No. 2: Cooking through To Asia With Love by Hetty McKinnon
Film photography, Instacart orders, and not-too-sweet desserts
Hi friends! Happy last day of January!
Today we’re talking about To Asia With Love by Hetty McKinnon, the inaugural book in my Books to Cook project. If you’ve been following along on social media, you’ll know I’ve made ten recipes from the book this month, mostly with success, which I get into below in more detail. But first, a little bit about the book.
The High-Level:
To Asia With Love is a vegetarian cookbook of “everyday Asian recipes” by Hetty McKinnon, a Chinese Australian cook currently based in Brooklyn. The book offers a nice range of recipes, including breakfasts, noodles, rice dishes, veggies, salads, desserts, and more. It’s Hetty’s fourth and bestselling cookbook; her fifth, Tenderheart, is already out in Australia and comes out stateside this spring.
One Random Thing I Love:
TAWL’s pages are filled with beautiful film photography taken by Hetty in her Brooklyn home. At the beginning of the book, she notes that she’s not a professional photographer, but wanted to take the photos herself to ensure a homespun, nostalgic quality, which comes through in spades. The soft, romantic effect of film photography, combined with Hetty’s lovely storytelling, makes this cookbook feel so cozy and inviting.
The Recipes:
A trove of super doable, flavorful recipes, this cookbook is sure to be a mainstay in our kitchen. Most of these recipes are easy-peasy—the Cacio e Pepe Udon Noodles, the Miso Oats—and require only basic ingredients you can find at any grocery store*. There are some project cooks (dumplings), but there’s often a shortcut for those (use store-bought wrappers and just make the filling). Amateur cooks will appreciate the accessibility of these recipes, and expert cooks will find inspiration in Hetty’s creative spins—there’s something here for everyone.
*A quick process tip: I often sit down with a cookbook on Sunday morning and create an Instacart order for the week based on specific recipes and what I already have in my fridge/pantry. Instacart allows you to place a single order from multiple stores, which is helpful if you need specialty ingredients. For this book, I’d place an order from Whole Foods, and then if Whole Foods didn’t have vegan kimchi or somen or Chinese broccoli, I’d add a stop at our local Asian grocer. Although Instacart costs a little extra, I think it’s worth it if you can place one big order for the week. It saves so much time, especially if you think you might need to go to multiple stores in search of ingredients.
Here are the ten recipes I tried this month, in order of what I’m most to least likely to make again, with notes:
Sheet Pan Chow Mein: I had made this recipe before, and will 100% make again. It’s a staple in our house because it’s so simple and delicious and offers a great way to use up all those veggies lingering in your fridge. Because you boil then roast the noodles, there’s a delightful mix of soft and crunchy textures. When I make this, I don’t use the salt as called for, as I find the soy sauce mixture to be plenty salty. Add salt and it becomes a sodium bomb.
Cacio e Pepe Udon Noodles: I LOVE cacio e pepe. If I was going to die tomorrow, I would eat it as my last meal. This recipe did not disappoint. The addition of miso gives it a unique savory flavor and it was probably the easiest recipe I tried—just 6 ingredients! Perfect on a cold and rainy night.
Bánh Mì Salad: 5 stars! This recipe is so creative, with lots of bright, acidic flavors, and an interesting mix of textures. It’s a perfect salad to meal prep for weekday lunches—just store all the components separately and assemble before serving.
Miso Oats with Egg and Avocado: This was Andrew’s favorite recipe of the month. It’s a savory, comforting, belly-filling meal that combines two breakfast classics: oats and eggs. And let’s be real, an egg on top makes anything better.
Green Potato Salad: The green sauce on these taters is bomb. The dish is bright and punchy, and the green color is very attractive. Would be so good alongside a steak, or as part of a “dab salad” lunch. (I recently learned this term and love it—the idea of a meal made up of various kinds of salads, “a dab of this, a dab of that,” like pasta, potato, green, fruit, etc.)
Condensed Milk French Toast: A real treat. I used a brioche loaf, which I highly recommend. I don’t think it would have been as successful with a sturdier white bread. Next time, I’d add a little more sweetened condensed milk than the recipe calls for, and press the sandwich while it’s in the pan to ensure the bread soaks up all that goodness. Serve with eggs and bacon and berries for the brunch of my dreams.
Roasted Roots with Chile-Oat Crisp: I was so excited to make chile crisp (a.k.a. the condiment to rival all condiments) from scratch, and I was happy to discover that it is incredibly easy. (You basically just put a bunch of spices and aromatics in a pot with oil, simmer, then cool and store.) The oats didn’t get as crispy as I’d hoped, perhaps because I didn’t cook them for long enough on the stovetop, so just make sure they’re nice and toasty before you take off the heat. We have lots of chile crisp leftover—a big win—and we’ve been using it on veg, eggs, chicken, noods, steak-rice bowls, you name it.
Dumplings: This was a fun project cook, though the end result wasn’t as successful as some of the other recipes I tried, solely due to my inexperience. The way I folded the dumpling seams created some doughy bites in the end. I’ll make these again with friends or as a rainy day activity, but otherwise I’ll buy store-bought wrappers and just make the fillings from scratch.
Flourless Soy Sauce Brownies: I mean, brownies are brownies, there’s nothing not to like. These were good; they have a pleasing toothsome texture from the almond flour and they’re pretty fudgy, if you like that. Just not the best brownies I’ve ever had… (Still searching for the best-ever brownie recipe, lmk if you’ve found that pot of gold!)
Sesame Banana Loaf: Although this loaf looked very pretty, it wasn’t sweet enough for my taste. (In the dessert chapter opener, Hetty says: “In Chinese culture, sweetness is enjoyed, but always with restraint.” Her family’s highest compliment of a dessert is if it’s “not too sweet.”) There is a small amount of brown sugar in this recipe, plus the natural sugar from the bananas. It wasn’t enough for me and my sweet tooth. I also didn’t mash the bananas enough, so there were some too-big chunks throughout the batter. The sliced banana on top looked attractive, but it got moldy quickly, after about two days. I liked the toothy crunch from the sesame seeds.
And here are five more recipes in the book that I didn’t get to this month but am eager to try:
Red Curry Laksa Noodle Soup
Mushroom and Kimchi “Sausage Rolls”
Roasted Brussel Sprouts, Chickpeas, and Edamame with Ginger-Scallion Oil
An Ode to Chang’s Crispy Noodle Salad
Orange Chiffon Cake
That’s a wrap on To Asia With Love—let me know if you buy the book and try any of these recipes, I’d love to hear your take!
Tomorrow marks the start of a new month and thus a new cooking adventure! We’ll be testing recipes from ...drumroll please… Home is Where the Eggs Are by Molly Yeh. Hurrah! I’ve never made her recipes or watched her show, and I’m curious to know what all the fuss is about. So, expect hotdishes, farm life, and a little Midwestern charm in February. :)
Thanks for reading!
Claire
Im really enjoying reading all of these