I AM A RICE COOKER!

Third Place (World) Winner (Singapore) Cooking Schools Category, Gourmand World Cookbooks Award 2017

Print length:  352 pages

Publication year:  2017

Cooking is an art and a labour of love. The final product is the outcome of the painstaking efforts put in by the chef – ungrudgingly, passionately and sincerely. Mastery of cooking techniques is mandatory. Without the knowledge of these essentials, it is simply impossible to be a culinary expert, especially in Asian cooking.

The best ingredients prepared in a state-of-the-art-kitchen will not result in good food if the chef did not use the best cooking practices. Asian cooking is a complex art as it involves techniques from the Middle-East to the Far East, each one unique. But Asian or otherwise, the taste of a dish largely depends on how well the techniques are executed. A firm grounding in cooking techniques and basic fundamentals is important for every cook, whether kitchen novices or professional chefs.

Across the world and particularly in Asia, there are similarities between the techniques used in the various culinary traditions. It is safe to assume that techniques mastered in a particular cuisine should, by and large, be applicable to others as well. One merely needs to fine-tune and modify the methods to suit individual palates and taste buds. Barbecuing, for instance, is a cooking method that is practically universal. It is popular across Asia, from Mongolia and Japan to Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand in Southeast Asia. The difference is only in the ingredients used.

In this book, Devagi Sanmugam has put together the most common cooking techniques and recipes in Asia for budding chefs and cooking enthusiasts. I hope you will find the information useful and enjoy trying out all the recipes in these pages.