To Asia, With Love: Everyday Asian Recipes and Stories From the Heart

I seldom write reviews for products. I also seldom (probably never?) read a cookbook cover to cover. I can't overstate how lovely this book is. We have already recreated a few dishes, all delicious. The heartfelt stories included in the pages touched me deeply, bringing back memories from my own childhood. This was so engaging from the very start -- lovely anecdotes, helpful overviews of frequently used ingredients, appropriate substitutions, etc -- that I kept turning the pages. Before I was half way through, I ordered a gift copy for my brother. A few people noted that they were not aware this is a vegetarian cookbook, and I was not aware when I ordered it, either. That said, I didn't notice until halfway through the book! There are suggestions on how to incorporate proteins into the recipes. The author offers plenty of inspiration to improvise or play off of her very flexible recipes. I was also so impressed with how accessible these recipes are! The author does a great job of minimizing the number of "specialty" ingredients you will need to hunt for, while still bringing authentic, vibrant flavors to the dishes.

I very rarely leave reviews on Amazon, but was compelled to do so for Hetty McKinnon's most recent cookbook _To Asia, With Love_. It is without a doubt one of the best cookbooks I've purchased in the last several years. We've tried about a dozen recipes so far, and all of them are winners. Some recipes became instant favorites that we've made over and over again since this spring when the book came out. Every recipe we've tried has been ridiculously flavorful and well-balanced, came together quickly (seriously...these are fast weeknight recipes that taste like they took much more time to come together), and felt healthy. And if you don't have the exact ingredients on hand that the recipe calls for? Added bonus: most of the recipes are easily made vegan. I'm only half kidding when I say I'm tempted to buy 10 copies of this book to give to family and friends for the holidays!

A beautifully produced cookbook with many easily approachable recipes. I felt the tastes were ‘authentic’ which reminded me of my childhood eating out in Chinese restaurants in Boston.

Not much to say about this that hasn’t already been said. We’re very late to the party on this one. We are in for a delicious week of plant-based, gluten-free meals. Here are the dishes we made: • Cumin Tofu Stir-Fry - Although simple in appearance, there’s a lot going on with this dish. To begin, extra-firm tofu is marinated with tamari and rice wine. There’s also a spice mixture containing cumin, gochugaru, sugar and salt. This will form the base of your “dry fry” later on, along with onion, chile, ginger and garlic. But first, the tofu is coated in cornstarch and fried until crispy. We followed one of the suggested substitutions and swapped the cauliflower in the recipe for broccolini. Even when divided in half, we still had leftovers. We’ve decided that, personally, we aren’t fans of dry fries. We prefer our stir fries to have a bit of sauce. In hindsight, we also should have cut the broccolini in half and blanched the thicker stalks before adding them to the hot wok. This would have ensured they achieved the same level of doneness as the florets. Don’t get us wrong - this was still a tasty, nourishing dish. It had a fair amount of heat, as well as flavor. We’d probably just choose to sauce things up if we were to make this again. • Egg, Pea and Ginger Fried Rice - Our local Indian takeout joint always includes WAY too much plain white rice with our order. Seriously. This dish is a great solution to that dilemma. Best of all, you can throw this together in less time than it took us to prepare this post! While your wok is heating, beat a few eggs and chop some ginger and scallions. Add a bit of soy sauce or tamari, along with some frozen peas & carrots, and you’ve got yourself a quick, delicious meal suitable for any time of day. • Black Pepper Brussels Sprouts with Cold Silken Tofu - We don’t work with the silken variety of tofu often, and this was a new presentation for us. Oven-roasted Brussels are tossed in a frying pan with a sticky black pepper sauce before piling onto a block of silken tofu. Any apprehension we had over the texture quickly disappeared. We enjoyed this over some rice. • Soy Sauce Chow Mein with a Fried Egg - To keep things gluten free, we swapped out the noodles I. The recipe for a rice-based variety. We also used tamari instead of soy sauce. Is there anything that isn’t vastly improved with a fried egg on top? • Gluten-free Dumplings - The resulting soft dough lacks elasticity. You’ve got to treat these gently when working with them. Additionally, it’s a challenge to roll these as thin as we would have liked. In hindsight, we likely could have added a tiny bit more water to create a slightly more hydrated dough. We filled these with an herby mushroom and onion mixture - flavors perfectly evocative of the Fall weather we are experiencing. If it’s true you need to spend about 10,000 hours on a skill to truly master it, we only need about 9,990 more for our dumpling making proficiency. • Wontons and Noodles in Ginger-Turmeric Broth - This is the dish we made using the dumplings! We would argue this comforting bowl of goodness rivals chicken soup when you are trying to cure what ails you. The rich broth consists of ginger, garlic, turmeric and vegetable stock. Chickpeas are added, along with broccolini, our (a bit too thick) dumplings and thin rice noods. A bit of diced green chili adds a pleasant heat to the pot. Once we can perfect our dumpling skills, we’ll gladly make this all the time!

This is such a wonderful cookbook! I’ve made a handful of the recipes now and all of them have been so darn good. The photos and stories in the book are wonderful as well! Also my tiny household has been trying to cut back on meat, so having this cookbook full of incredible vegetarian recipes has been and will be very useful and a lot of fun!

This cookbook is fantastic. Simple recipes that use ingredients I have on hand in new ways, and the recipes are so easily adaptable. I have over 200 cookbooks, and from the perspective of which one has recipes that I use every week, this may be at the top. We make the Dan Dan sauce every week, and the Tofu, cauliflower and cumin spiced recipe is another household favorite!

As someone who is learning too cook this book is simple and the recipes look amazing. The author grew up in an Asian household in Australia so it has a little bit of a different take. The photos are all taken by the author and will motivate me to make these recipes. Here’s some pics of a few recipes in case anyone’s wondering what it may look like.

Didn’t realize this book didn’t have any animal protein recipes. I suggested it as a gift for me and I’m disappointed, but I’m sure I missed it somewhere that there are no meat recipes.

It feels like the majority of the book is made up of rice, pasta or noodle recipes. Even the salad recipes almost all had pasta or noodles. Disappointed in the lack of variety.

Good selection of Asian recipes

This is the best cookbook I have ordered in years. The food is easy, original and delicious. Perfect for midweek dinners when you want something satisfying and quick.

Full of lovely recipes

I find the recipes very easy to follow and super tasty. It's a very good cookbook with a lot of appetizing pictures in it :)