My Rice Bowl

September 1, 2017
Korean cooking, for years one of the least-known and least-appreciated Asian cuisines, now enjoys great vogue in America. One of the major reasons for its popularity is its adaptability and its lack of rigid rules. Contemporary chefs have found ways to appropriate Mexican ingredients and techniques in a host of Korean taco joints and like-minded eateries. Gochujang, fermented Korean chili paste, now appears in supermarkets alongside soy sauce. Yang brings this culinary fusion to full flower, as she demonstrates in this unique cookbook. Her fried chicken begins with buttermilk marinade but upends the rest of southern tradition by tossing in curry, fish sauce, ginger, and garlic. After emerging from the fryer, the chicken earns a crown of chopped peanut brittle, restoring in a way this fried chicken's southern roots. Yang's shrimp and pork dumplings get an extra kick of umami from bacon. An adventuresome cook will discover plenty of imagination and novelty here.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)