cookbooks on trial

Korean Home Cooking

This week I wanted to make something out of one of the Korean cookbooks I have that I’ve never used. I can’t remember where I got Korean Home Cooking from but I think I might have picked it up at a Korean store. It was originally published in Singapore and has a different feel to it than other Korean cookbooks books aimed at American cooks.

In some ways it seems a lot more authentic than other Korean books I’ve seen. It goes beyond bulgogi (barbecued beef) and covers a lot of dishes I haven’t seen in other cookbooks. It even has a section on making your own sauces and pastes like Duenjang (soybean paste) which is pretty hard core (and something my mom actually does).

I chose to make japchae, a noodle dish, because I’ve eaten it many times over the years and thought I’d be able to judge how good the recipe was. Having said that, it’s never been one of my favorite Korean dishes.

I love spicy food and while there are plenty of spicy Korean dishes japchae is pretty mild. It’s also very time-consuming. When I told my mom I was planning on cooking japchae for a weeknight dinner her immediate response was “Why? That’s a lot of work!” She was right, of course. Now I know why we only had japchae on special occasions like Thanksgiving (along with mashed potatoes and stuffing with kimchi–yum!)

The Verdict
4 out of 5 stars. While Korean Home Cooking is not the most accessible Korean cookbook out there it is one of the most authentic and versatile and contains recipes that I haven’t seen anywhere else. The japchae I made tasted spot-on. If you’re serious about learning how to cook Korean food it’s worth tracking down a copy.

Japchae from Korean Home Cooking
(Hint: chop and slice everything before you begin cooking. I, um, didn’t and it slowed everything down. I also didn’t have any beef on hand so I used chicken thighs and it turned out fine.)

Ingredients

4 dried Chinese mushrooms, soaked for about 30 minutes in several changes of water
4 oz beef tenderloin, cut into thin strips about 1 1/2 inches long
vegetable oil for frying
4 oz spinach
4 oz carrot, peeled, cut into thin 1 1/2 strips
1 egg, separated
salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 small yellow onion
2 oz dangmyeon (sweet potato starch noodles)
1 teaspoon pine nuts, for garnish
pan-toasted, ground sesame seeds

Beef and Mushroom Marinade

2 Tablespoons light soy sauce
1 Tablespoon sugar
4 teaspoons finely chopped scallions
2 teaspoons crushed garlic
2 teaspoons sesame oil

Spinach marinade

2 teaspoons finely chopped scallions
1 teaspoon crushed garlic
2 teaspoons sesame oil
2 teaspoons pan-toasted, ground sesame seeds
freshly ground black pepper to taste

For Noodle Seasoning

1 Tablespoon Korean soy sauce
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 Tablespoon sesame oil

Directions
Squeeze excess water from mushrooms, then remove and discard stems. Cut caps into thin slices
Combine Beef and Mushroom marinade in a glass bowl and add beef and mushrooms and marinate for about 20 minutes.

Heat 1 Tablespoon oil in a frying pan. Add beef and mushroom slices and stir-fry until well cooked, 3-4 minutes. Remove from pan and set aside on paper towels.

Wash spinach, the remove and discard roots, reserving leaves and stems. Immerse reserved spinach briefly in rapidly boiling salted water. Quickly remove from water and drain. Squeeze out excess water.

Combine spinach marinade ingredients in a bowl and add spinach and set aside.

Clean frying pan and add a bit of oil. Add carrot and stir-fry. In another frying pan, fry egg white and yolk to make egg gidan (?–basically a very thin omelet). Remove from pan and cut into thin slices. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Peel onion, cut in half vertically, and thinly slice. Heat 1 teaspoon oil in a pan and fry onion slices, adding salt and pepper to taste.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil, add noodles, and cook until soft, about 5 minutes. Remove from water and rinse in several changes of cold water until water is clear. Drain and cut noodles to make them easier to eat.

Combine noodle seasoning in a large mixing bowel. Add noodles and mix well to coat. Add beef and mushrooms, spinach, carrots, and onions and mix well. Serve sprinkled with pine nutes and ground sesame seeds, and topped with egg gidan.

(Serves 4 or 5.)

Soup: Superb Ways With a Classic Dish

This week’s cookbook is Soup: Superb Ways With a Classic Dish, another one of the $5 cookbooks published by Hermes House that I’ve picked up. The range of this book is pretty remarkable: it covers soups from around the work such as Hot and Sour Soup, Chiang Mai Noddle Soup, and Plantain and Corn Soup as well as western standards like Chicken Noodle Soup.

I decided use this book when I woke up on Monday and saw an inch of snow on the ground (!) I flipped through the book and decided to make a lentil soup since I had most of the ingredients on hand and it seemed like a cozy-type of soup. Never mind that it had warmed up to 55 degrees by the time dinner rolled around. (Crazy Utah weather.)

The soup was easy to make but a little on the subtle side. I like spicy food and was tempted to squirt some Sriracha or Tabasco into it to liven it up but I resisted and tried to embrace the lentil-y goodness.

Lentil Soup with Rosemary from Soup: superb ways with a classic dish

Ingredients

a cup dried green or brown lentils
3 Tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3 bacon slices, cut into small dice
1 onion, minced
2 celery stalks, minced
2 carrots, minced
2 sprigs of fresh rosemary, minced
2 bay leaves
14-oz can plum tomatoes
1 3/4 quarts vegetable stock
salt and fresh ground black pepper

Directions

Place the lentils in a bowl and cover with cold water. Leave to soak for at least 2 hours; rinse and drain well.
Heat the oil in a large sauce pan. Add the bacon and cook for about 3 minutes. Stir in the onion and cook for 5 minutes until soft. Stir in the celery, carrots, rosemary, bay leaves, and lentils. Toss over the heat for 1 minute until well coated in the oil.
Tip in the tomatoes and stock, and bring to a boil. Lower the heat, half-ocer the pan, and simmer for about 1 hour until the lentils are tender.
Remove the bay leaves and add salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.

The Verdict
3 out of 5 stars. This is a handy book that covers almost every soup you’d want to make. The wide scope kind of makes me wonder how consistently good all the recipes are, though. Most recipes are pretty healthy but unfortunately nutritional information is not included. All recipes include several photos and clear directions. An introductory section includes step-by-step recipes for creating stocks from scratch. Worth picking up for $5 or $6 if you can.

Best-Ever Curry Cookbook

This week was the first time since I started this series that I noticeably stretched myself in the cooking department. I made two recipes from the Best-Ever Curry Cookbook and it literally took me over two hours to get everything together. Not that the recipes were crazy difficult or anything like that; I just think I am sort of the anti-Rachel Ray in that I can take the simplest recipe and futz around with it until the time and energy I’ve used could have powered a good cook *cough*Mindy*cough* through preparing a lavish banquet.

But at least after my hours spent in the kitchen I ended up with some tasty food. I made Chicken Saag and Courgettes (zucchini) in Spiced Tomato Sauce.

Chicken Saag is one of my favorite Indian dishes. In particular I love how they make it at this local place. This recipe wasn’t exactly the same but it tasted pretty similar and was really good. I’m definitely want to cook it again.

Nothing fancy to look at but it was really tasty.

The only problem with the recipe was that it has you adding one or two ingredients at a time and then simmering for 5 minutes, then repeating over and over. I kept getting lost as I was cooking so I’ve simplified it a bit here.

Chicken Saag from Best-Ever Curry Cookbook by Mridula Baljekar

Ingredients

8 oz fresh spinach leaves, washed
1 inch piece ginger root
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 fresh green chili, roughly chopped
1 scant cup of water
2 T vegetable oil
2 bay leaves
1/4 t black peppercorns
1 yellow onion, finely chopped
4 tomatoes skinned and finely chopped (I forgot to buy some so I used canned *gasp!*)
2 t curry powder
1 t salt
1 t chili powder
3 T plain yogurt plus extra to serve
8 chicken thighs, skinned

Directions

Cook the spinach, without water, in a tightly covered pan for 5 minutes (on medium-low heat). Put the spinach, ginger, garlic, and chili pepper with 1/4 c of water into a food processor and puree.
Heat the oil in a large pan, add the bay leaves, pepper corns, and chopped onion and saute, stirring, until the onion is translucent.
Add the chopped tomatoes, curry powder, salt, and chili powder to the pan and simmer for 5 minutes.
Add the spinach puree and the remaining water (3/4 c) to the pan and simmer for 5 minutes.
Stir in the yogurt, about 1 T at a time and simmer for 5 minutes. Taste and adjust spices as needed.
Add the chicken. Cover and cook (on low) for 25-30 minutes or until the chicken is tender and cooked through.
Serve with warm naan (I used whole wheat pita because I had it on hand), drizzled with plain yogurt and dust lightly with the chili powder.

Serves 4

The Verdict
4 out of 5 stars. This rating is conditional on you being able to pick it up in the bargain section of a bookstore for about $5 like I did. For that price this book is a great deal. It provides a solid grounding in Indian food complete with lots of background information. And each recipe includes multiple photos showing some of the steps involved and the finished dish. The only faults I found are that the directions can be kind of vague (as in not specifying what level of heat you should use) and at times not very clearly written (I found myself rereading the list of directions several times because I kept getting lost). But both of those issues were probably exacerbated by my own inexperience in the kitchen. This book give you a window into authentic Indian cuisine for a great price.

Cooking Light Fresh Food Fast

This week I’m taking a look at Cooking Light Fresh Food Fast, one of several impulse Costco purchases I’ve made over the years. This book focus on simple (5-ingredient) quick recipes. It covers a while range of dishes: soups, salads, meats, poultry, etc… Some of the recipes include prepared ingredients (like canned tomatoes) which some might question but which doesn’t bother me. These recipes are more for weeknight dinners than for having company over.

May’s a crazy month for us. It includes Nathan (and my dad)’s birthdays, Mother’s Day, and our wedding anniversary (9 years this week!).

I wanted to make something a little special for dinner so I used this steak recipe. There was a bit of um, shall we say scope creep? The recipe called for 4 oz tenderloin steaks but the market was having a crazy sale on ribeyes so N’s dinner ended up looking like this (mine was smaller):

So it was fresh and fast but not so light. However, the flavor of the sauce was really good. And I’m officially in love with the salads we had with it: iceberg wedges with blue cheese dressing and dried cranberries and candied walnuts. Crunchy and fresh–yes, super healthy–eh, no.

Beef Tenderloin Steaks with Red Wine-Mushroom Sauce

Ingredients

4 (4-ounce) beef tenderloin steaks, trimmed (about 1/2 inch thick)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
butter-flavored cooking spray
1 (8-ounce) package presliced baby portobello mushrooms
1 cup dry red wine
2 tablespoons better
1 teaspoon minced fresh rosemary

Instructions
Heat a large nonstick skiller over med-high heat. Season steaks with salt and pepper. Coat with cooking spray. Add steaks to pan: cook 3 min or each side or until they reach your preferred degree of doneness. Move steaks to a serving platter and keep warm.

Add mushrooms to same pan. Coat mushrooms with cooking spray, saute 3 min or until browned. Stir in wine, scraping pan to loose browned bits. Cook until the liquid is almost all evaporated. Remove from heat and add butter and rosemary. Stir until butter melts. Pour sauce over steaks and serve.

Yield: 4 servings (serving size 1 steak and 1/4 c sauce)

The Verdict:
3 out of 5 stars. This is a decent weeknight-dinner type of cookbook. Clear directions paired with recipes that use mostly fresh, easy-to-find ingredients make this book good for singles or couples that want to be able to put dinner on the table quickly and have enough leftovers for lunch the next day. Detailed nutritional info is included so you can figure out your points if you’re doing Weight Watchers. However, most recipes make 4 servings so it’s not really geared towards families with several kids.

Overall, I like this book. Recipes from it will probably make it into our regular dinner rotation (once we set up a regular rotation).

The Joy of Vegan Baking

I bought the highly-regarded The Joy of Vegan Baking by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau a while ago with the intention of regularly baking E some dairy-free, egg-free treats. I had visions of myself wearing a cute apron pulling steaming muffins out of the oven and presenting them to him, my grateful offspring. (After which I would go and sit on the couch in my dress and pearls and make small talk with Don Draper.)

The book covers a wide variety of baked goods and most recipes are accompanied by tasty-looking photographs, always a big plus in my eyes. Probably the biggest selling point of this book for me is it uses easy-to-find and rather inexpensive ingredients. Some vegan cookbooks call for a lot of exotic ingredients like coconut oil and specialty flours that are pricey and require at least a few trips to a specialty store to gather. Except for things like soy butter and non-dairy milk this book uses pretty standard baking ingredients which I really appreciate.

I used the book’s recipe for chocolate cake to bake some cupcakes for N’s birthday this last week. It’s a variation of Wacky Cocoa Cake. They turned out well except they were a little underdone. I checked them at 15 minutes like the recipe said and ended up pulling them out at 20 minutes because I was afraid they were burning. They were really moist and pleasingly on the dense side.

The cupcakes didn’t quite rise all the way (maybe I over-mixed?) but I just filled the little divots in the middle with frosting–ta da! Flavor-wise I think this is just as good as a normal chocolate cake mix cake. I’ll probably make this recipe again and try and figure out how to fix the sunken tops.

Chocolate Cake Recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking

Ingredients

1 1/2 c unbleached all-purpose flour
3/4 c granulated sugar
1/2 t salt
1 t baking soda
1/4 c unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 t vanilla extract
1/3 c canola oil
1 tablespoon white distilled vinegar
1 c cold water

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 f
Lightly oil a bundt pan, 9-inch sprinigform pan, or muffin tins
Combine all dry ingrediants and mix
Create a well in the middle and add the wet ingredients to it.
Mix until just combined.
Pour into your prepared pan and bake for 30 minutes
(For cupcakes, check for doneness after 15 minutes)
Cool on wire rack and then run a sharp knife around the inside of pan to loosen the cake.
Cool completely before frosting.

Yield: one 9-inch cake of 8 cupcakes.

The Verdict:
4 out of 5 stars. If you’re interested in milk-free, egg-free baking for either health reasons or food allergies this should be one of the first books you get. It’s covers a wide range of baked goods and most recipes use easy-to-find ingredients (I’m looking at you, Babycakes!).

I’m not a very good housewife. I’m struggle with keeping my house tidy and organized and with cooking healthy meals from scratch. The reasons behind it are varied: I have trouble remembering to put things away after I’m finished with them, working from home and looking after E keeps me pretty busy, I rather spend my free time goofing around on the internet or pursuing another one of my too-many hobbies, etc…not to mention I’m just kind of lazy.

It’s not that I don’t have good intentions. It’s just that my good intentions usually don’t get past the research/inspiration phase. So I end up picking up things on sale that I think will help me be a better person and instead they mostly clutter up my house.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Exhibit A:

This is pretty much every cookbook I own…that I haven’t cooked out of. I have a few others not pictured that I’ve used.

Yeah, I didn’t realize there were so many until I stacked them all up together. In my defense, it’s taken me 9+ years to collect so many. And a lot of them were bargain books; the books in the series on the right were mostly $2 or $3 each. Also, several of them were gifts. (Speaking of gifts, please don’t be offended if you see a book you gave me here!) Cookbooks are some of my favorite gifts to receive and I really like reading them. I just have trouble getting to the part where I, um, actually make use of them.

But not anymore! Presenting Cookbooks on Trial. Every week I’m going to cook a recipe/meal from one of the books until I’ve gone through them all.

It’s not the most thorough way to review the books but it will at least let me get a feel for each book and I’ll hopefully improve my cooking skills in the process. And N is looking forward to getting at least one nice homemade meal a week (I know, I know–the bar is set pretty low around here). But speaking of N, he’s been nothing but supportive and excited about this project. He helped me name my project (and he didn’t even blink when he saw all the books stacked up together). I love that guy.

Anyway, I’m pretty serious about this and I’m hoping that blogging about it will help keep me on track. Watch for the first installment later this week!