Dok Suni : Recipes From My Mother's Korean Kitchen

Rating:
Summary: hmmm....so so
Review: I love this book! My mother is Korean so I was raised in a Korean and American household. Thus, I love Korean food! Having spent most of my life in the states, I don't get to eat good Korean food often enough though. My mom can cook all of my favorites wonderfully, but I have trouble learning from her because there are no "set" amounts for some of the spices and ingredients. This book makes it all easy. It has my four favorite Korean dishes--kimchee, duk gook, kimbop, and bibimbop (yum!)--in addition to many other traditional dishes. The book itself is beautiful and I love the personal stories and pictures from Jenny Kwak's life. Another nice touch is the Korean text and correct Korean pronounciation for each of the recipe titles. You will enjoy this book. The recipes are easy to follow and deliciously flavorful.

Rating:
Summary: A wonderful, wonderful book!
Review: I love this book! My mother is Korean so I was raised in a Korean and American household. Thus, I love Korean food! Having spent most of my life in the states, I don't get to eat good Korean food often enough though. My mom can cook all of my favorites wonderfully, but I have trouble learning from her because there are no "set" amounts for some of the spices and ingredients. This book makes it all easy. It has my four favorite Korean dishes--kimchee, duk gook, kimbop, and bibimbop (yum!)--in addition to many other traditional dishes. The book itself is beautiful and I love the personal stories and pictures from Jenny Kwak's life. Another nice touch is the Korean text and correct Korean pronounciation for each of the recipe titles. You will enjoy this book. The recipes are easy to follow and deliciously flavorful.

Rating:
Summary: Just Like Mom's!!
Review: I recieved this book as a Christmas gift. Good Korean cookbooks are hard to come by and I am glad I have this book. Growing up in a Korean/American home, most of the recipies in this book are familiar and tastes like my mom's home cooking. I showed the book to my Korean mom and she recognized every single dish in the book. The only downside is the lack of sweets and desserts. There are a couple of recipies, but that's it. I am glad to have this book because I had trouble learning the recipies from my mom. She doesn't use accurate measurements (A spoonful of this, a dash of that). Plus the personal stories from the author is a refreshing read.

Rating:
Summary: Just Like Mom's!!
Review: I recieved this book as a Christmas gift. Good Korean cookbooks are hard to come by and I am glad I have this book. Growing up in a Korean/American home, most of the recipies in this book are familiar and tastes like my mom's home cooking. I showed the book to my Korean mom and she recognized every single dish in the book. The only downside is the lack of sweets and desserts. There are a couple of recipies, but that's it. I am glad to have this book because I had trouble learning the recipies from my mom. She doesn't use accurate measurements (A spoonful of this, a dash of that). Plus the personal stories from the author is a refreshing read.

Rating:
Summary: The best that I've found
Review: I was extremely pleased by what I found in this book. So far everything that I have tried has turned out great, as close as I've been able to come to traditonal Korean food at home. The recipes are easy to follow, and arranged in an interesting way. I definitely recommend this to someone who wants to try Korean food at home.

Rating:
Summary: hmmm....so so
Review: I was trying to follow the Cold Buckwheat Noodle Soup recipe. I couldn't find beef satay in the grocery store to save my life. I even went to a Korean store. Maybe, it's named differently. I looked up the the definition of Beef Satay. I still couldn't figure it out. Maybe my college degree was worthless, or perhaps this book isn't all that friendly to me. I'm trying another Korean Cookbook.

Rating:
Summary: Authentic, Beautifully Written, Illustrated
Review: Jenny Kwak does an excellent job replicating the recipes that I grew up with in my Korean home. Till now it's been difficult to find an authentic Korean Cookbook that was written in English. An added bonus are Jenny's vignettes on Jenny's family. I highly recoomend this book!!!

Rating:
Summary: Just out of reach
Review: Just as my title implies, I found this book of "home cooked" recipes to fall just out of reach of my expectations. Being half Korean I have begun a collection of recipe books in order to enjoy the foods that I have grown up with. I will say that this book was the most satisfying I have come across so far, the others being so Americanized that they were a joke, or so vague and nondescript that I wasn't sure if I was preparing it properly. My problems with this book were the same as those that others have previously stated. The recipes were not as varied as I had hoped for and centered on familiar/common foods such as bulgogi and bibimbop, typically American favorites. The foods were also somewhat Americanized, as I found out when I cooked them for my Korean mother. She was quick to point out the differences. Still, overall it's better than most, and provided the basic steps for recipes that I could alter during cooking to suit my taste and memory.

Rating:
Summary: Home Cooking
Review: My mother has recently begun to share her own recipes with me, and I've found that the recipes in Dok Suni are the closest approximations to hers. I think it's ridiculous to argue that these recipes are somehow not "authentic" because they don't taste like your mother's, or your boyfriend's, or your best girlfriend's. Korean food preparation will vary from family to family, as well it should. The quantities of ingredients are basically right on the nose (yes, that's the right amount of marinade for 1 pound of meat; and if you don't like it, double or triple the recipe--it'll just give you leftover marinade). The recipes are simple, and I am relieved to find a cookbook that makes good food accessible to everyone. Food that is eaten at home SHOULD be easy to prepare: we should not be intimidated by recipes so much that we are afraid to cook. These recipes are about as simple as Korean cooking gets, but in no way are they inauthentic or unsatisfying. Every bite of every recipe I have prepared has instantly transported me to a time when I could only look with wide eyes at the food my mother had prepared for me and hope that one day I would be able to make the same kind of food for myself and for the people whom I love. If you buy no other Korean cookbook, buy this one.

Rating:
Summary: Best Korean cookbook I've come across.
Review: My mother has recently begun to share her own recipes with me, and I've found that the recipes in Dok Suni are the closest approximations to hers. I think it's ridiculous to argue that these recipes are somehow not "authentic" because they don't taste like your mother's, or your boyfriend's, or your best girlfriend's. Korean food preparation will vary from family to family, as well it should. The quantities of ingredients are basically right on the nose (yes, that's the right amount of marinade for 1 pound of meat; and if you don't like it, double or triple the recipe--it'll just give you leftover marinade). The recipes are simple, and I am relieved to find a cookbook that makes good food accessible to everyone. Food that is eaten at home SHOULD be easy to prepare: we should not be intimidated by recipes so much that we are afraid to cook. These recipes are about as simple as Korean cooking gets, but in no way are they inauthentic or unsatisfying. Every bite of every recipe I have prepared has instantly transported me to a time when I could only look with wide eyes at the food my mother had prepared for me and hope that one day I would be able to make the same kind of food for myself and for the people whom I love. If you buy no other Korean cookbook, buy this one.