An Encyclopedia of Chinese Food and Cooking
May 24, 2011 by admin
Filed under Chinese food cookbooks
An Encyclopedia οf Chinese Food аnd Cooking
List Price: $ 9.99
Price: $ 42.00
Recipe Trezor-Treasure
Recipes, Recipes And More Recipes
Chinese cooking bible,
This book really is the book to own for chinese cooking. I have recently tried several recipes and was really happy with all of them. The book is pretty stark–ingredients list and very simple directions. But it has hundreds and hundreds of recipes. If you enjoy cooking, this book will give you tons of great ideas for recipes of your own. If you happen to get a copy, don’t give it up, because it’s out of print.
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|Great authentic food,
If you already have some idea of authentic Chinese cooking and are looking to get away from Americanized dishes, this book is a great resource. One of the main things I like about it (and use it for), is that it includes recipes for a lot of ingredients that you might only find in a Chinese market and that are not included in a lot of English Chinese cookbooks, even the authentic ones. E.g. there are recipes for red cooked pigs feet, pork stuffed fuzzy melon, lotus root, etc, as well as the standard lion’s head and so on. It is not a book to really teach beginners how to cook authentic Chinese food, especially as there is minimal, though precise, instructions. For that (for English readers), I would recommend Angela Chang’s “Chinese Home Cooking” as a good introduction. But this is a great resource.
I do sort of prefer cookbooks with pictures, but I actually am glad this one doesn’t have them as it contains so much information instead.
The index covers Chinese (pinyin) and English, though i only can use the English part, I think some might find that helpful.
Another plus is the recipes don’t use MSG. My one complaint with the book is that the recipes do sometimes come out too salty. I would recommend halving the salt and using low sodium soy sauce, as well as being aware of the salt content if soy sauce and salt are included in the same recipe.
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|Excellent and Indispensible reference,
I have the original 1970 edition of this work and was looking for a copy for a friend. It’s worth giving to those who appreciate real Chinese food. It’s a very stark book – not much text at all, and the recipes are of the “Add A to B to C” type, but if you are competant in the kitchen, then you only need the ingredient list, anyway. It’s truly an encyclopedia – its collection of dishes are complete, and the regional information is given for each. This book makes it criminally easy to plan a Cantonese dinner party or a Mandarin luncheon and to be assured of doing it right. All in all, my copy is perhaps the most well worn kitchen reference I own.
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