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(More customer reviews)It's not usual to devour a cookbook from cover to cover in one sitting, but so thoroughly engaging - and lovely to look at -- is Terry Tan's `Asian Cook' that I read all 144 pages at once before dashing into my kitchen to check what I needed to make nonya-style pork curry. Nonya cooking, so Tan has taught me, is distinctly Southeast Asian, an exotic blend of ethnic Chinese and Singaporean, Indonesia and Malaysian practices and ingredients. Now I know too that there are seven principal types of cooking styles in Japan (from `yakimono' which means grilled to `itememono' meaning sautéed or pan-fried). And that religion has impacted more on the various cuisines of the Indian Sub-Continent than geography.
Indeed, to refer to `Asian Cook' as a cookbook is to do Tan a grave injustice. This is a lavish but functional compendium of the `tools and techniques' beloved of cooks of Asian cuisine, be they food writers for the San Francisco Chronicle or top Indian chefs in London. I suspect that if Tan had his way, the kitchenware department would be situated right next to jewellery.
Tan's authority stems from his experience and expertise as a cookery teacher and food historian. He gives us wonderful descriptions of what makes an Asian cook - the historical background and geographical origins that in turn determine the utensils, implements, ingredients (whether fish, fowl or offal) and spices used. Artfully photographed pots, woks, tandoors, cooking tools, accessories and tableware are accompanied by simple but illuminating points and pointers. For example, did you know that for some Asians, knives are considered `too barbaric to be used at the table' and that they are in any case superfluous, given that `all ingredients are cut into bite-size pieces during preparation'?
Asian Cook offers a wide-range of easy to follow, relatively inexpensive recipes for the discerning palate, with dishes from yang zhou fried rice to roast chicken madurai masala to bamboo leaf dumplings. But they are here to provide a colourful backdrop - and final flourish -- to the tools and techniques that made them. Tan tells us that Asian chefs have `always been at the cutting edge when it comes to presentation skills'. I was particularly intrigued by how one produces an `edible basket' with the right molds (which, surprisingly, are two perforated ladles shaped to fit one inside the other). A prawns in yam basket should go down very nicely at my next supper party. This book is a treasure, if not a secret weapon.
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The success and longevity of TV shows like Yan Can Cook and Iron Chef as well as the recent explosion of Asian restaurants across the U.S. attests to the Western fascination with Asian food and cooking. This encyclopedic guide to the tools and tableware indigenous to Asia also covers key cooking methods and 80 delicious recipes from China, Japan, India, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Korea, and Laos. Four-page gatefolds illustrate over 100 pieces of essential equipment, and clear, step-by-step photographs guide readers through more than 20 cooking techniques. Spiral-bound with wipe-clean plastic covers for easy use in the kitchen, there are also 300 color photos included in this definitive guide.
