#14 in Cooking education books
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Reddit mentions of Into the Vietnamese Kitchen: Treasured Foodways, Modern Flavors
Sentiment score: 8
Reddit mentions: 9
We found 9 Reddit mentions of Into the Vietnamese Kitchen: Treasured Foodways, Modern Flavors. Here are the top ones.
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Ten Speed Press
Specs:
Color | Multicolor |
Height | 9.76 Inches |
Length | 9.34 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Release date | October 2006 |
Weight | 3.30032006214 Pounds |
Width | 1.13 Inches |
Hey, thanks for your comments :-)
I'll definitely take on board what you've said about freezing the meat. I actually did freeze it for about 10 mins as it said to do that in the book, but I had no real frame of reference for when it said 'slice thinly'. To me, the way I'd sliced it was quite thin, but obviously I can see now that it's actually rather thick for this particular dish. I will take into account what you say here about using a long knife as well. What's butcher paper by the way? Can that be bought in most supermarkets?
I'm not sure what the brand of the noodles was. The noodles were something of an after thought and I didn't get the right ones. I'd spent quite a long time finding a butcher's that had bones that I could use for the broth, and when I finally managed to get them (had to go to three different butchers and drive around quite a bit before I managed to get what I needed) I didn't have much time left, so just got the best match for the noodles I could find.
I'll make sure to use the proper fine rice noodles in the future.
I didn't use thai basil (what's the difference between thai basil and standard basil? Is there a significant difference?), but we did actually use fresh mint and we also had lime.
I actually scooped a large amount of fat out of the broth as it cooked, but left a little bit in. I'm pretty sure the recipe said a little bit is ok, but again, I had no real frame of reference so made my own call on that. I'll remove as much as I can next time then.
It was all done with beef bones, so no chicken stock or anything like that. I'll write up the blog article tomorrow if I can, so you'll be able to see the full process from start to finish. I took pictures at each point along the way, so you'll be able to see exactly how I made it then.
The blog is called 'cooking from books', and the idea is actually to take recipes in published books and then cook them and post the results up for everyone to see. I came up with the idea after I started trying to learn cooking but found some books had no pictures in them, or only showed the very final product - I felt like it could be useful for other people, and it'd also push me to cook more stuff and try new things :-)
This is the book I got the recipe from
and this is my blog :-)
One final comment - would you be ok with me possibly using your comments here (and subsequent comments) in the article itself? I'm going to mention that I first found out about pho on reddit in the article, and it'd be cool to say how I posted up the results and got some good feedback from you guys :-)
Thanks!
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?
I haven't looked at a lot of alternatives, but I bought Into the Vietnamese Kitchen on a whim and haven't been disappointed. Well written and has nice pictures, each recipe has some backstory about its place in Vietnamese cuisine and culture.
For Italian cuisine, The Silver Spoon is often recommended as a cornerstone of Italian cooking, but I found it to be pretty unsatisfying, at least in the translation. Light on technique and a lot of recipes that may be authentic, but aren't something you're ever likely to make (assuming you can even find the ingredients).
I like Andrea Nguyen's Into the Vietnamese Kitchen. Her blog Viet World Kitchen is also good (I'm on mobile, otherwise I'd link). Most of the Vietnamese dishes I regularly make started with Nguyen's book or website.
EDIT: Links to both: http://www.amazon.com/Into-Vietnamese-Kitchen-Treasured-Foodways/dp/1580086659/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1449674932&sr=8-1&keywords=into+the+vietnamese+kitchen
http://www.vietworldkitchen.com/
Andrea Nguyen, cookbook and blog (and some suggested cookbooks from her blog). Also Charles Phan has a couple good cookbooks.
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
Burmese
Cambodian
Chinese
Indian
Indonesia
Japanese
Korean
Malaysian
Middle Eastern
Philippine
Russian
Sri Lankan
Taiwanese
Thailand
Turkish
Vietnamese
(edit: screwed up a couple links)
Well, I'm half-Chinese. I'll give you two cookbook recommendations which are full of recipes which really resonate with that part of my background:
In addition to the aforementioned Chinese food, I'm just a fat piggy who loves to eat. Here are a few more recs:
Feel free to drop me a line if you need more recommendations. I've got quite the cookbook collection (I love to cook, it's not just cookbook porn) and love to share my thoughts.
Not bad for a first attempt, don't be too hard on yourself!! I think you used bun instead of pho noodles and agreed the beef should be sliced thinner.
You have to buy the bible, this is my favorite Vietnamese cookbook and has the best pho recipe (grandmother-approved!!):
Into the Vietnamese Kitchen by Andrea Nguyen
Oh and looks like the author posted the recipe on her blog:
Andrea Nguyen's Beef Pho Recipe
Just got this yesterday.
Hopefully I can start creating some of these wonderful dishes at home.