Last month, a few of us were invited to a small gathering to launch Chef Tatung’s Simpol Cookbook 🙂
By then, the cookbook had already been sold out, so we just ended up having a nice lunch at Pandan Asian Cafe and making chika while still socially distanced.
Simpol The Cookbook
Anyway, Chef gave me a signed copy of his cookbook and I’ve been checking out the recipes inside. The recipes are a little bit simplified compared to more complicated or tedious traditional recipes I’ve seen, hence the name, Simpol – while not sacrificing too much on technique and flavor. This is a good thing for a busy home cook who just wants to have something on the table with less effort but still with good results.
There’s also a good variety of recipes – chicken, pork, beef, vegetables, seafood, rice & noodles, as well as Filipino, Chinese, Thai to Mexican, Spanish, and even Swedish (Chef’s version of Ikea Meatballs), from everyday dishes to ones for special occasions, like the Bellychon. If you do Menu Planning and are running out of ideas on what to cook, just flip through the pages of this cookbook to get ideas on what to make 🙂
What’s also nice about it is not only does the cookbook list the ingredients and the procedure, each recipe also has a QR link to the cooking video! To open it, just use Google Lens or any QR reader. Google Lens is already included in most Android phones’ camera app, but you can also download this on the Play Store.
How to Access Simpol The Cookbook’s Video Recipes
Here are some screenshots on how I did it:
Open Google Lens:
Point the camera on the QR code:
Go to the website and watch the video:
I already made the Gising-Gising on page 137 and it turned out well 🙂 I cook by feel, the way most Asians do, and not by measurements, but having this recipe by my side while cooking made me feel less harried while cooking. Even though I was stressing from having to cook so many things for lunch – soup, as well as other side dishes, just following instructions for this recipe gave me one less thing to think about, even if I was just guesstimating the amounts and only used sitaw.
The cookbook itself is printed in full color on semi-glossy paper (not newsprint), with gorgeous photos, and I didn’t actually count them all, but it seems like there are about a hundred recipes included (101 recipes, according to the cover) 🙂 The price for the Simpol Cookbook is P350 on Shopee, and I think that’s pretty good value.
Of course, the cookbook has sponsors, and it’s understandable that the sponsor’s products are the ones used in the recipe, but I just use my preferred brands.
I think the cookbook is designed for beginner to intermediate home cooks, but can also be used by more advanced home cooks.
The link to the video recipes will make things easier for those who like to watch how it’s cooked, and then just use the cookbook as reference to prep the ingredients and measurements during actual cooking. This is also an especially useful feature for those who want to delegate the cooking to someone else – just send them the link to the video so they can watch and follow how to cook the dish you like 🙂
Simpol Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/lutongsimpol/
