Product Description

The streets of Asian neighborhoods across North America are lined with vegetable stands filled with a confusing assortment of leafy greens and mysterious roots. Farmers' markets in Des Moines and Minneapolis include stands selling intriguing Asian varieties of cabbage that most western cooks don't know what to do with. Korean vegetable stands in New York sell long beans, bean sprouts, and even lemongrass, which many have enjoyed in Chinese, Vietnamese, and Thai restaurants but don't know how to prepare at home. Huge Chinese supermarkets in Los Angeles offer tempting ingredients that can intimidate even experienced cooks.

Top chefs discovered some Asian vegetables several years ago. But despite a mushrooming interest both in vegetables and in Asian flavors, there is still very little information available to help home cooks identify, choose, store, and--most importantly--cook these delicious and nutritious foods.

Rosa Lo San Ross, a New York-based cooking teacher and caterer who grew up in Hong King and Macao, guides us through Asian markets with Beyond Bok Choy: A Cook's Guide to Asian Vegetables. Drawing on her tours of Chinatown for western chefs, her experiences with her students, and her childhood memories of meal and markets in Hong Kong and Macao, she de-mystifies a mystifying subject and opens a new world to the home cook. Her explanatory text, combined with Martin Jacob's elegant photographs, will help everyone identify and buy these unfamiliar vegetables. Her 70 recipes--some classic Chinese, some original fusion recipes--will send adventurous cooks first to an Asian market and then into the kitchen. For those cooks who are also gardeners, there are cultivation tips and a list of sources for Asian vegetable seeds. Photographs by Martin Jacobs. A Book-of-the-Month Club selection

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1071235 in Books
• Published on: 1996-01-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 192 pages

Amazon.com Review
Ross tells how to recognize, buy, store, cook the intriguing produce found at Asian markets and appearing in ever more supermarkets. This book includes color photos of 55 vegetables and 70 recipes. Take it to the market then back to the kitchen, feeling secure about what to do. Recipes range from simple, classic Chinese dishes like Sesame-flavored Flowering Cabbage (Choy Sum) to exotic fusion dishes like aromatic Shiso Risotto. Ross also shares memories of life in Hong Kong, a little Asian history and fascinating cultural tidbits, all food-oriented.

From Publishers Weekly
Asian cuisines once considered exotic are now commonly enjoyed in the West. Many Asian vegetables and herbs, however, may still be difficult for American cooks to identify, much less to prepare at home. Though this is not a vegetarian cookbook, Lo San Ross (365 Ways to Cook Chinese), a New York cooking teacher born in Macao, does a wonderful service for Asian food lovers and vegetarians by detailing the appearance (with large color photos), taste, cultivation, storage and preparation of dozens of vegetables used in Asian cuisines, from Chinese to Thai to Indonesian. The book is divided into five sections: Leafy Greens (from delicate, cabbage-like bok choy to leafy Chinese broccoli); Gourds, Melons & Squashes; Roots, Rhizomes, Corms & Tubers (including ginger and sweet, starchy taro); Sprouts, Shoots & Beans; and Herbs. A concise run-down on each vegetable is followed by one or two recipes. Dishes range from such classic stir-frys as Long Beans Dry-Fried with Peanuts and Spicy Sauce (in which the beans are fried twice, the second time with very little oil) to "fusion" dishes like Shiso Risotto (shiso is a parsley-like herb with a "hint of licorice, mint, or cinnamon?depending on your taste buds"). Though more recipes would have been welcome, this is an attractive and very usable introduction to a wealth of intriguing Asian vegetables.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Ross, a New York City cooking teacher who grew up in Hong Kong and Macao, has compiled a highly useful guide to the often confusing world of Asian produce. Asian vegetables and herbs are increasingly available here, but even experienced Western cooks don't know the difference between one Chinese cabbage and another or what to do with red amaranth leaves. Ross describes each vegetable, tells how to store it and use it, offers brief gardening tips for those inclined to grow their own, and includes a recipe or two. Beautiful full-page color photographs make identification of these exotic marketplace items easy. Ken Homs's Asian Ingredients (LJ 2/15/96) includes some vegetables, but Ross's cookbook/reference covers many more. Highly recommended.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Excellent book; should have more of other Asian/Chinese veg
This is a beautifully crafted book with wonderful photographs. It's an excellent book even for Chinese. My only complaint is that I wish Lo San would have included more vegetables in her book. There are a lot more other Chinese vegetables she hasn't included. Some of those absent are from the fungi family (if that's a vegetable!) and other Chinese green leafy/root vegetable.

Beautifully presented and informative
This book is a great introduction to Asian vegetables. The photographs are very useful and the general presentation is very good. Information is given as to how to prepare and cook with these vegetables, and there are many recipes to that effect. My only disappointment was that there weren't more vegetarian recipes, although many are adaptable.

Good Vegetable Guide
I bought this book after I left school and had to start cooking on my own. As an ABC, the first time I went to an Asian grocery store was very intimidating; my first impression of the vegetable aisle was a huge wall of leafy greens. Although, I haven't tried any of the recipes, I find the book useful for identification, storage and preparation of the vegetables. More importantly, each page includes a picture and the name of the vegetable in English and Chinese (both character and the popular English phonetic name
form - usually Mandarin and Cantonese pronunciations).