Title:	The Easy Puerto Rican Cookbook: 100 Classic Recipes Made Simple
	Author:	Tony Rican
	Published:	May 12, 2020, Rockridge Press
	No. of Pages:	154
	Cover Price:	$16.99 Paperback, $6.99 Kindle

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Puerto Rican food is delicious, and Tony Rican has made it easy to make at home in his cookbook, The Easy Puerto Rican Cookbook: 100 Classic Recipes Made Simple. Cookbooks that are based on foods that the author has grown up on, and thus are family heirloom recipes, are often better than recipes taken from a laundry list in cookbooks that don’t seem personal. Rican has done an excellent job of bringing out the fact that these recipes are not only authentic, but also tasty.

One critic has really panned this book because it calls evaporated milk, and sweetened condensed milk by different names. Although it’s nice when editors catch problems like this, cooks will be able to tell which kind of milk, and their recipes will still turn out (evaporated – no sugar; condensed or sweetened condensed – very sweet). Hopefully there will be an update. However, this isn’t a good reason not to like this cookbook, since the instructions are easy-to-understand and no matter whether the cook is a beginner or advanced cook, the recipes will turn out well. Having been taught a bit about Puerto Rican food many years ago from a friend who was from there, it is nice to see recipes that are obviously from the island and use Puerto Rican ingredients. The cookbook includes salads, appetizers, main dishes made vegetarian, with chicken, pork, beef, and seafood, and most sound so good that the queue is getting longer every day.

There are enough fabulous recipes (including sofrito which is almost identical to the one my friend gave me), and a delicious picadillo. Arroz con pollo is a classic, and although I substitute chicken breasts for thighs, Rican’s version is good. Puerto Rican BBQ Chicken is also a winner, as well as Garlic Rice with Shrimp.

There is, unfortunately, one drawback to this book; it doesn’t have very many photographs. Many of the recipes are foreign to mainstream cooks, and it would be very nice to have pictures of what we plan to cook. Anyone who wants to learn to cook good Puerto Rican food, will use this book often.


Special thanks to NetGalley for supplying a review copy of this book.