Want to try to cook different Korean dishes? This might be the cookbook for you!
Title: Taste Korea
Author: Ae Jin Huys
Copywriting: Selma Franssen
Cultural translator: Chung Chung Kee
Published: March 2023
Pages: 210
Publisher: Lannoo (I read this book in Dutch)
Rating: 9/10
First posted in Dutch on March 29 2023 and updated on November 14 2024.
Easy Korean food with ingredients from your kitchen! • A great and easy way to discover the Korean cuisine • Healthy and tasty recipes, beautifully presented What makes Korean food so tasty? The secret is in the “jangs,” sauces that have been a staple of Korean cuisine for thousands of years. Jang is prepared by fermenting soybeans into soy sauce (ganjang), soybean paste (doenjang) and chilli paste (gochujang). This seasoning not only delivers a rich palette of flavors but it also offers significant health benefits. Ae Jin Huys already introduced us to kimchi, Korean fermented vegetables. In this book she shows how to use various jangs to season your meals. Try replacing the butter on your potatoes with jang, for instance, and discover a rich bouquet of aromas. With 70 accessible recipes – using ingredients easily available from your local store – these jangs make your daily fare healthier and tastier in no time at all. The best of both worlds!
Because of my love for the Korean language, I have increasingly delved into other aspects of Korean culture. In my opinion, cooking and culture go hand in hand when you want to understand a country and/or culture. About two years ago, I cooked a Korean recipe for the first time and since then I have wanted to learn to cook more dishes. But I actually found it quite difficult to find suitable recipes, especially since there are not many Korean cookbooks (in Dutch) on the market. Publisher Lannoo has been changing the game and is putting out more and more Asian cookbooks. The author, Ae Jin Huys, introduced the reader to ‘kimchi’, a Korean fermented vegetable, in her first cookbook. In this book, she shows how you can use different jangs as a seasoning.
The book is beautifully designed and almost looks more like a coffee table book than a cookbook. For a cookbook, I think this book is a bit on the large side, I would have preferred it to be smaller. The photos in the book are beautiful and come into their own with this format, but I still think the book could have been a bit smaller so that it is easier to have the book on the table top while cooking.
The index is one of my favourite things in this book. In the index you see different products, from egg to cabbage and then it says which dishes you can make with them. This is very practical if you are looking for inspiration for ingredients that you still have in your fridge and/ or cupboard. However it does take some getting used to that the index is divided by colour. Personally, I do not find it annoying because there are pictures, so I can still quickly find what I am looking for. But I can imagine that this is not a pleasant way for everyone.
After the index you can read a short introduction (or call it a history lesson) about jangs. You learn about Korean food and why things are done the way they are. It gives context and you also learn a lot about taste. This is followed up by a number of pages of jargon under the title “good to know” and a page with practical tips. The author states that the recipes are made for a Western audience, since you cannot find all the products that are available in Korea in the West.
The author collaborated with various Korean chefs which resulted in a varied range and to my surprise even vegan recipes! Although I have to say that many Korean recipes can usually easily be made vegan, because hardly any dairy is used, since most Koreans are lactose intolerant.
The recipes are all easy to follow, well explained and in some cases contain extra notes that can help you while cooking. The only comment I have in regards is that the recipes could have had blank lines. It is difficult to quickly find where I left off in a recipe when cooking.
In between the recipes you can read comments from the chefs, the author herself and/or a history lesson. I think this is an addition to the cookbook, since you learn more about Korean cooking and the culture itself.
For anyone who wants to cook Korean more often and at the same time wants to learn more about the culture, I can recommend this cookbook. Jangs are incredibly important in Korean cuisine and I’m glad I learned how to make them myself thanks to Taste Korea.
Love,
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