The Asian Cook

Terrific cookbook. Descriptions are clear and informative. Photographs are esthetically pleasurable and informative. Recipes are diverse in range, easy to follow and good tasting. Great addition to my cookbook collection.

Great tips about every item on asian cook and amazing photos & print quality, cover, etc. Couldn't believe that a book like this costed so little. Very impressed.

ASIAN COOK BY Terry Tan Photography by: Michael PaulThis beautiful book is not so much an Asian cookbook,it is rather: "A book on Asian cooking tools," acknowledges the author." The graphics are exciting! With recipes by:Ming TsaiRoy YamaguchiNina SimondsSri OwensDavid ThompsonThis is a food book worthy of a prominent position on any coffee table, not hidden in a kitchen. Its beautiful double-parchment cover, rich pages, exquisite photography of brilliant foods and beautifully displayed kitchen implements is a delight to page through. Some centerfolds also grace the format. The book is also a careful delineation of the foods and implements used throughout Asia. The author goes into great detail about how to use each tool correctly. He groups the implements into these divisions and gives an historical overview: ChinaJapan and KoreaIndia, Pakistan and Sri LankaIndonesia, including Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and KampucheaSoutheast Asia, including Singapore, Malaysia and IndonesiaA myriad of Asian kitchen tools are made from materials ranging from aluminum to wood: Clevers and woks, cooking pots and bamboo steamersReed pastry brushesTablewareChopsticksRice cookers, pots and pansServing dishes and lacquerwareTea and sake setsSpice, herbs and coconut processorsBread-making implementsMolds and pressesTiffins and serving itemsGrinding implementsCutters and moldsScalers and shreddersCoconut wooden toolsNatural basketwareStreet hawker toolsEdible basket toolsTools for cakes and snacksBesides a comprehensive index, the book has a page containing tool retailers, importers, markets and wholesalers.

It's not usual to devour a cookbook from cover to cover in one sitting, but so thoroughly engaging - and lovely to look at -- is Terry Tan's `Asian Cook' that I read all 144 pages at once before dashing into my kitchen to check what I needed to make nonya-style pork curry. Nonya cooking, so Tan has taught me, is distinctly Southeast Asian, an exotic blend of ethnic Chinese and Singaporean, Indonesia and Malaysian practices and ingredients. Now I know too that there are seven principal types of cooking styles in Japan (from `yakimono' which means grilled to `itememono' meaning sautéed or pan-fried). And that religion has impacted more on the various cuisines of the Indian Sub-Continent than geography. Indeed, to refer to `Asian Cook' as a cookbook is to do Tan a grave injustice. This is a lavish but functional compendium of the `tools and techniques' beloved of cooks of Asian cuisine, be they food writers for the San Francisco Chronicle or top Indian chefs in London. I suspect that if Tan had his way, the kitchenware department would be situated right next to jewellery.Tan's authority stems from his experience and expertise as a cookery teacher and food historian. He gives us wonderful descriptions of what makes an Asian cook - the historical background and geographical origins that in turn determine the utensils, implements, ingredients (whether fish, fowl or offal) and spices used. Artfully photographed pots, woks, tandoors, cooking tools, accessories and tableware are accompanied by simple but illuminating points and pointers. For example, did you know that for some Asians, knives are considered `too barbaric to be used at the table' and that they are in any case superfluous, given that `all ingredients are cut into bite-size pieces during preparation'?Asian Cook offers a wide-range of easy to follow, relatively inexpensive recipes for the discerning palate, with dishes from yang zhou fried rice to roast chicken madurai masala to bamboo leaf dumplings. But they are here to provide a colourful backdrop - and final flourish -- to the tools and techniques that made them. Tan tells us that Asian chefs have `always been at the cutting edge when it comes to presentation skills'. I was particularly intrigued by how one produces an `edible basket' with the right molds (which, surprisingly, are two perforated ladles shaped to fit one inside the other). A prawns in yam basket should go down very nicely at my next supper party. This book is a treasure, if not a secret weapon.