Chinese Soul Food

Any kitchen can be a Chinese kitchen with these 80 easy homestyle recipes—plus tips and techniques for cooking with a wok, stocking your pantry, making rice, and more Chinese food is more popular than any other cuisine and yet it often intimidates North American home cooks. Chinese Soul Food draws cooks into the kitchen with recipes that include sizzling potstickers, simply but delicious stir-fries, saucy braises, and soups that bring comfort with a sip. These are dishes that feed the belly and speak the universal language of "mmm!" In Chinese Soul Food, you'll find approachable recipes and plenty of tips for favorite homestyle Chinese dishes, such as red-braised pork belly, dry-fried green beans, braised-beef noodle soup, green onion pancakes, garlic eggplant, and the author's famous potstickers, which consistently sell out her cooking classes in Seattle. You will also find helpful tips and techniques, such as caring for and using a wok and how to cook rice properly, as well as a basic Chinese pantry list that also includes acceptable substitutions, making it even simpler for the busiest among us to cook their favorite Chinese dishes at home. Recipes are streamlined to minimize the fear factor of unfamiliar ingredients and techniques, and home cooks are gently guided toward becoming comfortable cooking satisfying Chinese meals.

A vegetarian follow-up to the very popular Chinese Soul Food cookbook that includes 75 plant-based comfort food recipes you can make at home. Chinese Soul Food drew cooks into the kitchen with the assurance they could make this cuisine at home. Though a popular cuisine across North America, Chinese food can be a little intimidating. But author Hsiao-Ching Chou's friendly and accessible recipes work for everyone, including average home cooks. In this new collection, you'll find vegetarian recipes for stir-fries, rice and noodle dishes, soups, braises, and pickles. Of course, the book wouldn't be complete without vegetarian versions of Chou's famously delicious dumplings, including soup dumplings and shu mai, as well as other dim sum delights. Separate chapters feature egg and tofu recipes. From Cauliflower with Spiced Shallot Oil to Kung Pao Tofu Puffs, and from Hot and Sour Soup to Ma Po Tofu to Steamed Egg Custard, these recipes will satisfy your every craving for classic Chinese comfort food--and all without meat. You will also find helpful information including essential equipment, core pantry ingredients (with acceptable substitutions), ways to season and maintain a wok, and other practical tips that make this an approachable cookbook. Home cooks are gently guided toward becoming comfortable cooking satisfying Chinese meals. Whether you're a vegetarian or simply reducing the amount of meat in your daily diet, these foolproof recipes are made to be cooked any night of the week. As the author likes to say, any kitchen can be a Chinese kitchen!

Veteran food writer Linda Lau Anusasananan opens the world of Hakka cooking to Western audiences in this fascinating chronicle that traces the rustic cuisine to its roots in a history of multiple migrations. Beginning in her grandmother’s kitchen in California, Anusasananan travels to her family’s home in China, and from there fans out to embrace Hakka cooking across the globe—including Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Canada, Peru, and beyond. More than thirty home cooks and chefs share their experiences of the Hakka diaspora as they contribute over 140 recipes for everyday Chinese comfort food as well as more elaborate festive specialties. This book likens Hakka cooking to a nomadic type of "soul food," or a hearty cooking tradition that responds to a shared history of hardship and oppression. Earthy, honest, and robust, it reflects the diversity of the estimated 75 million Hakka living in China and greater Asia, and in scattered communities around the world—yet still retains a core flavor and technique. Anusasananan’s deep personal connection to the tradition, together with her extensive experience testing and developing recipes, make this book both an intimate journey of discovery and an exciting introduction to a vibrant cuisine.

Fresh from the success of Korean Food Made Simple, chef Judy Joo is back with a brand new collection of recipes that celebrate the joys of Korean comfort food and get straight to the heart and soul of the kitchen. Drawing on her own heritage and international experience, Judy presents recipes that appeal to everyone, from street food to snacks and sharing plates, kimchi to Ko-Mex fusion food, and dumplings to desserts. Through clear, easy-to-understand recipes and gorgeous photography, Judy will help you master the basics before putting her signature fun, unexpected twist on the classics, including Philly Cheesesteak dumplings and a full English breakfast–inspired Bibimbap bowl. With over 100 recipes, helpful glossaries, and tips on how to stock the perfect Korean store cupboard, there's something for amateur chefs and accomplished home cooks alike. So much more than rice and fried chicken, these truly unique recipes are simple, delicious, and will have everyone clamoring for more. "Judy Joo captures the flavors and the heart of Korean food and switches things up just enough to make them accessible and familiar, but not so much that you lose the soul of the recipe. It’s an art!" - Sunny Anderson

"50 recipes inspired by life in Chinatown."--Cover.

A collection of more than 100 recipes that introduces Japanese comfort food to American home cooks, exploring new ingredients, techniques, and the surprising origins of popular dishes like gyoza and tempura. Move over, sushi. It’s time for gyoza, curry, tonkatsu, and furai. These icons of Japanese comfort food cooking are the hearty, flavor-packed, craveable dishes you’ll find in every kitchen and street corner hole-in-the-wall restaurant in Japan. In Japanese Soul Cooking, Tadashi Ono and Harris Salat introduce you to this irresistible, homey style of cooking. As you explore the range of exciting, satisfying fare, you may recognize some familiar favorites, including ramen, soba, udon, and tempura. Other, lesser known Japanese classics, such as wafu pasta (spaghetti with bold, fragrant toppings like miso meat sauce), tatsuta-age (fried chicken marinated in garlic, ginger, and other Japanese seasonings), and savory omelets with crabmeat and shiitake mushrooms will instantly become standards in your kitchen as well. With foolproof instructions and step-by-step photographs, you’ll soon be knocking out chahan fried rice, mentaiko spaghetti, saikoro steak, and more for friends and family. Ono and Salat’s fascinating exploration of the surprising origins and global influences behind popular dishes is accompanied by rich location photography that captures the energy and essence of this food in everyday life, bringing beloved Japanese comfort food to Western home cooks for the first time.

Fuchsia Dunlop trained as a chef at China's leading cooking school and is internationally renowned for her delicious recipes and brilliant writing about Chinese food. Every Grain of Rice is inspired by the healthy and vibrant home cooking of southern China, in which meat and fish are enjoyed in moderation, but vegetables play the starring role. Try your hand at blanched choy sum with sizzling oil, Hangzhou broad beans with ham, pock-marked old woman's beancurd or steamed chicken with shiitake mushrooms, or, if you've ever in need of a quick fix, Fuchsia's emergency late-night noodles. Many of the recipes require few ingredients and are startlingly easy to make. The book includes a comprehensive introduction to the key seasonings and techniques of the Chinese kitchen, as well as the 'magic ingredients' that can transform modest vegetarian ingredients into wonderful delicacies. With stunning photography and clear instructions, this is an essential volume for beginners and connoisseurs alike.

JAMES BEARD AWARD WINNER • 100+ fresh, plant-based, umami-packed recipes that show the range of traditional and modern Chinese vegan cuisine from the creator of The Plant-Based Wok. NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST COOKBOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post and Simply Recipes NAMED ONE OF THE BEST COOKBOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times • The National Post • Vice • Epicurious • Food Network • Saveur • Library Journal • Serious Eats When Hannah Che decided to become a vegan, she was concerned that it would alienate her from the traditions and food that her Chinese family celebrated. But that was before she learned about Zhai cai, or vegetarian cooking, a fascinating subset of Chinese cookery that empasizes umami-rich ingredients and can be traced back over hundreds, if not a thousand, years to Buddhist temple kitchens. In The Vegan Chinese Kitchen, Hannah Che shows us the magic of this highly developed and creative tradition in which nearly every dish in the Chinese repertoire can be replicated in a meatless way, such as Sichuan chili-oil wontons, or using spicy mushrooms in dan-dan noodles. In this book, you'll find recipes that are naturally plant-based with a rich culinary history that are as irresistible as they are nourishing, such as flaky scallion pancakes, corn stir fried with peppers and pine nuts, or pea shoots braised in a velvety mushroom broth made with sesame-oil roux. This book will delight vegans and omnivores alike, inviting you not only to explore a whole new world of flavors and ingredients, but also to create conversations about food, cultural traditions and identity, and wholesome, sustainable cooking.