghurt mixed with half a can (~200g) of condensed milk. Somehow this combination just makes a difference. Then add all your cut fruits, so...paw-paw, sweet melon, apple, peaches, banana, maybe pineapple. Let it refrigerate a bit to release the fruit juices. Simple goodness.

If they are in season, I like to make a berry version with blackberries, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and a banana to balance the flavors. It’s also for the lazy, because only the bananas and strawberries require cutting up. When dishing into bowls, garnish with a cherry.

I've used a lot of her recipes successfully. I also started using her once I returned back to the States to cook some good Korean food.

I have used the following recipes to great success from her:

Tteokbokki

Buldak

Kimchi Fried Rice

Soybean rice

Kimbap

Bulgogi


Maangchi also has a great cookbook. But her website has a lot more recipes than the cookbook does. But the cookbook does have about 95% of what you want, including the side dishes.

So, when you heat food up- meat especially- it has a tendency to dry out. This is very true if you're cooking past medium temps.

A reduction is a sauce made by simmering or boiling down a liquid into a strong, thick concentration, yielding an intense taste. Because there are different components in liquids, when you apply heat they can evaporate or clump together.

Reductions (and other sauces) add another layer of flavor to the dish. If a meat or veggie is bland, not well seasoned enough, or too gamey, the sauce will tend to help liven it up.

I'm a huge fan of red wine and shallots, and bourbon-honey-butter reductions. Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook is a wonderful reference to have in the kitchen and living room.

Tons of cooking videos on yourtube! Here's one with sprouts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LhZpTqWCMc

You should also check out mother sauces. Your taste buds will thank you.

This past year, I really enjoyed SUQAR and its approach to composition in dessert, in terms of complementary and contrasting flavors, texture, aromas, and color.

At home, particularly in the fall and winter, I find myself cooking from Donabe quite often, particularly the tonyu nabe, which I make so often my sister in law requested it as her first meal coming home from the hospital last month with her second child. It's very comforting food!

It may not seem like a food science book up front, but the Flavor Thesaurus has such amazing insight into the interplay of flavors on both an emotional and chemical level, and it has really influenced how I work to underscore flavors in dessert. I love it so much I wrote an entire article about it, haha. and want to make that your life, it may saddle you with more debt than you'll every pay off with a baker's wages.

This is an amazing destination. I'm curious what type of journey you're on. What is the food like, for instance? I heard the author of Samarkand: Recipes & Stories from Central Asia & The Caucasus interviewed once and it sounds amazing. I may come back here and post that interview if I can remember where it exists...

Edit: It was from this Splendid Table podcast (an excellent cooking podcast): The road to Samarkand
by Lynne Rossetto Kasper.

lol my parents get tired of it too but they cant deny my request because they love it just as much as i do. my mom cant find her really old one from when we were kids BUT she bought this one a year ago and has been getting recipes from it since then. I personally recommend making the 참치전 (tuna pancake) with some kimchi fried rice. i make that when i'm in between classes because it's fast and it tastes sooooo good. it reminds me of my childhood.

I'd like to recommend a couple things:

America's Test Kitchen Healthy Family Cookbook has a lot of great family friendly recipes that are lower in calories.

100 Days of Real Food blog has great resources and recipes on how to incorporate more real and wholesome foods - those are the types of foods that will keep your older son fuller for longer.

Once a Month Meals has some great menu plans. It is originally set up for you to do the bulk of your cooking once a month and freeze the rest, but you don't have to do it that way. They do a good job of having seasonal appropriate menus.

I don't know if it's necessarily for a "beginner", but I really love Maangchi.

Here's a link to her cookbook that I have:

Maangchi Cookbook

The thing that I love about her is that she also has a youtube channel where she uploads videos on how to make different things.

Here's her youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Maangchi

that sounds wonderful. I have seen and liked the ones by Madhur Jaffery. She almost holds your hand and guides you in the kitchen in her books on Indian cuisine. And the curries turn out great too.

Edit: Is this the book you are referring to?

Got one Asian store and one Indian resto in this burg. The store's pretty good, and the resto survives because -- only one in town.

Here's what I did:

Shop online, and learn how to make a base gravy like THIS BLOKE does and take it from there into the higher orders of Indian cooking. It's BIR, not Mumbai, but you take what you can get and BIR ain't exactly chump change for Small Town, USA.

You can order just about any of the basics for Indian cooking, and cooking appliances (karai for example), online.

Indians are fantastic at blogging and putting up YouTube videos; there's a real opportunity to learn from that as opposed to when this older Redditor was expanding horizons.

The online purchases won't be cheap, but when you have a craving for quality food, you have the budget to get it.

https://www.vegrecipesofindia.com is a great resource.

As for an Indian cookbook: this is regarded as the bible: India: The Cookbook, it has everything you will ever need (it has over 1000 recipes!). It’s wonderfully designed, to look like a bag of flour like one would buy in India.

Vikram Vij's cookbook is excellent, there are a ton of super easy curries easily made with spices that are available in most North American supermarkets. There's one made with eggplant and green onions, and another that combines chicken thighs cooked in coconut milk with a raw cilantro, onion, garlic, ginger chutney at the end...spectacular! Can't recommend this one enough!

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1553651847/ref=nosim/librarythin08-20

If she likes cooking like I do, I guess this with this would make a good gift.
Or buy those and cook her plov as a gift.

Please avoid requests for recipes for specific ingredients or dishes (unless it's obscure and Google has failed you) and prompts for general discussion or advice. As a general rule, if you are looking for a variety of good answers, go to /r/Cooking. For the one right answer, come to /r/AskCulinary.

This being said, generally speaking taco's and nacho's are both made from Masa flatbread which are called tortillas. Burritos and quesadillas are going to be made from a wheat flour based flat bread.

Though you will find Taco's south of the border, it looks like the cuisine you are actually interested in would be Tex-Mex or Southwestern US cuisine. Nacho's, Quesadillas, and Burrito culture is largely Americanized even though some of them still have roots in Northern mexico.

Additionally, Mexican cuisine is both diverse and very regional. The essential cuisines of Mexico is supposed to be a very good cookbook if English is your first language. It is by Diana Kennedy. I would not expect that it is really going to show you the kind of cuisine you are actually looking for though. Oaxaca Al Gusto was also highly recommended by Kenji of serious eats as well.

https://www.amazon.com/Essential-Cuisines-Mexico-throughout-recipes/dp/0609603558/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Rick Bayless is another go to. Mexican Every day is another very highly rated cookbook for mexican cuisine.

https://www.amazon.com/Mexican-Everyday-Recipes-Featured-Season/dp/039306154X/?tag=serieats-20

I believe something like this though will be closer to what you are actually wanting.

https://www.amazon.com/Tex-Mex-Cookbook-History-Recipes-Photos/dp/0767914880/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1299551913&sr=8-1

We love ours so much that we bought a second one. I can cook food that I like better than what I can get in a restaurant, and that together with Alternate Day Fasting has lead to 30 pound weight loss since August.

I really love the Indian Instant Pot Cookbook https://www.amazon.com/Indian-Instant-Pot®-Cookbook-Traditional-ebook/dp/B075HHYXWF/

There isn't one Indian cuisine. There's a few dozen, at least.
For a somewhat US focused book:
http://www.amazon.com/660-Curries-Raghavan-Iyer/dp/0761137874

For a somewhat worse printing, with better recipes: http://www.amazon.com/India-Cookbook-Pushpesh-Pant/dp/0714859028

Reading the reviews will probably help.

I like the "Essential Cookbook" series from Penguin. These are definitely closer to what I would eat at home than the recipes in the more popular cookbooks.

http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Kerala-Cookbook-Vijayan-Kannampilly/dp/0143029509

http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Marathi-Cookbook-Kaumudi-Marathe/dp/0143068024

http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Andhra-Cookbook-Hyderabadi-Bilkees/dp/0140271848

http://www.amazon.com/The-Pondicherry-Kitchen-Lourdes-Tirouvanziam-Louis/dp/9381626995

http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Sindhi-Cookbook-Aroona-Reejhsinghani/dp/0143032011

http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Cookbook-Maria-Teresa-Menezes/dp/0141000872

http://www.amazon.com/The-Essential-North-East-Cookbook/dp/0143030272

http://www.amazon.com/Saraswat-Mahila-Rasachandrika-Second-Paperback/dp/B00RWSJ7M0

SAMAITHU PAR (vol 1-4) is a book aimed at Tamil Iyer vegetarian cooking.

If you want authors more aimed at an occidental cook, I would suggest Madhur Jaffrey, Sanjeev Kapoor, Tarla Dalal, Vikas Khanna and Julie Sawhney

This is a decent video on broth making for pho, a bit long perhaps, makes for a good watch though; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxM4t8vP-0A

What I do is pretty similar. There are the traditional ways of making it of course with the beef bones..but I've found I enjoy a mix of veal and pork bones more. Sometimes I use duck bones, just depends if I want something different taste wise.

There are a decent amount of recipes out there for broth, the one I played with at first was this; http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Vietnamese-Pho-Rice-Noodle-Soup-with-Beef-232434 and then a few from books like http://www.amazon.com/Vietnamese-Home-Cooking-Charles-Phan/dp/1607740532/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1414444571&sr=1-1&keywords=pho.

The key for me at least is I make my own spices, fish sauce, and trying to get down a recipe for Vietnamese style soy sauce. I keep to similar spices just homegrown instead..or from a CSA I belong too. Idea for me is freshness, home made dried star anise is going to be fresher than the store bought. It sounds like a lot of effort but it's not just for the Pho recipe, it's for everything else I use the spices for too. The only thing I have yet to grow is poppy (for obvious reasons) and saffron.

So that's basically my secret, follow the normal recipes but with pork and veal bones along with home made spices. If you can afford it, spring water for the broth I find to be good. I personally have hard water at home so I have to soften it which makes it salty..messes with everything I cook. Thus I use spring water. As to how much greatness that adds I don't really know..just better than using soften salty water.

Edit* - forgot, so in the youtube video, how they roast the veggies I do mine on a charcoal grill. A lot of my spices that need to be roasted I roast in a pan over charcoal.

I bought an Instant Pot and have been cooking Indian recipes from Indian Instant Pot Cookbook. I think you could make it work in a dorm with a small set of kitchen items (knife, cutting board, mixing bowl, utensils) if appliances are allowed in your room. A lot of the ingredients don't require refrigeration (lentils, spices, ghee, rice, etc) or can be canned (e.g. tomatoes). I can get most of the non-perishable ingredients online, and just buy the fresh ingredients as I use them.

The food is healthy, affordable (I used to eat out a lot but now rarely do), and leftovers have been delicious!

Instant Pots do cost a bit, but I'm certain I've already saved money and I'm eating much healthier. I'm not really tracking my calories (yet) but I lost 4 pounds since I started cooking this way a month ago.

These are two fantastic books for beginning cooks, so much so that I've been buying them as wedding/hosewarming presents as part of my gifts to newlyweds/new homeowners just starting out.

How to Cook Without a Book: Recipes and Techniques Every Cook Should Know by Heart by Pam Anderson

The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook by America's Test Kitchen

The ATK book apparently has a new edition coming out in October. They also have a similar version if you are less interested in perhaps the best tasting versus the more healthful options.

I like Pushpesh Pant, India: The Cookbook. However, it isn't a beginner's cookbook, and might be hard to get into if you haven't cooked Indian food before.

For a great beginner's cookbook: Monisha Bharadwaj, The Indian Cooking Course.

Not as comprehensive as the first one above, and not as beginner friendly as the second, but a nice cookbook with some very good recipes: Priya Wickramasinghe, Food of India.

I have been doing the same thing (I am into the better part of the learning curve now :)

I highly recommend this cookbook by Vikram Vij. Everything in it I have cooked has been dynamite. What I think is more important is that there is much information about the various methods (for example how to make ghee, garam massala etc) and a lot of insightful suggestions in the recipes themselves about certain pitfalls to avoid etc.

http://www.amazon.com/Vijs-Elegant-Inspired-Indian-Cuisine/dp/1553651847/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1451415907&sr=8-1&keywords=vijs

Decolonize Your Diet - Vegan Mexican with an emphasis on pre-Columbian ingredients

Bought, Borrowed, and Stolen - Interesting recipes from the around world and a lot of talk about the most basic cooking tool, the knife. That + the broad style of cooking included might make it a good starter book.

The Family Meal - Actually useful recipes from super obnoxious-fancy chef Ferran Adria but with step-by-step pictures that are really helpful.

Moosewood Cookbook - Classic cookbook of vegetarian dishes.

I'm no expert in Indian cuisine, but I have this book and I really like it. Great variety in the recipes and tons of pictures. I think it represents most of the regions cuisines.

https://www.amazon.com/India-Cookbook-Pushpesh-Pant/dp/0714859028

yes, how true, but Joy is like the annotated reference manual for every other cookbook. Personally, the most influential cookbook for me has been the classic French Cooking in Ten Minutes for its attitude and severe lack of detail.

I like America's Test Kitchen Healthy Family Cookbook. It's huge! So many recipes :)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1933615567/ref=oh_details_o09_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

There are lots here:
https://www.google.com/search?q=Instant+Pot+keto+recipes
https://www.google.com/images?q=Instant+Pot+keto+recipes

Here are just a few others that are either keto or low carb (which could have ingredients left out or modified), some of which are groups at Facebook with lots of recipes:

Keto Instant Potters: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1700398993513578
Low Carb Instant Pot Recipes:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1434534513230508
The Paleo Instant Pot (Paleo or Primal, or not)
https://www.facebook.com/groups/paleoinstantpot

I Breathe I’m Hungry:
http://www.ibreatheimhungry.com/2017/03/35-best-low-carb-paleo-instant-pot-recipes.html
Nomnompaleo:
https://nomnompaleo.com

Pinterest:
https://www.pinterest.com/shariweiner55/low-carb-instant-potpressure-cooker

twosleevers --blog & cookbooks (mostly keto because she and her husband eat keto or very low carb):
https://twosleevers.com/recipe-index/?fwp_dietary_consider=keto
https://www.amazon.com/Indian-Instant-Pot®-Cookbook-Traditional-ebook/dp/B075HHYXWF
https://twosleevers.com/product/instant-favorites-easy-delicious-mexican-pressure-cooking

cookbook...looks good, but haven’t gone through entirely:
Instant Pot Cookbook: Delicious Asian Inspired Ketogenic Diet I.Pot Recipes (Kindle)

My mom uses recipes from the Korean cooking blog Maangchi.com — looks like she has a cookbook too

I know this is isn’t exactly what you asked for, but since you enjoyed Night + Market’s cookbook and you’re from LA, I’d suggest you check out Roy Choi’s cookbook LA Son

It isn’t exactly authentic, but an LA specific take and his personal stories are also interesting

YESS. My father in law gave me The Best Recipe cookbook almost 20 years ago and it is STILL my go-to. It opens automatically to a few recipes, the cover is worn, some of the pages have stains; it's clearly loved.

I have mixed feelings about celebrity cookbooks, but nevertheless I'm a big fan of Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook. It's fairly unpretentious French bistro fare, but a lot of the recipes require a decent amount of prep, a lot of trial and error, and sometimes recipes stages that span multiple days. Not all of the recipes are tough, but as an intermediate cook myself I really think that some of these will be a pleasant challenge. Plus it's a very aesthetically pleasing book imo.

I don't usually use cookbooks, but this one by Claudia Roden is an exception, with interesting recipes and delicious-looking photographs. She is an engaging writer as well.

Japanese Farm Food ... awesome recipes and a very helpful perspective. Award-winning

Donabe: Japanese Clay Pot Cooking ... requires a donabe

Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art ... a famous comprehensive bible of Japanese cooking

Im also on justonecookbook.com all the time.. and if they would ever print an actual cookbook I would buy it.

I love this cookbook: Arabesque by Claudia Rodin. It contains really excellent recipes from Lebanese, Turkish, and Moroccan cuisine.

Claudia Roden has a great recipe for Moroccan tagine in here. A great book that's been around for some time- if you don't want to buy it, I'd bet your local library has a copy.

Quesadillas? Thinking filled with refried beans, not just cheese.
Those, or empanadas; I actually just got The Essential Cuisines of Mexico and there's a chicken empanada recipe that looks pretty simple and tasty, the only thing that really takes time is making the dough.

Would you have time to throw together a sandwich? Tons of easy variations and pretty damn cheap as well.

Thai Vegetarian Cooking (Thailand)

Real Vegetarian Thai (Thailand)

Teff Love (Ethiopia)

Kansha (Japan)

The Lotus and the Artichoke (Malaysia and Sri Lanka are my two favorites, but also has India, Mexico, and Ethiopia)

Decolonize Your Diet (Mexico)

Tahini & Turmeric (the Middle East)

I also like Isa Chandra Moskowitz's books for baking. For slightly fancier, more involved books, I like Bryant Terry's (especially Afro-Vegan).

Maybe start with America's Test Kitchen Healthy Family Cookbook

The people at America's Test Kitchen test every recipe many, many times and determine what works best. You can't go wrong with them.

There is a book called "The Curry Secret" which has recipes for British-Indian Restaurant food - not 'authentic' Indian food, but the stuff you get in a UK restaurant. Very different thing.

It has a kickass chicken tikka masala recipe in it, I can eat the tarka dahl with a spoon until I turn greeny yellow from the tumeric, and if you take the time you can make the prettiest, fluffiest pilau rice you can imagine.

I own only one recipe book (the internet suffices for everything else) but that book is (to me) worth it.

This one is more just baked goods, but Magnus does have a Nordic Cookbook that's also worth a look through.

If you're a gamer at all, the book that brought me to this sub to learn more about mead was The Elder Scrolls Cookbook. Fun recipes, even if you're not trying to recreate something from the game world.

Does anyone know how this book stacks up against ATK's "blue book"?

I have their red and green books and absolutely love them. Was considering getting this one next.

So a few people have recommended this book to you: http://www.amazon.com/Secret-That-Takeway-Curry-Taste-ebook/dp/B008N2B0OC

Well, you're in luck, because I've found a couple of videos on Youtube made by the author of that book that explain how to make Tikka Masala.

Here's the video showing how to make the sauce: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLfhMF2WaZw

And here is the video showing how to cook the dish: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1wjyOdNdSw

Let me recommend an excellent Vietnamese cookbook.

This book takes you on a culinary journey and teaches you how to make your own.

A few from different regions:

Yucatán: Recipes from a Culinary Expedition for Yucatecan / Mayan food. It is the best one for this, period.

Sicilian Food

The Nordic Cookbook for Scandinavian food.

Cuisine of Hungary.

Churrasco: Grilling the Brazilian Way

it's not turkish only, but claudia roden's arabesque is excellent.

Thanks for the recommendation! Here's a link to buy Talk About Good! from the Junior League and it appears Amazon carries it, as well.

I could dig out a cookbook and transcribe my favorite...

If you're curious about what sort of variations have positive results, this is one I think your collection should include... though its more aimed at quality than cost awareness.

First recommendation is don't work as a chef if you value a social/family life.

Good books to read are;
Larousse Gastronomique which is the absolute Bible/Koran/Bhagavad Gita

The Silver Spoon which is a great Italian cook book.

And another tip is old, outdated looking cook books are sometimes the best. I've got one I got from an ex girlfriend's mum which looks terrible but if you're into Cypriot/Greek/Turkish food is incredible, it's here

> And fyi I'm not clicking on your gore-porn. Which I am assuming is what you've posted based on the title of the hyperlink.

Sounds like you care so much about animals being alive that even just looking at a dead one scares you this much. (The photo is live dogs living in a cage.)

>To you maybe. But morals are not fixed. Morality is not a constant in the universe. And applying your morals to others people's or cultures is basic colonialism.

Glad to see a critique of colonialism! This should appeal to you, then: https://www.amazon.com/Decolonize-Your-Diet-Plant-Based-Mexican-American/dp/1551525925

Same reason all shop curries are a bit shit, they cheap out on the ingredients, a decent korma from a curry house will have a good amount of ground almonds in it, shop versions which are produced in massive quantities in factories for a very strict price margin will most likely have more cream in and possibly cheaper nuts, spices used in a curry house will also be freshly roasted and ground, where as factory versions are not roasted before hand and they will use the very bare minimum of the expensive spices to achieve something that is just about OK for the price demanded by the supermarket.

If they can save a couple of grams of spice in every portion accords hundreds of portions it’s hundreds of £s saved.

If you’re disappointed by supermarket versions, try making your own, I highly recommend;

The Curry Secret

This is an updated version of the original, I still refer to my copy which has so many spices impregnated into the pages I could probably eat the ratty old thing and it would taste goood!

Talk About Good by The Lafayette Junior League

Original edition of 1967 now in its 26th +/- printing. Same one my parents use. Has many base items that are foundations of other dishes.

Also my dad has used Pots, Pans, and Pioneers by Telephone Pioneers of America. Large collection of authentic recipes. Biscuits, breads also meats.

I use both of these; the recipes therein are classic.

This ebook would be fantastic!

How many dogs do you have? I'm currently a 3 dog household and its been rough! Still trying to get them all to get along.

Pooper Scooper

For the ATK fans in the house: http://www.amazon.com/Americas-Kitchen-Healthy-Family-Cookbook/dp/1933615567

This has been my go-to for quite some time now. Love everything in there!

IMO Ready meal curries are generally similar to typical indian restaurant takeaway curries. I learnt to cook them this way thanks to https://www.amazon.co.uk/Curry-Secret-Indian-Restaurant-Meals/dp/0716021919 . However it's actually easier and as cheap to buy the supermarket ones.

Buy this:
https://www.amazon.com/Cookbook-Louisiana-Lafayette-Junior-League/dp/0935032029
It’s Junior League of Lafayette’s cookbook originally published in the 70s or 80s. It’s basically everybody’s grandma’s best recipes

EDIT: first printed in 1967 now in it’s 30th printing

India: The Cookbook by Prupesh Pant is probably the most comprehensive Indian recipe book you could ever hope to find.

Buy The Curry Secret and make them yourself. They will taste just like a restaurant and so much better than a ready meal.

"The Nordic Cookbook" by esteemed Swedish chef Magnus Nilsson seems pretty definitive. It's a massive tome with 700 recipes from all over the Nordic countries. I haven't read it myself so I can't vouch for it personally, but it's the first book that comes to my mind when I think of Swedish and/or Nordic cooking. I've seen a few documentaries about Nilsson and he's...let's call it devoted to his craft. Opened a Michelin 2-star restaurant in northern Sweden, far away from the bigger cities that normally house our Michelin star restaurants, just to be close to the produce he uses in his cooking. He's a bit of an odd duck, but one who does seem to know what he's doing in the kitchen.

For me it was French Cooking in Ten Minutes. Before it, I was fumbling through recipes. It is so brief, lacking detail and had such attitude that it gave me the confidence to just try.

I bought "Indian Instant Pot: Traditional Indian Dishes Made Easy and Fast". I guess the author is kind of famous in Instant Pot circles?

https://www.amazon.com/Indian-Instant-Pot-Cookbook-Traditional-ebook/dp/B075HHYXWF/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1522776004&sr=8-3

Nå folkens, der er snart gået et år siden Skodbil sidst mæskede sig i fødselsdagskage, og det betyder at successen skal gentages. Fødselsdagsgaver er for lang tid siden gået fra at være Lego og våben, til at være sokker og bøger.

Derfor skal der nu nogle gode kogebøger på listen. Jeg er ikke så meget på udkig efter opskriftsbøger, men mere ude i at ville have kogebøger som jeg rent faktisk kan lære noget af. Jeg har allerede følgende på listen, men hvis DU kender en helt vildt god bog jeg bør læse, så sig til.

Sølvskeen

The Food Lab, Kenji Lopez

Chocolate at Home

Paul Bocuse Institut Gastronomique

The Professional Chef

The Flavour Bible

Mastering Cheese

Der er med vilje ingen vinbøger på listen, for det gør jeg mig ikke specielt meget i - endnu.

Decolonize your diet is my favorite for authentic Mexican food that is plant based.

Either Diana Kennedy - The Essential Cuisines of Mexico or Rick Bayless - Authentic Mexican. Really any book by either of those authors is going to be good.

Anything by Madhur Jaffrey. Here's a good one to start:
http://www.amazon.com/Madhur-Jaffrey-Indian-Cooking/dp/0764156497

Indian food: Indian Instant Pot® Cookbook: Traditional Indian Dishes Made Easy and Fast

Braised meat... hmm i'd probably look at How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman. Though the recipes tend to be under-spiced for my tastes, but that shouldn't hold you back, it's a solid technique book.

A local Indian chef here, Vikram Vij, has produced a couple of cookbooks with his wife. I really like this one: https://www.amazon.ca/Vijs-Elegant-Inspired-Indian-Cuisine/dp/1553651847

One of the biggest reasons I got the IP is for Indian food. Highly recommend Instant Pot Indian cook book

https://www.amazon.com/Nordic-Cookbook-Magnus-Nilsson/dp/0714868728/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1492508514&sr=8-1&keywords=the+nordic+cookbook

The Nordic cookbook by Magnus Nilsson was the cookbook that got me into cooking, and I can highly recommend it.

The problem with this thread is that if you make a couple of these, the GF will continue to want more! I invested in a cookbook a long time ago, and it's literally changed my life. You can buy the one I use for under $6. Now we make a different recipe every night and they all taste amazing.

For Indian cuisine, try Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cooking.

Here's some background on the author as well.

Hey I got one for Christmas as well.

I also got this cookbook and it has been very informative.

u/Monkoton is right. First make a batch of rice porridge in your donabe to season it before cooking.

His cookbook is written in a similar manner as well.

Alright then

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Curry-Secret-Indian-Restaurant/dp/0716021919

>In fact, you could probably consider vegan diet to be colonialist and imperialist since it was created with European climate in mind.

Decolonize Your Diet is a vegan Mexican food cookbook.

I decided to buy it because it was $4 on Amazon the 2nd book is $3

http://www.amazon.com/Secret-That-Takeaway-Curry-Taste-ebook/dp/B008N2B0OC?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_d_detailpage_o00_

I think you mean "definitive".

https://www.amazon.com/Secret-That-Takeaway-Curry-Taste-ebook/dp/B008N2B0OC

Start with this cookbook

Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook: Strategies, Recipes, and Techniques of Classic Bistro Cooking https://www.amazon.com/dp/158234180X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_pyWeAbK4J2TDM

https://www.amazon.com/Cookbook-Louisiana-Lafayette-Junior-League/dp/0935032029/

https://www.amazon.com/River-Road-Recipes-Textbook-Louisiana/dp/0961302682

I came here to say the same thing. Here is the other one. Vijs-Elegant-Inspired-Indian-Cuisine

The Curry Secret for Indian dishes. Actually making the base curry sauce right now.

Bourdain's Les Halles

Buy this book:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Curry-Secret-Indian-Restaurant/dp/0716021919

https://smile.amazon.com/Maangchis-Real-Korean-Cooking-Authentic/dp/054412989X/ref=sr_1_2?crid=1AVS3BYUHZ74K&keywords=maangchi&qid=1572922278&s=books&sprefix=maang%2Caps%2C179&sr=1-2

And her new one, which I don't have yet:

https://smile.amazon.com/Maangchis-Big-Book-Korean-Cooking/dp/1328988120/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1AVS3BYUHZ74K&keywords=maangchi&qid=1572922333&s=books&sprefix=maang%2Caps%2C179&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Americas-Kitchen-Healthy-Family-Cookbook/dp/1933615567

I'd suggest this:
http://www.amazon.com/Americas-Kitchen-Healthy-Family-Cookbook/dp/1933615567/

Does she cook? Maybe get her some cookbooks from here. https://www.amazon.com/Plantation-Cookbook-Junior-League-Orleans/dp/0963192507/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&qid=1479912019&sr=8-12&keywords=new+orleans+collectible https://www.amazon.com/River-Road-Recipes-Textbook-Louisiana/dp/0961302682/ref=pd_sim_14_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=KM7MPAB810FP5DHMCQ4K https://www.amazon.com/Cookbook-Louisiana-Lafayette-Junior-League/dp/0935032029/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_3?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=EQXGKS2CW7MJ03X3BB39

Probably this one.

This is an oven-adapted and expanded from the recipe in Pushpesh Pant's India: The Cookbook. It's a common deep-menu item in westernized restaurants, very tasty. Sweet and aromatic. As I mention in the post, I don't recommend hand-mashing the eggplant; it's a pain.

I would argue "The curry secret" shows British cooking, including such classics as Tikka Masala, and Rogan Josh.

Now I get that these might not fit into the "traditional British" category for some people, but not everyone wants a Sunday roast or toad in the hole.

Have you seen Magnus Nilsson's Nordic Cookbook? The introduction is hilarious, he basically says "I was approached to do a general overview of Nordic cooking and I told them it was a stupid idea, there is no such thing. But then I thought about it for a while and decided, they will just find someone else to do it and it will be worse than if I did it, so I might as well do it myself".

Wait, whaaat?! I'll Google and buy that shizz now, but I don't think she does... If I find one, I'll come right back.

Edit: her Patreon membership includes an ebook when it's done, and a hardcover one with the $5 tier, after 7 months. Here's her Patreon page. I just joined it.

Edit2: I got my threads mixed up in the inbox, and I was accidentally talking about and posted the Patreon for Souped Up Recipes, not Maangchi! Maangchi does have a cookbook - [maangchi's real korean cooking: Authentic Dishes for the Home Cook] (https://www.amazon.com/dp/054412989X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_CeZ6CbZZG0WNR) - more than one, in fact. [Here's one for pre-order - [maangchi's big book of korean cooking: From Everyday Meals to Celebration Cuisine] (https://www.amazon.com/dp/1328988120/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_ZfZ6Cb1MQ7PSG).