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Title: The Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen : Classic Family Recipes for Celebration and Healing by Grace Young, Alan Richardson ISBN: 0-684-84739-6 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 05 May, 1999 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.6 (30 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Drooling with delight!
Comment: As an American Born Chinese, finding this book was a huge relief. Like so many ABCs, I love the food of my culture but certainly didn't know how to prepare it. This is an authentic down home Chinese cookbook. No fancy dishes here - only comfort food need apply. The book is divided into the following: 1) rice from steamed, fried, dumplings and porridge 2) stir fry - including tomato beef and beef chow fun 3) steamed cooking- egg custard, sponge cake, spareribs with black bean sauce 4) cooking with ginger - drunken chicken, cabbage noodle soup 5) seasonal market dishes - braised taro and chinese bacon, stir fried bitter melon with beef 6) celebratory dishes - stir fried clams with black bean sauce, pepper and salt shrimp, sweet and sour pork 7) New Year's dishes - turnip cake, seasame balls 8) authentic recipes from the homeland - savory rice tamales, pork dumplings, stuffed noodle rolls 9) Chinatown favorites - soy sauce chicken, roast duck, barbecued pork and salt roasted chicken 10) a slew of healing soups and dishes. Reading it was a trip down memory lane for me. The dishes are truly authentic to the Chinese family experience and or those who seek authenticity, Young has presented it here. She also includes a handy guide to shopping and mail order resources!
Rating: 5
Summary: Authentic Home Style Cantonese Recipes
Comment: Growing up in Chinatown, my family ate Cantonese food pretty much every meal, every day. When cooking Chinese food on my own, I try my best to mirror how my parents cook because there are no written recipes to follow. With this book, there are finally written-down Cantonese recipes that a real Chinese family would cook at home and are perfect for those people who want to cook like mom & dad used to. Most of the recipes are for everyday dishes such as Steamed Pork Cake with Salted Duck Egg, Stir Fried Egg with BBQ Pork or Soy Sauce Chicken. But there are also a few special occasion recipes such as Shark's Fin Soup. Extremely helpful is the index/description of common and not so common ingredients and their Chinese characters/ Cantonese pronounciations for those who don't speak Chinese. I couldn't attest to the 100% accuracy of the history behind the dishes as other reviewers have been critical of, but I'm just looking for recipes, not stories. Eileen Yin-Fei Lo's The Chinese Kitchen is okay but seems more complicated so I find myself gravitating to Grace Young's book more. If you prefer Chinese food like you find at a mainstream American Chinese restaurant, then you'll probably be disappointed with this book. This is a good book to buy if you're interested in Cantonese food that goes beyond Cashew Chicken and Sweet & Sour Pork (both authentic Cantonese dishes and found in this book - but taste very different from what is found in most restaurants). A valuable find!
Rating: 5
Summary: Singapore Noodles
Comment: In response to Mike Simm's comments on the recipe on page 32, here's a contrasting view. I'm from Singapore and am cantonese. There are lots of cantonese hawker stores that sell food for eating in or take out, prepared a la minute. For tourists, the best food isn't at fancy cafes or restaurants, its in the neighbourhood hawker centres or our version of coffeeshops under housing flats.
Go to any of these, and order Hong Kong noodles. Go another day and order Singapore noodles. There's a high chance you will get the same thing. I asked the chef (A cantonese) at a RedHill shop why the Hong Kong mee is called Singapore noodles and he told me that the noodles were being cooked in Singapore, so why call it HongKong noodles?
The cantonese took the foods from the different cultures they met and made it their own. They moved to other countries and it becomes associated with the new country. Case in point being Hainanese chicken rice, made famous in Singapore with roots in Hainan. Curry was just another spice they incorporated into their repertoire. Also, by using the words Madras Curry Powder, it would be more easily understood by Western readers. What if they had used the red African curry powder also available in USA?
Migration of humans and food have happened throughout history, some recorded and some not. Take for example fish sauce originating from China and made famous by the Thais. Another would be Catherine De Medici from Italy kicking off French cuisine like we know it today by introducing techniques and foods such as truffles and quenelles to the French. The former was unrecorded, but the latter was.
So who's to say Singapore noodles is not a cantonese dish? Sure as heck all the chefs here that cook them are cantonese. Maybe it was made famous here. Let the people in HongKong throw their jokes. Between Hong Kong noodles and Singapore noodles, which one appears in cookbooks more and is more likely to be recognized by westerners (Eileen Yin Fei Lo's Chinese Kitchen book has Singapore noodles too)?
I'd say Singapore got the last laugh, because we stole their recipe and made it ours. And yes, I've tasted fish sauce in some Singapore noodles too. Does that make it any less authentic?
Who cares, as long as it tastes good right?
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Title: The Chinese Kitchen: Recipes, Techniques, Ingredients, History, and Memories from America's Leading Authority on Chinese Cooking by Eileen Yin-Fei Lo ISBN: 0688158269 Publisher: Morrow Cookbooks Pub. Date: 01 December, 1999 List Price(USD): $37.50 |
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Title: Dim Sum : The Art of Chinese Tea Lunch by ELLEN LEONG BLONDER ISBN: 0609608878 Publisher: Clarkson Potter Pub. Date: 09 April, 2002 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: Every Grain of Rice : A Taste of Our Chinese Childhood in America by ELLEN LEONG BLONDER, ANNABEL LOW ISBN: 0609601024 Publisher: Clarkson Potter Pub. Date: 26 May, 1998 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: Martin Yan's Chinatown Cooking : 200 Traditional Recipes from 11 Chinatowns Around the World by Martin Yan ISBN: 0060084758 Publisher: Morrow Cookbooks Pub. Date: 22 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $34.95 |
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Title: Ken Hom's Foolproof Chinese Cooking by Ken Hom ISBN: 0789471450 Publisher: DK Publishing Pub. Date: 01 January, 2001 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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