More favourite cookbooks...

Since we are on the topic, I thought I'd mention what is probably my favourite Chinese cookbook. I say probably as these things can be a bit fluid - I've got more than a few cookbooks lying around and so tend to shift loyalties a bit as cookbooks move into and out of favour. A sign that it's a real gem though is that I always come back to it.

That's what happened this weekend when faced with a pork loin that I had defrosted but had no solid plans for. I re-discovered 'The Breath of a Wok', a book I have turned to time and again for simple but interesting Chinese dishes. The book focuses on 'wok hay', which is a cantonese expression and, if I understand it correctly, is the secret something that a well-seasoned, well-used and well-loved wok can impart to a dish. There are lots of instructions and anecdotes along the way - indeed the first 50-odd pages of the book detail the selection, seasoning and care of a 'proper' wok in great detail before turning to a large section on stir-frying and a section on other cooking techniques at which a wok can excel such as steaming, smoking, braising, etc.

Each chapter starts with an introduction of several pages and each recipe has an introductory paragraph. These are always my favourite cookbooks as I love these stories about food and family - especially when they come from a culture that is not my own. I love the photos as well - they reflect cooking techniques, completed dishes, family members and famous guests such as author Amy Tan.

So what did I make on Sunday? Stir fried pork with scallions (green onions on this side of the Atlantic) - super simple, no unusual ingredients (assuming you have the basics of Chinese cooking in your pantry such as soy sauce, sesame oil and either rice wine or an adequate substitute - I use dry fino sherry) and perfect. The only change I made is to toss in a bit of extra chicken stock and corn flour to increase the amount of sauce - but, as I've been told by my other half, Sunday is a day for gravy!

P.S. I've gone the 'proper' wok route before and there are many rewards to be had for the love and care invested in a good wok - however, I tend to use either a Le Cresuet cast iron wok or a non-stick'wok-style' pan and am perfectly happy with the results - at least until I can replace the ceramic hob in the kitchen we inherited in a our current flat!

Vegetarian Cookbooks

One of my favourite things to buy is cookbooks. I don't necessarily use each one often, and I rarely follow recipes to the letter, but I love having the books to refer to, even when it's one I was slightly disappointed by after I'd bought it.

I use meat cookbooks as well as vegetarian ones, as I can often just substitute the meat ingredient with Quorn or tofu. This works particularly well with certain ethnic foods, where the recipe isn't so reliant on the natural flavours of meat. Some are even more useful to me than actual vegetarian cookbooks. For example, I have Simon Hopkinson's The Vegetarian Option, and though it's lovely and I really like the way it's organised (grouped by ingredient rather than course), it's often far too fancy and involved for my humble ambitions.

By far the best vegetarian cookbooks in my collection are Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone and Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian (a gift from my sister who accidentally bought 2 copies). They are both visually sparse (Madison's contains some photos but Bittman's is pretty much just text), they are packed full of simple, straight forward cooking and advice, and are equally appropriate for those new to vegetarian cooking as old hands. MBK has given me a copy of Madison's Greens Cookbook, which I haven't had a chance to really sink my teeth into (so to speak).

I tried getting Heidi Swanson's cookbook, Super Natural Cooking, but it was out of stock at Amazon for so long I cancelled my order. Now she's working on a new one, so my interest is piqued again, but her blog is so good, I tend to rely on that quite a bit. Through her blog, I came across Bryant Terry's Vegan Soul Kitchen, which I love for many reasons, not least because of the fact that it has multiple recipes for Hoppin' John, a dish I grew up with (due to my Texan father's influence probably), and find very comforting.

And last, but not least, I love Denis Cotter's Wild Garlic, Gooseberries and Me. I can only dream of having access to some of the amazing produce he talks about, but now that we have a Waitrose on Byres Road, at least I can have Cavolo Nero, which is one of the key ingredients in the rich butternut squash mole recipe in the book. This mole is so good - I made it for Thanksgiving last year and I think everyone who came is going to probably buy the book on the strength of that single recipe. We had it with cornbread stuffing on the side, and the combination was perfect.