29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Dig In!, February 23, 2004
By A Customer
This review is from: Potsticker Chronicles: America's Favorite Chinese Recipes (Hardcover)
By Bill Marsano. Stewart Chang Berman lives up to his promise to give us 'America's favorite Chinese recipes in this volume, as you can see for yourself. They're all here: won ton soup, shrimp in garlic sauce, lobster Cantonese, General Tso's chicken, Hunan beef, pepper steak and many more, including one of his signature 'fusion' dishes, Sichuan blackened shrimp. In short, just about everything you can find at your storefront Ptomaine Wok take-out is here, 160 or so recipes, potstickers (fried meat dumplings) included.
Most recipes are gratifyingly simple: More than a hundred run to no more than five steps. Of course Chinese cooking requires some unusual ingredients and equipment, but surely we are no longer stunned at the sight of a wok or star anise? In any event, the author pitches in with helpful sections on ingredients, equipment, techniques and basic sauces. He even includes--for the neophytes among us--the cornstarch mixture, which is simple (it's cornstarch and water) and, I think, unnecessary. I gave up adding it years ago; my sauces always seemed thick enough without it.
The recipes are nicely laid out, usually one to a page. They're clearly written and presented in a readable type face. No fussiness nor fol-de-rol here. Note that the paper is unfinished--not slick and shiny. That means when you use this book at the stove it's best to have one of those clear plastic protectors at hand. Or else be neat, which is beyond me.
The real surprise in this book is the author, Stewart Change Berman has been around for some time. He switched from a political-science career to cookery when illness threatened the family restaurant, The Court of the Mandarins, in Washington, D.C. during the Nixon administration--so why haven't we heard from him before? It would appear that he was too busy opening other restaurants (Wok 'n' Roll and The Mandarins, both in or near Washington) to court celebrity.
Which is perhaps just as well. This is a honey book with homey touches, none better than the anecdotes and family memories he sprinkles throughout. In fact, his mother's illustration of the meaning of tact is worth the price of the book all by itself.
There are some dinner-menu suggestions troward the back of the book; most contain suggestions for wine. My advice is to forget them. Wine <can> go with Chinese food but it seldom goes willingly. Beer and tea are drunk at table by the Chinese, and who should know better?--Bill Marsano is an award-winning writer on travel and wine and spirits; he often cooks for his family.
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38 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This is one of the best books on the subject., August 23, 2005
This review is from: Potsticker Chronicles: America's Favorite Chinese Recipes (Hardcover)
I think this is one of the best books on the subject. Every Chinese food recipe I can think of is in this book. Mr. Berman's book is a little more "Americanized" in the fact that there is a lot more sauce used in his dishes. Unlike traditional Chinese cuisine that uses very little sauce. Every recipe that I have tried has been 100x better than what you get a Chinese restaurant.
This book does not have any pictures. If pictures are important to you, I suggest that you try Chinese Cuisine Made Simple by Dorothy Huang.
I have several hundred cookbooks in my library and this book and Dorothy Huang's Chinese Cuisine Made Simple are the best two books on the subject of Chinese Cuisine.
PS: I don't review books unless I have cooked several recipes from them. You can't judge a book by its cover and you can't honestly judge a recipe without cooking and eating it.
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Pretty Awesome!!!, April 3, 2006
This review is from: Potsticker Chronicles: America's Favorite Chinese Recipes (Hardcover)
I love chinese food! Never could make it right though and nothing ever tasted like I got in the restaurants. Most chinese cookbooks seemed to miss the mark where it came to replicating the restaurant type food. I gave up on chinese food altogether for over 10 years.
I bought this on a whim this last winter and couldn't believe how good this stuff was. For me, it cracked the nut on restaurant style chinese cooking. This stuff is so freaking easy and the same ingredients in varying quantities are used throughout the book. You DO NOT have to have an extensive pantry to make this stuff and it is as tasty as anything you will ever order in a restaurant.
As a matter of policy and courtesy, I usually don't say anything about another review but there is one here that talks about having to use two cups of oil everytime you make something and how it isn't all that practicle. The person is right, for a lot of recipes the books tells you to have 2 cups of oil to cook your meat but you don't have to. I just sautee mine when I'm not in the mood to go all out or just use my deep fat frying and just reuse the oil like I normally would for anything else. It's not that big of a deal.
The sauces in this book are worth the price on their own and you won't be sorry.
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