The Wok - J. Kenji Lopez-Alt

I am a huge fan of Kenji. My kids pre-ordered this book for me for X-mas. It came yesterday. I have not cooked anything yet, but thumbing through the book, it looks excellent.

I took a look at the reviews for the book on Amazon, and the only negative reviews were from two people that hated the pictures.

Our copy came last week and we're excited to dive in!

I was running errands yesterday with NPR on the radio and caught just five minutes of the end of an interview with someone that turned out to be Kenji! He was hawking his new book. I assume the interview might be available online somewhere? Did anyone else hear it?

Joy wrote:I was running errands yesterday with NPR on the radio and caught just five minutes of the end of an interview with someone that turned out to be Kenji! He was hawking his new book. I assume the interview might be available online somewhere? Did anyone else hear it?

https://www.npr.org/2022/03/08/10851613 ... -in-russia

After several bad decisions, I like to preview any potential cook book purchases until I can get my hands on a copy. I have it on the CPL wait list and can hardly wait until it becomes available.

Picked it up at a discount at Costco. The book has some very good preface material, even though I've been through several Asian cookbooks and general cooking books. So far, I haven't cooked anything directly from this but used his marinade techniques: rinsing, massaging, and applying baking soda to help keep meat tender - all new to me, but made for a great beef with white onion stir-fry, close to a proustian memory.

It seems like a book that I will read, but not use the recipes, just the techniques. I will probably end up passing it on to someone else after that point because I will have learned from it but likely won't reference it.

The one thing I wish was different, is that he had used the pinyin tone marks on the Chinese words (and included the hanzi characters), because I'm trying to learn Mandarin. It's strange, because he does use all the diacritics on the Vietnamese words.

I bought the book a few weeks ago (mail order) and I just can't get past the poor layout design and font choices. I find it very difficult to read. The layout of recipes is not consistent. So far, I've found the ingredients list in three different locations in the recipes. Maybe I can get past all that later, but right now it isn't high on my read list. Happy I didn't pay list price for it.

I don't have a problem with the format, mainly because I'm looking at it as a "reading" cookbook, not a "cook from" cookbook.

Skimmed it at my local library (skokie had 3 copies on display). I get the complaint on font/layout.

In addition, the book was really heavy. maybe the black cover made it seem smaller than it really was?

I now have my library copy and mainly find the book to be uneven, badly laid out and needs a good editing. Samples are:

text on a page with a note to say "see page xxx" for more information, but that's the page I'm on??

How many pages do you really need on how to cut up a chicken - most people probably just go to the store are buy parts.

Much of it seems redundant. There may be something like a bunch of pages on making dumplings, with most of that same information repeated pretty much word for word with the individual recipes.

The photos seem mostly OK in the copy I have - I wonder if there was a 2nd printing.

There is a nice interview with Kenji in today's Tribune Health and Food section. Original source of the interview was Associated Press:
https://apnews.com/article/entertainment-lifestyle-chefs-cooking-76b846692bd70357a57f2bde328c5b75

The Trib article also gives the recipe for Kenji's Momma's Mapo Tofu with a big photo of the finished dish that is inspiring me! The recipe calls for ground beef but I have some ground lamb in the freezer that I am sure would play very nicely with the other ingredients!

Joy wrote:...The Trib article also gives the recipe for Kenji's Momma's Mapo Tofu with a big photo of the finished dish that is inspiring me! The recipe calls for ground beef but I have some ground lamb in the freezer that I am sure would play very nicely with the other ingredients!

I took one look at that recipe and went, "Nope."
Not a chile in the whole thing, no black beans. That's not Mapo.

JoelF wrote:

Joy wrote:...The Trib article also gives the recipe for Kenji's Momma's Mapo Tofu with a big photo of the finished dish that is inspiring me! The recipe calls for ground beef but I have some ground lamb in the freezer that I am sure would play very nicely with the other ingredients!

I took one look at that recipe and went, "Nope."
Not a chile in the whole thing, no black beans. That's not Mapo.

If it's his mom's recipe, I'm assuming he was going for the Japanese take on mapo tofu which is much less spicy and adds sweetness. That's the version I grew up eating.

I suppose the ideas on baking soda/beef and how to cut up a chicken may have been recycled from his time at ATK/Cooks Illustrated. Not that that's a bad thing, nearly all cookbooks are incremental knowledge.
Planning to reserve at our library once I clear the overdue books. With the new no-fine policy we tend to keep them overlong.

Headline on recipe in Tribune PRINT VERSION:

MY MOM'S JAPANESE-STYLE MAPO TOFU

Next text:

This version of mapo tofu is similar to what J. Kenji Lopez-Alt ate growing up, though instead of plain ground beef his mom would use the dish as an opportunity to use up leftover dumpling filling. Unlike the numbing-hot Sichuan version, this one is savory and sweet, with the classic Japanese flavors soy, sake and mirin, and comes together even faster.

The style is very clear.

WhyBeeSea wrote:

JoelF wrote:

Joy wrote:...The Trib article also gives the recipe for Kenji's Momma's Mapo Tofu with a big photo of the finished dish that is inspiring me! The recipe calls for ground beef but I have some ground lamb in the freezer that I am sure would play very nicely with the other ingredients!

I took one look at that recipe and went, "Nope."
Not a chile in the whole thing, no black beans. That's not Mapo.

If it's his mom's recipe, I'm assuming he was going for the Japanese take on mapo tofu which is much less spicy and adds sweetness. That's the version I grew up eating.

Oh, no arguments about "authenticity" -- I just am not interested in making it one bit.

JoelF wrote:

WhyBeeSea wrote:

JoelF wrote:

Joy wrote:...The Trib article also gives the recipe for Kenji's Momma's Mapo Tofu with a big photo of the finished dish that is inspiring me! The recipe calls for ground beef but I have some ground lamb in the freezer that I am sure would play very nicely with the other ingredients!

I took one look at that recipe and went, "Nope."
Not a chile in the whole thing, no black beans. That's not Mapo.

If it's his mom's recipe, I'm assuming he was going for the Japanese take on mapo tofu which is much less spicy and adds sweetness. That's the version I grew up eating.

Oh, no arguments about "authenticity" -- I just am not interested in making it one bit.

Totally get it! I have the opposite feeling where the traditional mapo tofu feels strange to me from eating the sweeter version more often. I'm definitely in the wrong here.