Cheryl's cookbooks
Homemade barbecued pork
I’ve always liked Chinese food, or at least Chinese food as I grew up calling the dishes served at Chinese restaurants.
My conception of Chinese food changed on my first trip to China in 1984. On that trip, a tour for American journalists, we were served fish with the heads on and vacant eyes staring up at you, tiny river snails for breakfast and chicken complete with the boiled feet. I remember sitting next to a young man from Washington at dinner one night. He spied a chicken foot in the dish being passed around, said, “man, I’m taking that home with me,” dished out the foot and “dropped” it on the floor. He then picked it up and snuck it in his pocket. The foot never made it to Washington, however, as he pitched it a couple of days later when it started smelling.
I would like to say I tried those dishes, but I wasn’t brave enough. However, two of the dishes from that trip still stand out in my memory: a hot, creamy almond soup that was served as a dessert and deep-fried pork fat that had been caramelized. Our group devoured plates of this until someone asked what it was; no one touched it after that.
But my education in Chinese food really began when I moved there in 1994. I learned to love so many dishes: gongbaojiding (aka kungpao chicken), jingjiangrousi (shredded pork in hoisin sauce) and tanculiji (sweet and sour pork). Since the same named dishes served at Chinese restaurants bear no resemblance to what’s served in the United States, I began the process of teaching myself how to cook authentic Chinese dishes.
Here are some of the cookbooks I’ve used:
My conception of Chinese food changed on my first trip to China in 1984. On that trip, a tour for American journalists, we were served fish with the heads on and vacant eyes staring up at you, tiny river snails for breakfast and chicken complete with the boiled feet. I remember sitting next to a young man from Washington at dinner one night. He spied a chicken foot in the dish being passed around, said, “man, I’m taking that home with me,” dished out the foot and “dropped” it on the floor. He then picked it up and snuck it in his pocket. The foot never made it to Washington, however, as he pitched it a couple of days later when it started smelling.
I would like to say I tried those dishes, but I wasn’t brave enough. However, two of the dishes from that trip still stand out in my memory: a hot, creamy almond soup that was served as a dessert and deep-fried pork fat that had been caramelized. Our group devoured plates of this until someone asked what it was; no one touched it after that.
But my education in Chinese food really began when I moved there in 1994. I learned to love so many dishes: gongbaojiding (aka kungpao chicken), jingjiangrousi (shredded pork in hoisin sauce) and tanculiji (sweet and sour pork). Since the same named dishes served at Chinese restaurants bear no resemblance to what’s served in the United States, I began the process of teaching myself how to cook authentic Chinese dishes.
Here are some of the cookbooks I’ve used:
- Chinese Home-Style Cooking, edited by Bai Ziran. I bought this at the Foreign Languages Bookstore in Beijing in 1995, and is the one I use the most, as you can tell by the ingredient-stained pages.
- With a name like this, you wouldn’t expect China the Beautiful to be a cookbook, but it is - a most beautiful cookbook in fact, the kind you’d be proud to have sitting on your coffee table. Stunning photos accompany descriptions of the foods served in the different regions of China. It’s filled with hundreds of recipes, are wonderfully photographed. I found this on a close-out table at a small bookstore in Western New York many years ago; Amazon now describes it as a collectible.
- Perfect Chinese by Paragon Publishing is another cookbook I’m starting to use a lot. Great pictures of the dishes, and I wished my dishes would look as good. I particularly like the recipe for sliced tomatoes covered with green onions, chopped garlic and rice vinegar. I use the mixture on cucumbers, too; one night, I chopped the tomatoes rather than slicing them, and served it as a salsa with Mexican enchiladas.
- Another cookbook, also by Paragon Publishing, that I like is simple Chinese, a book that I bought in London. Some of the recipes are duplicated from Perfect Chinese, and they’re just as good.
You can buy these cookbooks and others I recommend
from my Amazon bookstore cookbook page.
Contact Cheryl
Copyright 2012 by Cheryl Probst. All rights reserved.
from my Amazon bookstore cookbook page.
Contact Cheryl
Copyright 2012 by Cheryl Probst. All rights reserved.