Thursday, September 19, 2024
Welcome to “Cookbook of the Week.” This is a series where I highlight cookbooks that are unique, easy to use, or just special to me. While finding a particular recipe online serves a quick purpose, flipping through a truly excellent cookbook has a magic all its own.
This week’s pick is from a Chinese American family’s blog that, over the years, I’ve found myself visiting regularly. Not just for their dynamic and reliable recipes but for tips on tools and culture points, too. Perhaps you’ve visited The Woks of Life website a few times yourself—if so, it’ll come as no big surprise that their eponymous cookbook is a savory, crunchy, saucy slam dunk.
I remember using their recipe for scallion pancakes (what feels like a million) years ago. My new boyfriend at the time was obsessed with scallion pancakes so I figured this would be a fun cooking project. I’d used different recipes in the past which were more of a Shanghai style, including a fair bit of swirling and rolling, but not these. They made something that could be intimidating seem accessible, and the results didn’t lie. The finished pancakes were flaky, crisp, and packed with the flavorful green rings. (Carmine is no longer a new boyfriend, but he still loves these chewy treats.)
Since then, I’ve tried more of their recipes and even shared their hacks with you all here on Lifehacker. It’s the kind of cooking and recipe writing that I think is important for most home cooks—approachable, but you’ll always walk away having learned something. Finally, in 2022 they published their cookbook, and it’s time to bless your kitchens with it.
A bit about the book
The Woks of Life is, at its core, a family cookbook. The website started as a way to record their family history and in the cookbook you can feel how committed they are to each other, their past, and the new recipes to come. Each person—Bill, Judy, Sarah, and Kaitlin—has a voice in the book which I think is a playful and personal way they tell their recipes like stories. I can imagine what it’s like cooking in the kitchen with the four of them.
As far as the recipe focus goes, this is a Chinese American cookbook. It’s right up my alley because I love Chinese American food, and the cookbook does a thorough job of incorporating traditional dishes with takeout dishes and new first-generation recipes that the two daughters have engineered.
A great cookbook for the cook in a rut
I don’t think it matters if you’re a home cook or a long time chef, everyone gets stuck sometimes. You find yourself reaching for the same seasonings, making the same sauce, using the same recipes, and after a while you’re no longer excited for meal time. Potentially worse, your family complains, or you’re met with one too many eye rolls at the table.
The Woks of Life cookbook is a nice reminder of recipe possibilities. I found myself being encouraged by the sauce chapter; remembering that not every sauce has to be tomato, roux-based, or straight-up soy sauce. You’ll find a lot of reminders in this book.
There are loads of recipes with flavors or ingredients you may have never thought to use or sidelined for no particular reason, plus new methods to add to your repertoire. I was reminded of a few classic Thai combinations that are so simple and so robust, I wondered why I had stopped doing them. I think that even someone with Chinese American heritage could flip through this book and see a dish they’ve long loved, or something they’ve been meaning to try.
The recipes you can expect
The chapters are organized by categories or main ingredients, like dim sum, noodles, vegetables and tofu, sauces, and others. The book includes small sections of their family history and parts where one writer takes over with their own family anecdote. (I particularly enjoyed one section where Kaitlin talks about being a food blogger who can’t follow a recipe.)
Each recipe includes a manageable ingredient list, with mostly accessible ingredients and a few that you may have to grab at an Asian grocery store. It’s normally a sauce ingredient, like shaoxing wine or Chinese black vinegar, but the bottles last a long time and it’s worth the trip. Many of the recipes pack quite a bit of text onto the page, so it’s hard to read at times. I’d encourage you to read the page thoroughly before you even go shopping so you know how to manage your time and consider any substitution possibilities.
The recipe I chose this week
As I was picking a recipe to cook this week, I was incredibly torn between the hand-shredded chicken, lazy veggie noodles, and steamed eggs with chicken and oyster mushrooms. I have a feeling that’s a common sensation every time you pick up this book. I settled on the hand-shredded chicken for a few reasons: I was hungry and it is a fast recipe, it’s a chicken-packed crowd pleaser, and the picture of mounded chicken shreds, red onion strips, and pops of cilantro makes it look rather irresistible.
The very first step is poaching the chicken in a bath that is lightly seasoned with a few hunks of fresh ginger and a scallion. Folks. I took off the lid just before I even added the chicken and the aroma of ginger and scallion sent me home to my mom’s house. Such a simple combination. So easy to do. Why aren’t I doing this more?
The dish comes together with a simple sauce made of minced ginger, garlic, scallion, and sliced Thai chili peppers that are flash cooked when you pour hot oil over them. A few more ingredients are mixed in for seasoning, and you dress the entire dish with this absolute flavor-bomb of a sauce. This recipe is getting a bookmark.
How to buy it
You can buy The Woks of Life cookbook from real life book stores, or jump online and find it at a number of retailers used or new. The best price for a new copy that I’m seeing at this moment (but that could change) is here at Target for about $19. It’s a wonderful cookbook with recipes, flavors, transferable concepts, and sweet family stories well worth the price. I can’t wait to cook from it again.
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