If you love Korean food but have never really known where to start making it at home, Korean Home Cooking is a good introduction.
It has enough here to take you beyond ordering your favourites at a restaurant and into understanding how some of those familiar flavours and dishes come together. It doesn't feel as though you need to be experienced in cooking Korean food before opening the book, which is exactly what I want from something pitched at the home kitchen.
The recipes cover plenty of the food most of us recognise, alongside dishes that may send you off in search of a few less familiar ingredients. That, for me, is part of the fun of buying a cookbook devoted to a particular cuisine. You want to find things you already love, but also a reason to try something different. One point, though, is that it would have been helpful to have ideas for which dishes could be served together.
My biggest complaint is much more practical.
The recipe type is small. Very small. Even with my glasses on, I found some of it hard to read, and that becomes particularly irritating when you are trying to follow a recipe while cooking.
A beautiful little cookbook is one thing, but a cookbook still needs to work on the kitchen bench. This one could have benefited from being physically bigger, or simply giving the recipes more room to breathe.
That said, if you already enjoy Korean food and want a starting point for making more of it yourself, there is plenty here to tempt you into the kitchen.
Just keep your glasses handy.
Our rating - 3/5
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