Books We Love...The Chinese Menu Cookbook...

A few nights ago, we made Chicken Peking....a recipe from "The Chinese Menu Cookbook" by Joanne Hush and Peter Wong.

This cookbook was published in 1976, and I believe it was a gift from my sister.  The pages are torn and stained, and I have made more than 25 recipes from it since I was gifted it almost 40 years ago.  This is the cookbook that my son, Patrick Deiss, first learned to cook Chinese food from; here's a page I marked up for him almost 25 years ago, telling him to where to find the ingredients for Kung Pao Chicken with Peanuts.

The beauty of this book is that is was the first Chinese cookbook that I was exposed to that encompasses a host of regional Chinese recipes that I hadn't seen in American cookbooks.  Now we taken Szchechuan, Hunan, and other regional Chinese food for granted, but I remember eating at traditional Chinese/American restaurants where Chop Suey, Egg Foo Yung, Chow Mein, and similar "Americanized" dishes dominated the menu.

From these pages, I have learned how to make the simplest dishes like Egg Drop Soup, how to make Chinese accompaniments like Sweet and Sour Cucumbers, and Spicy Green Beans with Black Bean Sauce, There is an entire chapter devoted to pork, shrimp and bean sprout deep-fried egg rolls, and the book progresses from simple menus to multi-course feasts. Lemon Chicken, Kung Pao Chicken with Peanuts, Spicy Shredded Garlic Beef, and Beef with Broccoli are other favorites.,   

This book opened up the mysteries of the Chinese kitchen to me. The instructions are impeccable, the cooking of the ingredients is quite simple and straightforward, and the end result has always been just about what I imagined it would be.  So, let me share the development of Chicken Peking with you.

Every great cuisine requires a "mise en place"....have your ingredients chopped, sorted, measured, and in place for you to cook with.

Here, we're cooking pork and scallion Chinese dumplings in hot oil; they will be steamed for 9 minutes, before the final browning and served with a spicy dumpling sauce as an appetizer.

My Sanyo Rice Cooker is a great appliance!

The chicken is partially stir-fried first after being marinated in a cornstarch/sherry/soy slurry

Here is the cubed chicken, almost ready to come out.

Next, the aromatics (garlic, ginger, and scallion) goes in for 30 seconds

Sweet peppers, mushrooms, and carrots sauted for 1 minute

Chicken is added back in along with a sherry/soy/hoisin/chicken broth sauce

Time to Eat!

There are many other wonderful Chinese cookbooks available, and I have a lot of them.  But "The Chinese Menu Cookbook occupies a special place in my kitchen.  By teaching me the basics of Chinese cooking in a very simple, progresssively difficult series of menus, it made me comfortable with the Chinese kitchen.  Now I can throw together a lot of different stir-fries, just because I understand the principles and elements of preparation and sauces.

Do you have a favorite Chinese cookbook?  I'd love to hear about it.

Talk to you soon,

Kathy