Once an accountant, the Japanese native and globe-trotter Nagi Maehashi brings the flavors of the world to the plate in her second cookbook, Delicious Tonight. A thrifty cook at heart, Maehashi layers flavors while keeping prep times mostly short. She considers food costs by utilizing ingredients you are likely to already have in your house (if your house already has dark soy sauce and ground beef, red curry paste and coconut milk).

Get Cooking

But really, Maehashi wants to get you into the kitchen and cooking. Chapters are organized around what Maehashi loves – What I Crave, Salads I Love, and I Love Roasted Vegetables are self-declared paeans to Maehashi’s Recipetin world. There’s a chapter for Charlie, an all-purpose stir-fry sauce, in which each dish incorporates the sauce. The “One” chapter limits cooking pans to a singular dish. Sunday Suppers extends her reach into hours-long cooking or dishes that require many steps.

Recipes I Made

I started with a recipe from the Sunday Suppers chapter, Vietnamese Coconut Lemongrass Pulled Pork (p. 284). It was January in NorCal, so lemongrass was not in season. (I found a few wan-looking ones at an Asian market in San Francisco.) Mixed with coconut milk, chile, fish sauce, and sugar, the braising liquid added plentiful flavor to the slow-roasted pork and made a great dipping sauce to serve alongside rice bowls. A win and a “cook once eat twice” dish as I used the leftover pork to make tacos the next day. Baked Satay Chicken (p. 84) requires you to make two sauces – one to coat the chicken and one as a braising liquid. Easy enough as all the ingredients are whisked into a bowl or the braising pan. My family liked this dish but, after eating it, my youngest son asked when I was next making Japanese curry, finding this curry too stodgy. (They are very lucky kids.)

Other baked dinners involved a single pan. With spice paste rubbed into the skin before baking, Arabic Chicken & Potatoes (p. 181) was savory-sweet, a Middle Eastern note from the cumin balanced with lemony sumac. Tapas-y Chorizo Sheet Pan Dinner (p. 194) unleased the full, paprika-scented power of the chorizo’s fat to enrich the potatoes on the pan. (I fail to see how this is a tapas, though?) I added toasted kale as a side dish to up the veg quotient of the meal. Stefan found the dish too heavy while the boys gobbled up a sheet pan’s worth of sausage and potatoes. So, my judges were mixed.

Stir-Fries = Delicious Tonight Success

While no recipe failed, my most praised Maehashi dishes were stir-fries. Firecracker Beef & Cabbage (p. 154), seasoned with Charlie sauce, sriracha, garlic and onions, was a huge hit. With the cabbage and onions mixed right in with the beef, everybody ate everything. I experienced similar success with Honey Sesame Ginger Beef (p. 31). Onion, ginger, garlic and the sweetness of hoisin sauce and honey made this another winner. Both were easy weekday meals with ground beef. Win. Win.

Celebrating Everyday Cooking

As I was cooking from “Delicious Tonight,”, I kept wondering: are Americans eating the same foods as Australians and globalized citizens of the world? Ginger Salmon Quinoa Salad (p. 206), Cheesy Bread Casserole (p. 130) and Smoky Chipotle Dressing (With Roasted Corn) (p. 239) are all dishes that I’ve seen in cookbooks written by American authors. And here is where I wonder if I read too many cookbooks, or if the world has gotten smaller, or if I really just need to get over myself. Because, who cares? If you enjoy a cookbook author’s cooking, make more of it, no matter where in the world they are based or what inspires them.

Delicious Tonight is going on the kitchen shelf, a shelf reserved for cookbooks with more family wins than fails, my go-to shelf for weekday dinner inspiration. Plus, I’ve got enough Charlie sauce to last for another 10 recipes.

Who Would Like This Cookbook

To be honest, I had not heard of Maehashi until a visit from a grad school friend who lives in Hong Kong. She so loved Maehashi’s first cookbook, Dinner, that she encouraged me to review “Delicious Tonight.” I found the recipes well-planned and straight-forward with an undeniable global tilt. Maehashi’s cooking is approachable and saucy. She’s not afraid of a good carbohydrate as a vehicle to transport flavor. Her food is family-friendly, fun, and often delicious.

No matter where you live in the English-speaking world, you, too, can cook the flavors of (most of) the world.

I was provided a preview copy of Delicious Tonight.

Searching for other cookbooks with a similar approach? I recommend Kylie Sakaida’s So Easy, So Good.