Customer Reviews

Chinese Cuisine: Szechwan Style

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2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The Wei Chuan series of cookbooks are must haves for anyone interested in cooking Chinese cuisine. I am particularly fond of SzeChwan style food so this cookbook was a natural choice for me. This book has descriptions for preparations of special food items that is very helpful. I especially recommend this book for anyone who loves spicy food (the kung pao recipes alone make the book worth buying). For anyone who wants vegetarian food Sze Chwan style won't be the right choice--I would recommend buying Wei Chuan's Indian cuisine cookbook or their Simply Vegetarian cookbook instead.

Except for the occasional typo where the numbers may not have survived the translation in the Editor's first draft (how much corn starch to use for the Fried Eggplant Cake batter, just to name one), this is by far my favorite and most-used cookbook of any kind in my collection. It is always out on the counter instead of in the bookcase with the others! The Kung Pao Chicken is my favorite, but you'll cut down on the dried red peppers if you are wise. The "Szechwan Peppercorn", sometimes referred to as "Numb Spice", called for in many of the recipes is a very authentic Szechwan ingredient but should be left out for better compatability with Western tastes.

I'm ordering more of the series!

This is not a book that will allow you to revisit dishes that are made at your typical Chinese restaurant. First of all this is Szechwan Cuisine - China has many different Cuisines - Mandarin, Hunan, Beijing, Cantonese, etc. This book is for someone that wants to make an authentic Szechwan dish, and not for making a bastardization that one has become accustomed to in the U.S. For authenticity, this is the book for you. For a novice, pick up a title that has the word "Beginner" in it. This is an excellent book!

The Wei-Chuan Publishing Company (apparently connected with the Taiwanese Wei-Chuan Cooking School), has produced a good number of Cookbooks, mostly dealing with Chinese cookery but also coveing other Asian cuisines as well. I own over a dozen of these now and I like all of them. More importantly, I like all of these books for tmuch he same reasons and, accordingly, I have decided to do a general review that applies to each of them and then provide a few individualized comments where appropriate.

Basically, the Wei-Chuan publications are authored/editored by several different persons but the format is largely the same. Each book is divided into logical sections (Meats, Vegetables, Appetizers, etc.) and nearly every recipe is accompanied by a good photograph of the result with some recipes having additional pictures of the preparation as well. This feature alone makes these books well worth the purchase. Another feature of this cuilinary series is that the books are written in China and, at least as far as the books on Chinese cuisine is concerned, the reader need have no issues with 'authenticity'. I personally also like the fact that all of the books are written in Chinese characters and then translated into English. This has has an added bonus of occasionally providing some unintentional amusement due to a particularly 'unfortunate' translation but I specially like it as I am teaching myself Mandarin and these books are excellent learning tools. I often take one on the plane with me when I travel (along with dictionaries) and can spend hours happily translating passages. It is amazing how often the actual translation of a recipe title bears little resemblance to the English title provided.

Finally, I have to say that the recipes in all of these books are interesting and he ones that I have tried to reproduce have worked out well. Mainly though, I just like reading through these books for inspiration and enjoyment. The money I have spent has been repaid many times over.


The We-Chuan books I currently own are as follows:

Chinese Cuisine - Very good introductory section. Recipes range from simple everyday dishes to exotic banquet style delicacies.
Chinese Dim Sum: Wel-Chuan Cultural and Educational Foundation - Great 'step-by-step' pictures for many recipes. Bit too much emphasis on sweet rather than savoury for my personal taste.
Chinese Snacks - More of the same as in the Dim Sum book. No 'step-by-step' pictures but I actually like this book better.
Chinese Appetizers and Garnishes - I haven't attempted much from this book but I am thankful for the great 'step-by-step' pictures provided.

Favorite Home Dishes Chinese Cooking - As the name suggests, most of the recipes are simple and, thus, easy to prepare.

Chinese Cuisine Beijing Style - Lots of Imperial Banquet dishes and many exotic foreign influenced meals that have been 'Chinesified'.
Chinese Cuisine: Cantonese Style - 75 Cantonese recipes. Good recipes with nice pictures but a sparse introduction.
Chinese Cuisine Shanghai Style - Typically good Wei-Chuan quality but probably my least favorite of the 'regional' Chinese cookbooks.
Chinese Cuisine-Taiwanese Style - Excellent Book. Some truly unique recipes I have never seen elsewhere. I love to browse this volume.
Chinese Cuisine: Szechuan Style - I love Szechuan food especially but I would still treat this book as a favorite anyway.

Indian Cuisine - A nice book but be aware that the recipes Indian dishes for the Chinese palate, not Indian.
Vietnamese Cuisine - Great recipes.
Japanese Cuisine - Nearly as good as many books I have that are written by Japanese chefs.
Korean Cuisine - My favorite of the We-Chuan non-Chinese cookbooks so far,
Singaporean, Malaysian & Indonesian Cuisine - My least favorite Wei-Chuan book so far. Somewhat interesting but I don't look at it much.

Finally, I have a new Wei-Chuan book on order and will continue to buy from time to time. I will review separately as I read these new books.

To the reviewers who posted about meat vs vegetarian, let me just say... I have no idea what either of you are talking about!!!

This is a normal cookbook of recipes covering the basics and then some of Sichuan cooking. It has the normal amount of recipes you'd expect for meat, veggies etc.

The recipes are very authentic and you may not be able to find some of the ingredients without going to the Asian Grocery store. As always, make sure to use Asian brands (not the mass market ones for non-Asian people). However, I use this cookbook all the time and it is like momma makes. They are quick and easy, particularly once you get comfortable with what you're doing.

Recipes are printed into Chinese and English and can sometimes be less that perfect English translations. That said, if you are trying to find ingredients and take this book with you to a Chinese grocery store, you are sure to get exactly the right thing and not the weird poor "substitute". HANDS DOWN RECOMMEND for someone who is looking for authentic!!

Chinese Cousine. Szechwan Style, by Lee Hwa Lim.
"Wei-Chuan Cooking School" in Taiwan is famous. More than 200.000 studens from Taiwan and other countries have matriculated in this school through the years and many of the graduates have become popular restaurant owners or chefs all over the world.

Something from the history from China:
In Taiwan the cooking tradition going back to "The ruling Emperers of China" and their Royal kitchen and cooks". This fine art of cooking was lost in China during the revolution. However when the famous general, later Presidet "Chiang Kai-shek" (''' / ''') escaped in 1949 from mainland China to Taiwan with thousands of the upper class and the former Chinese government, they also included some famous Chefs from The Emperial Kitchen. During the time of the Emperors power in China they were never allowed to write down any Royal recepies, or to give them away. The recepies were only for the Emperor and his longue. Those who gave away recepies lost their heads..., very quickly.... By those Chinese who came to Taiwan, many old and great Chinese cooking traditions futunately survived.

History of Szechwan food:
The part of China called "Szechwan" is located at the south-west of the Chinese mainland and is one of the places of orgin for Chinese culture, known as "Country of Heaven" the food included.
Now a day you can find Chinese Szechwan Restaurants " all over the world, in big as well as small towns. In general Szechwan Chinese food is considered to be "hot" or "very spicy", but the word spicy is more precise then hot. Szechwan food is not as hot a Indian or Thai food, so reed on and prepare for cooking you will enjoy eating......

The Publisher:
The wonderful cooking school "Wei-Chuan Cooking School" in Taiwan have published a whole series of wonderful cookbooks. Lee Wha Lim have written more than 19 different books covering food from all the different regions of China.
And all his books are excellent!!! - They are all written in two languages English and Chinese. The way each dish is described in preparations, step by step, explain everything in English is so crystal clear and easy to understand that you, afterwards, might like many western cookbooks to be just that clear.

I love particluarely the cook book called "Szechwan Style".

This cook book:
This book of Chinese cooking books are prepared in chapters and with endless photos of all steps in the cooking of each dish to relate to.
In this book there is a starting chapter which will bring you into the world of "how to prepare the meat, the vegetabels and spices the correct Chinse way", which ultimatelt will create the wonderful original taste and your cooking pleasure.
You will learn how to prepare all food and ingridiences. You will learn how to cut the meat and seafood the correct way; and you will learn how to prepare rice in several different ways;

There are long chapers containing seafoods, porks, beefs, chickens and ducklings, egg & beancurd, vegetables, soups and snacks & deserts. And it is all put toghether in a handy format on more than 92 pages.

Try some of the following mouth washing, wonderful dishes: (1) Sweet & Sour Fish; (2) Shrimp with green peas; (3) Shedded Pork with Peking Sauce; (4) Pork a la Szechwan; (5) Steamed spare ribs in Lotus Leaves; (6) Beef with green pepper; (7) Spicy Kung-Pao Chicken; (8) Chicken Cashew nuts; (9) Lemon Chicken, (10) Ma-Po's Bean Curd & minched pork meat; (11) Hot & Sour Soup; )12) Meat Ball Soup; (13) 3 Flavors Winter Melon Pot; (14) Spicy Cold Chicken Noodels; (15) Spicy Baby Won Tons, and others.... There are 30 times more dishes than this, so enjoy all the good tastes.....

I love this cooking book. It is on of my favorite Chinese cook books. YOU CAN'T GET I BETTER!

PER GADE
Denmark, England, USA & Japan.
Music Professor,
author of 56 books,
prize winner in international cooking and gourmand food,
for friends and special parties

Wei Chuan's collection of cookbooks are fabulous. All the recipes are as authentic as it gets. Recipes are easy to follow and it actually TASTES good. I am planning to get the whole collection of Wei Chuan's cookbooks.

An excellent Chinese cookbook set, this one Szechuan, for any level of cook. Very clear directions and pictures. The pages are coated and wipe clean easily.

Wei-Chuan has been publishing books on Chinese cuisine for Western readers for something like 35 years now.

With all these books, one gets a bilingual cookbook, lots of step-by-step, fairly unappetizing food photos, those weirdo Asian plastic covers that sometimes become all crackled and opaque over time, at least a couple of recipes that are so damn Chinese you'll never choose to make them, and an absolutely kitchen-tested bunch of dishes from a bonafide Chinese cooking school circa mid-twentieth century.

Sure, you can get a 250 page hardcover published by an American publisher with slicker production values, but these about 100 page, small-format books are authentic. WAY authentic.

So this book -- great Szechwan recipes coming out of a publisher in Taipei? Yes. Absolutely. In this book.

We love Chinese foods and spicy foods. I bought this book thinking I'm going to cook up some spicy and delicious meals. However, when the book arrived... I was highly disappointed to discover the recipes - did not appeal to me, not not as impressive as I expected it to be. Not enough recipes for meat... and more like a vegetarian cookbook! I found more delicious and practical recipes from the book "Chinese Cuisine" which I also bought along with this book.