Dok Suni

By Jenny Kwak and Liz Fried

Book Overview

In Dok Suni , Jenny Kwak offers a loving and delicious introduction to the most exciting cuisine in the food world today-- Korean cooking. Whether you are one of the millions of Americans who are... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312192614
• ISBN13: 9780312192617
• Release Date: October 1998
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 1.01 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 7.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Authentic, but friendly with culinary amateurs

Let me start out by admitting one fact: while I've grown up eating Korean food, I've never dared to try my hand at cooking it until only recently. My mother was an undefeated cooking whirlwind in our kitchen and when it came to the point where I thought I'd like to learn from her, I realized I would need more help than her 'a pinch of this' and 'a handful of that' pointers. Jenny Kwak has written a book that seems to have been made just for amateus like myself, who are willing to test the waters but unsure of where to start. The common complaint I've heard with most Asian cookbooks such as this one is the difficulty of finding ingredients and the level of skills that the writer assumes. Let's be real here. Who knows what it means to ferment pickled cabbage in subzero temperature (and yes, I've actually read this in another book)? Dok Suni starts out with a couple of helpful pages entitled, 'Mom's Shopping List', where she lists ALL of the more-than-average ingredients she uses in the recipes to follow. She gives a nice description of what it is, what dish(es) they are used in, and its name in Korean (which is nice because now you can go into an Asian grocery and ask for it by name if you can't find them yourself). The recipes themselves are, according to my very Korean mother, practically perfect in their authenticity. Instead of veering towards the more fancier (read: more difficult and not necessarily better tasting) dishes, Kwak has written up the simple staples of the Korean diet. Each recipe includes all of the ingredients WITH AMERICAN MEASUREMENTS. A lot of recipe books out there use grams and mg, which can get pretty confusing for us with our cups and ounces. The steps are easy enough for an eleven-year old to follow (and I would know because my younger sister proved it), and Kwak also includes a short but personal story about some of the dishes, which is a nice touch. Interspersed throughout the recipes, she has longer stories of the story behind the cooking on a whole, which makes the cookbook more than a smattering of recipes; it is a memoir. Though I haven't counted how many there are in all, it is enough to fill roughly 130 pages. I can say that I've bookmarked at least 90 percent of them. The couple that I've dabbled with so far came out great, even if I botched up the recipe just a little. In my overall opinion, Kwak has put together a fantastic book that couldn't be easier to follow and I haven't regretted my purchase in the least.

A wonderful, wonderful book!

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.

Just Like Mom's!!

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.

This is the best Korean cook book by far!

This book has wonderful glossary under the title "moms shopping list" which explains all the ingredients and how they are usually prepared. Also, this book has all the family style dishes that are not in many of the other Korean cook books. For someone who grew up eating Korean food and is now living in a place where it's not available at all, this is a life saver.

Highly Recommendable

I am a Korean American who has been eating Korean food most my life-I feel that I can be a fairly accurate judge of Korean cooking and this book is Excellent. I feel that these recipes were very easy to follow and were very authentic. Because most Korean cooks-cook according to instinct versus documented recipes( a pinch of this and that)-this book was wonderful to have. It give some structure to the art. I've recommended this to several friends and have even bought it for others. Also this book has some wonderful little stories about cooking and the author's family. It is a beautiful and handy book.