The Chinese Chicken Cookbook
100 Easy-to-Prepare, Authentic Recipes for the American Table
-
- $34.99
-
- $34.99
Publisher Description
Renowned Chinese cooking expert and IACP Award–winning author, Eileen Yin-Fei Lo, who has been called "the Marcella Hazan of Chinese cooking," brings American home cooks more than 100 recipes for the versatile chicken, from simple stir-fries to celebration dishes.
In China the chicken represents the phoenix, the mythological bird that rose from its ashes and that symbolizes rebirth and reaffirmation. Because of this deeply held belief, chicken is served at every New Year celebration, every wedding feast, and every birthday dinner. The chicken is honored for its eggs, its meat, and the flavor it provides for stocks and broths. Because of the reverence for this bird, the Chinese prepare chicken in myriad ways. Chicken is steamed, baked, boiled, stir-fried, deep-fried, pan-fried, and roasted. It is served hot, cold, or at room temperature. No part of the chicken is wasted from its bones to its skin to its feet, a Chinese delicacy.
Now, renowned Chinese cooking expert Eileen Yin-Fei Lo, who has been called "the Marcella Hazan of Chinese cooking" by The New York Times,brings her love of Chinese cooking and traditional Chinese chicken recipes to American home cooks in The Chinese Chicken Cookbook.
The Chinese Chicken Cookbook brings together more than one hundred of the best traditional and modern chicken recipes of China from simple stir-fries to more elaborate celebration dishes. In chapters that pair chicken with noodles and rice and in chapters on soup, preparing chicken in the wok, and cooking it whole, readers will find dozens of delicious, easy-to-prepare delicacies. Recipes such as Two-Sesame Chicken, Hot and Sour Soup, Ginger Noodles with Chicken, Chicken Water Dumplings, Chicken Stir-Fried with Broccoli, Mu Shu Chicken with Bok Bang, Mah-Jongg Chicken, and Asparagus Wrapped in Minced Chicken offer new and flavorful ways to prepare chicken whether you're making a quick weeknight meal or having dinner guests on a Saturday night.
Although these recipes use ingredients that home chefs can find in the international section of a well-stocked supermarket or on the Internet, Lo includes the Chinese names for ingredients and recipes, rendered in beautiful Chinese calligraphic characters. Not only decorative, these characters can help you locate unfamiliar ingredients in a Chinese market. The Chinese Chicken Cookbook also has sections on how to select and clean a chicken, a detailed explanation of Chinese ingredients, suggested equipment (including how to properly season a wok), and how to cook a perfect pot of rice.
With wonderful family stories from the author's childhood in China, The Chinese Chicken Cookbook is not just a cookbook for your cookbook library, it is a source of culinary inspiration.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Chinese folklore, allegory and mythology, writes Yin-Fei Lo (The Chinese Cookbook), chicken is one of the foods that has"meanings and significance beyond satisfying hunger." And Yin-Fei Lo's inclusion of intricate calligraphy by San Yong Wong and explanations of the importance of many dishes, as well as anecdotes about her experiences in China, do make this book feel more significant than a standard weeknight chicken cookbook. Nonetheless, it does offer a collection of easy-to-prepare recipes that will greatly enhance any cook's standard repertoire. Reader-friendly sections on Chinese ingredients and techniques make recipes such as Hot and Sour Soup (Seun Lot Tong), Ginger Noodles with Chicken (Geung See Gai Mein), Chicken Sui Mai (Gai Yuk Siu Mai), and Street Dumplings with Vinegar Ginger Dip (Gai Bin Gau) approachable and non-intimidating, even if ingredient lists are long. A final chapter on the Mah-Jongg Chicken feast makes this involved and symbolic meal seem doable for a cook in need of a unique special occasion menu.
