• StokeySue on November 06, 2021

  I'm a lot less impressed by this book than I expected to be, I assumed it would be mainly Chinese food, as it is written by Ching-He Huang, and so I would have most of the ingredients as I cook a lot of Fuchsia Dunlop’s recipes. but it is genuinely pan-Asian, which is of course positive in many ways, but means you need to have Chinese ingredients AND Japanese AND Korean. For example, she uses sake, not Shaoxing as her cooking wine even in recipes not obviously Japanese. As most of the recipes require a dozen or more ingredients, it doesn't feel very "everyday" and it is quite hard to cut down recipes to 1 or 2 portions. I also find her use of golden syrup as the main sweetener odd, and she doesn’t explain this anywhere that I have found. There’s also a lot of smoked tofu which I’m not mad about personally. The dishes I have cooked have been fine, but it’s never going to be a go-to book for me.

Notes about Recipes in this book

• Hunan-style crispy sweet chilli mushroom & noodle salad

  • erin3107 on July 18, 2023

    this was really yummy! I just made it cause I wanted a cold meal since the weather was so hot, didn't expect it to be this good but the mushrooms were awesome

• Miso-roasted cauliflower with chickpea, carrot & noodle salad

  • imaluckyducky on December 24, 2021

    4 stars for the cauliflower alone, as that's all I made as a component before dinner became cursed. Will definitely make again in its complete form.

  • crandall57 on September 05, 2025

    We really enjoyed this dish. It was easy to cut in half for two people and easy to put together. We'll make this one again.

• Minced soy & French bean stir-fry

  • Karine.1 on July 19, 2023

    No need for soy mince. Increase cashews. Tasty, quick and easy

• Black bean tofu & baby pak choi

  • erin3107 on February 14, 2023

    wasn't bad but probably won't make again

• Red-cooked smoked tofu, aubergine & potato stew

  • Astrid5555 on February 24, 2025

    Did this meet the objective of using up some smoked tofu, eggplant and potatoes - definitely yes. Would I make it again - definitely no! The whole Szechuan peppercorns created an unpleasant mouthfeel, and overall this was definitely nothing special!

  • alexlikescookbooks on March 17, 2025

    I subbed in tempeh instead of smoked tofu, and ground szechuan peppercorns rather than whole peppercorns, but worked great. I can see totally see how whole peppercorns in the broth wouldn't be fun!

• Shredded seitan 'duck' fried rice

  • erin3107 on February 14, 2023

    This was pretty good! I cut a few corners by using linda mccartney shredded duck, peppers instead of cabbage, mirin instead of rice wine etc as I was mainly making this recipe to use up some stuff in the fridge

• Spicy Korean courgette & tofu stew

  • alexlikescookbooks on August 31, 2023

    Needed a bit more seasoning so added some soy sauce - as well as some chickpeas because why not :)