Viet World Kitchen

Soy-Glazed Black Pepper Chicken Recipe (The Hakka Cookbook)

One of the most interesting Asian cookbooks released this year had no color photographs. Yes, no food porn was in The Hakka Cookbook by Linda Lau Anusasananan. In an era where readers love to cook with their eyes, it was a gutsy move on UC Press to publish a cookbook only graced by simple watercolors. Without photos to distract, you have to read and flip each page (imagine that!), following the author’s journey through a cuisine and culture.

The Hakka Cookbook may seem like it’s for Chinese food geeks -- there are maps, Chinese characters and Romanized pinyin Mandarin. The book begs you to spend time with it. Once that you start looking at it, you’ll be stuck in your chair for at least a good hour. You’ll pick out familiar dishes seen on Chinese restaurant menus.

Burmese Pork Belly, Pickled Mustard Greens and Tofu Recipe

Something magical happens when you combine thinly sliced pieces of pork belly with an assertive pickled vegetable and tofu. I didn’t realize that kind of synergy till I made Korean tofu stir-fried with kimchi and pork belly (dubu kimchi). It’s a drinking classic, I was told by my friend Linda Lim, a Korea- born  woman whose petite size belies her enormous ability to eat and drink.

I made dubu kimchi repeatedly to get the recipe down for the tofu book, and in the process learned to understand how the three ingredients worked. The pork belly lent its wonderful richness to soften the blow of the harsh kimchi, which had to be the stinky, mature kind for the dish to shine. The tofu played an intermediary role to soak up the meat’s richness and the umami funk of the pickled cabbage.

That said, I couldn’t resist making this stir-fry from Naomi Duguid’s sensational Burma: Rivers of Flavor, released just this fall. With her former husband, she wrote landmark works such as Beyond the Great Wall, and Hot, Sour, Salty Sweet. This is her solo performance and it’s compelling, well sized for cooking and reading. Unlike her previous large scale productions, Burma is a book meant for using in the kitchen or holding on the sofa, not displaying on the coffee table.

Naomi has been traveling to Burma for decades, observing, tasting, and noting a great deal of detail about the country, which stands at a true culinary crossroads of South Asia, East Asia and Southeast Asia. All this means that if you’re adept at cooking foods from Asia and venturing to Asian markets, you’ll find Burma to be a splendid book to cook from. If you’re not adept at those cuisines, then Naomi gives you a pass and says it’s okay to just be an armchair cook and eater. In any event, you’ll relish the heartfelt writing and immense research in Burma.

Fried Ginger Chicken Recipe per Japanese Farm Food

This year has been fabulous for Asian cookbooks. I am not just talking about Asian Tofu! It’s in fine company with an outstanding group of 2013 publications. While I’ve checked out Tracey Lister and Andreas Pohl’s Vietnamese Street Food and Charles Phan’s Vietnamese Home Cooking, I hadn’t had the chance to dive into the non-Vietnamese ones, until now. This fall, I was out of town for five weeks total. Phew, I’m back home working on the banh mi cookbook. In between, I’m trying out recipes from autumn Asian cookbook releases that caught my eye.

The first one is Nancy Singleton Hachisu’s Japanese Farm Food, a work that takes a non-fussy, matter-of-fact approach to Japanese cooking. Nancy lives in Japan, where she teaches home cooking and is married to an organic farmer. Their life is filled with straightforward food, much of which is detailed in the cookbook. It’s a highly personal work, not meant to be strict and authoritative, but casual and inviting. You can tell that Nancy put a lot of love into her book. Some recipes require a trip to a Japanese market but others, like this fried ginger chicken recipe (tori no kara age) are a doable with supermarket ingredients. Plug in where you want and can. Sometimes the instruction are opaque and a little finesse is required. For example, when the oil temperature for frying the chicken wasn't specified, I clipped on a thermometer. The recipe had charming cues but I wanted a little more accuracy.

I chose this recipe because frankly, I never get enough kara age when I order it at Japanese restaurants. My husband and I politely divide up however much there is on the plate. Making it at home was a fine workaround. We both got our fill.

Asian Tofu Adventures on Canadian TV

The past three days of this week in Vancouver have been challenging -- early morning TV show appearances and evening cooking classes. I'm not a morning person so waking up at 6am three days in a row and going to bed soon after I get back from teaching was, frankly weird. But hey, when it rains, it pours and you just shouldn't say "no" to TV exposure. Plus I like the spontaneity of television.

The day before each TV appearance, I prepped the demo and packed up all my stuff -- small wares, equipment, food, and props -- knowing that I'd only be able to somewhat blindly get everything together minutes before my ride arrived. Here's a recap of how things went:

Monday, September 10: City TV's Breakfast Television
My alarm didn't go off and when I woke up, it was 6:43 a.m.! Random House publicist Trish Kells was picking me up at 7:10 a.m. I showered and did my hair very quickly, then grabbed my bus tub (remember how my favorite piece of gear for food gigs is the bus tub?). Trish was outside waiting and we drove to the studio in downtown Vancouver. Breakfast TV had coffee and rolls, and more importantly  -- a make up person. I needed to be camera friendly.  

Beef Chow Fun Recipe

It can be hard to find a good beef chow fun stir-fry at a Chinese restaurant. Sometimes it’s overly greasy or lacking good flavor. But when the Cantonese dish is spot on, it’s delicious. My best bet for a consistently good beef chow fun is to make it at home. Plus, I know that I’ll have all that I want.

When I go to a Chinese market, I look for fresh rice noodles. They are typically sold as folded slabs on Styrofoam trays near the refrigerated foods and produce section. I look for ones labeled ‘chow fun noodles’ or noodles cut to the width of pappardelle (1/2-inch wide); think of super fat banh pho rice noodles and you’ll understand what chow fun noodles should look like. I poke at them to ensure that they’re fresh. They should be soft. Unrefrigerated soft noodles are best but firm refrigerated firm noodles will work too. In a pinch, you can boil wide dried banh pho rice noodles for this dish. Just drain them well and toss with a little salt and oil. Then let them dry completely before stir-frying. (See the banh pho rice noodle buying guide if you need an assist.)

Once home, I make this stir-fry with the noodles. If you have to refrigerate them for a few days, they’ll harden but still okay to work with. Pork or chicken thigh can stand in for the beef. This is a great one-dish meal to share with someone you love or like a lot.