Rice. Noodles. Yum. Everyone’s Favorite Southeast Asian Dishes

Manilla Spoon blogger Raines delivers on her promise of flavorful dishes built around noodles and rice. Raines offers such popular standbys as pad Thai, pad see ew, pho, and fresh spring rolls, but offers plenty of surprises. There’s moo sarong, a visually impressive dish of fried pork meatballs wrapped in noodles; serabi, Indonesian coconut pancakes drizzled with a coconut caramel sauce (rice flour is the titular connection); and soto ayam, a rich and restorative chicken noodle soup with turmeric and ginger. Raines includes cultural mashups, such as beringhe, a Filipino riff on classic Spanish paella that incorporates turmeric, coconut milk, fish sauce, chorizo, and raisins; a craveable mee goreng mamak (egg noodles in a sweet and spicy sauce) from Kuala Lumpur; rice noodles with curried beef gravy (“the Asian version of the Italian classic spaghetti and meatballs”); and carioca, a Filipino treat of fried sticky rice balls in a coconut caramel sauce. Raines’s instructions are clear, and nearly all ingredients are easily sourced. This is an outstanding assembly of dishes, and a book sure to get plenty of use. [em](June) [/em]