book review: The Pho Cookbook by Andrea Nguyen

I’m not sure if I’ve ever said this before, but please don’t ever buy the e-version of a cookbook.  They are never formatted correctly, no matter which app you use and the page references are all messed up.  Unfortunately, The Pho Cookbook was not the e-exception.

Parts of the text were suddenly a light gray color, which made it very difficult to read against the white background while other parts of the text were black.  I really shouldn’t have to change the background color in the app just so that I can read the text all the way through.  The page references (the author refers to other recipes in her book) are all off because the page numbers never match up on the electronic version.  Sometimes pictures are cut off in the middle of a page and sometimes you get text saying that a recipe is continued in the middle of the page because it was in the hard copy version of the book.  I would absolutely love it if editors/publishers could edit the books so that they were formatted correctly … even if they say something like we recommend using such and such app for correct formatting.

I found the book itself to be okay.  I liked the basic beef and chicken recipes and the “quick” versions were a neat idea, but they fell flat in taste.  Plus, the “quick” versions only serve 2.  Pho takes a lot of time and a lot of ingredients.  Even if you’re only making the “quick” version that takes about 40 minutes to cook, it’s going to take longer to prep the condiments, toast the spices, etc.  Do you really want to go through the expense and time of doing something like that for only 2 servings?  Personally, when I make pho, I make it in a huge pot so that I can get at least 2 meals out of it for the family.  Here’s my recommendation: don’t bother with the quick version.  Make a huge batch of the real pho (yeah, you’ll have to set aside a weekend day to do it), eat some yummy pho, freeze the remaining broth and then just reheat that when you want some more pho.  Your pho broth will taste so much richer and be so much more yummy than the fake stuff made with store bought broth.

The other problem I had with this book is the pressure cooker recipes.  I hate it when recipes call for special equipment that aren’t found in most homes.  The other issue is that unless you have a large pressure cooker, you’re not going to be able to make enough broth for a family of 4 to have 1 meal.  Again, if you’re going through the expense and time to make the pho, just make a huge batch.

I did find the section on other things to do with pho interesting.  There were many items that I had never heard of, like the chicken pho noodle salad.  I wanted to try the homemade hoisin sauce, but it required ingredients that I don’t usually have on hand (miso paste, Japanese rice vinegar, tahini, rice flour), so I haven’t tried it yet.

All in all, this was an okay book, but nowhere as good as the Banh Mi Handbook.

Disclaimer: I received a free e-copy of this book in exchange for my honest review from NetGalley.  This book will be released February 7, 2017.

cookbook review: The Banh Mi Handbook

Andrea Nguyen has written several Vietnamese cookbooks and has now added one all about banh mi.  The Banh Mi Handbook is a compact yet comprehensive book.  When I saw how thin it was, I was a bit skeptical, but this book does a good job of covering all of the different components that make up banh mi.

Banh mi in Vietnamese means bread, but it also refers to Vietnamese sandwiches.  Often, the sandwiches include a schmear of pate (optional, but pate makes it taste better), meat or other protein, pickled veggies (usually carrots & daikon), some cilantro, and thin slices of jalapeno.  It’s a meal that you can eat with one hand and may provide all or almost all of the food groups.  It’s no wonder that it’s so popular.  The problem that I have is that I live in the Midwest, which isn’t exactly known for its Asian cuisine.  The other problem with banh mi is that, even though it is a simple concept and it’s hard to mess it up, it’s also hard to get it just right – just the right amount of pate, just the right ratio of meat to pickled veggies … and it’s hard to get just right because everyone has their own preferences.

The Banh Mi Handbook shows home cooks how to make their own banh mi to suit their own tastes.  It includes a recipe for making banh mi (although I’m lazy and just buy some small Italian/French loaves from the grocery store), pate recipes (again, I’m lazy and just use liverwurst), Vietnamese meatloaf (her book calls it garlic pepper pork tenderloin – I was able to find some premade stuff at an Asian grocery store).  The pickled carrots & daikon are super easy and fast to make, especially if you have a food processor.  The book includes other pickled veggie recipes like snowpea and lemongrass pickle, but I’ve never seen those things on banh mi before so I just stuck with the carrots & daikon.  The meat or other protein is the part that takes the longest to prepare … and really, it’s entirely up to you if you want to spend more time making some of the more complicated recipes that require more ingredients (I’m looking at you, Sri Lankan Black Curry Chicken) or something simple but still delicious such as the  Grilled Lemongrass Pork.  For vegetarians, edamame pate, coconut curry tofu, baked maggi tofu, and lemongrass sriracha tempeh recipes are included.  I think, though, that you could substitute tofu for the meat in many of the other recipes and it would be fine.  The grilled lemongrass pork seemed versatile – just put the tofu between 2 plates to get rid of more of the water and to firm it up more.

The one pretty minor complaint I have about this book is that I would have loved to have seen more pictures of the different recipes.  Don’t get me wrong, there are quite a few color pictures, but I’m greedy like that.

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this book from Blogging for Books for my honest review.