Product Description

Ching-He Huang is one of the brightest stars in modern Chinese cooking in the UK. Each week in her new BBC2 series she re-invents the nation's favourite Chinese dishes, modernising them with fresh, easy to buy ingredients, and offering simple practical tips and techniques. These are brought together in this beautiful book to accompany the series. Drawing on the experiences of top chefs, her family and friends, growers and producers and celebrity enthusiasts Ching sets out to discover the best Chinese cooking in the UK today, introducing easy-to-make Chinese food to sometimes resistant Brits, and painting a picture of modern Anglo-Chinese life in the UK as she goes. Chinese Food Made Easy begins with some of the most familiar dishes from a Chinese takeaway menu - Sweet & Sour Prawns, Chicken with Cashew Nuts, Chop Suey and Cantonese Vegetable Stir Fry, each with Ching's special and imaginative twist. Later we explore spicy Szechuan food: Noodles, Dumplings and Dim sum; Seafood; Fast Food; Desserts and finally Celebratory Food, where Ching presents a complete banquet of dishes to celebrate the Chinese New Year.Ching's knowledge, charm and enthusiasm shine through as she shares the 'basic principles' of Chinese cooking including some of the simple techniques and tips taught by her Grandparents for tasty results. Using ingredients from high-street supermarkets and some imaginative suggestions for alternative ingredients, these classic Chinese dishes are updated, fresh and healthily prepared so that anyone can make and enjoy them.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4 in Books
• Published on: 2008-07-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 192 pages

Review
'Packed with delicious, easy-to-make dishes ... Ching-He Huang is the new face of Chinese cooking.' Heat magazine [five star review on 19/7/08]

Synopsis
Ching-He Huang is one of the brightest stars in modern Chinese cooking in the UK. Each week in her new BBC2 series she re-invents the nation's favourite Chinese dishes, modernising them with fresh, easy to buy ingredients, and offering simple practical tips and techniques. These are brought together in this beautiful book to accompany the series. Drawing on the experiences of top chefs, her family and friends, growers and producers and celebrity enthusiasts Ching sets out to discover the best Chinese cooking in the UK today, introducing easy-to-make Chinese food to sometimes resistant Brits, and painting a picture of modern Anglo-Chinese life in the UK as she goes. Chinese Food Made Easy begins with some of the most familiar dishes from a Chinese takeaway menu - Sweet & Sour Prawns, Chicken with Cashew Nuts, Chop Suey and Cantonese Vegetable Stir Fry, each with Ching's special and imaginative twist. Later we explore spicy Szechuan food: Noodles, Dumplings and Dim sum; Seafood; Fast Food; Desserts and finally Celebratory Food, where Ching presents a complete banquet of dishes to celebrate the Chinese New Year.Ching's knowledge, charm and enthusiasm shine through as she shares the 'basic principles' of Chinese cooking including some of the simple techniques and tips taught by her Grandparents for tasty results.

Using ingredients from high-street supermarkets and some imaginative suggestions for alternative ingredients, these classic Chinese dishes are updated, fresh and healthily prepared so that anyone can make and enjoy them.

Interviewed by Geoff Elliss for Radio Times

Is the Typical Chinese Takeaway menu really Chinese?
It’s certainly not Chinese home cooking. Some of these dishes do come from Canton – that’s because of the British connection with Hong Kong – but they’ve been westernised. Wherever Chinese food has gone in the world, it’s been adapted to use healthy dishes at home that are not laden with monosodium glutamate.

So what should I keep in my Chinese store cupboard?
You may already have corn flour and good-quality stocks. Add dark and light soy sauces, five-spice powder, black rice vinegar, a good chilli sauce to get you going and toasted sesame oil for dressing – for cooking I use groundnut oil. Some olive oils are too strongly flavoured and conflict with the Chinese flavours. Then the rest is fresh, including the typical flavourings: ginger, garlic, spring onion, chilli and coriander.

What about Stir-fry sauces that you can buy in jars?
I hate those. The only sauces that are OK in jars, if they are good quality, are oyster sauce and chilli bean sauce. They’re both proper preserved sauces. For sweet and sour sauce, use pineapple juice, brown sugar and ketchup for colour.

Should I be looking for Chinese Supermarkets?
I’m surprised and pleased to see authentic Asian products on some supermarket shelves. In general I’d say you have to experiment. You often find that even good brands do only one excellent product. I can recommend Kikkoman soy sauce, for example. That’s my honest opinion – they don’t pay me!

Can you give an example of the sort of thing you cook?
When I cook dinner at home, I’ll make a one-pot meal, chao mian, meaning "stir noodle" or chow main as you probably call it. Marinate some sliced chicken in five-spice powder and minced garlic for a few minutes. Cook noodles in boiling water – buy dried, long wheat-flour noodles; don’t bother with ready cooked. Drain and put to one side; you can toss in a bit of sesame oil to stop them sticking. Chop red pepper, bok choi and spring onion. Mince some ginger. Get your wok nice and hot. Cook the chicken until it’s fully opaque. Put to one side. Add the other ingredients, stir then and add a splash of water to create steam to help cook the veg. After about 40 seconds return the chicken to the wok, season with soy sauce, sesame oil, and add the noodles. And that’s it a modern, one-pot dish.

Customer Reviews

Yes, it really is easy - and has plenty of recipes too.
What I liked about this book was the fact that the pages were not given over to extensive arty shots of ingredients at odd angles, but were packed with recipes - which, after all is why books should be bought - not just to look good on bookshelves.
The book strikes a fine balance, using authentic ingredients, but never resorting to exotics - you won't find yourself searching the Internet to order strange spices that a dish can't manage without.
Listing the recipes in logical sections was much appreciated - the next time I need a side dish for example, I can quickly turn to the relevant part of the book. Those chefs who love to replicate takeaway favourites are catered for with their own pages at the beginning of the book- a neat ploy, as many of us may have often wondered what might give a recipe that little extra something.
The book is definitely worth the money - cheaper than feeding the family at the takeway, and with a higher recipe to page ratio than most. Highly recommended.

Wok on Ching!
I've loved Chinese food since the first time I went to a restaurant as a kid and ordering from the takeaway was an expensive and unhealthy habit of mine at university. I always thought that recreating those flavours out of the restaurant environment was quite impossible - not so!

In this wonderful book, Ching takes the mystery out of delicious Chinese cooking. You're likely to have many of the ingredients in your kitchen already - garlic, root ginger, oil. By taking the illusions out of Chinese cooking she has made it all the more successful by easing us into the recipes - "Takeaway Favourites" is one chapter.

As for the recipes, there is something to appeal to everyone here. Here is a list of what I've made so far: Chicken Chow Mein, Beijing Rice, Mu Shu Chicken, Sweet and Sour Pork and Sichuan Orange Beef.

My only fault with the book would be for vegetarians. There doesn't seem to be much choice for them. Also some of the ingredients do prove a little difficult to get hold of if you don't live in a city.

Apart from those little faults - can we have some more please Ching?

Chinese Food Made Easy
God, I love that Chinese girl so much...I watched the first programme in the series and she was so damned hot I immediately ordered a takeaway. Suppose that defeated the object... oh well.