Taste of Vietnam: Make a simple Vietnamese meal at home

When you start cooking with this Vietnamese cookbook, you'll find that you only need a handful of ingredients and then you'll struggle to balance sweet, sour, salty, bitter, spicy and umami flavors. Many of the recipes are for everyday cooking - from quick soups to one-bowl family meals and one-pot miracles.

The book also includes meals for weekends and holidays, when you have a little more time to cook. It's called food for fun. You can modify the dishes according to what ingredients you have on hand and if you can't find something, you will substitute it, the recipes serve as a skeleton of ingredients and procedures.

Customize recipes, use up everything without leftovers, and make do with what you have. You can easily see how to give food a real Vietnamese taste. For example, tofu with tomatoes and broccoli sprouts in fish sauce, mushrooms and artichokes roasted in a pan, hot and fiery vegetables with anchovies, chicken salad with sweet peas, Vietnamese coriander and shallots or fresh rolls with salad await you.