Bittersweet by Alice Medrich

Time to pick a new book. As I've been talking about nothing but chocolate for a while, the natural choice for a cookbook is "Bittersweet" by Alice Medrich.It's a 370 page book containing nothing but chocolate recipes.

 

Summary - The Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook

Time to wrap up my Italian Vegetarian theme. I found these dishes very useful for a quick lunch for myself but my son was unfortunately not very impressed with the veggies...

The author of the book, Jack Bishop, has a blog containing lots of  vegetarian recipes at: http://captious.wordpress.com/

Quick data:
Title: The Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook
Author: Jack Bishop
Length: 568 pages
Recipe quality: 5 out of 5
Recipe complexity: 1 out of 5 (seriously, they are very easy)
Organization: 2 out of 5
Index quality: 4 out of 5
Food Porn Vale: 2 out of 5

Pros:

• LOTS of very easy to prepare vegetarian recipes. As long as there is one vegetable in your kitchen I can near guarantee you that there will be a recipe in this book you can cook.
• All recipes come with serving suggestions
• Italian + vegetables = Healthy but hardly ever bland or boring.
• I'd say this book is very useful even if you're not a vegetarian. This is the best resource for Italian style side dishes  I know of.

Cons:

• This book is WAY to big. Each recipe gets at least a page, even if the text takes up just half the page, and lots of recipes are very similar. I'd liked more master recipes with variations, in order to make the book easier to carry around in the kitchen.
• I would have liked more main courses. This is an issue with all my vegetarian cookbook, there is lots of salads, soups and sides but the main course chapters usually have a somewhat lesser feeling about themselves.

The Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook by Jack Bishop

For most part of the year it's just not possible to get locally produced vegetables here in Sweden, but in September and October there is a great little farmers market not very far from where I live. I love to go there, buy whatever looks nice and them go home, look in my cookbooks and figure out how to cook my new acquisitions.

Actually, the only food shopping I like more is being drunk in an ethnic store, buying whatever seems like a good idea at the time. Dont worry! I don't do this a lot, actually it has only happened once, but I'll never forget the look in my husbands face the next day, holding a half kilo package of tofu skins, asking, "And how did you say we were going to cook these?"

But, never mind, returning to my original veggie track, the next cookbook I'm doing here is "The Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook".

It's a huge book, containing lots of relatively easy preparations for vegetables. As veggies are generally not a big hit with my son, I'm hoping to find some new preparations that he (and my husband and myself) actually like.

Summary - Into the Vietnamese Kitchen by Andrea Nguyen

Ok, I'm done with this one for now. It's a great book, the best I've seen for getting into Vietnamese cooking from a European standpoint. I'd recommend it to anyone serious about making tasty Vietnamese food at home.

Quick data:
Title: Into the Vietnamese Kitchen
Author: Andrea Nguyen
Length: 344 pages
Recipe quality: 5 out of 5
Recipe complexity: 3 out of 5 (ranging between 1 and 4.5)
Organization: 5 out of 5
Index quality: 4 out of 5
Food Porn Vale: 4 out of 5

Pros:

• Great variety, there actually even is a charcuterie chapter! But I haven't tried making my own sausages yet.
• Clear instructions and explanations.
• Nice anecdotes and stories of the authors family.
• All recipes I've tried work, although not all dishes are "me".

Cons:

• The only thing I can think of is that I'd like more vegetable/vegetarian recipes. Common cold weather vegetables like cauliflower, carrots and cabbage are considered "fancy" in South east Asia so I'd love to get more ideas how to cook them.

Into the Vietnamese Kitchen by Andrea Nguyen

Next book in line is the Asian cookbook I've probably cooked from the most durintg the last few years - "Into the Vietnamese Kitchen" by Andrea Nguyen.

What's so great about this book then? Well it's basically about the Vietnamese cuisine, which has similarities to both Chinese and Thai cuisine, but it has a fresher feel to it. Vietnamese cuisine is all about contrasts, dishes tend to be spicy but very light at the same time. There are lots of fresh herbs, but everything tends to be dunked into fish sauce based dips, making things more exciting. Also, this book does not shy away from what the French colonization brought to Vietnam in terms of cooking techniques, foodstuffs and tastes, making the recipes even more accessible to a European cook like me.

As extra bonus, the author has a blog at: http://www.vietworldkitchen.com/

Summary - Noodle Comfort by Kentaro Kobayashi

Time to wrap up this little book now. A good resource for anyone who likes noodle dishes but does not want to spend to much time in the kitchen. No made-from-scratch stocks or other purist stuff but some days that's just not an option anyway.

Quick data:
Title: Easy Japanese Cooking - Noodle Comfort
Author: Kentaro Kobayashi
Length: 96 pages
Recipe quality: 3 out of 5
Recipe complexity: 2 out of 5 
Organization: 3 out of 5
Index quality: 1 out of 5 (no index, but a TOC naming every recipe)
Food Porn Vale: 2 out of 5

Pros:

• Easy, quick and very accessible recipes. Anyone can cook these dishes.
• No special equipment needed.
• Great photos of all dishes. Some have step-by-step illustrations.
• All dishes that I've tried (5 so far) have tasted great.

Cons:

• A certain level of Japanese goofiness.
• Translations are somewhat odd, sometimes it's hard to understand the instructions.
• Only about half the recipes are actually Japanese. But many of the non-Japanese ones do have a Japanese cross-overish twist which I find interesting in itself.

Noodle Comfort by Kentaro Kobayashi

This book is totally different from the last two. It's thin, playful and aimed at starter cooks like students or anyone learning his or her way around the kitchen (it's part of a series named "Easy Japanese Cooking"). I got it after a trip to Japan where I was impressed with the variety and pure deliciosness of the noodle dishes available there. This book is originally written in Japanese, originally aimed at the Japanese market, but now also translated into English.

There are 8 recipe chapters with between 3 and 12 recipes in each, being the following:

• Chinese Noodles
• Udon and Soba
• Yakisoba (fried noodles)
• Rice Vermicelli and Naengmyeon (Vietnamese Pho fits into this chapter)
• Ultimate Noodle Experience (I'd guess that these are the authors favourites)
• Pasta (European style pasta dishes, most with a Japanese twist)
• Thin Japanese Noodles (mostly Somen noodles)
• Sides and Sweets

Summary - The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum

Quick data:
Title: The Bread Bible
Author: Rose Levy Beranbaum
Length: 640 pages
Recipe quality: 5 out of 5
Recipe complexity: 4 out of 5 
Organization: 5 out of 5
Index quality: 3 out of 5
Food Porn Vale: 3 out of 5 

Pros:

• Very detailed instructions, nothing is left by chance
• A big selection of recipes for lots of different types of breads
• Author has a big forum on her web site, so it's easy to ask around about the recipes if anything is unclear
• Full of information on anything bread related, useful both for novices and bread buffs
• Measurements in both weight and volume
  

Cons:

• A bit overwhelming, most recipes are several pages long
• Made for America, using U.S brands that are not available here
• Some of the recipes are more involved than what I'm used to, i.e. the sourdough is expanded twice, which I've never done before and it puts me off because it takes way to long
• Small quantities (but hey, as long as you read carefully and multiply by need, this isn't really a problem) 
•  

But all in all I think that The Bread Bible is a great resource and I'd recommend it to anyone interested in baking great breads at home.

The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum

New theme, and a new book - The Bread Bible. This one is, not surprisingly, all about breads.

It's a huge brick of a book (640 pages). I've owned my copy for years and I haven't really gotten around to using it until this spring, when I went on a major bread baking spree.

There are 7 chapters :

• Essential steps of making bread
• Quick breads (muffins, corn bread and scones)
• Flatbreads (pizza, pita, focaccia etc)
• Soft Sandwich loaves (think Wondabread)
• Hearth breads (=Artisan breads)
• Sourdough bread
• Brioche breads

All the recipes are very detailed and scientifically written with measurements in both grams, ounces and in volume. There is also a little table in the end of every recipe names "Dough percentage" stating the ratio between flour, water, yeast, salt etc in the bread. In other words, a great resource for all bread baking nerds out there!

Btw, the author has a blog: http://www.realbakingwithrose.com/ and she's also on Twitter: http://twitter.com/FlourRose

Summary - Thai Food by David Thompson

So, what do I think about the book Thai Food by David Thompson?

Pros:

• Lots of recipes, far outside the standard Thai restaurant scope here in Sweden.
• Good quality recipes. As long as you can get the ingredients, the recipes work!
• Great pictures.
• Lots of bonus info on Thai culture and history.
• This its the book if you're serious about Thai food!

Cons:

• Bad index, inconsistent mix of English and transliterated Thai.
• If you don't have a Thai grocery nearby there are hardly any recipes you can cook.
• Strange organization of chapters.
• Might feel a bit intimidating to beginner cooks.