When it comes to cooking up books about how to prepare Chinese food, it seems only two approaches are followed. The most prevalent is the paint-by-numbers approach: The author insists that anyone can cook Chinese and this can be done to everyone’s pleasure almost effortlessly. No need to purchase special utensils, authentic ingredients or even chopsticks. Just stir and blend the ingredients and serve them over rice with a bottle of soy sauce near at hand.
The second school takes the sergeant major approach: insistent, doctrinaire and dismissive of those who do not prepare food by the book. The book embraces authenticity–though what is authentic to one Chinese cook often is not to another.
The American home cook who wants to make Chinese food must recognize this distinction, and assess his or her own ambition when buying a cookbook to use as a guide. With this background, consider “The Chinese Kitchen,” by Eileen Yin-Fei Lo (Morrow, $35).
A handsomely illustrated work of considerable substance and painstaking detail with a charming dusting of food and family lore, it is rooted in the doctrinaire school. There’s nothing casual about Yin-Fei Lo’s approach to the subject and little that would attract the casual cook. This is a very good book, but it is not a book for everyone.
That is not to say all the recipes are complex, costly or difficult. There are several with a half-dozen or fewer ingredients that can be prepared in only a few minutes. It is to say that the author is steeped in the food culture of her native country and insists that her readers strive for some perspective on Chinese ingredients and why, as well as how, they are joined together.
She takes 68 pages to reach the first recipe and that recipe is for basic cooked rice, a side dish for Americans but vitally important to the Chinese. In the pre-recipe pages she introduces herself, then details her familial links to Chinese cuisine. She describes at length the Chinese larder and kitchen tools and devotes considerable space to tea and the wines of China.
A New York-based teacher, restaurant consultant and author of books on dim sum as well as low-fat, vegetarian, banquet and Cantonese cooking, Yin-Fei Lo has a rare perspective on Chinese food as it is prepared in the United States. She avoids the mundane and sidesteps cliches by drawing on family favorites and adapting other recipes from the classic Chinese repertory.
She promotes poaching in the vegetable chapter, a welcome option to the ubiquitous stir-fried vegetables found in Chinese restaurants, and she gives several recipes for delicious but under-exposed snow pea shoots.
Vegetarians will be pleased to encounter several meatless preparations of bean curd. For meat-eaters, one lively recipe blends bean curd with minced pork, chilies and egg noodles.
Steaming is another technique widely used by Chinese cooks. Yin-Fei Lo employs it to prepare nearly 20 dishes, including a succulent version of lemon chicken that is quite different from the lemon chicken encountered in restaurants. There is an ample portion of dim sum, some delightful seafood and plenty of poultry.
Yin-Fei Lo acknowledges the possibilities of innovation and substitution but urges readers to follow recipes step by step the first time through instead of employing shortcuts or using prepared instead of fresh ingredients.
As for ingredients, she suggests photocopying the larder section, which provides the Chinese characters for each item as well as describing it in English, and taking it along when shopping in Chinatown or Asian markets elsewhere.
Even with such a crib sheet, shopping is not simple: Labeling is inconsistent and can be misleading, which became evident as Yin-Fei Lo toured a food store in Chinatown here recently.
STEAMED LEMON CHICKEN
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 50 minutes
Yield: 6-8 servings (as part of multi-course meal)
This recipe is from “The Chinese Kitchen,” by Eileen Yin-Fei Lo (Morrow, $35).
1 four-pound chicken, washed, fat and membranes removed, rubbed with 1/4 cup salt, rinsed under cold water, drained and dried thoroughly with paper towels, cut into bite-size pieces
1 1/4 fresh lemons (cut into 5 quarters)
For the marinade:
1 tablespoon Chinese white rice wine or gin mixed with
1 teaspoon ginger juice (bottled or made by squeezing fresh ginger chips in a garlic press)
1 tablespoon plus 1 1/2 teaspoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon plus 1 1/2 teaspoons oyster sauce
2 teaspoons sesame oil
1 tablespoon peanut oil
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons sugar
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground white pepper
3 tablespoons plus 1 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch
For garnish:
2 tablespoons trimmed and finely sliced green onion
1. Place the chicken in a bowl, squeeze the 5 lemon quarters over, then place the quarters in the bowl. Add all the marinade ingredients and mix thoroughly to combine. Allow to rest for 30 minutes.
2. Place the chicken in a steam-proof dish, spread out and pour the marinade (ingredients stirred together in a small bowl) over it. Place the dish in a bamboo steamer, cover and steam for 40-50 minutes. Turn the chicken 2 or 3 times during steaming. The chicken is cooked when it turns white. (If steaming in a metal plate, reduce the time to 30 minutes.)
3. Turn off the heat, remove the bamboo steamer and serve the chicken in the dish in the steamer, sprinkled with the sliced green onion, with cooked rice.
Nutrition information per serving (based on 6; calculated by the Tribune):
Calories ………… 420 Fat ………… 25 g Saturated fat .. 7 g
% calories from fat .. 53 Cholesterol .. 120 mg Sodium …. 1,395 mg
Carbohydrates ……. 8 g Protein …….. 38 g Fiber …….. 0.1 g
