New World Noodles

Stephen Wong is a chef from Vancouver, Canada, known for his fusion-style cooking. Bill Jones is a food consultant. Their New World Noodles shows how well a cook who understands his materials can use them in both traditional and creative ways, and how fusion cooking--using ethnic ingredients in nontraditional ways--can go a long way.

Nearly all the traditional dishes in New World Noodles are appealing, including the Vietnamese-style Beef Noodle Soup, Moo Shu-style Prawns with Spinach Noodles, and Chopped Chicken in Lettuce Wrap with Crispy Glass Noodles. But what can one make of such strange combinations as Wonton Noodles Tossed with Halibut, Lettuce, and Spiced Carrot Broth, or Shrimp and Cottage Cheese Dumplings in Clamato Broth? The book is a grab bag of information; for example, advice about the many kinds of Asian wheat and rice noodles can be overly basic or remarkably helpful, and you rarely thinks of noodles for dessert, but the five sweet recipes in this book are all appealing.