The Chinese Kitchen

Eileen Yin-Fei Lo, author of award-winning cookbooks, menu developer for top Asian restaurants, and cooking teacher, presents her life's work. Reflecting on her life in food, including her childhood in Canton, China, where she learned to cook at her grandmother's side, Eileen has created an exhaustive cookbook of extensive scope. Everything about Chinese cooking has cultural significance, and much of what Eileen talks about in this book has never appeared in print before in the English language. There are more than 250 recipes in all, including many classic banquet-style recipes, quite a number presented for the first time in the traditional manner, from Peking Duck to Beggar's Chicken. Dozens of the techniques for preparing these elaborate recipes are shown in full-color photographs in the color insert as well. Eileen also includes many of her own creations, such as infused oils and rich, flavorful stocks, essential for cooks who are serious about mastering the ancient art of Chinese cooking. Everything is here: dim sum, congees, stir-fries, rice dishes, noodles, bean curd, meat dishes, and more. For anyone who loves Asian cuisines, this is the ultimate cookbook, and for cookbook lovers and aspiring food professionals, this is required reading.

Food writer and world authority on Chinese cuisine, Deh-Ta Hsiung, introduces and describes over 100 essential ingredients for Chinese cooking. He provides at least two delicious recipes for each ingredient to demonstrate their versatility, including Stea

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.

In 2016, Globe and Mail reporter Ann Hui drove across Canada, from Victoria to Fogo Island, to write about small-town Chinese restaurants and the families who run them. It was only after the story was published that she discovered her own family could have been included—her parents had run their own Chinese restaurant, The Legion Cafe, before she was born. This discovery, and the realization that there was so much of her own history she didn’t yet know, set her on a time-sensitive mission: to understand how, after generations living in a poverty-stricken area of Guangdong, China, her family had somehow wound up in Canada. Chop Suey Nation: The Legion Cafe and Other Stories from Canada’s Chinese Restaurantsweaves together Hui’s own family history—from her grandfather’s decision to leave behind a wife and newborn son for a new life, to her father’s path from cooking in rural China to running some of the largest “Western” kitchens in Vancouver, to the unravelling of a closely guarded family secret—with the stories of dozens of Chinese restaurant owners from coast to coast. Along her trip, she meets a Chinese-restaurant owner/small-town mayor, the owner of a Chinese restaurant in a Thunder Bay curling rink, and the woman who runs a restaurant alone, 365 days a year, on the very remote Fogo Island. Hui also explores the fascinating history behind “chop suey” cuisine, detailing the invention of classics like “ginger beef” and “Newfoundland chow mein,” and other uniquely Canadian fare like the “Chinese pierogies” of Alberta. Hui, who grew up in authenticity-obsessed Vancouver, begins her journey with a somewhat disparaging view of small-town “fake Chinese” food. But by the end, she comes to appreciate the essentially Chinese values that drive these restaurants—perseverance, entrepreneurialism and deep love for family. Using her own family’s story as a touchstone, she explores the importance of these restaurants in the country’s history and makes the case for why chop suey cuisine should be recognized as quintessentially Canadian.

Here are 140 classic Cantonese recipes--handed down with their importance to health and prosperity. of color photos and 35 b&w photos. 2-color throughout.

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

American diners began to flock to Chinese restaurants more than a century ago, making Chinese food the first mass-consumed cuisine in the United States. By 1980, it had become the country's most popular ethnic cuisine. Chop Suey, USA offers the first comprehensive interpretation of the rise of Chinese food, revealing the forces that made it ubiquitous in the American gastronomic landscape and turned the country into an empire of consumption. Engineered by a politically disenfranchised, numerically small, and economically exploited group, Chinese food's tour de America is an epic story of global cultural encounter. It reflects not only changes in taste but also a growing appetite for a more leisurely lifestyle. Americans fell in love with Chinese food not because of its gastronomic excellence but because of its affordability and convenience, which is why they preferred the quick and simple dishes of China while shunning its haute cuisine. Epitomized by chop suey, American Chinese food was a forerunner of McDonald's, democratizing the once-exclusive dining-out experience for such groups as marginalized Anglos, African Americans, and Jews. The rise of Chinese food is also a classic American story of immigrant entrepreneurship and perseverance. Barred from many occupations, Chinese Americans successfully turned Chinese food from a despised cuisine into a dominant force in the restaurant market, creating a critical lifeline for their community. Chinese American restaurant workers developed the concept of the open kitchen and popularized the practice of home delivery. They streamlined certain Chinese dishes, such as chop suey and egg foo young, turning them into nationally recognized brand names.

Award-winning cookbook author and celebrated food expert Eileen Yin-Fei Lo learned how to cook from her talented grandmother. This inspiring and instructive book collects 100 recipes the author learned in her grandmother's kitchen, along with the life lessons, observations, and other gifts she hopes to pass on to readers and future generations. Cherished holiday recipes include steamed buns and fish congees for birthdays, vegetables prepared during the Lunar New Year, and rice dumplings made for the Dragon Boat Festival. All the essential techniques of the Chinese kitchen are represented, including stir-frying, steaming, roasting, stewing, braising, and more. A volume to cook from, to share, and to read as a memoir in its own right, My Grandmother's Chinese Kitchen celebrates a great culinary tradition by sharing family wisdom and timeless recipes.