Diaspora Cookbooks Hit Their Heyday

Regular readers will recognize my affinity for America’s Test Kitchen and their recipe-refining process. Their “testing recipes 100 different ways to give you the best one” approach sets you up for kitchen success like nobody’s business. Yet some of their previous books that forayed into other cultures have felt stilted and distant. They took a whole new tack with Umma. Authors Sarah Ahn, a former ATK employee, and her mother, Nam Soon Ahn, a former restaurant owner, share 100 Korean family recipes and the stories and know-how that go with them. With that foundation, the ATK crew can do their test-o-rama, making this book more approachable for a US audience.

Boy did that two-pronged approach pay off; the book ended up on the New York Times Bestseller List. It did well in my test kitchen, too. Korean radish and carrot cubes pickled with white vinegar, sugar, and a bit of salt—aka chicken radishes, as it’s a common fried-chicken accompaniment in restaurants—were fun to compare with Eric Kim’s version from Korean American, where whole red radishes quickly dye the pickling liquid a fun hot pink. Both versions are chicken-dinner winners. I had mine with soy braised chicken—dakgogi ganjang jorim—where wings sear in a skillet, then get a quick braise in a continually thickening sauce that includes mirin, garlic, ginger, vinegar, and sesame oil. It was quite a squeeze searing three pounds of wings in a single layer in the called-for 12-inch skillet, but the whole thing was enlivened by chiles, green onions, and sesame seeds, and it came out great.

I also made one banchan—the small plates or side dishes that accompany a meal—of seasoned spinach with gochujang, garlic, and sesame oil, along with a surprising hit of maesil cheong, the plum extract syrup gave the dish a puckery sweet-tart depth that gently jiggles your taste buds. Gentle went out the window with their salad dressing, which features fish sauce, the plum syrup, sesame oil, white vinegar, and garlic over greens. Alongside the wings, pickles, and banchan, dinner was a hit. If you are an adventurous cook looking to take a deep dive on Korean food, start here.