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Leeann Chin once told me the part of her job she liked best was teaching Chinese cooking. For nearly 30 years she has taught hundreds of students in her cooking classes, hundreds more cooks in her restaurants, and 500,000 cooks throughout the world through "Betty Crocker's Chinese Cookbook" that she authored for General Mills. Now she is reaching new culinary students with her latest cookbook "Everyday Chinese Cooking: Quick and Delicious Recipes from the Leeann Chin Restaurants" co-authored with daughter Katie Chin. Despite the title some recipes are quick. Some are easy. Few are from the Leeann Chin restaurants. While that may disappoint fans of the more than 50 restaurants bearing her name, it will please fans of Leeann Chin's cooking classes where she taught classic Chinese cuisine. Here the Chins offer more than 150 Chinese dishes that run the gamut from quick and easy to complex and time consuming. All are examples of good Chinese home cooking, the kind Katie remembers from her mother's kitchen. Katie and her siblings would " . . run home to "Sik fan" (eat dinner) together," she recalls in the book's forward, "(we'd devour) our mother's dishes scooped over steaming hot bowls of white rice. She saw how we craved the simple, yet delicious flavors of stir-fried chicken with vegetables or five-ingredient fried rice and realized we would gladly eat our vegetables as long as they were dancing among the delicate pieces of velvety chicken my mother expertly prepared. . . . By working on this project together," she continued, "my mother has taught me the basic techniques and preparations to make Chinese cooking easy and fun . . ." The collection includes Crystal Dumplings, an easy version of pot stickers made with wonton wrappers and filled with a flavorful shrimp/cilantro mixture. Mrs. Chin often makes these treats when her grandchildren visit and everyone helps with the cooking. While the assembly process takes some time, the cooking is very fast. "Lettuce Cups with Turkey" is a typical stir-fry mixture served in lettuce leaves. Make the stir fry one day and reheat the next for last minute entertaining. Roasted Duck with Beer is not difficult but takes several hours for marinating and an hour to roast. However, it can be done a day or two in advance of serving. The finished duck can be served hot or cold as an appetizer or used in another of Chins' recipes, "Lychee Duck." Steamed Fish Fillets and Steamed Whole Fish are classic Chinese dishes that are indeed easy and quick to make. Here the Chins offer the traditional steaming method and an alternative microwave version. Tea Smoked Sea Bass offers a relatively quick and easy method for this classic dish. The elegant Chicken, Bok Choy and Clam Soup will make even beginning cooks look like old pros. The recipes are easy to follow using ingredients easily found in American supermarkets. There are a number of four-color photographs to help you know what some of the dishes should look like and special sections defining food terms and cooking techniques. "Everyday Chinese Cooking" is published by Clarkson Potter/Publishers of New York with a hardcover price of $22.00. You'll find it in most local bookstores. For more information about Leeann Chin go to www.leeannchin.com. (Reprinted from Asian Pages 7/1/01) |
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