MisterHobgoblin
13th November 2011, 09:44 PM
This is my second Bill Granger cookbook, having previously tried recipes from Bill's Basics. That book had an undeniably Asian bias so it's no surprise that he has turned his hand to an exclusively Asian book.
Now Bill is Australian and it shows in his choice of ingredients. They are readily available in Coles supermarkets but may present more of a challenge to UK readers. Mirin, in particular, is simply not a flavour that you'll find in Europe, which is a pity because it adds a big and special sweetness (with a slightly vinegary edge) to a meal. And it seems to crop up in a surprising number of the recipes in the book.
Anyway, the recipes do sort of work but they require a bit more technique than Bill lets on. In particular, many of the recipes seem to have a lot of things coming together in the last five minutes for which a clean kitchen and a cool head make a lot of difference. It's true that most recipes are one pot, but you need plenty of bowls and boards for the ingredients and if you are preparing more than one thing at once, there will be banging pots aplenty.
I have tried three recipes from the book:
Classic stir-fried chicken and basil: works OK, but is nicer with pork. The chicken mince tends to get a bit claggy and the beans should probably have been pre-cooked a little. One and a half minutes in a dryish pot of mince simply won't cook them.
Stir-fried chilli pork: works very well; rich flavours from the hoisin sauce work superbly with the mirin; the pork absorbs the flavours, turns quite dark brown and the sauce is glutionous. Not sure why the recipe tells you to leave the chilli stalks on as that just means you have to hold the stalks with your fingers and bite off the chillies.
Steamed Asian greens: cooked this with a mixture of broccolini and pak choi and it was superb. The veg, which are blanched rather than steamed, are OK but the sauce lifts the dish into a magical realm. Very rich and sweet with the mirin working wonders.
I will try other recipes, mostly on the back of the amazing sauces. I'm less convinced about the main ingredients and methodology but am willing to adapt - and my faith is enhanced by the recipes in Bill's Basics working well.
The presentation of the book is worth mentioning. It's A4, hardback (so it stays open at the right page), bound in pink with an embossed dust jacket with a gorgeous design. It is chock full of photos - most recipes have a photo (which does actually look like the finished product), interspersed with unlabelled double page photo spreads. Most of these are of food, but because it isn't labelled, you can't turn to the recipe to reproduce nice looking dishes. Some recipes are of Bill himself and his daughters. Two double spreads are of the same lake - one with Bill in the foreground and one without. These photo spreads add nothing at all; they just pad out a book and make it more likely that it will be stored on a coffee table than in a kitchen. On the positive side, Bill's Asian Pantry is a useful addition to the book, listing some of the more esoteric ingredients and explaining exactly what they are and what purpose they serve - making substitutions more straightforward. It's also fun to have a book which is prepared to mix and match - having Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Malay and Indonesian recipes all in the same book - sometimes in the same recipe.
On balance, this is probably on the good side of OK, but not quite reliabe enough to reach excellence.
****0
Now Bill is Australian and it shows in his choice of ingredients. They are readily available in Coles supermarkets but may present more of a challenge to UK readers. Mirin, in particular, is simply not a flavour that you'll find in Europe, which is a pity because it adds a big and special sweetness (with a slightly vinegary edge) to a meal. And it seems to crop up in a surprising number of the recipes in the book.
Anyway, the recipes do sort of work but they require a bit more technique than Bill lets on. In particular, many of the recipes seem to have a lot of things coming together in the last five minutes for which a clean kitchen and a cool head make a lot of difference. It's true that most recipes are one pot, but you need plenty of bowls and boards for the ingredients and if you are preparing more than one thing at once, there will be banging pots aplenty.
I have tried three recipes from the book:
Classic stir-fried chicken and basil: works OK, but is nicer with pork. The chicken mince tends to get a bit claggy and the beans should probably have been pre-cooked a little. One and a half minutes in a dryish pot of mince simply won't cook them.
Stir-fried chilli pork: works very well; rich flavours from the hoisin sauce work superbly with the mirin; the pork absorbs the flavours, turns quite dark brown and the sauce is glutionous. Not sure why the recipe tells you to leave the chilli stalks on as that just means you have to hold the stalks with your fingers and bite off the chillies.
Steamed Asian greens: cooked this with a mixture of broccolini and pak choi and it was superb. The veg, which are blanched rather than steamed, are OK but the sauce lifts the dish into a magical realm. Very rich and sweet with the mirin working wonders.
I will try other recipes, mostly on the back of the amazing sauces. I'm less convinced about the main ingredients and methodology but am willing to adapt - and my faith is enhanced by the recipes in Bill's Basics working well.
The presentation of the book is worth mentioning. It's A4, hardback (so it stays open at the right page), bound in pink with an embossed dust jacket with a gorgeous design. It is chock full of photos - most recipes have a photo (which does actually look like the finished product), interspersed with unlabelled double page photo spreads. Most of these are of food, but because it isn't labelled, you can't turn to the recipe to reproduce nice looking dishes. Some recipes are of Bill himself and his daughters. Two double spreads are of the same lake - one with Bill in the foreground and one without. These photo spreads add nothing at all; they just pad out a book and make it more likely that it will be stored on a coffee table than in a kitchen. On the positive side, Bill's Asian Pantry is a useful addition to the book, listing some of the more esoteric ingredients and explaining exactly what they are and what purpose they serve - making substitutions more straightforward. It's also fun to have a book which is prepared to mix and match - having Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Malay and Indonesian recipes all in the same book - sometimes in the same recipe.
On balance, this is probably on the good side of OK, but not quite reliabe enough to reach excellence.
****0