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Rating: 
Summary: Good for only a few recipes and ideas......
Review: I'm a bit disappointed with this book, there's little substance here that justifies the price...or even half the price. Despite there being 126 pages, there aren't all that many recipes, and then certainly not that many that I'd consider accessible from an ingredient, time or interest standpoint. Half of the pages are full page color photos of prepared dishes - beautifully done, but overkill. You'll need a well stocked Asian grocery store near your house to experiment with many of these recipes - I happen to live 2 miles from one, and they don't stock many of the ingredients called for in this book. A very annoying text format was selected for every recipe - right justification. This is simply too inefficient for quick reference while cooking or when making out your grocery list. In this book there were many recipes that require prepping or cooking a portion of the meal in a fry pan first, or cooking noodles in yet another pot. This is unfortunate as complex meals can be prepared with "just" the steamer, and useful steamer tips weren't mentioned here - one example: cook the noodles in the water in the bottom of the wok, it saves using another pan and saves fuel. Perhaps the recipes were a bit too creative for their own good, and I could have benefited more from the author applying some of their creative efforts towards the actual preparation. It doesn't appear the book was intended to be an everyday book for generating steamed meals. I really wanted something that would provide weekday steamed meal options - these recipes are simply too involved for most week days. Where the book does lend itself as a resource is for entertaining - that's the only time it'll come off the shelf in my house....but only if I remember to check if I need to special order any ingredients in advance. Actually, 2.5 stars for this book, there are better steaming cookbooks out there, aren't there? This one's okay for entertaining, but I'm going to keep looking. Steaming is a blast, enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: Good for only a few recipes and ideas......
Review: I'm a bit disappointed with this book, there's little substance here that justifies the price...or even half the price. Despite there being 126 pages, there aren't all that many recipes, and then certainly not that many that I'd consider accessible from an ingredient, time or interest standpoint. Half of the pages are full page color photos of prepared dishes - beautifully done, but overkill. You'll need a well stocked Asian grocery store near your house to experiment with many of these recipes - I happen to live 2 miles from one, and they don't stock many of the ingredients called for in this book. A very annoying text format was selected for every recipe - right justification. This is simply too inefficient for quick reference while cooking or when making out your grocery list. In this book there were many recipes that require prepping or cooking a portion of the meal in a fry pan first, or cooking noodles in yet another pot. This is unfortunate as complex meals can be prepared with "just" the steamer, and useful steamer tips weren't mentioned here - one example: cook the noodles in the water in the bottom of the wok, it saves using another pan and saves fuel. Perhaps the recipes were a bit too creative for their own good, and I could have benefited more from the author applying some of their creative efforts towards the actual preparation. It doesn't appear the book was intended to be an everyday book for generating steamed meals. I really wanted something that would provide weekday steamed meal options - these recipes are simply too involved for most week days. Where the book does lend itself as a resource is for entertaining - that's the only time it'll come off the shelf in my house....but only if I remember to check if I need to special order any ingredients in advance. Actually, 2.5 stars for this book, there are better steaming cookbooks out there, aren't there? This one's okay for entertaining, but I'm going to keep looking. Steaming is a blast, enjoy.
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