Customer Reviews

Cooking Korean Food With Maangchi - Books 1&2: From Youtube To Your Kitchen

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've been a faithful follower of the website for a few years, and finally decided to thank Maangchi for all her hard work by purchasing her book. I was so happy with it that now I'm buying a copy for my sister in law, who like me spent time in Korea and learned eat, but not to cook, Korean food. This book is absolutely excellent for the beginner. The directions are easy to follow and the pictures and descriptions of the ingredients, as well as some suggested substitutes (and some warnings about unnaceptable substitutes!) really takes out the guesswork and stress.

I have actually taken the book with me to our local Asian grocery stores to inquire about a specific ingredient or two, and they were able to easily help me find the products I needed. If you need more help, you can look up some of the recipes on youtube and watch Maangachi cooking them herself, so you can learn techniques and what things should look/feel like. If you still have questions, you can go to her website and she'll answer them personally!! The only reason I give the book four stars instead of five is that for the price, I would have liked to have seen more recipes, although you do get most of the basics.

As an added bonus, due to the nature of Korean cooking the recipes are dairy free and mostly egg free as well, so they can be easily used for allergy households. There is also a good selection of recipes that either contain no meat or can be made without meat.

I found Maangchi on youtube while looking for a traditional pickled radish recipe. I tried it and it is as good, if not better, than some Korean restaurants in the greater NYC area. You can't go wrong with her book. Her videos are simply amazing. I have several Asian cookbooks and one just for Korean cooking and this one beats them all. Get this book!

Other than purchasing a few ingredients you might not have in your cupboard, these recipes are fun and a great adventure. Maangchi is so sweet, I'm happy we supported her.

Cooking Korean Food With Maangchi is a practical, useful book for Korean cooking that a novice or an expert could pick up and use, I know because I am a complete novice at this style of cooking and I've learnt loads. It's all traditional recipes (not fusion) which are harder to find instructions for.

There are all kinds of dishes here - main courses, sidedishes, desserts - theres something for everyone, I've mainly been cooking Noodles for the kids and my mother absolutely loves the Ginseng Chicken Soup.

Naengmyun and soondubu chigae and kimchi and kaktugi are the highlights though. The video for the kimchi recipe has nearly a million views on YouTube.


The book itself has lots of pictures which I always find helpful and is written in a very good and simple instructional style that is very easy to understand.

It doesn't talk much about the history of each dish or the food, however. If you want that you need to look it up on Wikipedia or get a history book.

Yummy.

Whoever has seen Mangchee present her Korean recipes in Youtube knows how infectious her personality is. Her simple ingredients and uncomplicated recipes produce a special flavor when mixed with her generous splattering of humor. The present book brings together many of the recipes made popular there and subsequently collated in two volumes. Thus you may view this book as a Mangchee omnibus.

The author delves straight to the recipes after a brief introductory note, without mincing words about the tradition and style of Korean cooking. This way the reader does not suffer much, because the selection of recipes gives an expansive picture of the Korean cooking basics, common ingredients and culinary traditions.

We learn that rice is the backbone of almost every Korean meal. Many of the recipes are recommended to be served with rice dishes, whereas many recipes themselves are rice based. Thus we have rice powders, rice dough, rice flour, rice balls, rice cakes, rice wine, sweet rice, barley rice, or just plain rice as ingredients.

Then there are a lot of side dish recipes. Korean cuisine is marked by a sizable numbers of side dishes. In the book as many as nine side dishes are offered, starting from eggs to eggplants.

Although it is a common idea that Korean food is meat based, the author presents many leaf, vegetable or grain based recipes to give some reassurance to those who are not comfortable with such food items. Even one dessert item is included to give variety to the recipes.

For those wary about finding the exotic looking ingredients, there is a sensible advice from the author: "bring this book to the grocery store and get the ingredients that you need even if you don't know what they are." The pictures in the book will help.

This is after all, to use the author's words, "a practical book".

This is a great book with some fantastic and delicious recipes that are very easy to follow. I've not had a lot of experience cooking Korean food but I found these dishes easy to make very nice indeed! Definitely recommended for anyone interested in cooking this type of cuisine.

This is a great book with lots of great Korean food recipes. I found it very easy to cook the recipes even as a beginner. The book is great companion to have in the kitchen and compliments the youtube videos. The book gives great tips, techniques and recipes to get you started making your own healthy Korean foods. My family and I love making a new recipe each week and this book explains everything from start to finish. I found the pictures and ingredient lists very helpful when I went shopping. If you like Korean food then this is the perfect book for you, Once you read it I'm sure you'll agree!