The Wok: Recipes and Techniques
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- €25.99
Publisher Description
#1 New York Times Bestseller • #1 Washington Post Bestseller • Winner of the 2023 James Beard Award for Single Subject Cookbooks • One of Time's 10 Most Anticipated Cookbooks of 2022
One of NPR's Books We Love in 2022 • A Bon Appétit, Tasting Table, Vice, Here & Now, Publishers Weekly, and Inside Hook Best Cookbook of 2022
From J. Kenji López-Alt, the author of the best-selling cookbook The Food Lab: the definitive guide to the science and technique of cooking in a wok.
J. Kenji López-Alt’s debut cookbook, The Food Lab, revolutionized home cooking, selling more than half a million copies with its science-based approach to everyday foods. And for fast, fresh cooking for his family, there’s one pan López-Alt reaches for more than any other: the wok.
Whether stir-frying, deep frying, steaming, simmering, or braising, the wok is the most versatile pan in the kitchen. Once you master the basics—the mechanics of a stir-fry, and how to get smoky wok hei at home—you’re ready to cook home-style and restaurant-style dishes from across Asia and the United States, including Kung Pao Chicken, Pad Thai, and San Francisco–Style Garlic Noodles. López-Alt also breaks down the science behind beloved Beef Chow Fun, fried rice, dumplings, tempura vegetables or seafood, and dashi-simmered dishes.
Featuring more than 200 recipes—including simple no-cook sides—explanations of knife skills and how to stock a pantry, and more than 1,000 color photographs, The Wok provides endless ideas for brightening up dinner.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The intricacies of wok culture are brilliantly explored in this definitive offering from chef and New York Times cooking columnist López-Alt (The Food Lab). While the more than 200 recipes are nothing to scoff at, what makes this a stunner is the extensive coverage of cooking techniques and culinary history. López-Alt dispenses advice on purchasing the right supplies ("Get yourself a 14-inch, flat-bottomed, carbon steel wok"); offers an array of useful tips, such as how to stir-fry on an electric burner; and even parses the effects of condensation on food when it is tossed in steamy air. Thus armed, the home cook can whip up dishes like moo shu mushrooms or slippery egg with beef. Subsequent chapters dig into rice bowls (among them gyudon, with its toppings of shaved beef rib and poached egg); serve up noodles hot, cold, and stir-fried; and provide scores of fried and braised options. Along the way, q&a's and sidebars help answer common questions—including whether or not MSG is bad (in moderation, it's fine)—and step-by-step photos make easy work of more complicated tasks, such as making ultrathin Mandarin pancakes two at a time. López-Alt's conversational prose never fails to entertain, even when detailing how the alkaline properties of baking soda are "the secret to plumper, snappier shrimp." Readers will be cooking with gas thanks to this fiery and insightful work.
