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Buzz Feed
10-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Buzz Feed
22 AAPI Cookbooks That Should Be On Your Shelf
Xi'an Famous Foods: The Cuisine of Western China, from New York's Favorite Noodle Shop — as a frequent customer at Xi'an's, I can personally say that we are ALL lucky this cookbook exists! Jason Wang's iconic recipes were first served to guests in Flushing, Queens. Since then, he has become a culinary icon, and this book is gonna give you a chance to try out some of his most famous recipes yourself! You're gonna drool over the flatbread with caramelized pork, cumin lamb, and hand-pulled Biang Biang noodles. Cook Real Hawai'i — this scrumptious cookbook is by celebrity chef Sheldon Simeon. Simeon shares 100 different Hawaiian dishes with an eclectic mix of ingredients. Inside you'll find wok-fried poke, pork dumplings made with biscuit dough, crispy cauliflower katsu, and more. Um, YUM. The Boba Book: Bubble Tea and Beyond — authors Andrew Chau and Bin Chen wrote this collection of imaginative boba recipes so readers can skip the instant mixes and create one-of-a-kind drinks with the attention to detail (and better ingredients) that give justice to this internationally beloved style of beverage. Korean Home Cooking: Classic and Modern Recipes — this *delicious* cookbook has over 100 classic recipes. Browse through the book and get ready to drool over the kimchee, mung bean pancakes, seaweed soup, japchae noodles, soondae (blood sausage)...the list goes on and on! I own this cookbook and can personally confirm that Sohui Kim's recipes are a MUST try. Japanese Home Cooking: Simple Meals, Authentic Flavors — flip through the pages of this cookbook and soon you'll realize your kitchen wasn't complete without it! With this in hand, you'll serve up meals like vegetable soup with buckwheat dumplings, onigiri, mochi waffles, and mouthwatering fried chicken (that is, if you aren't too ~chicken~ to test out these tried-and-true techniques yourself!). Mooncakes and Milk Bread: Sweet and Savory Recipes Inspired by Chinese Bakeries — if steam buns are your kryptonite and the thought of kneading dough without a stand mixer feels like an impossible ask, this book by cooking instructor and Bay-area native, Kristina Cho, is the "textbook" you need in life. I promise the results of your hard work are gonna be extra sweet! Filipinx: Heritage Recipes from the Diaspora — New York Times contributing writer Angela Dimayuga gets personal with the memory-filled recipes collected in her book. If you believe photography is key when looking for cookbooks, you're sure to savor every gorgeous image in this 100-recipe option! Milk & Cardamom: Spectacular Cakes, Custards and More, Inspired by the Flavors of India — Master Chef competitor Hetal Vasavada makes life a little sweeter with this scrumptious compilation of desserts. Your sweet tooth is gonna love life when you bite into the brown butter ghee shortbread cookies, pomegranate curd brownies, and mango lassi macaroons Vasavada cooks up! The Korean Vegan Cookbook: Reflections and Recipes from Omma's Kitchen — vegans, Joanne Lee Molinaro, is the cook you can count on! Through heartwarming memories of her mother's kitchen, Molinaro helps veg-based readers connect with Korean dishes that are naturally vegan-friendly. Why limit yourself to BBQ when Jjajangmyun, Gamja Guk, and sweet bean cake are all waiting for you? Vietnamese Home Cooking — when The Slanted Door opened in 1995, Charles Phan gave many Americans their first taste of the rich, decadent flavors of Vietnamese food. With his cookbook, Phan teaches the basic techniques that'll make Vietnamese meals just as accessible at home. The Poke Cookbook: The Freshest Way to Eat Fish — these 45 fun, fresh recipes are put together to help home chefs create and customize their own perfect poke bowls. Author Martha Cheng put together recipes using uni, lychee, mango, jicama, and other tastes of summer. To Asia, With Love: Everyday Asian Recipes and Stories From the Heart — author Hetty McKinnon is a chef who writes about meals with zeal (she also lives in my home, Brooklyn, NY!). McKinnon has several cookbooks, and this fun option shows you how to make many traditional meals in nontraditional ways. I personally love this book — I'm a sucker for tips and tricks! Flavors of the Southeast Asian Grill: Classic Recipes for Seafood and Meats Cooked over Charcoal — Leela Punyaratabandhu is a literal expert when it comes to Asian cuisine. Travel through the 60 recipes in this book and you're gonna discover new must-try meals from Thailand, Burma, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, and Indonesia. Korean American: Food That Tastes Like Home — author Eric Kim makes colorful meals (literally) in this *stunning* Korean American cookbook. Not only will you want to make every recipe in this book, you'll want the photos of the food framed on your wall! BTW, these recipes were all created out of Kim's NYC apartment, so don't get intimidated by the limits of your kitchen! I Am a Filipino: And This Is How We Cook — recipes for oxtail soup, fish in vinegar, and fan-favorite street snacks are in this blast of a book to help you make your own kamayan meals. Nicole Ponseca wrote this in 2019, and it was named a best cookbook of the year by The New Yorker, Houston Chronicle, New York Times book review, and more. Chaat: Recipes from the Kitchens, Markets, and Railways of India — you may know Maneet Chauhan as a judge on Chopped, and if time to get this book and get to know her! Chauhan has such an imaginative take on flavor, which is reflected in the creative combinations you're gonna find inside this FAB book! Roasted sweet potatoes with star fruit, lemon, and I. COME. The Adventures of Fat Rice — a comic book cookbook for folks who don't mind playing with their food. Hugh Amano writes in this engaging cookbook about his restaurant and the history of Macau and its cuisine. The graphics alongside these fan-favorite dishes make learning how to take on these recipes all the more fun! Vietnamese Food Any Day: Simple Recipes for True, Fresh Flavors — this book was an IACP finalist, and with good reason! Nguyen's mother fled from Vietnam to America and had to come up with some clever cooking hacks to bring the flavors of home to the States. In turn, Nguyen's own recipes guide you through making Vietnamese food from the ingredients at your local grocery store. Molly on the Range: Recipes and Stories from An Unlikely Life on a Farm — Molly Yeh was the winner of the IACP cookbook awards *and* she's the star of Food Network's Girl Meets Farm. For anyone not in the know (and you should be!) Yeh is a classical musician who lived in NYC and moved, rather surprisingly, to a sugar beet farm with her partner. Yeh's Jewish/Chinese background influences her creative recipes like Asian Scotch eggs and scallion pancake challah bread. My Shanghai: Recipes and Stories from a City on the Water — this cookbook by Betty Liu was named one of the best cookbooks of the year by New York Times, Business Insider, Glamour, and more when it was released! Liu grew up eating homestyle Shanghainese food with her family. That lifetime of tradition and taste gives this cookbook a modern look at one of the oldest cuisines on earth. Coconut & Sambal: Recipes from my Indonesian Kitchen — chef and author Laura Lee fills this cookbook with stories from Indonesia in between mouthwatering recipes. Take a stab at nasi goreng, beef rendang, chili prawn satay, and pandan cake with Lee by your side! Aloha Kitchen: Recipes from Hawai'i — NPR named this fun read a cookbook of the year! Maui native, Alana Kysar celebrates Hawaii's multiethnic culture through modern local know-how, regional history, and imaginative recipes. Learn how to make staples like saimin, loco moco, and shoyu chicken. There's even a recipe for shaved ice inside! When you realize how long you've been living without these cookbooks in your life: Reviews in this post have been edited for length and clarity. Check out more AAPI-centered content by exploring how BuzzFeed celebrates Asian Pacific American Heritage Month! Of course, the content doesn't end after May. Follow BuzzFeed's A*Pop on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube to keep up with our latest AAPI content year-round.
Los Angeles Times
10-02-2025
- Los Angeles Times
Ever heard of Chinese hamburgers? Here's where to try the world's oldest sandwich
Rou jia mo can be an unlovely thing, uncouth as a sloppy Joe and as decadent and satisfying as your favorite steakhouse burger. Sometimes called a Chinese hamburger, when done well, it's one of the greatest meat-between-bread situations in the universe. It involves a split round bread bun with a meat filling that spills from the middle. It's commonly made with braised pork belly, but you'll find variations filled with lamb spiced heavily with cumin and also beef. Many credit rou jia mo as the world's oldest sandwich, originating in the Shaanxi province in north-central China more than 2,000 years ago. Its capital Xi'an was where the Silk Road began, a trade epicenter that brought an influx of different cultures, foods and customs through the city. You can find the sandwiches all over the streets of Xi'an, and throughout China, but rou jia mo is steadily gaining in popularity and availability in the U.S., thanks to restaurants like Xi'an Famous Foods in New York City. In his cookbook 'Xi'an Famous Foods: The Cuisine of Western China, From New York's Favorite Noodle Shop,' owner and author Jason Wang describes the dish as 'an English muffin-like bun stuffed full of fatty soy-braised pork.' He grew up eating rou jia mo as an afternoon snack. In Los Angeles, a growing number of restaurants in the San Gabriel Valley make rou jia mo, with styles that reflect regional versions made throughout China. At Bang Bang Noodles, executive chef Robert Lee is making his interpretation of the pork-filled rou jia mo found all over Xi'an. The noodle shop, which started as a pop-up, and now has locations in both Culver City and downtown Los Angeles, specializes in biang biang noodles inspired by the thick, chewy noodles Xi'an is know for. Lee's rou jia mo begins with a semi-fermented, white flatbread called bai ji mo. It's thin and crisp along its edges and soft and fluffy in the middle. He fills the bun with a braised pork belly he marinates overnight with soy sauce and a secret blend of herbs and spices that includes star anise and Sichuan peppercorns. The whole pork bellies are braised in a pot on the stovetop for around three hours. The meat is roughly chopped with the skin on, giving each inch of the burger its own medley of textures. Slivers of green peppers are crunchy and fresh, tangled throughout the filling with a heap of cilantro. Lee added rou jia mo to his menu last summer, wanting to introduce Los Angeles diners to a summertime food pairing that's popular in Xi'an. 'I wanted to stay true with the cuisine and give you a pairing of the cold noodle dish liang pi zi, rou jia mo and an orange soda,' Lee says. Now, in the middle of winter, the cold noodles are no longer available. But the rou jia mo is the ideal sidekick to a bowl of Lee's vinegar and chile-slicked hand-pulled noodles. XiAn Biang Biang Noodle in San Gabriel is another restaurant that specializes in the foods of Xi'an. The restaurant offers a sturdy, bready bai ji mo filled with your choice of pork, beef or lamb. During multiple visits, the spicy lamb emerged the clear favorite, with chunks of tender meat stewed with green peppers and onion in a spicy chile sauce heavy on the cumin with a mala kick. Offering an alternate style of rou jia mo is Good Alley, a dumpling-centric restaurant that opened in a Rosemead strip mall in September. Chef-owner Peter Pang swaps the bai ji mo for lao tongguan mo, wrapping his filling in a golden, layered pancake that flakes and shatters like a good croissant. 'The dough is made using high-gluten flour with a small amount of baking powder mixed in,' Pang says. It undergoes three rounds of resting, is flattened, thinned, brushed with oil, rolled and cut to form its layered structure. Pang uses the bread to nestle Kurobuta pork, A5 Miyazaki wagyu beef or cumin-spiked lamb. The wagyu is unsurprisingly the more decadent of the three, with cubes of beef that melt into the stewed peppers and onions. The effect of the flaky pastry and beef is similar to a Turkish meat-filled borek. 'We think the croissant-like crispy texture and rich aroma of meat are perfectly well-suited to the local tastes in Los Angeles,' Pang says. 'The inspiration came from a visit to Da Don in Beijing many years ago. Their Peking duck was served with a smaller, crispy flatbread used to wrap the duck. This idea inspired us to incorporate a similar texture and flavor concept into our version of rou jia mo.' On my last visit, my party ordered two rounds for the table. And it sparked a quest to find more rou jia mo made with the flakier style of bun. I searched for the dish on Fantuan, a popular Asian food delivery app and came across a business called Joynees Boy Chinese Hamburger. It's a small storefront in San Gabriel with a short menu of rou jia mo and noodles. The Joynees Boy buns crackle like phyllo dough around a filling of pork or beef. The pork is moist and tender, with chopped and shredded bits reminiscent of good carnitas. The beef is well-marbled and thinly sliced, a little on the drier side like deli roast beef. Lee suspects rou jia mo isn't as prevalent in the United States as some other Xi'an specialties due to how much work is involved in making both the filling and the buns. It may also have something to do with a lack of familiarity with the dish. 'People that want it and eat it are people who mainly grew up with it,' Lee says. 'And the places that have it, especially mine, I'm not sure I'm promoting it as well as I should.'
