Viet Scrambled Eggs with Fish Sauce Recipe

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May 09, 2013Viet Scrambled Eggs with Fish Sauce Recipe

It was not so much nostalgia as a yearning for somethingdeliciously Vietnamese that led me to whip up these scrambled eggs today. Mymom taught me how to make scrambled eggs – after she let me prepare rice for the family. We’dhave the eggs for lunch with bread. At the time, I didn’t realize how genius itwas.

There were just a handful of ingredients involved: shallotor yellow onion, tomato, eggs, fish sauce, and black pepper. If things gotfancy, green onion was added for color. Making the Viet scrambled eggs got methinking about the brilliance of simple cooking.

For example, gently sauteing shallot turns it fragrantlysweet. Rush it and it can be harsh and hard. Go too far and it can dry up andcaramelize, which is good for some dishes but not others. My mom mostly usedyellow onion because it was cheaper in the U.S. than shallot. In Vietnam,shallots the size of boiling onions are the workhorse of the kitchen; yellow onionsare their pricey kin. I go back and forth between onion and shallot.

Tomato lends color, umami savory flavor, and a vegetablecomponent to make the scrambled eggs a somewhat complete meal. We always seededthe tomato to reduce its moisture content but we never peeled them. In general,Vietnamese people are not tomato peelers; maybe they sensed that the skin was asuper source of lycopene? These days, I use Roma tomatoes, letting them ripe atroom temperature before using them, skin on.

Combining eggs, black pepper, and fish sauce is a nifty wayto mimic the briny richness of crab tomalley (fat) — the yellow-green stuff youscrape out of the shell when you pickcrab. My friend Celia Sack, owner of OmnivoreBooks in San Francisco, recently reminded me of the culinary magic of thattrifecta of ingredients. She picked up on the idea after making the mien xao cua crab and cellophane noodlestir-fry recipe from Into the VietnameseKitchen. In the recipe, there’s a workaround for the tomalley that involveseggs, pepper, and nuoc mam. Like a good cookbook reader, Celia read between thelines. She’s been employing the eggy sauce in other noodle dishes whenever shewants that rich briny effect.

The key to maintaining eggy richness is to gently cook itover medium-low heat. Some people like dry scrambled eggs but my mother taughtme to enjoy them soft.

In fact, and here’s the real brilliance: After pouring thebeaten eggs into the pan, my mom kept the bowl near the stove. When the eggswere done, she took the skillet off heat and poured the residual raw egg overthe cooked scrambled eggs to finish them with a bit of richness. Maybe thattechnique developed from a desire to use up every bit of egg (protein hasalways been precious in Vietnam) but Viet scrambled eggs with fish sauce wasalways and still is a fine little meal to have.

Are you an egg andfish sauce lover? Or got a scrambled egg secret to share? Do tell!

RECIPE

Scrambled Eggs,Tomato and Fish Sauce

Yields 2 servings

Ingredients

3 large or extra-large eggs3 healthy shots of fish sauce1/8 teaspoon black pepper, freshly ground preferred1 small green onion, green part only, cut into thin rings(optional)1 1/2 to 2 tablespoons canola or other neutral oil1 medium shallot or 1/2 small yellow onion, chopped1 ripe Roma tomato, seeded and cut into thumbnail-sizepieces

Instructions

In a small bowl, beat together the eggs, fish sauce, andpepper. You should be able to smell the brininess of the fish sauce. Otherwise,add a little more. Add the scallion and set aside near the stove.Heat the oil in a medium nonstick skillet over medium heat.Add the shallot and gently saute for 4 to 5 minutes, until soft and fragrant.Add the tomato and cook, stirring, until heated through and slightly softened,about 2 minutes.Lower the heat to medium-low, pour in the egg mixture. Keepthe bowl nearby. Gently stir and fold to scramble the ingredients. When done,remove from the heat and drizzle on the egg leftover in the bowl. Dividebetween two plates and serve with baguette. 

Related posts: 

Cooking and Life Lessons from Our MomsPremium Fish Sauces to Try: Red Boat, Megachef, IHAEgg Foo Yung Recipe (flash from the past!)North Indian Egg Curry (another brilliant way to treat eggs, tomatoes and onions) Posted in Asian Food Culture, Recipes: All, Recipes: Fast and Easy, Recipes: Gluten-Free , Recipes: Poultry and Eggs, Vietnamese Culture, Vietnamese Family Stories | Permalink

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It was not so much nostalgia as a yearning for somethingdeliciously Vietnamese that led me to whip up these scrambled eggs today. Mymom taught me how to make scrambled eggs – after she let me prepare rice for the family. We’dhave the eggs for lunch with bread. At the time, I didn’t realize how genius itwas.

There were just a handful of ingredients involved: shallotor yellow onion, tomato, eggs, fish sauce, and black pepper. If things gotfancy, green onion was added for color. Making the Viet scrambled eggs got methinking about the brilliance of simple cooking.

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Laap Sanaam Keelaa/ลาบสนามกีฬา

“It’s the place with all the cars out front.”

That’s how people in Chiang Rai kept describing Laap Sanaam Keelaa to me. They were right; it’s indeed popular and the parking lot was full every time I stopped by. But for whatever reason, nobody mentioned how absolutely delicious the food was.

Perhaps this was because for the people of Chiang Rai, Laap Sanaam Keelaa is really nothing special. On the surface, it’s your typical northern Thai-style laap shack: open-air, tin roof, dirt floor, an almost unanimously meaty menu, and on one visit, a mischievous goat wandering through the restaurant. Unassuming, humble and consistent, I suppose that it’s the kind of place that locals have been eating at for so long they gradually round down their impressions of the restaurant as ‘good’ or in this case, busy.

But the food blew me away, and after several visits, I’d gladly cite Laap Sanaam Keelaa as one of my favourite restaurants serving northern-style meat dishes.

On my first visit, I ordered laap muu suk (?????????), northern Thai-style pork laap (pictured at the top of this post). Here, the dish is served with just barely-cooked meat (most diners appeared to opt for the raw version) and relatively little blood and offal, but quite a bit of chili and dried spice heat, not to mention an exceedingly generous garnish of crispy deep fried garlic and shallots. A immensely satisfying, balanced take on the dish.

The fish version, consumed on another visit, was pretty similar:

although drier, and with a bit more dried spice punch, ostensibly, by Thai culinary reckoning, to cover up any unpleasant fishy smells.

An order of laap arrives with an almost comically large platter of herbs and vegetables:

Now I’ve eaten northern-style laap a lot, and at this point am pretty familiar with quite a few of the herby sides, but this had me stumped. There were at least eight different kinds of herbs here — some sweet, some bitter/sweet, some bitter/bitter, some spicy/bitter — only half of which I could identify by name.

On my first visit I also ordered kaeng om neua (????????????), a laap shack staple of beef offal served in a meaty stew-like broth:

The dish was deliciously rich and spicy, and mixed in among the unidentifiable organs were some tender, almost corned beef-like, joints of beef.

Another visit saw an order of neua neung (?????????), beef steamed over herbs and served with a dry, spicy dip made from galangal:

The beef was relatively tender, and the dip was spicy, smokey and garlicky, and unusually, included thin strips of citrusy fragrant Kaffir lime leaf.

On my final visit, and in an effort to try something non-meat-based, I ordered a salad of shredded mango:

I should have known better; the salad was mediocre — limp and far too sweet.

Lesson learned: only order meat. And when seeking out restaurants in the future, look for lots of cars.

Laap Sanaam Keelaa
123 Muu 22, Th Naa Sanaam Keelaa, Chiang Rai
087 173 2498
10am-9pm

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Technical note: The RSS feed and newsletter system has been switched to another service

A little technical note for people who read this site via Google Reader or another RSS reader, or subscribe to post updates via email:

I’ve switched over from Feedburner to another service called URI.LV. The reason I switched over is that Feedburner has kind of been neglected by Google (who owns the service) for a while now, and with their announcement that Google Reader is being shut down soon, it’s kind of logical to assume that Feedburner will fade away too.

If you are an email subscriber: You shouldn’t see much of a change at all, but there is a chance you may need to re-add the sender of the mail (thechef@justhungry.com) to your address book if the emails end up in your spam folder. If you are an RSS reader subscriber: You should not see any change at all. If you want to be doubly sure you’ll continue to receive updates, subscribe to this link or click on the RSS button in the side bar and delete your Feedburner subscription.

(Incidentally, if you’re looking for a replacement for Google Reader and are Mac or iOS based, I’ve been using NetNewsWire for ever, even before there was a Google Reader. I highly recommend it. Otherwise if you’re looking for a web based solution Feedly looks pretty nice.)

This notice applies to both JustBento and JustHungry - it’s posted on both since not everyone subscribes to both. (AND WHY NOT??? (just kidding))

So that’s it for the techincal stuff. Going back to talking about food next time. ^_^

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Meyer Lemon Crinkle Cookies

I love a really good cookie. Though I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, I appreciate and savor every bite of dessert that my palate can tolerate. And though I’m not capable of eating too much, I’m always searching for a great recipe that can satisfy my two to three bites of sweet joy.

And what do I mean by a really good cookie? I know everyone has their criteria on what they expect out of a cookie, so having an open discussion here is always fun to see what you expect in your next warm batch. I don’t consider myself a cookie-snob, though I’m known to be very frustrated if I pay $3.50 for a mediocre cookie in a bakery!

What I love out of cookies are great texture, chew and flavor. We’ve previously written about one of our favorite granola cookies and now I found this on recipe on Pinterest and I’m so blown away by it’s flavor because I love meyer lemon and the flavor really shines in this cookie. It’s so excellent that I actually inhaled 4 cookies in one sitting. And for me, that’s an eating feat.

I found this popular lemon crinkle cookie recipe on Pinterst and it was made my Lauren of the lovely Lauren’s Latest blog. Thanks to Pinterest, I’ve been finding some really fabulous recipes, including my last magic custard cake and when I found Lauren’s cookie recipe few months ago, I’ve been equally obsessed over it.

Finally, I reminded Todd about it and he immediately dived into the kitchen to bake up a batch with our garden meyer lemons. He’s a great guy and why I cherish him so much is that he loves to bake cookies. I’m good at finding the recipe and eating them, so we’re we’re a perfect match!

The verdict is nothing but applause for Lauren’s recipe. I’m sending you all a big word of caution because if you love lemon cookies, if you love meyer lemons and if you’re a lover of snickerdoodles, you will find yourself stuffing yourself silly with these lovely cookies. They’re soft and chewy, similar to the texture of a snickerdoodle, but with the bright flavors of meyer lemon and delicate aroma of powdered sugar. We’ve adapted it a bit to suit our taste and our meyer lemons. But you can refer to her original recipe or use our version with the meyer lemons.

I’m confident this recipe will be making it’s appearance at our Summer dinner parties because they’re that good!

Enjoy,

diane

Our cookbook, Bountiful, is available for pre-order on Amazon! & we shared a post about it here.

Yield: 24-36 Cookies

Total Time: 30 min

Adapted from Lauren's Latest Lemon Crinkle Cookies. The cookies have a soft interior texture with a slightly crisp exterior given to it by rolling the cookies in confectioners sugar before baking. Their texture reminds us of one of our favorite cookies, our Snickerdoodles, but with a lemon flavor. Adjustments to Lauren's original recipe were made to suite the sweeter taste of the meyer lemon and to our own personal preferences. Make sure to check out her original recipe as well. It's fantastic.

1 1/2 cups (190g) Flour1/2 teaspoon Sea Salt or Kosher Salt1/4 teaspoon Baking Powder1/8 teaspoons Baking Soda1/2 cup (113g) unsalted Butter, softened1/2 cup (110g) packed Brown Sugar1/2 cup (100g) Sugar½ teaspoon (3ml) Vanilla Extract1 Egg1 teaspoon (5ml) Meyer Lemon Zest (@ 1 meyer lemon's worth)2 Tablespoons (30ml) fresh Meyer Lemon Juice1/4 cup (30g) Confectioners SugarPreheat an oven to 350°F. Line a couple sheet pans with parchment paper.In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda for at least 20 seconds. Set aside.In mixer, beat together the butter, brown sugar, and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla extract, egg, meyer lemon zest, and meyer lemon juice until well combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and mix again to make sure everything is incorporated.Stir in the flour mixture until just combined, making sure to scrape the bottom of the bowl to get all of the flour.Sift the confectioners sugar onto a large plate. Form the dough into 1 inch sized balls (a 1/2 oz. cookie scoop works perfectly to help make balls). Roll the balls in the confectioners sugar then place 2 inches apart on the lined sheet pans.Bake for 9-11 minutes or until the bottoms of the cookies just begin to turn light golden and the tops of the cookies look matte (no longer shiny or wet looking). Remove from the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling.

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Food packaging labeling for allergy-causing substances in Japan

Last year I uploaded a series of printable cards for communicating dietary restrictions in Japan. This is a follow-up of sorts to this, with some information about food package labelling and allergy-causing products.

There are 7 substances that must, by law, be indicated as being present on packaged foods that contain them in Japan. I’ve listed them below in this order: English: kanji: hiragana or katakana: roma-ji.

Eggs : ? : ??? : tamagoDairy : ? : ??? : nyuu (For dairy products, look for that character ? since it’s usually used together with other kanji, e.g.??? for ‘dairy products’. Wheat : ?? : ??? : komugi. Again look for the ?? part. Wheat flour for instance is ???.Shrimp : ?? : ?? (sometimes ??) : ebi Crab : ? : ?? or ?? : kaniSoba (buckwheat) : ?? : ?? : sobaPeanuts : ??? : ????? : rakkasei. Also called peanuts - ?????

Then there are 18 other food substances that are recommended to be indicated if they’re present.

Abalone : ? : ??? : awabi Squid : (the kanji is rarely used) : ?? or ?? : ikaOranges : (no kanji since it’s a loan word - see notes) : ???? : orenjiKiwi : (no kanji since it’s a loan word) : ??? : kiwiBeef : ?? : ????? : gyuuniku Walnuts : ?? : ??? or ??? : kurumiSalmon : ? : ?? or ??? or ??? : sake or shake (pronounced sha-keh) or jake (ja-keh)Mackerel : ? : ?? : sabaSalmon roe or salmon caviar : (no kanji since it’s a loan word) : ??? or ??? : ikuraSoybeans : ?? : ??? : daizuChicken : ?? : ???? : toriniku. (Also called chicken - ???)Banana : (no kanji since it’s a loan word) : ??? : bananaPork : ?? : ???? : butaniku Matsutake mushrooms : ?? : ???? : matsutake Peaches : ? : ?? : momoYamaimo (a type of yam) : ?? : ???? : yamaimoApples : ?? : ??? or ??? : ringoGelatin : (no kanji since it’s a loan word) : ???? : zerachin

About oranges - I do wonder if it includes satsuma and clementines and mandarins and such, which are called oranges in the west but are called ?? - mikan - in Japan. I guess logically it should. Anyway, if you are allergic to oranges including the ‘mikan’ kind watch out for the ???? label.

Here are two examples of allergy-food labels. This one just shows the 7 must-show substances, with a black dot under the ones that are in the food. (Remember that Japanese can be written horizontally left to right or vertically.)

The one below shows all 25 substances in a grid, with the ones that are in the product indicated in black. I think this one makes more sense and would like to see it standardized.

The point is to always look for the words that indicate whatever you are allergic to, even if your personal Kryptonite is not included in the substances listed above. And when in doubt, pull out one of your allergy-communicator cards and ask someone. Just pointing to a package, then showing your card, and saying, “OK?” with a helpless look on your face will be enough, I promise. Many people in Japan are quite happy with helping hapless visitors.

If you can read Japanese, there’s an informative PDF on the Japanese government’s Consumer Affairs Agency (????) site about allergy-causing food labeling: link to PDF.

See also: my related Quora answer here for a couple more labels.

The cute samurai warrior cat(?) character up top is the mascot of a non-profit food safety consumer hotline (Japanese only I’m afraid). Of course they have a cute mascot - it’s Japan, what do you expect? ^_^

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Blendtec New Designer Series Giveaway

I’m partnering with Blendtec to giveaway a Blendtec Designer Series WildSide Color blender. There will be one (1) winner whom will receive one (1) Blendtec Designer Series WildSide Color blender in a color of their choice: Black Base, Cream Base, Red Base. The retail price of the Blendtec Designer Series WildSide Color blender is US$454.95.

Blendtec® is pleased to introduce the all-new Designer Series™ blender. It has been engineered to bring a whole new level of beauty and functionality to the high-end blender category, without compromising the famous power and efficiency of our Total Blender Classic.

Features include all of these unique Blendtec advantages:

Complete speed controlVivid iconsNew sleek designEasy, fast cleanupVersatile functionality

Technical Details:

Amps: 13Watts: 1560Actual weight: 8 lbsShipping weight: 13 lbsActual dimensions: 7? wide x 15? tall x 9.25? deepShipping dimensions: 16? wide x 16? tall x 10? deepDirect drive motorCapacitive-touch user interfaceSolid-state electronics

Eligibility: United States only. No purchase necessary and subject to this official giveaway rules. Closing Date: June 16, 2013, 11:59 pm PST. Winner will be randomly selected and contacted via email on June 17, 2013. The prize is proudly sponsored by Blendtec. To enter, please follow the steps below.

Eligibility: United States only. No purchase necessary and subject to these official giveaway rules.

Step 1
Like Rasa Malaysia on Facebook. (Click on the Like button below.)

Step 2

Follow Rasa Malaysia on Twitter. (Click on the Follow @rasamalaysia button below. If you don’t have Twitter, skip this step.)

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Like Blendtec on Facebook. (Click on the Like button below.)

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Follow Blendtec on Twitter. (Click on the Follow @Blendtec button below. If you don’t have Twitter, skip this step.)

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Fill in the form below. You can enter to win using this form every day.

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Vietnamese Pork and Shrimp Spring Rolls

Hi everyone,  hope you’re doing well and your weather is warming up to the peak of Spring. We’re back, cooking in our home kitchen again and it feels nice to be making food that isn’t for a shoot. We’ve had a fulfilling four weeks of back to back shoots and working with some of the coolest and creative people in advertising, but it’s always nice to be able to wind down and cook to eat, rather than for the camera. And best of all, we don’t always have a sink full of dirty dishes! That’s part of our days on shoots, tending to towering piles of dirty dishes.

Now with a few days of rest before we’re back to shooting Fall campaigns, the first thing that we missed eating at home were fresh Vietnamese spring rolls. We just can’t get enough of these fresh spring rolls. We live on spring rolls.

As we were gathering ingredients for our simple lunch, we realized that we never had a chance to share with you Charles Phan’s fantastic cookbook, Vietnamese Home Cooking. Have you looked at his gorgeous book yet? It’s an incredible work of art. The book really transports you back to Vietnam, where Charles grew up and shares his food stories from street food to his humble home cooking. We also had a blast filming and producing the cookbook trailer for his cookbook. When we flipped the pages, one of the first recipes that crossed our fingers was Charles’ pork and shrimp spring rolls.

The timing couldn’t have been more perfect and inspired because we haven’t made our pork and shrimp spring rolls in a while. This is one of those perfect lunches and dinners that is so easy to make, that can feed a hungry family and is both healthy and satisfying. As the weather warms up, we tend to stray away from heavy lunches because our bodies start calling out to take a nap.

Some cooks find it intimidating to work with spring roll wrappers, but once you understand how to work with them, it’s really easier than you think. The key is making sure you don’t over soak your wrappers and having all your ingredients all prepped and ready to go. Mis en place organization is important and once you have all your vegetables and fillings out and ready, rolling and eating the spring rolls is so much for fun. We wrote a tutorial on how we roll our spring rolls. Hopefully it’ll be of help to you when you venture into this dish.

Enjoy,

diane and todd

 Our previous spring rolling tutorial can be found here .

For these pork and shrimp spring rolls, start your roll first….

then lay the sliced shrimp, cut side up

finished roll! For open ended rolls, just fold the wrapper in half & let the lettuce peek out the ends

Yield: Serves 3-4

Total Time: 45 min

In his cookbook Vietnamese Home Cooking, Charles Phan has a great story behind these spring rolls and how his Mother has a very unique twist by adding a smear of homemade mayonnaise to moisten the wrapper. We suggest you get the book to understand how she does all this, as well as how he makes his full version of the rolls with his peanut dip. The recipe we're sharing today is our own recipe that we serve with our hoisin peanut dip.

1/2 pound medium shrimp, peeled and deveined3 teaspoons vegetable oilabout 1/2 pound ( 8 oz) boneless pork loin or shoulder1 ( 8-10 oz) package of dried rice vermicelli noodles or "rice sticks", cooked to package instructions.1 small head of lettuce1 medium cucumber, cut into thin stripsfresh herbs: mint, asian basil. Vietnamese coriander, Vietnamese perilla or cilantroabout 12 ( 8-inch) rice paper wrappers or rice paper spring roll wrappers1/4 cup hoisin ( If hoisin dip is too thick, add water to thin out the dip)2 heaping tablespoons peanut butter, almond butter or cashew butter.1 teaspoon rice vinegar1/2 teaspoon sesame oilFor the hoisin peanut dip: In medium bowl, combine all dip ingredients together. Use a fork to help blend well.Cook the dried rice vermicelli noodles to package instructions.For the rolls, start by preparing the pork. Bring medium pot of water to boil and add pork. Boil the pork on medium heat for about 15-25 minutes or until the pork is cooked. Remove from water, allow to cool and slice into thin strips.For the shrimp, heat a medium pan, add vegetable oil. Lay shrimp on pan and sear on both sides till shrimp becomes pink and cooked. Remove shrimp from heat, allow to cool and slice each shrimp lengthwise in half.Gather all your filling ingredients on plates: noodles, shrimp, pork, lettuce, cucumber, herbs and rice paper wrappers.Please check out our photo tutorial on how to roll spring rolls and the photographs in the blog post to see how to roll with the sliced shrimp showing on the outside.Add warm water to a large bowl. Quickly dip each rice paper wrapper in warm water for a few seconds and lay on rolling surface such as a cutting board or plate (they will still be slightly stiff).Lay your lettuce first on the soft spring roll wrapper, then add the strips lettuce, herbs, cucumber, noodles and pork.Roll spring roll till you have about 1/3 of rice paper left, then lay about 2-3 pieces of shrimp, cut side up in a row and finish rolling. The shrimp will lay on the outside of the spring roll when you are finished rolling.Serve with the hoisin peanut dip.

Click on the link above for a helpful tutorial with photographs showing the step by step method. how to roll spring rolls

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Chicken Chow Mein

One of the most popular recipes on Rasa Malaysia is Chow Mein, or Chinese fried noodles. The current chow mein recipe on my site is made with pork (and shrimp), and many readers have asked me to share a chicken chow mein recipe. I have many readers from all over the world; some of them don’t eat pork and some don’t like shrimp or can’t get fresh shrimp easily. Hence, I made this chicken chow mein, which most people can enjoy. And if you are a vegetarian, you can still enjoy this recipe and just leave the chicken out.

Everyone could always use a good bowl of fried noodles, or chow mein (??)—glistening yellow-hued egg noodles with cabbage, bean sprouts, and the protein of your choice. Even when they are plain, such as this supreme soy sauce chow mein, noodles are always  satisfying. I, for one, can’t live without noodles. I can eat noodles every day, be it stir-fried, pan-fried, in soup, or just blanched but served with a sauce/dressing. I love noodles of all sorts, Chinese, Cantonese, Japanese, Malaysian, Thai, or Vietnamese. God bless the Chinese for inventing noodles, really, so we can all enjoy them today.

Now back to my chicken chow mein, I have to remind you that the best noodles are greasy, because oil is the number 1 reason why fried noodles are so sinfully good. Each strand of the noodle is nicely coated with oil so the noodles have a glossy (greasy) sheen, and each mouthful offers the perfect texture of the slippery noodles, crunchy and fresh bean sprouts and vegetables. While grease is good in this sense, you don’t want to soak your noodles in too much oil. So the perfect balance of oil is key. If you are health conscious, you can feel free to cut down the oil to fit your needs.

For the silky smooth and tender chicken ala your favorite Chinese restaurants, I treated the chicken meat with some baking soda. I then rinsed off the baking soda thoroughly with water before I marinated the chicken with soy sauce and corn starch. This process is called “velveting” in Chinese cooking. If you wish to learn more about the techniques and more recipes with the , you can buy my cookbook “Easy Chinese Recipes.”

I am personally very pleased with the taste, texture, and presentation of my chicken chow mein. Take a look at the pictures here, I think you would agree.

(Click Page 2 for the Chicken Chow Mein Recipe)

Pages: 1 2

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Shark Fin Soup With Crab Meat

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Professional Cookbook Reviews: An Inside Look + CookShelf App Giveaway

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May 21, 2013Professional Cookbook Reviews: An Inside Look + CookShelf App Giveaway

I love toread a good book review, one that’s full of insights tinged with humor andsometimes, a bit of well deserved snark. T. Susan Chang is one of the fewprofessional cookbook reviewers in the United States. You may know her workfrom National Public Radio, the Boston Globe, or her website. She takes every book totask, testing recipes and evaluating the merits of each work on a variety of levels. Susan’s got twelve (12!) years of professional experience to back her up, plus a solid knowledge of cookbooks that goes back further yet.  

You may notagree with Susan on all of her calls but you don’t have to. Like all excellent reviewers, she lays out her deep assessment so that you can form yours. Sherecently released a nifty phone app called CookShelf. It’s a cookbook ratingapp—available for iPhone and Android —that’s extremely thorough and handy for whether you're shopping or just catching up on what's out there. 

I bought the $2.99 app, and after reading through a number of reviews (she addscontent regularly too so you’re buying into a lifetime subscription, of sorts),I had questions to ask Susan about the art and craft of reviewing cookbooks.Read on and if you’ve got an iPhone, enter the giveaway; sorry, there are noAndroid giveaway codes available.

There are zillions of recipesonline but we still buy cookbooks. Why?

Physicalcookbooks are famously robust sellers. I think I recently heard thatbiographies and cookbooks are the only growing categories in the publishingindustry. If that's the case, I'm not surprised. The act of cooking from arecipe is pretty physical and stressful, and it's helpful to work from aphysical book for many reasons: you can turn back and forth between pages, youcan browse through recipes and compare several at a time, you have intuitivestructure in the way the book's organized, so you know to go to the back forthe desserts or the front for the ingredient glossary—all things you can dodigitally, but it's harder. You can annotate easily, you can drop it on thefloor or spill stuff on it. Cookbooks are working books.

Even whenthey're not working, cookbooks make great physical gifts—buying someone a bunchof online recipes just wouldn't be the same. And many are terrific reads youcan take to a beach or pool and other places you don't necessarily want tosubject your device to.

That said,there's a good reason for the popularity of e-cookbooks, recipe apps, onlinerecipes. While there are some things they don't do as well as regularcookbooks, there are also things they can do better—video instruction, onlinesourcing, measuring conversion are examples. So, if it serves the reader for meto review online recipes and virtual cookbooks as well, I will. I'm expectingto be introducing e-cookbooks into my review process before too long. Where themarket goes, CookShelf will go too.

CookShelf’s rating system is morecomprehensive and complex than Amazon’s star system. How did you figure out afair rubric for judging the books?

The ratingsystem is the product of years of hair-pulling. From years of 10-best lists andcookbook reviews and roundups, I've had the opportunity to really ask myself whatmakes a great cookbook—not just for me but for other people too.

A ton offactors go into that assessment. Some affect how usable a cookbook is. Someaffect how interesting it is and how durable its appeal is. Some affect howgreat a gift it makes. Rather than try to condense all that into one star-basedrating, I decided to break out the information a bit so you can use it. Themost important qualities seemed to be how truly new the cookbook is, whether itmakes a good gift, what level of skill you need to use it, and how it lastsover time ("Keeper"). The only really subjective rating in CookShelfis the "Keeper" rating. That's where I go out on a limb and make anabsolute value judgment - this cookbook will serve you forever, this cookbookgoes out with the recycling.

But I alsoput a bunch of other key data points into each entry to help people weighthings they might care about—like how many recipes you get in the book, howhard it is to get the ingredients, how fast the recipes are and—a key one formany of us!—how tiny the type is.

Apps tend to entertain, inform,or inspire. What does CookShelf do best?         

CookShelf'sprimary mission is informational. It's just plain hard to choose a cookbook,and my first job is to help. I try to make my reviews a bit like wine reviews:consistent, authoritative, and whenever possible, based on testing. Althoughyou may not always agree with me, you know there's a baseline for my judgment. Thatmay or may not be true when you're sifting through 100 user reviews on Amazon.

But it'salso important to me that CookShelf be a good read. My style is a personal one,and I hope you'll get some insights and some laughs from each review. Still, Itry very hard not to allow my affection for lively prose to lead me astray. There'sa real temptation to get snarky in the review business, so I make an effort toavoid that when I'm being critical.

As toinspiration—well, I do hope CookShelf inspires people to buy more cookbook. Eventhough, as my friend Jane says, that makes me an enabler. But come on! a goodcookbook can serve a family for 50 years! One cannot say the same for AngryBirds.

Who is the ideal CookShelf user?How would she or he use the app?

There arebasically 3 kinds of CookShelf users, and they overlap a bit:

Cooks. CookShelf is an indispensableapp for home cooks, the main users of cookbooks. It's a way of getting a bettersense of a cookbook you're considering before you commit, and it's also a wayof finding new cookbooks you might love. Whether cooking is your hobby or even yourjob, CookShelf helps ensure you find the "keepers" for yourcollection. $2.99 isn't much to get that kind of insight - and updated weeklyfor the foreseeable future!  

Food lovers. Sometimes we just like readingthe news about something we enjoy. For example, I like reading film reviewseven though I don't go to the movies more than 6 times a year. They're justinteresting. Same goes for cookbooks: don't you want to know how Deborah Madison'snew book is shaking out? Don't you want to know what's the big fuss about thelatest vegan bestseller? Don't you want to know if cupcakes are over . . . yet?That's the kind of perspective I try to provide. This kind of reader is mostlikely to go straight to the "Just added!" feature each week to seewhat's up.

Shoppers. Some will turn to CookShelf forhelp buying a gift. For these readers, it's a particularly powerful toolbecause of the filtering system. For example, you can say "I need a Skill 2—that's fairly easy—book forvegetarians (or new cooks or fans of middle Eastern food)" and CookShelfwill generate a list for you to consider. Amazon won't do that for you. CookShelfis sort of like Zappos for cookbooks.

How often do you plan to updateCookShelf? I seem to get new content weekly.

That's myplan—to update weekly with at least a few new reviews. So many cookbooks areconstantly being published (I've heard a figure of 4000/year) that the only wayto stay current is to keep on top of it every week. I choose the books I thinkare most interesting (which usually include the ones I'm reviewing for the Boston Globe) and the ones that seem tobe the most popular, judging by the Amazon bestseller lists. I love the wayhaving my own app lets me respond very quickly to the newest titles.

I try tofinish writing my new material by Tuesday night, which is when I ask thedeveloper to refresh. CookShelf is like my own personal Wednesday food section!This way, people can simply update and read the latest when they're making therounds of the food pages Wednesday morning.

And, how many cookbooks do youown? How and where do you store them?

The answer,as it is for all of us, is "Too many!". I keep my cookbooks indexedon Eat Your Books, which tells me Ihave 919 cookbooks right now. That doesn't include the reference books or theones in my "Give Away" bookshelf (about 200 titles right there). Atleast 4 times a year I winnow the books, taking out the ones that are doingnothing for me to make room for more, until all the books are off the floor andon shelves. The goal is not to have to buy more bookshelves in a given year.

I keep astore of about 80 "favorite" cookbooks - Asian Tofu is one of them!—downstairs in the kitchen. The rest arestored on the second floor of our house. My former office is all cookbooks, andour library is about half cookbooks. The first few years we lived here, webought or made bookshelves every year. We haven't bought one in 2 years, butit's a constant battle. We live across the street from the town library, whichnow has the most up-to-date cookbook collection in Franklin County.

GIVEAWAY DETAILS

Want a free copy of Susan’s CookShelf cookbook rating app?It’s available for Android and Apple devices but the giveaway is only open to iOSusers; my apologies to Android folks. If you have an iPhone, iTouch, or iPad , youcan enter!

The ground rules for entering this giveaway:

Prize: CookShelf mobile app (4 winnerstotal)Who is eligible to enter: Despite the fact that theapp is a download, this giveaway is open to readers in the U.S. only. The appis for the iPhone, iTouch, or iPad so you should have one of these devices, orhave access to one in order to enter.How to enter: Simply leave a comment on this post about one ofthe following: What do you look for in a good cookbook? How manycookbooks do you own? Include your email address so that I can contact youdirectly if you win. Can you enter more thanonce? Yes, if you’re a fan of the VWKFacebook page, follow me on Twitter orhave joined me on Pinterest, you can enter an extra time foreach of those social media networks. If we’re buddies on all three, then shoot,you can enter 4 times. If you’re doing multiple entries, let me know who youare by including something like [FB], [Twitter], or [Pinterest] in yourcomment.Deadline to enter: Monday, June 27, noon (PST)Selection, notification,and claiming the app: The four winners will berandomly selected via Random.org and notified by email. The winners will beannounced next Tuesday, June 28. I’ll send the winners instructions on how toclaim the app from the iTunes App store. If you’d like more details, read the official giveaway rules.

Good luck!

 

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I love toread a good book review, one that’s full of insights tinged with humor andsometimes, a bit of well deserved snark. T. Susan Chang is one of the fewprofessional cookbook reviewers in the United States. You may know her workfrom National Public Radio, the Boston Globe, or her website. She takes every book totask, testing recipes and evaluating the merits of each work on a variety of levels. Susan’s got twelve (12!) years of professional experience to back her up, plus a solid knowledge of cookbooks that goes back further yet.  

You may notagree with Susan on all of her calls but you don’t have to. Like all excellent reviewers, she lays out her deep assessment so that you can form yours. Sherecently released a nifty phone app called CookShelf. It’s a cookbook ratingapp—available for iPhone and Android —that’s extremely thorough and handy for whether you're shopping or just catching up on what's out there. 

I bought the $2.99 app, and after reading through a number of reviews (she addscontent regularly too so you’re buying into a lifetime subscription, of sorts),I had questions to ask Susan about the art and craft of reviewing cookbooks.Read on and if you’ve got an iPhone, enter the giveaway; sorry, there are noAndroid giveaway codes available.

Stay Connected                    Asian Tofu in the News"A whole cookbook devoted to tofu? Yes, please."
— Kate Williams, Serious Eats 2012 Favorite Cookbooks

"Cooking with Tofu (Are You Serious?!)"
— Michael Rulhman on his tofu conversion

"This book should be a priority for anyone with the slightest interest in Asian cuisines."
— Anne Mendelson, Taste & Travel

"The most gratifying part about cooking from Asian Tofu is that all the recipes work the way they’re written."
— T. Susan Chang, Boston Globe

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