Asian Cooking

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

In this latest entry in the ever-popular cookbook series, Jean Paré
offers recipes from Asia, with dishes that originated in China, India,
Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and
Vietnam. Paré has a knack for taking the fear factor out of any type of
cooking. People who normally would never dream of trying to make their
own Korean-style kimchee or Chinese dim sum will be inspired by her
straightforward approach. For example, in the “Equipment” chapter,
Paré mentions that people can use the traditional bamboo mat to make
sushi but that, in a pinch, plain old waxed paper will do.

Instead of dividing the recipes by nationality, Paré groups them by
food type. Chapters include “Appetizers,” “Condiments and
Spices,” “Desserts and Sweets,” “Main Courses,” “Salads,”
“Sauces,” “Side Dishes,” and “Soups.” Most of the recipes
are represented by a beautiful color photograph somewhere in the book,
which makes it very useful for knowing what the finished meal is
supposed to look like. The hardest part of using this book is deciding
what you want to make first. There are recipes for pakoras, sushi stacks
and whiligigs, samosas, spring rolls, chicken tikka, battered meat
balls, rosy ginger pickle, Indian chai, date chutney, kulfi (Indian ice
cream), sweet fried bananas, beefy spinach noodles, sukiyaki,
ga-xao-xa-ot (Vietnamese chicken with lemon grass), coco-milk chicken,
and tea-poached halibut.

People who use the book will get a close approximation of the original
recipes, but the dishes not always absolutely authentic; for example,
Paré does not mention that the Chinese prefer white pepper to black,
which has a definite impact on a recipe’s taste. Like all Company’s
Coming cookbooks, the volume is spiral-bound so that it lies flat while
the cook’s hands are busy, and includes a helpful glossary.