Cookbook Review: "Mooncakes and Milk Bread", by Kristina Cho

The cover is gorgeous, and the images inside are every bit as beautiful

It's always interesting to see publishings from people I've worked alongside in the past. The better I know them, the more I'm sometimes torn about how critical I ought to be. This time I don't have to worry about it though, because I don't have anything bad to say. For those who know me well, you know that's... not common.

Kristina Cho of Eat Cho Food is a Bay Area local, and on several past occasions joined me and my comrades at our cooking school to host a variety of classes. As such, my fellow chef-instructors and I had the opportunity to test some of her recipes at scale, and I remember them fondly as I revisit them in her 2021 book Mooncakes and Milk Bread. 

This is more than just a cookbook, though it certainly does a stellar job as one. Each section speaks at length on a different facet of Chinatowns, celebrations, family businesses, and the carefully nurtured world of Asian restaurants, bakeries and cafes, doing so from the equally rare perspective of someone near enough to gather and share the in-depth knowledge and understanding without necessarily being buried by it. While not necessarily a 'coffee table book', it's definitely one worth reading through on a leisurely afternoon.

The introduction includes some of the important contextual parts of the book- many cookbooks with similar notions tend to put them at the end. I'm talking about, of course, ingredients and equipment. In addition to the building block ingredients, this section also offers a few pages on navigating Asian grocery stores- something quite useful for the uninitiated.
Rather than add an equipment list to every recipe (as I am prone to doing here on this blog), this section offers a list of likelies, and if anything obvious might be missing from your pantry or cabinets, it makes it easier to check whatever recipe you wanted to make. 

Fair warning, the one thing you really ought to have to get the most out of this book is a stand mixer- but that's to be expected for any baking-focused book. There are also A Lot Of Gadgets that see occasional use, so if your home kitchen is cramped, you may have to get creative. Though that's something gently encouraged in the text itself too, so don't fret if you don't have, for example, a Taiwanese Pineapple Cake mold. I don't, and I do Asian cuisine for a living!

Chapter 1 starts with the titular "Mother Of All Milk Bread". The how, the why, and the emphasis on its versatility are right there at the start, giving you a clear heads-up on what's to come. From there, we're treated to some great baseline recipes like Fluffy Steamed Bun Dough(p.17), the (Scallion) Pancake(p.23), and the Mo(p.35), along with things to serve in, on, or alongside them. If you were waffling on a purchase, this section alone more than justifies it, and there's so much more to come.

Chapters 2 and 3 are largely recipes that start with "Mother of All Milk Bread dough to step X", so getting that down perfectly is a must- but if you bought this book you were probably planning on doing that anyway. It also demonstrates in a more practical sense the abstract concept of baking and pastry bulding blocks- '5 ingredients, 500 combinations, 50,000 results'. The biggest winner here is pages 48-49 though, where you're given the trick to shaping most of the fancy looking buns you see in Asian bakeries!

This is going to make a world of difference in your baking presentation

Chapter 4 is titled 'Cakes and Tarts', but it also gives a look at the Chinese celebratory calendar and the treats one's likely to see around those times so it can be quite helpful if you're looking for something specific. The recipes in this section's first half vary widely, with another major building block (Chinese Puff Pastry, p.157) and delicious treats for the oven, stovetop, and steamer alike. The second half is Mooncakes in all their (Lala) glory. This bit is where most of the specialty gadgets come into play, so read carefully and twice before attempting things in this part of the book.

Chapter 5 is 'Cookies', and shorter than the others so far. But in brevity it offers decisiveness. The recipes in this chapter aren't terribly complex (with two notable exceptions on pp.199 and 207) and have great versatility. Mostly this is due to the recipes being centered around some sort of nut or seed, and those are largely interchangeable with no more than an easy tweak or two.

Chapter 6 is 'Chinese Breakfast'. Oh, man. This is the good stuff. It's dim sum classics and traditional tasties with some clever new fillings and flavors. I won't spoil anything here but reading this chapter made me go out for dim sum. (I'd have made them myself but dim sum for two is A Lot Of Work and I was very, very hungry.)

Chapter 7, 'Sips', is brief but thorough, giving a number of basic recipes and clever drink concepts that can also function as templates for a myriad of other flavor combinations. Having worked in a boba shop before, I got a good chuckle out of some of it and wholeheartedly approve.

This is a fantastic book, full of history, humor, family, friends, and food. I'm delighted it exists, because it has so much to offer so many. Well done indeed, Kristina. You've done this very proud.