Chinese-ish: Home Cooking, Not Quite Authentic, 100% Delicious by Rosheen Kaul & Joanna Hu

I’m calling it. If you only buy one cookbook this year, make it Chinese-ish. Here are my reasons:

• It is filled with utterly delicious recipes but is also a joy to read.
  
• It celebrates the blending of cultures and identity through food, with a bounty of Chinese- influenced dishes from all over South-East Asia.
  
• It is divided into different sections under the banners of: Chinese Cooking 101; The Rebellion: How to Disappoint Your Parents; and finally, My Love Language is a Fruit Platter.
• The illustrations by Joanna Hu are evocative and so damn cute.
  
• Its pages contain straightforward and simple recipes, as well as a narrative on being an immigrant in Melbourne. It carries within a history of Melbourne that’s not heard nor seen enough.
  
• It combines easy recipes with pop culture references and clever ‘why didn’t I think of that’ techniques.
  

This is a wonderful cookbook that celebrates confidence and the joy of sharing food. And did I mention it’s delicious?

MEZCLA: Recipes to Excite by Ixta Belfrage

In Spanish, ‘mezcla’ means ‘mix’, ‘mixture’ or ‘blend’, and is used to describe music and art as well as cooking. In her first solo book, Ixta Belfrage shares her favourite mezcla of flavours. You may have already come across the excellent work of Ixta before. After running her own catering operation and market stall in London selling tacos, she began her formal culinary career at Soho restaurant NOPI. Soon after, she moved to the Ottolenghi Test Kitchen, where she worked directly with Yotam Ottolenghi, and would eventually collaborate with him to publish the cookbook Flavour. Clearly, like her mentor, she is someone who understands and pays respect to dishes that bring friends and family together.

This book boasts quirky recipes such as ‘Giant Cheese on Toast with Urfa Butter’, as well as more complex recipes, such as ‘Whole Roast Chicken Curry with Crispy Curry Leaves’. It’s the type of cookbook that you delve into and spend time with. It’s also the type of book that ends up splattered with oil and covered in fingerprints – the type that is always in use.

Japanese Home Cooking by Maori Murota

You may have fallen in love with Maori Murota’s recipes with her first book, Tokyo Cult Recipes. Why wouldn’t you after all? Here is a writer who teaches cooking with patience, who grew up in Tokyo and has worked in some of the world’s top restaurants. The purpose of her excellent new recipe collection is to demystify everything to do with Japanese dishes.

The book gently takes you by the hand and leads you through knowledge and techniques, such as the process of making udon noodles or the extraordinary ranges of miso or what to do with seaweed or tofu. (There is even a full-page spread on how to make your own tofu.)

Japanese Home Cooking is filled with dishes suitable for vegetarians and lovers of Japanese cuisine. It is the type of book that you reach for on a Tuesday night for a quick meal and over the weekend for a feast. Each recipe is simple and authentic. Each page presents a dish that will have you yearning with hunger.

The Wok: Recipes and Techniques by J. Kenji López-Alt

James Kenji López-Alt – often known simply as Kenji – is a very famous American chef and food writer. Adapted from his James Beard Award- nominated column, his first book The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science became a critical and commercial success, charting on the New York Times bestseller list for years. He has now turned his attention to the most versatile of all kitchen tools – the wok.

Featuring a trip around the world in recipes, this book contains more than 200 dishes and is the perfect addition to any cookbook collection. Think of this book as a holistic guide to what you need in your kitchen: ingredients, tools and imagination.

The Wok will give you all of this and more. I’m already planning to gift this book to my kids as a moving out of home offering that will hopefully encourage savvy cooking with delicious results.

Chris Gordon is the community engagement and programming manager for Readings. She also writes on the topics of gardening and cooking for the Readings Monthly.