To Asia, with Love - by Hetty McKinnon (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

For bestselling cookbook author Hetty McKinnon, Asian cooking is personal. McKinnon grew up in a home filled with the aromas, sights, and sounds of her Chinese mother's cooking. These days she strives to recreate those memories for her own family--and yours--with traditional dishes prepared in non-traditional ways. It's a sumptuous collection of creative vegetarian recipes featuring pan-Asian dishes that anyone can prepare using supermarket ingredients.
Readers will learn how to make their own kimchi, chilli oil, knife-cut noodles, and dumplings. They'll learn about the wonder that is rice and discover how Asian-inspired salads are the ultimate crossover food. McKinnon offers tips for stocking your modern Asian pantry and explores the role that sweetness plays in Asian cultures. Her recipes are a celebration of the exciting and delicious possibilities of modern Asian cooking--from Smashed Cucumber Salad with Tahini and Spicy Oil, and Finger-lickin' Good Edamame Beans with Fried Curry Leaves, to Springtime Rolls with Miso Kale Pesto and Tamarind Apple Crisp. Featuring big, powerful flavours created from simple, fresh ingredients, these recipes are firmly rooted in the place where east meets west and where tradition charts the journey to the modern kitchen.

Review Quotes

Praise for Hetty McKinnon and To Asia, With Love

"[Hetty] sets out to demystify the idea that Asian cooking is somehow inaccessible and unhealthy, and she succeeds." - Jenny Rosenstrach, New York Times Best New Cookbooks for Summer 2021

"Hetty McKinnon's To Asia, With Love might have single-handedly rehabilitated the word "pan-Asian" in the world of cuisine ... Beyond including healthy, make-forever recipes, To Asia also teaches you culinary skills that I can only describe as game-changing" - Hayley Maitland, Vogue UK

"To Asia, With Love is not just a beautiful love letter to the continent, but one to all Asian mothers. Hetty McKinnon has captured the flavor and essence of the food her mother so lovingly prepared, and managed to transpose them for our generation. Dispelling the notion that Asian ingredients are obscure and dishes meat heavy, Hetty's plant-based recipes are accessible, practical and delectable. Comforting and familiar but also current and exciting (dumplings for every season!), this is truly the food I want to cook and eat from breakfast through to dinner . . . and dessert (soy sauce brownies!)." -- Helen Goh, recipe developer, food columnist and co-author of Sweet.

"To Asia, With Love is filled with some of the most inspiring, surprising and crave-worthy recipes I have ever laid eyes on. Hetty's warmth and signature vibrant touch has made me even more excited about the food of my heritage. I am truly obsessed with this book." --Molly Yeh, host of the Food Network's Girl Meets Farm and author of Molly on the Range

Hetty has, once again, outdone herself. To Asia, With Love is an intimately and beautifully crafted collection of recipes that is both an homage to Asian tradition and a pathway to the exciting cooking that results when tradition is carried forward into something new. What's more, the recipes bear all the hallmarks that have made Hetty a mainstay of vegetable-forward cooking--they are hearty, nourishing and deeply flavorful all at once. This is a book that is destined to live in my kitchen, full of dishes that I can already see on my table night after night. --Cynthia Chen McTernan, author of A Common Table and creator of the blog Two Red Bowls

"I am such a fan of yours, Hetty ... Your books are some of the most interesting, unique, and beautifully done that I've ever seen in my life. I'm such an uber fan!" - Drew Barrymore, The Drew Barrymore Show.

Nigella Lawson described Hetty's recipes in To Asia, With Love as "a gift to the home cook".

Goop are self-proclaimed "Hetty McKinnon fans" and said "McKinnon's story behind the food: personal, poignant, relatable, and a much-needed addition to conversations we're all having about the importance of representation in food. It feels like such a gift to get to know her through this work."

"We cannot publish a Hetty McKinnon recipe without it winding up as the most popular recipe of the week ... in To Asia, With Love, I found a nearly greedy amount of those sure hits." - Lauren James, Epicurious.

About the Author

HETTY McKINNON is an internationally renowned cookbook author and food writer. In 2015, Hetty relocated from Sydney to New York City, where she writes about food and runs pop-up food events and workshops. She is the author of three cookbooks: Community Salad Recipes from Arthur Street Kitchen; Neighbourhood: Salads, Sweets and Stories from Home and Abroad; and Family: Vegetarian Comfort Food to Nourish Every Day. In 2017, she launched her independent multicultural food journal, Peddler and in 2019 created the podcast, The House Specials.