Lemongrass and Lime: Southeast Asian Cooking at Home

Product Description

The flavors of Southeast Asia are the star in this collection of recipes from Leah Cohen, the Top Chef alum and restaurateur.

Growing up half-Filipino, Leah Cohen never thought food from her mother’s side would become her life’s work. But after working in Michelin-starred restaurants and then competing on
Top Chef, Cohen was still searching to define what made her food
hers. She found the answer in Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, Singapore, Indonesia, and yes, the Philippines, as she rediscovered the deliciously sweet, pungent, and spicy flavors of her youth and set out to take them back with her to New York.

Now, Cohen brings the exciting flavors of Southeast Asia to the masses in her beloved New York City restaurants. And in this cookbook, she shows readers how to use pantry staples like fish sauce (the salt of Southeast Asia), coconut milk, and shrimp paste to delicious effect, and gives home cooks the confidence to embrace what she calls the “controlled chaos” of Asian cooking in their own kitchens. As Cohen explains, Southeast Asian cooking varies by country, but what unites the cuisine is the balance of flavor that creates deep umami in every dish. From addictive street food snacks like Lumpia (Filipino spring rolls) to Burmese Eggplant Salad, Grilled Cod in Banana Leaf with Yellow Curry, Crisp Banana Fritters, and even fiery cocktails, this cookbook presents authentic dishes with a modern twist. With more than 125 recipes, it will inspire home cooks to let their taste buds travel.

Review

“Leah Cohen is the genuine definition of a ‘great cook.’ She understands her arsenal of Southeast Asian ingredients better than anyone I’ve ever met. Sign me up for Fried Red Snapper with Green Mango, Cashews, and Crispy Garlic.”
–Bobby Flay, Chef

About the Author

Leah Cohen is the owner of Pig & Khao and Piggyback Bar in New York City. Leah continues to find culinary inspiration through her Southeast Asian travels and helms her restaurants’ kitchen with the help of her husband, Ben Byruch.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

When
Top Chef approached me, it just made sense to go. That story, of course, you may have seen on television, so I won’t go into it in detail.

I was in a weird headspace after the show ended, though. I didn’t know what my cooking philosophy was, what my food tasted like. I’d always cooked for others, re-created their recipes. I’d grown up in a household of rice and kugel and this whole time, I’d been making pasta. I wasn’t cooking the food I’d grown up on, the food that raised me. I wanted to figure out how to change that, so I looked back at that to-do list I’d written before
Top Chef and took a younger me’s advice. That advice was travel.

Although Thailand was at the top of my list, my first stop in Asia was Hong Kong. I had seen an episode of
No Reservations in which Anthony Bourdain visited a private kitchen in an apartment there. The chef run­ning it was named Alvin Leung, aka the demon chef, and he let me stage there for a month and a half, during which the staff adopted me. They took me to all the best local spots, and we ate and partied hard—a great way to start off my year in Asia. It also helped to have a huge group of eating buddies. So much of Asian food is served family style—I could never have tried so many different dishes if it had been up to me to eat them on my own.

Luckily, I had connections all over. I had a tentative con­nection to a certain “Rob in Bangkok,” who casually had an extra flat open to any chef friends who dropped in. Rob’s friendship and use of his flat saved me. I lived there on and off for eight months, within walking distance of public transportation, some of my favorite street food stands, all of my favorite markets, and one of the restaurants I staged at here and there.

The flat helped me focus most of my time in Thailand staging in vari­ous restaurants, checking out all the local markets, and eating as much street