Big Bowl Noodles and Rice: Fresh Asian Cooking From the Renowned Restaurant

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About Big Bowl Noodles And Rice: Fresh Asian Cooking From

Amazon.com Review Feeling adventurous? Try your hand at chef and restaurateur Bruce Cost's recipe adaptations from the menus of his Asian noodle-centric Big Bowl restaurants. The book begins with a very useful guide to the special ingredients one needs to follow these recipes, including recommended brands. But take heed--there are more than a dozen pages of them. Still, Cost calls his food authentic and accessible, and, believe it or not, a trip to your local Asian grocery store for a handful of such staples as fish sauce, Shaoxing rice wine, and Chinese dark soy sauce should get you on your way. For the beginner, there are dishes with short lists of ingredients, including Steamed Mussels in Coconut Herb Broth, Glazed Sweet and Sour Eggplant with Sesame Sauce, and Red Braised Beef Short Ribs. The instructions are clear, detailed, and remarkably short. As your pantry grows, so too can your repertoire. Once you've mastered Big Bowl's recipes for homemade red and yellow curry pastes, the book lists a host of mouthwatering recipes with which you can amaze your friends, such as Red Curry Seafood Soup, Thai Yellow Curry Beef Noodles, and Thai Red Curry Rice Noodles with Lamb and Chinese Chives. Cost recommends incorporating his dishes into your own menus, as well as using them to create entire Asian-inspired meals, and his recipes include helpful guides to how many people each dish feeds as a main course or as part of a larger meal. Classics such as Hot and Sour Soup, Indonesian Satays, and Vietnamese Summer Rolls are delectable and familiar enough to encourage kitchen novices to give this book a try, even if the list of ingredients and instructions for some of the recipes run long. For people who feel quite comfortable with a wok, there is plenty more to keep you challenged. Cost knows what his customers like best and has chosen his dishes carefully. Full-flavored, fresh, and interesting, this is a far cry from the brown-sauce-laden Chinese food available at the corner store. --Leora Y. Bloom Product Description When the first Big Bowl restaurant opened in 1997, its founding partners had one mission: to make good, authentic Asian food accessible to American diners. Tired of greasy takeout and soggy egg rolls, they created an entirely different kind of Asian menu-one based on healthy techniques, market-fresh ingredients, and vibrant, traditional flavors. From steaming bowls of handmade noodles to fiery curries and fragrant stir-fries, every dish at Big Bowl became a delicious celebration of homestyle Chinese, Vietnamese, and Thai cooking.Now Bruce Cost, the celebrated cook and a culinary partner behind Big Bowl's spectacular food, reveals how to prepare the house favorites in your own kitchen. Beginning with a basic explanation of Asian ingredients and cooking techniques, Cost's beautifully illustrated guide takes home cooks through the simple steps needed to create an Asian meal, whether it's a one-bowl dinner or a multicourse feast for family and friends. From Thai Chicken Noodle Salad to Blazing Big Rice Noodles with Beef to Shanghai Shrimp, all of Cost's recipes are incredibly flavorful yet easy enough for even the beginning cook to master. The instructions are clear, the ingredients are widely available, and the results are dramatic and delicious.So if you think Asian food at home means little white boxes, think again. Big Bowl Noodles and Rice will show you how to bring the fresh, authentic flavors of Asia to your table any night of the week.Hailed by Alice Waters as "one of the greatest cooks I have ever known," Bruce Cost is an award-winning restaurateur and chef, cooking teacher, and former food columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. He currently serves as the culinary partner in Lettuce Entertain You's immensely popular chain of Big Bowl restaurants. Cost is also the author of Asian Ingredients, a comprehensive guide to Asian foodstuffs now available as a companion to this book.  Review Bruce