Asian Wraps: Deliciously Easy Hand-Held Bundles To Stuff, Wrap, And Relish (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Asian Wraps will surely add to the way you enjoy food, tempting you with a wide assortment of highly flavored, Asian-accented dishes eaten without benefit of fork, knife, or chopsticks. Nina Simonds, known for her impeccable versions of classic Asian dishes, cuts loose in this book, offering, for example, a creative seafood and rice salad tucked into lettuce leaves and a clever adaptation of Chinese Lion's Head. This dish is usually meatballs with a mane of cabbage, served floating in a soupy casserole; Simonds transforms it into stuffed cabbage rolls served with the rich broth in which they cook. For bite-size appetizers, there are skewers of grilled pork sâté, unexpectedly enveloped in radicchio leaves, a more classic Flaky Curry Turnover filled with ground meat and green peas, and colorful smoked salmon spirals filled with sushi rice, capers, and red onion.

Going still further afield, Simonds fuses Asian and Caribbean flavors in her Chinese Jerk Chicken in a flour tortilla, including ginger, scallion, and rice vinegar in the jerk paste. Her Hawaii-style grilled swordfish kebabs served with pineapple salsa almost dare you to skip the wrapper and enjoy the lightly soy-sauce-marinated fish simply with its piquant accompaniment. As in her previous book, Asian Noodles, Simonds details all you need to know about special ingredients, covering 17 kinds of wrappers, from wonton skins and rice paper to lotus leaves and Indian flatbread. To make dishes accessible to everyone, particularly when there is not an Asian food store nearby, Simonds offers more readily available tortillas, pita bread, and lavash as substitutions. Asian Wraps resembles other recent books by Simonds, including A Spoonful of Ginger, in its generous use of beautifully styled color photos of prepared dishes and key ingredients. --Dana Jacobi

From Library Journal

In her latest effort, experienced food writer Simonds (A Spoonful of Ginger) combines two hot culinary trends: wrapping food in bundles and Pan-Asian cookery. The wrappers in this collection include tortillas, leafy greens, pancakes, rice paper, pastry, and dumpling skins; the fillings run the gamut from Mu Shu shrimp to curried noodles to smoked salmon; the Asian influences are Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Indonesian, and Vietnamese. Although recipes are easy to follow and cooking times are generally short, most require chopping and assembling ingredients ahead of time. But with an emphasis on vegetables, soy products, and lean meats, this collection will please those looking for healthy new flavors and techniques. An attractive book, suitable for most collectionsAalthough smaller libraries may want a less geographically focused book on wraps, such as Wrap & Roll by the California Culinary Academy (IDG, 1998) or Ellen Brown's All Wrapped Up: Pitas, Fajitas, and Other Sweet and Savory Recipes (LJ 2/15/98).ADevon Thomas, formerly with Highland Twp. Lib., MI
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow Cookbooks; illustrated edition edition (January 5, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0688163009
• ISBN-13: 978-0688163006
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #591,913 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

60 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sometimes brilliant, sometimes puzzling, August 18, 2000

By	Stephen Foster (Seattle, WA United States, via Scotland) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

One drawback about shopping for books online is the lack of tactile information, so first things first: this book looks and feels more like an art book than a cookbook. It is made of very heavy, glossy paper that displays the many photographs beautifully. Most of the book is laid out the way I much prefer - photo on one page and complete recipe on the facing page. Only a few longer recipes force you to turn the page mid-recipe - those are the ones that get decorated with most of the flour/soy sauce fingerprints.

The book doesn't just concentrate on fillings - there are instructions for making some of the most popular Asian wrappers from scratch - not many people will go that route, I suspect (I haven't as yet), but it is nice to have the option there.

Some of the recipes are nothing short of brilliant. I've always struggled with sesame oil - I love the flavour, but it is far too easy to swamp a recipe with it. Ms. Simond is a master of the stuff -- her sesame vinaigrette is alone worth the price of the book. She uses sesame oil in several of the filling recipes, too, and the results are always wonderful.

Some of her other recipes, while always interesting, exhibit some rather strange choices. The first time I make an unfamiliar recipe, I like to follow it exactly, because I can never be sure what its author intended. Only when I make the recipe again will start to incorporate my own ideas into it. I wouldn't advise doing that with this cookbook - if you are merrily cooking along, and read something that gives you pause, like adding ½ lb of frozen peas to an otherwise wonderful filling, or using "finely-chopped lemongrass" rather than "lemongrass pureed in a blender so that you don't have to hand toothpicks out to your guests," then by all means make the change immediately.

With that one caveat out of the way, I can highly recommend this cookbook.

55 of 57 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Asian Wraps, February 2, 2000

By	"tkjaun3284" (United States) - See all my reviews

Being a novice on the topic of asian wraps, I wanted to find a cookbook that was simple, well written and not costly, and I found all of the above in Nina Simonds "Asian Wraps". This cookbook is well written, the recipes are easy to understand, and the cost was very reasonable. I would recommend this cookbook to any of my family or friends who wish to add versatality to their menu's.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's a wrap!, July 14, 2004

By A Customer

I own more cookbooks that any one could possibly use, but this is my favorite. I've tried many of the recipes and never had a flop. All are flavorful. I love having pictures for most of the recipes. Great ideas, descriptions of ingredients, and descriptions and recipes for the wrappers! Last week I bought all of her books. This week I'm ordering two copies for my friends. If you want to make healthful tasty meals, this is the cookbook for you. Be sure to try the Grilled Miso Salmon with Sweet-and-Sour Cucumbers!