Quick & Easy Vietnamese: 75 Everyday Recipes

by Nancie McDermott

From the author of the popular Quick & Easy Thai come these 75 oh-so-delicious recipes for every level of cook. Though it shares certain culinary traditions with its Asian neighbors, Vietnamese cuisine is entirely distinct, focusing on a bounty of fresh fruits, vegetables, and herbs for signature clear, bright flavors with contrasting notes of salty, sweet, sour, and spicy. Creamy chicken curry is paired with the zesty tang of lime juice and the heat from ground pepper and chilies. Crisp, fried fish is served with a puree of pineapple-chili sauce. Delicate, rice paperwrapped summer rolls merit a rich and savory soybean dipping sauce. From snacks and soups to grilled meats and seafood to the essential noodle dishes and desserts, Quick & Easy Vietnamese presents the full spectrum of Vietnamese cooking at its most simply delicious.

Genres: Cookbooks, Nonfiction, Food, Cooking, Asian Literature

168 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Gina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Skimmed through. I love Vietnamese food but these required ingredients that you cannot buy in a grocery store. I was not going to take a Saturday to drive 45 minutes to an Asian grocer to get lemongrass that is impossible to cut and all kinds of other special items. Instead, I went with an Indian curry book, 660 Curries, for my cookbook club and am making six recipes with items that are readily available.

[Lynh · Rating 4 out of 5]

So my mom is vietnamese, but that doesn't mean I actually know how to cook any vietnamese food. as a result, my sister got me this book for christmas. sure I could probably read food blogs, but I like having a book on this cuisine. The recipes in here are pretty simple without compromising on flavor and have my childhood favorites like canh chua canh (soup with pineapple and fish (my mom used catfish, this recipe uses salmon, but you can also use chicken or shrimp, and there is also a touch of tamarind for some sweet/sour flavor)
thit ga kho gung - chicken simmered in caramel sauce, and bo luc lac, shaking beef with purple onions and watercress (although the saveur recipe from charles phan is really the best recipe I've found for this).

I feel like once you have some basic pantry staples - rice vinegar, fish sauce, salt, sugar, pepper - you can make a lot of things in this book pretty easily and quickly as well.

One caveat: a lot of different brands of fish sauce have waaay different levels of salt. so just a reminder that if you're not using a high quality brand of fish sauce, taste - don't follow the recipe blindly (that's obviously how it should be every time you cook but is not necessarily so when you're a newbie in the kitchen)

[Rikelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great Asian cookbook by McDermott. I have another Vietnamese cookbook that is authentic but have only made a few items due to the hard to find ingredients and intense time commitment. McDermott creates accessible Vietnamese recipes. She offers authentic ingredients but gives you suggestions for substitutions. For example, she shows you how to make an authentic Vietnamese Caramel Sauce, but then tells you how to make a simpler sauce using an easier technique or she tells you that you can substitute brown sugar. Everything is so easy, delicious and fresh tasting. We've been eating Vietnamese all week and my kids have been cleaning their plates. Some family favorites are Hanoi Pork and Caramel chicken (This was so good and have to make sure I double the recipe next time).

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a cookbook I use at least twice a month. It has lots of tasty recipes that suit our family, excellent instructions and descriptions, plus lots of pictures. The roasted vietnamese chicken is great, and I make a double batch every time, putting the extra marinade and raw chicken in the freezer (in a ziplock) for a very quick meal the second time around. The meatballs I make in large batches (I make meatballs of all kinds!), freezing them cookie sheets for later use in vietnamese soups, grilled, etc. The chicken salad is excellent. So many good things!

[Lori · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was hoping to have some new recipes but I tried 2 dishes and can't stomach to try anymore. I'm open to new food and new flavors and love Asian cooking but fish sauce in chicken soup was horrendous and thread noodles that turned into gummy worms in meatloaf was inedible! I will never try any other recipes in this book again. Yuck!

[Sps]

The only thing I made was the everyday dipping sauce (with one substitution), which was good on minty spring rolls and then had a second life as a tofu marinade. Banana-coconut pudding and roasted eggplant salad also sounded good.

[Charcoal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the recipes in this book looked decent, but I probably wouldn't make most of them. The pictures in the book were average. I like how detailed the recipes are and the variety of food items in the book.