Day One - Into The Vietnamese Kitchen - Baked Shrimp Toasts

Even though I have more cookbooks than I know what to do with, I felt the need to go to the bookstore and check out a few more cookbooks. My Husbands cousin asked me why I am I not choosing a cookbook to test from my current collection.  I guess it's like cloths.  You look in your cupboard and you feel like there is nothing in there you want to wear, so you go buy yourself a new outfit.  Since I'm not much of a fashion person, cookbooks are my cloths and my shoes.

Today I bought three books. Into The Vietnamese Kitchen by Andrea Nguyen; Gordon Ramsay Makes It Easy, by Gordon Ramsay; and Jamie's Food Revolution, by Jamie Oliver.  I went through each book to figure out which one would be on my testing blog this week.  They all looked great, but I went with the cookbook that I could use today without going to buy groceries - Into The Vietnamese Kitchen by Andrea Nguyen.

As I do every Monday, I took it easy.  I tired only one recipe today, the Baked Shrimp Toasts. I had a lot of doubts about this recipe. Usually Shrimp Toasts are deep-fried.  They are one of my Dim Sum favorites. The recipe calls for baking the bread first, then adding the topping and baking it again.  The recipe was so simple, that there wasn't even a mess in the kitchen, not to mention, I had time to play "Who's There" with my five-year old.  The results?  Lets put it this way......I wish I made them when I had a guest or two over.  I've eaten so many of them, I think I'm going to explode.  They are fantastic! My husband loves them as well.

Although they are tasty, the are still missing that golden brown finish that I'm familiar with which comes from deep-frying.  The other thing that I notice about the instructions in this book is that, you really have to read all the instructions, because the ingredient listing is not very descriptive.  It didn't indicated raw or cooked shrimp, and it notes to separate one egg, but it fails to tell you that you will need both the white and the yolk in the recipe. Again, the instructions clarify things.

I've read through part of the book.  Although Vietnamese is relatively low in fat, Andrea Nguyen seems to cut out just a bit more fat.  So far so good.  We'll see during the week if it takes away from the recipes.

The Cookbook Addict