30 DAYS OPEN PURCHASEOur Korean Kitchen is the book to start with if you have never cooked Korean food before.
It is written by a couple whose combination is the whole point. Rejina Pyo was born in Seoul and works as a fashion designer in London, and the recipes come from her family. Jordan Bourke is an Irish chef and food writer, and he is the one who makes sure that someone who has never handled gochujang or doenjang understands what they do and why.
The result is food that is genuinely Korean but explained from the outside. Nothing has been simplified away, but nothing is assumed either.
The book starts with the pantry, namely the fermented pastes, sesame oil, the Korean chilli flakes gochugaru and the different types of soy sauce. Then come kimchi and banchan, the small dishes that are served at the same time and form the actual structure of a Korean meal. If you have not understood that there is no main course, you have not understood the cuisine, and that is the insight the book works hardest to convey.
Then follow more than 100 dishes divided into rice and noodles, meat, seafood, vegetables, soups and stews, and sweets. Bulgogi and bibimbap are here, but so is everyday food that is rarely seen in restaurants.
Running through the book is also Pyo's own story of her grandmother, her mother and the food she grew up with, which gives it a different tone from a straightforward recipe collection.
It won both the Observer Food Monthly award for Best New Cookbook and the Fortnum & Mason award for Best Cookbook in 2016.
Format: Hardback
Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
ISBN: 9780297609711
Language: English
First published: 2015
