Product Description

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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #226926 in Books
• Published on: 1999-12-01
• Released on: 1999-11-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 464 pages

Amazon.com
In this unique book, Eileen Yin-Fei Lo delves richly into Chinese cuisine, reflecting in its complexity the nation's culture, history, geographic diversity, and philosophies of health and living. Regardless of how many Chinese cookbooks you already own, The Chinese Kitchen is sure to bring you new information and recipes. And no one else can offer the intriguing family recipes she includes, such as her mother's lean, steamed loin of pork marinated in ginger juice and oyster sauce.

Lo grew up in Canton (now Guangzhou). Her stories about her visits with Ah Paw, her maternal grandmother, become lessons she shares with us. Lo learned about cooking and received much wisdom from this sparrow of a woman, whose feet were bound, in the old way, when she was a child, to keep them four inches long, but who fiercely brought her daughter and granddaughter into modern times. She also taught Lo about Confucius and the ancient traditions such as the Seven Necessities of rice, tea, oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar, and firewood.

When Lo talks about ingredients in the "Chinese Larder" chapter, she provides Chinese characters in the margin that can be photocopied so you can show them at stores to be sure you get the right ingredients. Familiar recipes in The Chinese Kitchen, from Orange Beef to Moo Shu Pork, are followed by more exotic choices such as Shrimp Stir-Fried with Garlic Cloves and Hakka Bean Curd, stuffed with dried shrimp and lightly fried. An entire chapter is devoted to Buddha Jump over the Wall, a kind of a Chinese Babette's Feast. This special recipe from the Fuzhou region requires two days to make and calls for 28 ingredients, mercifully not including the fish lips, duck gizzards and other items used in the true Fuzhou version but which Westerners generally shun. This robust, country dish, combining chicken, duck, ham, and lamb in a kind of pot-au-feu, is so alluring that supposedly the Buddha himself, a vegetarian, could not resist it. It provides insight into Chinese cooking at its most complex.

Fans of Chinese tea will delight in the chapter devoted to this revered beverage. For everyone, simply reading The Chinese Kitchen will enhance enormously the pleasure of dining out in Chinese restaurants. --Dana Jacobi

From Publishers Weekly
In her newest Chinese cookbook, Canton native Yin-Fei Lo (The Chinese Banquet Cookbook) meticulously explains the history of the Chinese table from 5000 B.C. to the 20th century, documenting the influence of various imperial dynasties on China's cuisine. Seventeen chapters explore the Chinese larder, teas, wines, cooking equipment and techniques, classic Chinese dishes, rice and noodles, food-as-medicine, meats and vegetables, dim sum and the evolution of Chinese-American restaurant dishes. Yin-Fei Lo emphasizes the principles of the Chinese kitchen: selecting the freshest ingredients, eating foods in season and eating foods in harmony with their yin (cooling) versus yang (warming) properties. Anecdotes and recipe prefaces detail regional and dynastic origins of dishes, including relevant folklore, superstition and symbolism associated with them. An accessible repertoire of recipes ranges from popular regional classics, like Peking Duck and spicy Sichuan Mah Paw Dau Fu to "Western Chinese restaurant clich?s" like Egg Drop Soup and Chow Mein. Integrating her own food memories growing up in Sun Tak, China, Yin-Fei Lo conveys her culinary heritage with precision and passion, delivering a richly layered resource on Chinese cookery. (Dec.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
With impressive thoroughness, Lo's wide-ranging new book goes beyond "recipes, techniques, and ingredients," exploring as well the cultural and culinary history of Chinese food, the importance of symbolism in Chinese cooking, food as medicine, and a variety of other topics; it's a personal history, too, with wisdom and dishes passed down from her maternal grandmother and other family members. Lo is the author of other good cookbooks, including The Chinese Way, but this is by far her most ambitious work. There's a long and detailed glossary ("The Chinese Larder"), a good technique section, and chapters on the teas and wines of China, as well as on non-Chinese wines to serve with her dishes. Recipes are both classic and contemporary, with special sections on regional specialties, dishes from the author's childhood in Sun Tak (known for its discerning cooks), and authentic, i.e., good versions, of the recipes that have become clich?s in so many Chinese-American restaurants. An essential purchase.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

I hate to burst the bubble, but...
Overall, it seems the cookbook is geared for westerners (note the wine list discussion at the end of the book) but at the same time it seems to make it overly difficult for them to cook the recipes.

I've read many of the reviews here before being enticed into buying this book because of the many high praises for 'authenticity' and pro level quality of the recipes. I have to say I was sadly disappointed. There are many problems with this book, which some of the more critical of the reviews have mentioned, such as: haphazard organization, overly complicated ingredients lists meant for people with kitchen staff, and no pictures of the finished dish for the uninitiated. Talking about self praise, the first sentence in the front cover fold is that she is the 'Cantonese Julia Child'. But, while Julia Child actually trained in kitchens in France, all I could discern from the book of Eileen Lo's training is that her grandmother, Ah Paw, taught her while she was growing up. Her grandmother, the auther notes, "knew instinctively, without ever having had to personally put a spatula into wok, how things ought to be cooked..."

But, let's go to the crux of a good cookbook, the recipes. My definition of good recipe writing is that in Jacques Pepin's or Julia Child's books: no mistakes, succinct with good professional hints. You KNOW they had tested the recipe many times.
Pros:
- description of ingredients (but again, where's the picture?)
- Chinese characters for ingredients and recipes (but why in cursive Chinese. Printed form of Chinese is so much easier - and yes, I read Chinese)
Cons:
- A biggy: some of the Chinese is wrong. Sometimes it is so obvious such as when the number of Chinese characters are more or less than the 'pinyin' version. If you have the book, try counting the words if you can't read them. Critical because it suggests copying the characters to bring to your Chinese grocer (or restaurant?) for ordering.
- Instructions are overly complicated. For example, after sauteing veggies you are told to towel wipe the pan down. Not necessary unless you need to change the flavor.
- Some recipes are definitely not traditional. Authentic? Well, maybe.. but to where? Example: steamed bread or 'man tau' is traditional made with yeast but a modern quickbread version using baking powder is used here. Personally, I dislike the quickbread version. It doesn't have the proper bread fragrance. But many Chinese bakeries currently use it for speed.
- Overuse of oyster sauce. For example, marinating the lobster in Cantonese Lobster in oyster sauce: do you really want the lobster to taste like oysters? Not me.

To give some of my background, I'm a cooking enthusiast, have worked in a number of Chinese restaurant kitchens, cook mostly Chinese but eat and cook international foods, and own many a cookbooks some of which are very good (but not this one).
-

Truly authentic recipes, but what kind of people are they for...
This book has authentic recipes. But they may be 'authentic' in a way that I suspect most normal Americans (and many Chinese in China to some extent) will be unable to really embrace. What I mean by this is that these are authentic Cantonese aristocratic recipes; i.e. food for the kind of people that can afford servants, or at least have a stay at home mother or father who has enough time to devote multiple hours to cooking dinner each day. Even when the recipes venture into other areas of Chinese cuisine, it holds that same kind overly epicurean complexity.

I grew up with my grandparents cooking Cantonese food for me, and though preparations can get quite complex in the Chinese kitchen, dinner rarely feels like a burden. This book simply calls for too many ingredients, oftentimes obscure ones, oftentimes in trifling amounts. Currently I live in Beijing and the agricultural market is right down the street, but generally speaking I can hardly motivate myself to go gather all the many ingredients in these epic recipes. I feel in many ways that Ms. Lo neglects an important, but certainly not all encompassing, concept in Chinese cooking, which is straightforwardness and letting good ingredients speak for themselves.

To compare, Ms. Lo's recipe for Mah Paw Daufu (not a Cantonese dish) has 22 ingredients listed. Whereas in the "Land of Plenty" cookbook the Ma Po Doufu calls for 12 ingredients. Both recipes create a wonderful dish, but as the recipe in "Land of Plenty" is much less complex I use it 95% of the time. Having grown up with Chinese food and having lived in China for 3 years I would say that "Land of Plenty" is more 'authentic' in that its the home style cooking that most Chinese people do.

Notice I did give this book 3 stars which means I think it is good, just not great. I have tried a good number of the recipes and all of them resulted in very nice dishes. Ms. Lo understands Chinese cooking, Chinese food, and Chinese culture, so the essays about food in this book are extremely informative. I also appreciate that she tries to cover the many regions of Chinese cuisine. Yet in the end, if you are like me, work full time, don't have enough money for an in-house chef, or don't have a stay at home spouse, I would recommend looking for other Chinese cookbooks.

Excellent- and difficult
The recipes I've tried in this volume are indeed all excellent, and taste like what I'd expect in the more authentic Chinese restaurants I eat in. The Hainan Chcken Rice is very close to the recipe that was taught to me by a Chinese friend from Hong Kong. Now few of these recipes are easy; this is not a "dinner from your wok in five minutes" sort of Chinese cookbook. Some take preparations that span over two days, or more. If you can take the time to do a proper job, though, you'll be rewarded for your efforts.

But as others have noted, this book does have its problems. The list of ingredients in the beginning is incomplete; many ingredients don't make an appearance until they show up in the instructions for a specific recipe. While there is a small photo section in the middle of the book, showing some of the more obscure techniques (like inflating a Beijing duck) it is woefully inadequate, and in some instances doesn't really help. The photos on making Bao (buns) show the beginning of pleating the top closed, but if you've never seen this demonstrated the photo is not of much help. Many other reviewers have rightfully noted that when cooking an unfamiliar cuisine it's very useful to have pictures to guide you in making a dish that looks right.

So this is a good, but flawed, book. If you're already familiar with many of the dishes presented here, and with the basic techniques of Chinese cooking, and Chinese ingredients, and you're ready to plunge into some time consuming techniques, you'll find this volume very useful. Those with less experience might look elsewhere for a while.