Lotus: Asian Flavours by Teage Ezard
Hardie Grant Books, 2006
ISBN 1740662687

We all know that Asian food is not just Asian food. It’s not only categorized by ethnicity and country of origin but also the variety of food. There is never just one type of noodle or one type of beef dish. Also, your taste buds are constantly challenged; hot and spicy, sweet and sour, cool and warm food, weird and wonderful. The food textures are as important too. However, there is one thing for sure; Asian food is created to excite your taste palette.

Australian chef Teage Ezard published a gorgeous food book, Lotus: Asian Flavours, containing a collection of recipes based on food from Thailand, Malaysia, China, Hong Kong and some Asian fusion. With 147 recipes (or thereabout along with some addtional information on basic and special ingredients. Yes, I counted) to choose from, it’s not a book that has an intention to keep your kitchen activity in idle.

The problem with squeezing in an enormous amount of recipes in a publication is that something’s gotta give. The compromise comes in the lack of mouth-watering photos to accompany each recipe. This doesn’t make the quality of the book or recipe any lesser. Compensated by a fair amount of photo images and graphics, the book contains some classic recipes like red duck curry with lychees,spicy tom yum with prawns, fried spring onion cakes, and steamed lotus leaf parcels with sticky rice, chicken and lup cheong. There’s also one with a quirky name, the Son-in-law eggs with chilli caramel dish. Don’t forget the all-time favourite like peppered mud crab stir-fry with lemon, and a few for the slightly upmarket including this wagyu beef with caramelised pumpkin and snake beans, young coconut salad and red curry sauce.