I first came across the Honeysuckle Youtube channel by way of a friend's social media post, like most of us come across things these days. After becoming obsessed with her videos on boba tea as the summer heat was cranking up, I pre-ordered The Honeysuckle Cookbook. Her fresh take on food convinced me this was a worthwhile physical book purchase. And it's pink!
As with many pre-ordered things, it came, I read it excitedly, then shelved it. The holidays, you know. Following that phase of eating, her cookbook and it's pretty pinkness called out to me from the bookshelf and I sat down one chilly night with a stack of post-it flags to mark recipes. Let me tell you, that book was filled with flags!
Part of the appeal of Dzung Lewis is her multicultural fearlessness. She is the daughter of Vietnamese immigrants and her husband is half Korean, so she has a lot of flavor backgrounds to draw from, and she mixes them flawlessly, like in the recipe for kimchi mac and cheese, or veggie mu shu. Her easily shared knowledge about Vietnamese ingredients and techniques is especially helpful for someone like me with little exposure to it. Though what I've had I've liked, so learning more about it on a base level has been easy from reading this book.
I haven't been able to make a ton of recipes from this book yet but the ones I have were winners. The first was French onion risotto. As a risotto fan, and a French onion devotee, this one was so good there's no photos of it!
Other recipes have been just as good but I've stopped to take photos. These crispy Brussels sprouts have introduced me to the hot pan technique and I like it! I don't like how I can't eat Brussels sprouts with reckless abandon anymore. Though they are delicious, hold yourself back and enjoy these as a small portion side dish only.
Moving along, I tried her cheesy everything bagel biscuits. As a Southerner I was like, alright let's see what these California folks know about biscuits, and followed the recipe exactly. I left all of my biscuit knowledge to the side, except to use White Lilly flour, because I'm not a biscuit murderer.
A few things struck me, like the lack of layer making by folding the dough. And the egg wash. I haven't made biscuits at home in a while, but the egg wash part threw me off. But egg washes are good on everything else, so I brushed it on. The biscuits turned out a bit flat for my liking (due to the lack of folding to create the flaky tall layers, but the taste is great. Cheese + everything but the bagel seasoning is a winner! Basically, I'm saying these aren't biscuits like you'd know them from the Southern table but that isn't an excuse to dismiss them. But do use White Lilly flour, it gives you a much softer biscuit due to the lower protein content in the wheat! Dzung, come to South Carolina and we'll make some biscuits and fry some stuff!
Finally (for this review at least), I made a closely-hewn version of the sesame soba noddle stir-fry. The big difference was my subbing in dry udon noodles for soba because the newly rebranded grocery store nearby didn't have soba and their organization sucks but deep breath... I think udon noodles did a fine job.
The sauce was flavorful and clung to the noodles, and I got a ton of vegetables in with this meal! It's exactly the kind of weeknight meal I was looking for without having to wade through possibly yucky Pinterest versions.
I haven't yet made anything from the dessert section, but most every recipe is flagged in my copy. From the simpler Mexican pots de creme to the slightly more involved matcha lava cake, I want to toss aside what I'm doing to make dessert when I open the book.
The only drawback I can see to this book is that most people can't necessarily just open it and start cooking. Some recipes involve ingredients that will necessitate a trip to the international market or Amazon. That isn't a bad thing though. It really does what this book drew me to do — get me and you out of your food rut. You can't stay in a food rut while sourcing Vietnamese coffee, daikon, and ssamjang if you don't already use those ingredients. Get ready to excite and delight your tastebuds, and while you're waiting on your book to arrive, get a taste of the Honeysuckle life on her Youtube channel.
