Customer Reviews

Classic Chinese Cuisine

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have tried a few recipes from this book including the sweet moon cake, curry turnovers, and steamed cake (MA LA GAU)...all turned out delicious. Even my mother told me to purchase this book (I originally borrowed it from the library) because she was so impressed! Considering that we are immigrants from Taiwan, we know good chinese food when we taste it and Ms. Simonds has great chinese food. She does not always use traditional methods or ingredients in her recipes...but the end result is always fabulous. Cannot say enough about this book!

By affording substitutions, Ms. Simonds' work has allowed me to enjoy chinese food despite being away from an asian market, or decent chinese restaurant. This book stands in marked contrast to many which fail to take into account the limited ingredients the person in a small town has to work with.

The recipes in this book are easy to follow & prepare. The results of my efforts in using this book were DELECIOUS! Our local carry-outs would not be happy to know that this book is out on the market. From our family alone they're loosing about $100 a month of business. The cooking is easy to do and doesn't take a large amount of skill, though you should take the time to prepare everything before starting to cook. Wok cooking moves at a steady pace. You need to have your ducks in a row before starting to cook. Prior to making your first dish, read the instructions and prepare the ingredients so the dish comes together well. After that, you'll know what to expect and everything should be smooth sailing from there on out.

In the cooking, there are about 10 basic ingredients that are used for the sauces and marinades. Any Chinese grocery should have them. From there it's just the meats & veggies that you can mix & match according to your tastes. It's A LOT easier than you may think. Before you start, get a good Carbon Steel Wok & condition it well.

I've made many dishes from this book, including:
Red-Cooked Tofu
Stir-Fried Broccoli in Oyster Sauce
Sweet & Sour Fish with Pine Nuts
Cantonese-Style Roasted Duck
Steamed Chicken with Scallions
Home-Style Spareribs
Stir-Fried Beef with Snow Peas in Oyster Sauce
Buns with Red Bean Filling

I love this book because
a. flavor of each dish turned out great
b. instructions were easy to follow
c. ingredients were easy to obtain from local markets

If anything, I'd like to see more color photos of plate presentations.

While living in Beijing, I brought this as it was difficult to find Chinese cookbooks in English there. I've tried at least 20 recipes from this book, from dimsum cart favorites such as steamed barbecued pork buns, meat dumplings, pork ribs in black bean sauce, to family style meals such as northern cooked tofu, fish flash-cooked in scallion oil, shrimp balls, and mongolian barbecue...

This book allowed me to duplicate Chinese restaurant meals (the good restaurants) at home, using ingredients that are widely available anywhere there's a Chinatown. My home kitchen results were 100 times better than grocery take-out or street food stalls in Beijing. Some recipes took time, such as the yeast-raised steamed buns filled with barbecued pork, but the effort was worth it!

My family was not a big fan of tofu until I cooked the recipes in this book. "Northern Style Tofu was said to have been a favorite of Dowager Empress Tsu-Hsi in the 19th century," the author says. Now we know why!

The recipe for the broccoli in oyster sauce is worth the price of the book. My thirteen year old , world traveler ,vegetable -hating grandson has been taking second and third helpings of this dish since he was ten...unheard of.

Like all of Nina Simonds cookbooks, this is a wonderful addition to anyone's cookbook library.

I have owned this cookbook for over a year and have yet to prepare a recipe from it. The recipes are extremely complicated, and while they may yield authentic flavors and dishes, the prohibitively long preparation time is one reason this cookbook has not been used in my kitchen.
The other reason is that the book contains almost no vegetarian recipes. Even the "vegetable dishes" section contains either dishes which contain meat, or require a meat broth.

For easier, more practical recipes, I'd recommend Nina's "A Spoonful of Ginger."