Japanese and Chinese Cookbooks
Posted by lotus42 on Jan 13, 2008 · Member since Mar 2007 · 3081 posts
Do any of you have a favorite Japanese or Chinese Cookbook? My parents really love Japanese and Chinese food, but have realized that the food from their local Chinese restaurant is far from healthy and want to try cooking it at home. They are not vegetarian, but very veg friendly.
OMG - I totally love Sara Desearan's Asian Vegetables! I checked it out from my library last month, and almost immediately decided to purchase it! The picture show all the funky veggies, the recipes are deee-lish, and the entire cookbook is probably 85% vegan (since many people of Asian decent are lactose intolerant).
Thanks Dink! I will look into it.
I own Buddha's Table cookbook but honestly, it was a little intimidating. Somethings were awesome to know and learn but overall I was overwhelmed. I would recommend you read through it before buying. Perhaps look for it at a used book store?
I have four asian vegetarian/vegan cookbooks:
bryanna clark grogan's Chinese Cuisine
miyoko nishimoto schinner's Japanese Cooking - Contemporary and Traditional
chat mingkwan's Buddha's Table
nancy mcdermott's Real Thai Vegetarian
The first three are vegan. The last three really require you to locate some real asian ingredents (a number of the chinese dishes can be achieved with, for instance, regular soy sauce instead of light soy sauce). I loooove the Japanese cookbook; there are some traditional, typically vegetarian recipes in there, and some innovative oddities like vegan unagi (eel). sukiyaki and vegan unagi are favorites from there. Konbu broth is pretty necessary for most dishes, though, and is hard to locate if you don't have an asian market. i've had bad luck with making my own konbu or shiitake broth.
I haven't made as many dishes out of Chinese Cuisine, but everything's been pretty favorable, though nothing really amazing yet (though i've been eyeing the barbecue 'pork' steamed buns).
Buddha's Table is a thai cookbook with some great recipes (pineapple coconut noodles, pad thai, see ew, red curry cakes), but it's hard for me to find the lemongrass necessary in some recipes. i bought some dried, powdered, lemongrass, but the stuff tastes like tea :p Also, there's a recipe for curry paste of many kinds, but it involves grinding with a mortar and pestle... not something i've brought myself to.
Real Thai Vegetarian has a number of recipes with egg, which I haven't tried because of that. Some recipes seem a little less authentic, but I haven't tried much yet. The coconut/ginger/cilantro rice was good though.