Uyen Luu’s ‘Quick & Easy Vietnamese’ – Review by Mex Ibrahim

Quick & Easy Vietnamese: Everyday Vietnamese Recipes for The Home Cook  is the latest book from multi-talented writer, cook, food and prop stylist, and photographer Uyen Luu. When Uyen is not writing or taking photographs for a number of best-selling cookbooks she runs supperclubs and Vietnamese cooking classes in her London home.  Our co-founder Mex Ibrahim, reviews Quick & Easy Vietnamese after Uyen’s joyous launch party on 9th August.

I’ve met Uyen a number of times at various launch parties. She was the photographer for Dominique Woolf’s The Asian Pantry which I reviewed a few weeks ago.  But it was only after meeting her at the National Geographic Traveller Food Festival, where she expertly demonstrated how to make Vietnamese Summer Rolls that I got to talk to her properly. She was introduced to me by Norman Musa, pictured above, with me, Su Scott (another great food writer I first met at National Geographic Food Festival) & Uyen herself.

Uyen is a joy to be around and along with host Katrina Ridley, they made dozens of Summer Rolls from Uyen’s book. It was another perfect example of the therapeutic nature of creating beautiful items which you might marvel at in a restaurant, but when calmly demonstrated to you, they do seem easy!.

Uyen’s recipes can be whipped up with minimum fuss and are therefore great for any night or day of the week. All of the dishes in her latest book are ones she learned from her mother, who was proudly beaming at Uyen’s launch party.

Uyen hosts Vietnamese supper clubs at in her studio, but chose the delightful Rouge Shop in Stoke Newington to launch her book. We enjoyed a huge feast of dishes from her latest books and I happened to be standing by the addictive won tons and probably ate a dozen of them.

The picture below is beautifully styled by Lucy Rose Turnbull and with great lighting by Uyen but the ones in reality looked equally good and I MUST make them. Particularly after, seeing the demo of Shu Han Lee’s Wontons from her new book, Agak Agak Everyday Recipes from Singapore.  Vietnamese, Thai and Singapore dishes are some of my favourite types of food and armed with these cookbooks which truly de-mystify the cuisines, I feel more than capable of cooking them at home.

This is Uyen’s fourth cookbook,  and she’s been cooking recipes from it along with microbiome expert Tim Spector ahead of the launch. He said “If there’s one thing you can do to improve your gut health, it’s to increase the number of plants you eat. As a gut microbiome expert, I’m on a mission and personal journey to get people into the kitchen, cooking with more plants.

That’s why I am so excited to bring you a recipe series with Vietnamese food expert Uyen Luu.”

Uyen’s book and the ethos of her supper clubs is all about using great ingredients, once you have fresh ingredients the rest of the dishes come easily. She says “All the chicken we cook is free range; all beef is grass fed and free range, all pork is free ranging on fields. If fish is used, it is sustainably caught on day boats. I have not yet sourced sustainable prawns but it is my next quest.

During the Spring and Summer months, most of the Vietnamese herbs we use are grown by my mother in her Dulwich garden.”

There was a true sense of family at Uyen’s book as not only her mother was in attendance, but her daughter played a big role in the celebrations and I am guessing may be involved in the wonderful hand drawn invites to Uyen’s supper clubs.

I left the launch party full of food but also with a sense of wellbeing and belong as that is what comes from food cooked with minimum fuss but with maximum love.

Quick & Easy Vietnamese is published by Hardie Grant and is on sale from 15th August 2024

You may also like to read Antonia Lloyd’s cookbook reviews of A Woman’s Place is in the Kitchen by Sally Abe, Elly Wentworth at The Angel of Dartmouth, Cooking with Anna by Anna Haugh,  Easy Wins by Anna Jones, The Taste of Belgium by Ruth Van Waerebeek and her review of Plant Feasts by Frankie Paz, our review of Recipes for a Better Menopause by Jane Baxter & Dr Federica Amati and our book review of Modern South Asian Kitchen by Sabrina Gidda.