I don’t know if I’ll ever cook Korean dishes— but if I do Maangchi will be my go-to source. This cookbook has beautiful images and step by step guides and ingredient photos in the front to help out when shopping. It’s almost like walking through an international market, and that is a favorite thing to do visiting big cities!

Some negatives in regards to this cookbook: if Korean cooking IS your goal, a lot of these recipes are labor intensive and take a long time to make. Especially if you’re making kimchi from scratch. Fermentation is no joke!

Additionally, the authentic meal apparently has quite a few side dishes that also need to be prepared to go with the main meal— but it’s left up to the cook to decide. There’s not really a guide for what dishes go well together. You do pick it up while watching Maangchi’s videos on YouTube but going into it cold would probably be a bit confusing.

Anyway naysaying aside this is a fantastic book and I loved reading the recipe descriptions and seeing the photos.