Quick & Easy Korean Cooking for Everyone (Quick & Easy (Japan Publications)) [Paperback]

Ji Sook Choe (Author), Yukiko Moriyama (Author)

Book Description

Series: Quick & Easy (Japan Publications) | Publication Date: August 15, 2003

This book will enable anyone to start cooking Korean cuisine, even beginners.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Perhaps the best-known dishes from Korea are the pungent relish kimchee and the barbequed meats called bulkogee. Korean cuisine, however, includes a blend of old and modern tastes with influences from all over Asia, including China and Japan. Quick & Easy Korean Cooking for Everyone includes over sixty recipes that showcase the uniquely fresh style of Korean cuisine, which utilizes high-quality ingredients and spices to achieve delicious tasting meal. This book also includes some of this country's most popular homemade dishes.

About the Author

Ji Sook Choe was born in Seoul. She was an important contributor in "raising" the quality of Korean cuisine in Japan.

Yukiko Moriyama teaches cooking classes in Seattle and is currently a member of the International Association of Cooking Professionals.

Product Details

• Paperback: 112 pages
• Publisher: Japan Publications Trading (August 15, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 4889961240
• ISBN-13: 978-4889961249
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 7.2 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #485,063 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best, June 1, 2006

By 

Sandy P "saprater" (GA United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Quick & Easy Korean Cooking for Everyone (Quick & Easy (Japan Publications)) (Paperback)

I've been looking for a good Korean cookbook for ages and have already purchased 8 of them through various sources (Amazon being one of the main ones) and been disappointed almost every time. Not so with this one. I assumed from the somewhat cheesy cover that this book would be fairly Americanized and a gamble at best, but it's proven to be one of the most comprehensive Korean cookbooks out there. There are several sections which deal with things like table settings, manners, customs, and recipes for the most basic of sauces and dips that you will use over and over again. The back has a nice little index of useful information and illustrations that demonstrate various techniques in the cooking process. Also, the recipes are quite authentic and don't leave out important steps. The author tells you how to press the Dubu before cutting and frying it...which I know seems fairly simplistic...but you don't know how many countless cookbooks have left out that most important step when making fried tofu. I've tried several of the sauces and have been very satisfied with the flavors. The only downside is that I wish the author would have included useful substitutions when it came to the cuts of meat. Some of the pork and beef sections used were unclear on which cuts were used and were simply referred to as "pork" or "beef" even when you knew a specific cut was probably used.

Overall it's one of the best tools in my kimchee making kitchen. Another I recommend is Duk Suni's cookbook. Please avoid the Kimchee Cookbook and Flavors of Korea though, as the recipes in them are vague, missing steps, and or just not authentic.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars basic starting point, but..., February 24, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Korean Cooking for Everyone: Quick and Easy (Hardcover)

...the recipes just don't taste quite right to this Korean-American. Some are downright weird (like boiling apples for bulgogi marinade). Plus, the recipe selection seems random--I had never heard of lots of the dishes in here. I refer to this to get a sense of the basic ingredients for a recipe, but I end up changing the portions or adding other ingredients. However, the color step-by-step photos are helpful.

26 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars This is Not a Korean Cookbook, January 10, 2007

By 

H. Chung (NYC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Quick & Easy Korean Cooking for Everyone (Quick & Easy (Japan Publications)) (Paperback)

I cook Korean food regularly but decided to check out some cookbooks for improvement. This book is a joke. Almost every recipe requires MSG (an unhealthy shortcut to authentic cooking). And almost every recipe requires Japanese products like Mirin and sake. Koreans take national pride in their food (developed over 5000 years) and repeated reference to the cooking style and ingredients of its recent past colonizer was rather offensive. The book also mentions dishes most Korean have never heard of; doesn't specify the time for certain steps; and uses ingredients that don't even grow in Korea or don't belong in the dishes. I think the book was geared to Japanese people who want to dabble in Korean cooking -- if you want to cook Korean food the way Koreans cook it, this book is not it.