These Are The Best Vietnamese Cookbook

There is not a single recipe in this book that I would not enjoy making. And this cook book--surprisingly and delightfully--is quite a "page-turner"!

Quite the statements, but they are true. Andrea Nguyen's Viet spirit, her vast experience, her pragmatism, and her reasonable and logical way of doing things come shining through in this, her newest cook book. She is a real star in my opinion.

What's really special about this book: This author has an acute awareness of what's available in our "normal" American grocery stores and the appliances, counter and pantry space in the "normal" American kitchen. How was she able to so successfully transfer this awareness to her recipes? She paid close attention to her mother's cooking back in the mid-1970's when the family arrived in the US as refugees. No familiar Vietnamese foodstuffs to be found in the neighborhood grocery stores back then, so Vietnamese families adapted American ingredients to mimic what they had been used to in their homeland--a good example of practicality and perseverance and strength of spirit.

So, these recipes are unique, distinct and extraordinary: There is not a single ingredient in this Vienamese cook book that can't be found in any all purpose, good-sized neighborhood grocery store. (Well, finding lemongrass might cause you some extra effort, but not much.....and there is always lemongrass paste.)

Not only are these recipes mouthwatering, they are fairly easy to accomplish and master. Give me a recipe that tastes great and is quick and easy to make, and I will gladly embrace it. Make them recipes with the Vietnamese flare for balancing flavors and textures, and that's even better.

Andrea Nguyen, (last name pronounced "Win") is a fine teacher. She writes with a personable style and has so much worthwhile information to share, that there's no way you'll come away from your first read-through of this book without more knowledge and experience under your belt. And with her thorough explanations, I can't see any recipe failing for you.

After a chapter of essential ingredients and strategic shopping advice, (including some brand recommendations), comes a chapter of basic recipes. I am no longer leery of making Vietnamese caramel sauce--easy-peasy. And there are recipes for making your own basic dipping and chili sauces, and pomegranate molasses. (Her way of showing us that we don't need to rely on Asian condiments from the store shelves.)

After a chapter of uncomplicated snack recipes, comes a soup chapter. And if you are familiar with Nguyen's Pho cook book, you would know to expect the soup recipes in this book to be stellar--and they are.--all ten of them! There are helpful tips on the best store shelf stocks, and how to build a sweet note into a broth.

My favorite chapter is Chicken and Seafood: There are a handful of chicken thigh and shrimp recipes that I could live on...... There are plenty of great recipes in the Pork and Beef chapter, too.

The eleven salad and veggie recipes have me wishing for more. And really, with all the substitutions and suggestions, there are more--plenty more! And adding--even just a few--of the rice and noodle recipes to your repertoire will have all those sitting around your table praising you with big grins on their faces.

Nguyen is very generous with her tips--and they are so valuable, useful, spot-on. Some examples: Why muslin is better than cheesecloth; the difference between cane and beet sugar when caramelizing; the richest coconut milk; how to prevent noodles from sticking together after draining. And there are how-to instructions: For working with lettuces and herbs, working with rice paper, how to cut into matchsticks, and how to buy, prep and store lemongrass, and many more.

And there are plenty of tips on substitutions for creating vegetarian and vegan dishes, plus notes, for instance, on which tempeh has the most umami. And there is an entire chapter on eggs, tofu and tempeh.

Nguyen also offers alternative cooking techniques, by incorporating instructions for pressure cooking and working with a multi-cooker, and providing substitutions for utensils that we might not have.

Here is another thought: If you have Charles Phan cookbooks, and love them, but don't use them much, you will love this cook book even more. In fact, what you learn in this book will help get you back in touch with Phan's books.

Four-color pictures are well done, (but there is not a picture for each recipe). Index is sufficient. Type style, size and black ink, plus a well-designed page layout, all contribute to easy reading. After all, this is a Ten Speed Press publication and they are masters of the art of producing great cook books. Definitely take a browse through the "Look Inside" feature on this product page. If my review has not convinced you this is a wonderful book, maybe that feature can sway you one way or the other.

I bought this book as a pre-order. I recognize this author's name and her reputation, so it was no huge leap of faith that made me hit the buy button the day I first saw it advertised. I looked back to see when I purchased Nguyen's Pho cook book, and I was kind of surprised to see it was almost exactly two years ago that I bought it and reviewed it.

Hands down, one of our favorite cookbooks in our collection. This book captures all of the best traits of Vietnamese cuisine - simple, flavorful and fresh. Yet, the dishes feel more "elevated" without being complicated or unapproachable.
This is a great book for both the accomplished cook as well as someone with more modest skills - perhaps looking for an introduction to Vietnamese recipes. We featured this cookbook on our food blog. Here are the dishes we chose:
•Char Siu Chicken Banh Mi with Pickled Vegetables - We love banh mi! Special guest appearance by sriracha mayo! Why go out for it when you can make it at home?
•Cauliflower “Wings” and Chili Garlic Chicken Wings - Baking the wings certainly makes for a healthier dish. These were both tasty and accompanied each other perfectly for a dinner.
•Vietnamese Coffee - We love iced coffee, who doesn’t? However, some days you need a bit of razzle dazzle. Vietnamese coffee fits the bill perfectly!
•Spicy Sweet Pomegranate Tofu - The sweetness and heat with a hint of tartness was such a great flavor combination!
•No-Churn Vietnamese Coffee Ice Cream - We were nay sayers on the idea of no-churn ice creams. We figured it would be grainy and crystallized. We gave this no-churn Vietnamese coffee ice cream a try. So. Good. It was light and creamy. Color us impressed!
•Vietnamese Empanadas - These little packets of goodness are Vietnamese empanadas. We made these for a dinner party, and wound up with extra filling. The next day we picked up some frozen empanada wrappers to make a quick dinner. The wrappers must have been thawed and refrozen at some point, because they all stuck together. Pasta maker to the rescue! We saved the wrappers by rolling them and re-cutting them. The meal was saved!

Joan aka southerncooker here once again on hub's account. I ordered this book to join in a cookbook club and so glad I did. I've always wanted to try making Vietnamese food at home but was afraid I wouldn't be able to find ingredients. The author gives you choices for alternate ingredients for those that might be hard to find. The recipes are mostly quick and she talks you through making them. I've made a few so far and they have been great. The Vietnamese Coffee Ice Cream is worth the price of the book alone. I love Vietnamese iced coffee and have been making it for several years, her recipe in the book is very similar. That coffee Ice Cream has many of those same flavors and is so easy to make and tastes like it was made in an ice cream maker although it is made in your freezer.

Inspired by my trip to Vietnam, I was determined to cook Vietnamese food that taste the way it did there. This is not the most traditional book, but the recipes are delicious nonetheless, retaining the traditional flavor profile. I've probably cooked 70% of the recipes in the book at this point and all but one turned out great. Plenty of photos and good explanations.

Much better than The Slanted Door. He really shares little tips and does a good job at explaining the "why." It doesn't look as nice as The Slanted Door, but the content is much better. I give this a 5 and The Slanted Door a 3.

This is the only cook book I like to much that I actually brought it in the bedroom to read before bedtime.
I am Vietnamese but doesn't know how to cook Vietnamese dishes right as my family pampered me so bad that I didn't have to cook anything until I got married.
I kept wondering why the Vietnamese dishes never tasted right so I got this book.
It taught me the correct technique, or even correct order of steps to make the food taste just right. The recipes were very very easy to understand and follow. I don't have to google every ingredient to know what it is and what it does in the food. This book has all those information.
I am still

I really love this cookbook. So far every recipe I’ve tried has been so delicious and easy to follow. I love eating Vietnamese food and usually only eat it when I visit my mom so this takes me back to my childhood. Best part is working with ingredients that I already have in my pantry to create an authentic meal.

The recipes a re recommended and are fairly easy to follow. The overall theme of the book is to enjoy food and family. This is an excellent resource.
It is interesting to me how some people, like the author, can enjoy food so much without getting fat. I think her emphasis is on serving, and I think healthy food choices are important too. Still it is a bit of a paradox to relish food without adding the excess pounds. Bravo!

Amazing recipes! I made the banh khot, lime-cured beef carpaccio and the mango and chicken salad last weekend. They all turned out super delicious and the directions were very easy to follow. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in delicious food.

While the history of a restaurant (as opposed to the history of the development of a chef) is not my first interest, there is enough information about how relationships with vendors, wines and cocktails to make the background material interesting even if you wish to concentrate on the recipes. Being a fan of San Francisco upper end tea tasting rooms, I loved the stories of pricey tea. The recipes are all easily executed in a home kitchen and use ingredients that are generally obtainable. Compared to other similar cookbooks, I think this executability is at the cost of authenticity if you think "Vietnamese" but at the strength of honest West Coast cooking.

I appreciated the inclusion of common recipes such as Spring Rolls, Cashew Chicken and Green Papaya Salad - nothing spectacular but another view of the flavor profiles. I also appreciated the steamed meat recipes ... we are so used to crisped skin that pale meat genuinely challenges our eyes. My first reaction to the inclusion of many cocktail recipes was "what?" but the section taught me several new details on how to perfect a cocktail. I also appreciated the inclusion of several very simple recipes that can add a nice accent to a meal such as Fried Shishito Peppers. I also appreciated finding new uses for yuba (tofu skin) and sesame rice crackers. In total, several new recipes to try and some potential modifications of old standards makes this a useful cookbook.

The magic in here is overwhelming and behind the curtain is simply Chef Phan. His sophisticated, delicate palate dictates the finest in fusion food. Fusion of what? French, French colonial, American, Thai? I think more a fusion and fission of Charles Phan: his life, family, experience, and most of all, vision. The results and straightforwardness of his cookbook recipes are easy to see and love. I dare you to find otherwise! Bravo, chef! (And I hate exclamation points and people who overuse them, yet here they are. Forgive me or sue me, but enjoy this experience/journey/cooking with Chef Phan.)

I made Shaking Beef last night for dinner and it reminded me just how good this cookbook is. The recipes are very accessible and the ingredients are now easier to come by than ever. When I first bought it, many ingredients were difficult to find outside of specialty food shops, but that is happily no longer the case. Shaking Beef is still one of my family's favorites.

Original Review:
If you've been to The Slanted Door, there are really only two words you need to see if you are considering this book,
and those two words are:
Shaking Beef.

The book is filled with beautiful photos, along with the great recipes that put Charles Phan and his restaurant on everyone's culinary map. At the time of writing this review, there are three recipes to download in the book description area. One of those is for the Spring Rolls. So delicious! The rice paper wrappers are now fairly easy to get in just about every city and these are worth making if you can get them. Plus, it's a good way to try out one of the recipes first.

A lot of the recipes do have ingredients, such as ram rau and banana leaves, that may be difficult for some home cooks to obtain, but there are plenty more recipes here that rely on ingredients that are fairly common or that were once impossible to find, but are no longer. Many of Phan's recipes make use of that amazing umami bomb of an ingredient - fish sauce - which is so versatile that it is worth stocking as a pantry staple. Besides using it for the recipes here, you can try adding a dash of it to Thanksgiving gravy (a la Anthony Bourdain) or stirring a bit into ketchup (a la the Umami Burger burger chain in L.A.) to add some complexity and depth of flavor to both of those things.

I was lucky enough to have found this book on one of those rock-bottom price Kindle deals, but quite honestly, the price of the book is far less than the trip to San Francisco would be to get some of Phan's Shaking Beef. Oh, my goodness.

This book really got me thinking about how impactful cooking and food really are. I've never had a passion for cooking–for me, it has generally always felt like more of a chore than something to enjoy (which I also carried some guilt about). But since I received this book, I've been cooking A LOT. All are recipes I've never tried and I'm learning about technique. It's been fun, empowering, and now I understand the magic that comes with cooking. It's a beautiful book filled with amazing food and stories about life, love, and strife. I've never seen a cookbook like it and highly recommend!

Although the colorful pages are a bit too "disco" for my tastes, this is a superb cookery book and I recommend it to you without reservation. I have used mashed canned sardines to add depth of flavor to my cooking for many years. Now I just have to add Red Boat fish sauce...or follow one of the wondrous recipes in this book to new tastes and new lands. No, I'm not a Red Boat employee ... just a 74 years old foodie who has traveled and eaten around the world and somehow never left Asia (with a detour or two to France). In brief, I doff my own proverbial hat to the Red Hat folks and thank them for this compendium of recipes complete with really good directions. Bravo!!

I really love this cookbook. The section on the dipping sauce alone is worth the money. LoL...when you flip through the pages, all the graphics, pics, colors, recipes just jump at you all at once. It’s a loud book if that makes sense and I actually love it! The content is solid.

I bought this as a gift for one of my sons, along with a bottle of Red Boat Fish Sauce. he and his wife are both excellent cooks who love ethnic foods of all kinds, and enjoy experimenting with new foods. He uses fish sauce in Asian recipes anyway, but had never tried this one, or heard of the book. He just got it yesterday, so hasn't had a chance to use the book or the sauce yet, but is looking forward to doing so.

I am loving this book! I’m Vietnamese, & this is definitely authentic recipes of Vietman. Of course- different regions of Vietnam will make it slightly different, but the basic is pretty much exactly the same.. I have made the banh mi (the meat, radishes, & the butter), & I have also made the banh xeo. If there is any fixing- it would be very minor depending on your taste buds..

As I go through more dishes- I will update this review!

There is only one main complaint I have, & that is there are NO PICTURES of any of the dishes except for the banh mi. So, if you’re not familiar with the names of dishes- you would be out of luck unless you can try to search the photo on the internet!

Update 8/30/17: tried the Braised Baby Back Ribs (see photo). Was delicious! My husband killed it! I did down the black pepper to 1/2 tsp cause my kids can’t handle the spice. I also left it as a whole piece of ribs instead of chopping it into 1 1/2” pieces. But worked pratically the same & taste delicious!

I loved reading this book. It taught me so much more than just great recipes. Linh starts off the book with a bit about her and the culture she grew up in, teaching some Vietnamese words as she tells her story. She talks about her life as well as the lives of her parents and grandparents, especially to demonstrate the importance of specific foods like rice. Then she shares something I greatly appreciate: lists and details about the common ingredients and tools you will need to cook the recipes in her book. Again, teaching but also laying the foundation for the reader. That's the part that hooked me.
Each recipe section of the book comes with very easy to follow recipes, a brief history or personal stories about the dish, and some of the words also in Vietnamese (which helps when shopping Asian markets and ordering off a menu). The best part is that the extras do not distract from or clutter the recipe space. It's all separated and easy to read each part.
I was looking for a good source for Vietnamese cuisine since I discovered my sensitive stomach tolerated it well and never caused a flare up (UC). I'd only eaten it at restaurants and wanted to try making some of the dishes at home with a plan to eventually try a month long challenge. My hope was that in changing my diet to 100% Vietnamese for at least 20 days (up to 6mo) it would help heal my gut so reactions to food are less often or, hopefully, the new cells would would be strong enough to tolerate healthy foods I used to eat like beans, kale, cauliflower, chocolate, etc. Other considerations were Mediterranean, Korean, vegan, and even just elemental as these have been proven to help heal the body as a whole. So, as you can see, I was very interested in finding a good source for the most tolerated food I've had.
I am very thankful for this book and all its delicious recipes! Plenty of variety for summer and winter meal plans. You won't regret adding this to your collection.

While not the glossiest of cookbooks which seems to be just a modern trend anyway, this incredibly useful reference to completely authentic Vietnamese is a must have if you are interested in this cuisine, and even if you have no experience of Vietnamese cooking you will find that the style of the food is always healthy and nutritious. The recipes are easy to follow with tips on how to source ingredients if you are not living in Viet Nam, and the book has charming anecdotes of the author's life growing up with her extended family in rural Viet Nam. And it is extraordinary value for money. If you love Vietnamese food, or you're an avid cook, you must have it.

Wonderful cookbook! The writing, photos, and organization are top-notch. Overall, working with the "Handbook" is like having a friend teaching and helping out in the kitchen. As noted in the first review, the book is about way more than just sandwiches - some history, family stories, the hunt for perfect bahn mi bread, and best of all, new ways of thinking about food. Ms Nguyen breaks down the delicious bahn mi sandwich into simple elements - crunch of the crust, softness of the crumb, a bit of fat, a umami blast, unctuous fillings, cool and crisp veggie toppings - in a way that I was able to carry over into my other cooking. I was thinking of her meatball bahn mi as I tweaked my usual spaghetti with meatballs recipe for dinner last night - adding finely chopped cilantro stems to the meat, coating the meatballs with panko, and a dash of anchovy paste to the sauce. I bring this up to show how this is a little book that makes one's culinary imagination take flight, as a great cookbook should.

More down-to-earth, Ms Nguyen also gives myriad little kitchen hints that I found immediately useful - how to keep cilantro and how to cut it to stay fresh, squeeze quick pickles after salting to get them crisp, how to refresh bread. Not to mention how many of her recipes can be simply transposed onto a bed of rice noodles or lettuce for a delicious meal. If you love to cook, then don't pass up this book!

I'd give this ten stars if I could. I love cookbooks that are readable--not simply lists of recipes. I enjoy curling up on the sofa in front of the fire and opening a cookbook and reading it. The author has done a superb job of interspersing the history of banh mi, the language associated with banh mi, and other cultural details in a well-written (non-info-dumping), entertaining way. Her recipes are flexible, and her tips alone are worth the price of the book (how to keep cilantro fresh--that's worth five stars all by itself!). And if you are just looking for banh mi recipes, and aren't looking for the kind of cookbook you can read simply for the pleasure of reading it, I'm pretty sure you'll give it a glowing review as well--the recipes have clear instructions, easy-to-find ingredients, and plenty of options for substitutions and flexibility.

If you’re reading this, then you probably already know how delicious banh mi are. If you don’t know, you’ve been missing out. Either way, this cookbook delivers the goods by way of easy, tasty recipes using ingredients you can find in any decently stocked grocery store, (or Amazon of course). I’ve made several of the recipes and they tasted just like the ones I have over and over when I’m in Vietnam, (it’s my fave travel country). Anyone could really make these sandwiches and the instructions are clear and concise. Well worth the purchase.