The Soy Sauce Cookbook: Explore the Flavor-Enhancing Power of Asia's Magic Ingredient

I found a used copy of this great little cookbook in a bookstore in Fremont, Nebraska. It had a very simple, but appealing, dust jacket and a simple, easily read and understood layout and interior design, and the recipes looked simple and appealing. So I took it home, and I have to say that I am very happy to have it. Although soy sauce is featured in each of these dishes (hence the title), there is rarely more than 1 Tb or two in any given list of ingreadients (normally for 4 or more people), and the list of dishes is far more than just a bunch of stir-fries and Chinese dishes (although those are in here too). Many of the recipes are for salads, pastas, baked goods and casseroles. Soy (and its obvious salt content) is used sparingly to enhance and supplement the other flavors in these dishes - it is rarely the strongest taste in the recipe. I've tried several of the recipes here and gotten tasty and appealing results. The biggest surprise was the version of Sweet Potato Salad, which was inhaled by me and my guests almost as soon as I got it to the table. The "Chicken in Black Bean Sauce" gave me (as promised) a black bean sauce easily as good as anything I could purchase in a megamart's "Asian section" and was a delight to smell and eat. The book is only 130 pages long, but there are often two or three recipes to a page, and the food photography is well done and very appetizing. The authors didn't pad the book out with a lot of filler and 2nd rate recipes and tips just to increase the page count - every thing here looks like a solid bet for anyone who wants to learn more about cooking with soy. I probably would have been happy with this book even if I'd paid full price for it. As it is, I consider it a bargain and a worthwhile addition to my cookbook shelf.