Maangchi's Real Korean Cooking

March 2, 2015
Born and raised in South Korea and now living in New York City, Maangchi is the founder of a popular Korean cooking website. In this delightful collection, she showcases the variety and breadth of Korean cooking. She begins by detailing typical Korean meals, with ever-present rice and kimchi served in a multitude of ways. She also provides comprehensive ingredient and equipment lists that help orient first timers. Recipes start with numerous types of rice—fluffy, toasted, multigrain—that serve as the building blocks of Korean-style curry rice, seaweed rice rolls, and bibimbap. Maangchi also offers an appetizing selection of noodles, including spicy, chewy cold noodles and noodles with black bean paste. Soups and stews, two of the cornerstones of Korean cuisine, are amply represented by dishes like spicy beef and vegetable soup, seafood stew, and kimchi stew with tuna. She dedicates one chapter to kimchi and pickles and another to snacks, with offerings such as spicy stuffed cucumber kimchi and fried kelp. Side dishes steal the show, including braised beef in soy sauce, stir-fried kale with soybean paste, blanched spinach with scallions and sesame, and stir-fried pork. In addition, she provides chapters on pancakes,
special-occasion food, desserts, and more. Maangchi has written an essential cookbook for anyone who wants to learn to prepare authentic Korean cuisine.

March 15, 2015

Home cook and YouTube star Maangchi ("hammer" in Korean), who left a job in family counseling to work full-time on maangchi.com, wants to introduce Korean cuisine to a wider audience. She first explains the structure and etiquette of a traditional Korean meal then provides an illustrated ingredient glossary and an equipment list. Chapters dedicated to rice, noodles, soups, kimchi, snacks, and more, offer readers straightforward instructions for recipes such as pollock pancakes, cold jellyfish salad, bulgogi, and spicy rice cakes. Maangchi includes sidebars that describe cooking techniques, answer reader questions, and comment on Korean food culture. VERDICT Like Robert Danhi's Easy Thai Cooking and Bee Yin Low's Easy Chinese Recipes, this encouraging and instructional cookbook demystifies Asian home cooking. First-timers to Korean restaurants and grocery stores will be grateful for Maangchi's introductory chapters.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2015
When Korean food first appeared on American shores, restaurant critics tended to describe it as Chinese cooking with a lot of beef. While there is still some truth to that assessment, good Korean cooking offers a much more nuanced and sophisticated tradition. And Korean fried chicken has suddenly become the go-to carryout food in American cities. Maangchi has earned an Internet following for her Korean cooking videos, and she carries forward her precise directions this time in print. Bibimbap, bulgogi, galbi, and other specialties appear here, as well as iconic kimchi in all its various pungent and delicious guises. Some dishes, such as her beef rolls wrapped around delicate enoki mushrooms, may serve as delightful appetizers at any cocktail party. Korean cooking's increasing popularity will generate demand for this title, and for those who don't live near a Korean market, Maangchi offers a list of mail sources.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)