Meera Sodha

This cookbook features a huge variety of Asian dishes that aren't reliant on any particular flavor profiles, with highly descriptive flavor text, and it's wonderfully bound.

I have not yet cooked even a fraction of the recipes in this cookbook, but what I've cooked has been straightforward and reasonably tasty (not all mindblowing, but all a solid meal). It does seem to call for a good number of ingredients that I don't normally keep in the pantry, which come in large-ish sizes, and which I sometimes don't know where to find in stores (opening to three pages at random: kimchi, bird's-eye chili, unripe mangoes, "straight to wok" udon noodles, pickled ginger, Fresno chiles, black mustard seeds, English mustard), without much guidance on appropriate substitution. That gives me a bit extra friction when planning these meals, because it's been easy to end up with all but one ingredient for a target recipe when shopping. I expect that says more about how I currently cook than anything else, though.

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Onigiri stuffed with walnut miso -- I still dream of these sweet and interestingly textured rice balls

Napa cabbage okonomiyaki -- this got a thumbs up from the family, and was extremely easy for a weeknight

Bunny chow -- cabbage, greens, and black chickpeas in buns with copious turmeric; I love cabbage so I was excited by this one, but I didn't think it was worth repeating

Chickpea flour fries with chile sauce -- these are Burmese tofu bits; I found them initially tasty, but they don't stand up to eating more than a few, and I had to throw some away uneaten… (mais)

This HAS to be the best cookbook out there (at least for now) that I've ever tried. Wow! And I'm not a vegan or vegetarian. I've tried so many of the recipes and they are pretty much all exceptional or stellar. We like Asian food so much in our house, and what really impresses me is how relatively easy the recipes are compared to other Asian cookbooks, and there aren't (comparatively) that many ingredients that you can't find at a regular grocery store. I work at a library, and really don't ever buy books, but am considering buying this one once I have to return it, because I don't want to wait for it again. It's hard to pick a standout, but the sweet potato cakes with kimchi mayo (I made extra and put that stuff on so many things) and the Napa cabbage okonomiyaki were 2 that I had to turn around and make again within a few days. And I put the gochujang sauce from the bibimbap recipe on just about everything that isn't dessert.… (mais)