Myers + Chang at Home

The latest cookbook from Chang, the James Beard Award winner and co-owner of Boston’s Myers + Chang restaurant (along with her husband Christopher Myers), gives readers the chance to enjoy many of the restaurant’s Asian-inspired dishes at home. Along with recipes, Chang (Baking with Less Sugar) and her cowriter and head chef, Akunowicz, offer readers a guide to shopping in an Asian grocery store and tutorials on how to use a wok and fold dumplings. Her dumpling-folding techniques definitely come in handy with the tempting dumpling recipes the book offers, including lemony shrimp dumplings with a kimchi-yogurt dipping sauce, duck and ginger dumplings, and braised-short-rib dumplings with Sichuan chili oil. Readers familiar with the restaurant will be pleased to see recipes for popular dishes such as Garlicky Spicy Coal Black Chicken Wings and Sweet Potato and Chinese Sausage Fritters (and will enjoy the stories behind their creation). There are Asian-inspired takes on American dishes, such as Indonesian fried chicken with ginger-sesame waffles; a bulgogi barbecue Sloppy “Jo” (named after Chang’s mother); and Chinese Caesar salad with scallion, cilantro, and Sichuan peppercorns. Not surprisingly—as Chang is also chef/co-owner of the famed Flour Bakery and Café—the desserts are alluring, with recipes for a chocolate tofu mousse with sesame brittle, lime sandwich cookies made from cornmeal, and toasted coconut meringues. This isn’t just a cookbook for people familiar with Myers + Chang restaurant—the varied and delicious recipes in this book deserve to be a part of everyone’s repertoire. (Sept.)