Hugh Amano

I'll start by saying that I haven't actually made anything from this cookbook. Also, I'm highly unlikely to ever make even half the components of a bowl of ramen from scratch. But if I ever do, this book will be the reason why.

The food illustrations and graphic novel portions are gorgeous, with rich colors and thick linework. The various bowls of ramen and other recipe illustrations made my mouth water the same way some delicious-looking Studio Ghibli meal might.

The book starts with a brief show more history of ramen, provides a guide for navigating a Japanese ramen-ya, includes a few pages of ramen pantry staples and cooking equipment, and then gets into recipes, starting with stocks and broths, the noodles, then meats, then accompaniments, and wrapping up with some ramen offshoot recipes like tsukemen, abura soba, mazemen, and more. There are also some tips for using a pressure cooker to speed up parts of the cooking process.

I didn't go into this thinking I'd be inspired to make an entire bowl of ramen from scratch and, honestly, these recipes underscored that. I don't have the willpower, time, freezer space, or kitchen equipment. What I might be able to manage, however, is to jazz up a bowl of cheap ramen with something from the accompaniments section. I might even figure out how to cheat on parts of the recipes at the end and make something from there, or even, if I'm feeling really fired up, make broth from scratch. It hasn't happened yet, but we'll see.

This book can be a little overwhelming at times, as it uses several Japanese words well before it defines them, and tells readers that they don't need a lot of specialty equipment while including recipes that mention a lot of specialty equipment. But you can tell that the authors really do want readers to love ramen as much as they do, and there are numerous points in the text where they reassure readers and give them tips for streamlining the cooking process and making things a little less daunting. Most of the ramen components in the first few parts of this book are assumed to be made well ahead of time, with guides as to how long they'll keep in the fridge or freezer.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) show less

Why isn't EVERY cookbook a graphic novel?? This book is fantastic. The sequential art lends itself to step-by-step instructions for how to make the different folds for each style of dumpling. The recipes are quite meat-heavy but we made a veggie version of potstickers (with cabbage, garlic, shallot, scallions, carrot, broccoli stems, and ginger) and they were delicious! There are recipes for dipping sauces too.

From the creators of [b:Let's Make Ramen!: A Comic Book Cookbook|42583941|Let's Make Ramen! A Comic Book Cookbook|Hugh Amano|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1545876649l/42583941._SX50_.jpg|66273352]! Honestly, it was almost the end of September, I hadn't read a non-fiction book yet that month, I had just gotten back from a trip to South Korea where I did not get enough mandu, and I saw this book while shelving in the non-fiction section. The stars show more aligned...or at least this seemed like an easy way to fill my self-imposed reading requirement.



Like it's ramen-related predecessor, this book combines cultural background with recipes (most of which contain meat).



Unlike Let's Make Ramen!, there are more recommendations for short cuts. (Maybe the creators got the memo that not everyone has the time or inclination to make everything from scratch.)

But there are also step-by-step details if you want to DIY:



Overall, it's a cute & cozy book that just made me want to have dim sum made by someone who knows what they're doing. show less

I picked this up on a whim, having read something about it somewhere. It is, in fact, a graphic cookbook that gives a detailed overview of how to cook ramen, introducing the ingredients and illustrating (literally) the cooking techniques. The thing is, I was sort of more interested in how the information would be presented, rather than the information itself -- I don't eat pork, which is the base for the majority of ramen preparations, and I'm not really interested in super complicated show more cooking, which ramen-making certainly is. So, for those reasons, I couldn't give full stars to this book. Though, that isn't meant to take away from the presentation of the information, which is in fact excellent, and if I WERE interested in cooking ramen, I would consider it an invaluable resource. I do love ramen, but it is one of those foods which I am content to eat in restaurants, when I can get ones that are made from things other than pork -- a position which this book has only served to reinforce. show less