If there’s a cook, or aspiring one, on your gift list this Christmas then there’s certainly no shortage of delicious cookbooks to chose from. We’ve compiled a list of a few of our favourite cookbooks in Chinese cuisine, perfect for those who already know a lot about food or are just starting out.
Hunan: A Lifetime of Secrets from Mr Peng’s Chinese Kitchen
Founded in 1982 by Mr Peng, Hunan is a legendary London restaurant which attracts customers from all over the world.
At Hunan, diners don’t choose – they simply say what they don’t eat and how spicy they like their food. Mr Peng then does the rest, serving up small portions with the emphasis on sharing many courses. The orders are hand-written and are sent down to the kitchen by a chute and the food travels up in a dumb waiter. Mr Peng is a firm believer in simplicity.
Hunan is a landmark book that captures the essence of a unique menu from a unique character. Among the 70 must-have recipes are Mr Peng’s ‘absurdly delicious’ prawn dumplings, lettuce wraps filled with diced chicken, ‘which you just pop into your mouth and scrunch’ and mouth-melting double-cooked pork.
Jeremy Pang: Chinese Unchopped
This book is perfect for those who love Chinese food but have no idea how to cook it. In Chinese Unchopped, acclaimed teacher and School of Wok founder Jeremy Pang demystifies the secret traditions of Chinese cookery.
Chinese Unchopped moves through six chapters with simple-to-cook yet authentic Chinese recipes, all outlining the fundamental techniques in Chinese cooking. Opening with the Chinese Kitchen Essentials, Jeremy outlines everything you need to know to set up a workable Chinese kitchen. All the necessary equipment is covered, along with the dazzling array of ingredients that make up the Chinese pantry. The focus of the book is on preparation – the key to unlocking successful Chinese cooking with its quick cooking processes and ingenious visual ‘Wok Clock’ sorts your prepared ingredients into the right order for rapid cooking such as stir-frying.
Ching – He – Huang: Eat Clean: Wok Yourself to Health
Perfect for the healthy eaters out there, Eat Clean: Wok Yourself to Health is a revolutionary East-West approach to eating well. Ching-He Huang’s promise is simple: with just a wok, a knife and a chopping board, you can revolutionise your diet and feel fantastic.
Featuring fresh, vibrant flavours that make you feel bright, healthy and energised, Ching’s new book shows that by choosing the right foods and adopting easy-to-follow techniques, you too can create delicious meals that help to detoxify and nourish your body so you feel better, stronger and slimmer. With recipes such as Sunshine Energising Oatmeal, Wok-fried Lemongrass Spiced Chicken and Herby Thai Beef Salad, Ching fuses healthy eastern and western cookery to help you create easy, speedy, mouth-watering dishes for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Ken Hom: Complete Chinese Cookbook
Ken Hom is widely regarded as the world’s leading authority on Oriental cuisine, and with the Complete Chinese Cookbook, he has created a seminal collection of his best-loved dishes. With Cantonese stir-fries and spicy Sichuan favourites alongside new discoveries from the lesser-known culinary styles of Yunnan and Hong Kong, this comprehensive collection is filled with accessible and easy recipes, demonstrating the amazing depth of flavour that is only now being fully appreciated in modern Chinese cuisine.
This all-encompassing cookery book guides you through the essential cooking techniques, equipment and ingredients, all with Ken’s trusted blend of experience and enthusiasm. Featuring 250 recipes covering all aspects of Chinese food, Ken offers tips and inspiration for a wealth of dishes that use simple, healthy ingredients to create quick and delicious meals.
A Wong: The Cookbook
From Lotus root crisps, Taiwanese popcorn chicken with basil and Baked pork buns to Crispy aromatic duck, Chilli barbecued five-spiced Dover sole and Singapore noodles, A. Wong – The Cookbook offers a host of new and exciting authentic Chinese recipes. Andrew Wong’s philosophy is simple: maintain the fundamentals of the original Chinese recipes whilst adding an unmistakably ‘Wong’ spin to it. For Andrew Wong, cooking is all about inclusiveness; cooking and creating a meal is an act of love and friendship, which is perhaps why his restaurant in London’s Victoria is so incredibly popular. This unmissable new cookbook introduces a way of eating Chinese that is unlike any other.
