Vietnamese Cuisine [Paperback]

Su-Huei Huang (Author), Muoi.T. Loangkote (Author), Wei-Chuan Publishing (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 2000

Vietnamese cooking boasts truly unique flavours. Vietnamese cooking is composed of a great variety of main staples. Besides rice and breads, other ingredients include rice paper (banh trang), fresh rice noodles (banh pho), rice boodles (bun), tapioca sticks, and Vietnamese rice noodles. To facilitate the reader's access to and appreciation of Vietnamese cuisine, this cookbook is formatted with photographs to complement text and ingredients. Additionally, this book provides a special section on fragrant accompaniments and an array of sauces that showcase the traditional flavours of Vietnamese cuisine, including Fragrant Spices/Herbs, Sweet/Sour Carrots and Turnips, and several dipping sauces. This cookbook begins with an introductory section on commonly used sauces and ingredients for the reader's convenience when purchasing. With a total of 85 recipes, this book includes colour photographs of dishes and ingredients.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

VIETNAMESE CUISINE offers many easy to follow popular Vietnamese dishes. All the procedures and steps for cooking are presented in a clear and concise manner, utilizing modern home cooking methods anyone can follow. In addition, the bilingual translation provides for a broad community of interest. This is another addition to Wei-Chuan's international cuisine library upholding the excellent tradition established with our successful and popular "Chinese Cuisine", "Thai Cooking Made Easy", "Japanese Cuisine" and "Mexican Cooking Made Easy".

Wei-Chuan Cookbooks have the advantage of:

1. A beautiful, large, full color photo of each finished recipe. Readers always know what the dish should look like. Many additional small step-by-step instructional photos are included. 2. Simple, clear and precise step-by-step instructions that help readers create any dish in their own kitchen. 3. All ingredient measurements are kitchen tested and re-tested. 4. Where appropriate, alternative suggestions for substituting ingredients and cooking techniques are provided. Permits purchase of ingredients in almost any market!

About the Author

Muoi Thai Loangkote

Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Wei-Chuan Publishing; Bilingual edition (2000)
• Language: Chinese
• ISBN-10: 0941676773
• ISBN-13: 978-0941676779
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 7.3 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,026,560 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #47 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Regional & International > Asian > Vietnamese

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not The Vietnamese You Were Looking For, September 10, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Vietnamese Cuisine (Paperback)

I grew up in a multi-ethnic house, eating authentic Vietnamese food at least 5 days a week. I was very excited to find an illustrated cookbook that listed the dishes I wanted to cook, particularly since my mom and my favorite Vietnamese restaurant are both several hours away.

I have to say, I was heartily disappointed with this cookbook. The recipes are close to what I know they SHOULD be, but something in them seems slightly off. I have a feeling that something was lost in the translation. This might be a good cookbook for those who already know what they're doing in the kitchen and just need inspiration, but it's definitely not for a new cook or someone new to Vietnamese cuisine.

Your best bet with this book would be to look at the pictures and be creative. If you follow the recipes, you're likely to find disappointment.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Newly enjoyed cookbook, January 25, 2002

By 

maradona (West Minister, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Vietnamese Cuisine (Paperback)

I bought the Vietnamese Cuisine cookbook after reading the very favorable review in the LA Times. The review statement ¡K ¡§recipes so simple that anyone could make a Vietnamese meal without prior experience¡¨ is absolutely correct. The meal and procedure pictures were very helpful in preserving the authenticity of the dishes and I greatly appreciated the information on ingredient substitution to retain the Vietnamese flavors and tastes. As a person with not much patience, I appreciated the concise and cogent instructions. Interestingly, I found the plastic cover made it easy to clean the book when I¡¦m done with my typical ¡§messy¡¨ cooking. Highly recommended.

24 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Very flawed but full of pictures, June 7, 2000

By 

Jadepearl "geezer geek" (Wandering, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Vietnamese Cuisine (Paperback)

The book is bilingual with instructions in both Chinese and English. Each section is graced with photos of the dishes.

The book is flawed for its lack of details such as, time for preparation; and of procedures (either written or pictorial. Phrases such as, "Cook chicken until 80% done" - are not overly instructive.

I would not recommend this book unless one is already familiar with cooking processes, Asian in particular. It does not give thorough background in either the history of the country nor dishes. This book also fails to teach a person on how to cook. There is an introducion of ingredients that does have photos but other than that you are on your own. IT is a simple repository of *very* modified recipes.

The recipes are not quite right. An example is the "vietnamese pancake" or Ban Xeo which only uses wheat flour (try rice flour and potato starch) or the fact that the frequent sauces used section is missing caramel (an essential ingredient used in various stewed and stir fry dishes. Oh yes, the dipping sauce recipe is WAY off.

You are much better off getting another Vietnamese cookbook to start you off such as, "Best of Vietnames and Thai Cooking" - Mai Pham which is an easy introduction to dishes and ingredients though somewhat westernized (not excessively). The Lonely Planet food guide to Viet Nam is better than this book - and that is not a cookbook but a guide to Vietnamese food. For the more hardcore go get Corinne Trang's "vietnamese cooking".

If you are a collector and obsessed about having a complete collection then get this book but ONLY on a big discount.

Not recommended for beginners and for advanced users it will be disappointing except as a possible cross reference for dishes.