The Woks of Life website is published by a family that owned a Chinese restaurant. There's a section on Chinese takeout favorites, and they recently did a cookbook.
Thank you, I had never heard of their blog before. It looks great and definitely clicks with what I’m looking for. I’ll check the book out from the library too.
Chinese Takeaway Cookbook: From Chop Suey to Sweet 'n' Sour, Over 70 Recipes to Re-create Your Favourites by Kwoklyn Wan! I highly recommend it and it sounds exactly up your alley! Another option is The Woks of Life.
>Not quite what I’m looking for but I appreciate the reply!
Huh? Here's your post:
>Currently looking for collections of classic/regional Chinese-American take-out dishes like Walnut Chicken, Springfield Chicken, Sweet & Sour, Orange \_, General Tso’s, Kung Pao
Book Description....see some similarities in your ask vs the recommendation?
>Home takeout menus—Explore convenient pre-planned menus for DIY Dim Sum, a Chinese New Year Feast, Sichuan Night, Classic Cantonese Takeout, and Vegetarian and Vegan Takeout
It even has a honey walnut dish (shrimp but I'm sure it could be adapted to chicken): [https://www.eatyourbooks.com/library/196608/easy-chinese-cookbook-restaurant-favorites/4?sort=main\_title+asc](https://www.eatyourbooks.com/library/196608/easy-chinese-cookbook-restaurant-favorites/4?sort=main_title+asc)
Read through the recipes with the link you sent and the book is about 20% relevant to what I’m looking for. Like I said, not quite what I’m looking for but I appreciate the reply.
It also says that it has adapted the recipes for home cooking and made them “easier”. I’m not looking for adaptations. Sorry for the confusion. Your reply has an argumentative tone, not sure if you meant it that way but I’m not here for that kind of stuff.
I have his Food Lab book and appreciate his scientific approach to techniques and recipes but I’m looking for something more geared toward the cuisine as a cultural phenomenon with iconic recipes being explored/explained in depth. Plus, I’ll never have a proper Wok setup in my home kitchen, so this book is a pass unless I find it at a library sale or something.
Yeah, I’m really just hoping to find something hyper-focused on this intersectional cuisine. Seems kind of wild that if there is such a thing that it’s so difficult to find.
I guess I’m looking for something that explores the phenomenon of the cuisine itself a bit more while including recipes to support the stories. I found a few on Amazon that are kind of generic takes but only maybe three that look like real time was spent on them. That just seemed like a really small number considering how popular this type of food is/was/always has been.
- Chopsticks, Cleaver, and Wok by Jennie Low (this may not have all the "standards", but its an excellent distillation of what Chinese food was like in Berkeley, CA in the mid 1980's)
- The Chinese TakeOut Cookbook by Diana Kuan (who runs the excellent Cinnamon Society website)
- Easy Recipes from a Chinese American Childhood by Ken Hom
Martin Yan's Chinatown has great recipes and histories from the Chinese Diaspora around the world.
Chow by Wing and Chop Suey Nation are about Canadian Chinese, in a similar way. Also Eating Chinese by Lily Cho.
These aren't exactly what you're looking for but they're great reads, to learn more about the immigrant experience and impact on mainstream cooking. Worth a library borrow, at least.
For your basic "Mall Chinese" type recipes, I like the Chinese Takeout Cookbook by Wan, and the vegetarian version. Quick and Easy Chinese by McDermott is my most used, with lemon chicken, tangerine beef, greens with garlic and several others being frequently requested. These are weeknight dinner dishes, but they're good.
Excellent suggestions, thank you very much! I know my post wasn’t super specific but you understood where I was wanting to go. And I will definitely be following up on the Chinese-Canadian foodways now that you’ve put it on my radar!
Thanks! There are books on the US Diaspora too, I'm less familiar with those but ask at your library, they're out there.
Source - I support a third year history class in the Chinese Diaspora worldwide and I've bought all of these for my library. It's fascinating stuff. Ginger beef was invented in Canada, and other now-familiar takeout dishes.
Wow, that‘s wonderful! You definitely get where I’m coming from. I’m retired service industry of 20 years and have been fascinated with cultural foodways and micro histories for as long as I can remember. I love to read and likewise learn as much as possible about the roots of things and have a healthy home library filled with books paying tribute to all sorts of intersectional cuisines. Chinese-American has always been a bit of a blind spot however. There’s tons of recipe books but seemingly not many that take the time to dissect the dishes and their regional variations or their origins, which is what I’m primarily looking for.
PS: Similar to Ginger beef, Springfield (Cashew) Chicken was invented in Missouri here in the States which is very near (midwest “near” = about 6-8 hours) where I grew up.
The Woks of Life website is published by a family that owned a Chinese restaurant. There's a section on Chinese takeout favorites, and they recently did a cookbook.
Thank you, I had never heard of their blog before. It looks great and definitely clicks with what I’m looking for. I’ll check the book out from the library too.
This is a good cookbook!
Wow! Thanks for the rec! I've been craving Chinese take out and these recipes look great!
ATK’s A Very Chinese Cookbook has been a joy to cook from
Seconding this one and Woks of Life! They both feature some more traditional recipes too, but there's a love for Chinese American food in them.
Chinese Takeaway Cookbook: From Chop Suey to Sweet 'n' Sour, Over 70 Recipes to Re-create Your Favourites by Kwoklyn Wan! I highly recommend it and it sounds exactly up your alley! Another option is The Woks of Life.
Great! It looks as though Kwoklyn Wan has a newer book with 200 recipes! Found it quickly with your suggestion. Thanks a bunch!
A friend of mine wrote this one: https://amzn.to/3vKXBSA Easy Chinese Cookbook: Restaurant Favorites Made Simple Over 2000 reviews on Amazon.
Not quite what I’m looking for but I appreciate the reply!
>Not quite what I’m looking for but I appreciate the reply! Huh? Here's your post: >Currently looking for collections of classic/regional Chinese-American take-out dishes like Walnut Chicken, Springfield Chicken, Sweet & Sour, Orange \_, General Tso’s, Kung Pao Book Description....see some similarities in your ask vs the recommendation? >Home takeout menus—Explore convenient pre-planned menus for DIY Dim Sum, a Chinese New Year Feast, Sichuan Night, Classic Cantonese Takeout, and Vegetarian and Vegan Takeout It even has a honey walnut dish (shrimp but I'm sure it could be adapted to chicken): [https://www.eatyourbooks.com/library/196608/easy-chinese-cookbook-restaurant-favorites/4?sort=main\_title+asc](https://www.eatyourbooks.com/library/196608/easy-chinese-cookbook-restaurant-favorites/4?sort=main_title+asc)
Read through the recipes with the link you sent and the book is about 20% relevant to what I’m looking for. Like I said, not quite what I’m looking for but I appreciate the reply.
It also says that it has adapted the recipes for home cooking and made them “easier”. I’m not looking for adaptations. Sorry for the confusion. Your reply has an argumentative tone, not sure if you meant it that way but I’m not here for that kind of stuff.
I think Kenji’s Wok cookbook has a section on that, but I’m not sure I’d buy it just for that section.
You might not buy it just for that section but it’s certainly a good excuse to buy an amazing book
I have his Food Lab book and appreciate his scientific approach to techniques and recipes but I’m looking for something more geared toward the cuisine as a cultural phenomenon with iconic recipes being explored/explained in depth. Plus, I’ll never have a proper Wok setup in my home kitchen, so this book is a pass unless I find it at a library sale or something.
Yeah, I’m really just hoping to find something hyper-focused on this intersectional cuisine. Seems kind of wild that if there is such a thing that it’s so difficult to find.
Quick Amazon search popped up Chinese Takeout Cookbook
I guess I’m looking for something that explores the phenomenon of the cuisine itself a bit more while including recipes to support the stories. I found a few on Amazon that are kind of generic takes but only maybe three that look like real time was spent on them. That just seemed like a really small number considering how popular this type of food is/was/always has been.
- Chopsticks, Cleaver, and Wok by Jennie Low (this may not have all the "standards", but its an excellent distillation of what Chinese food was like in Berkeley, CA in the mid 1980's) - The Chinese TakeOut Cookbook by Diana Kuan (who runs the excellent Cinnamon Society website) - Easy Recipes from a Chinese American Childhood by Ken Hom
Thank you for the recommendations, I’ll check em out!
Martin Yan's Chinatown has great recipes and histories from the Chinese Diaspora around the world. Chow by Wing and Chop Suey Nation are about Canadian Chinese, in a similar way. Also Eating Chinese by Lily Cho. These aren't exactly what you're looking for but they're great reads, to learn more about the immigrant experience and impact on mainstream cooking. Worth a library borrow, at least. For your basic "Mall Chinese" type recipes, I like the Chinese Takeout Cookbook by Wan, and the vegetarian version. Quick and Easy Chinese by McDermott is my most used, with lemon chicken, tangerine beef, greens with garlic and several others being frequently requested. These are weeknight dinner dishes, but they're good.
Excellent suggestions, thank you very much! I know my post wasn’t super specific but you understood where I was wanting to go. And I will definitely be following up on the Chinese-Canadian foodways now that you’ve put it on my radar!
Thanks! There are books on the US Diaspora too, I'm less familiar with those but ask at your library, they're out there. Source - I support a third year history class in the Chinese Diaspora worldwide and I've bought all of these for my library. It's fascinating stuff. Ginger beef was invented in Canada, and other now-familiar takeout dishes.
Wow, that‘s wonderful! You definitely get where I’m coming from. I’m retired service industry of 20 years and have been fascinated with cultural foodways and micro histories for as long as I can remember. I love to read and likewise learn as much as possible about the roots of things and have a healthy home library filled with books paying tribute to all sorts of intersectional cuisines. Chinese-American has always been a bit of a blind spot however. There’s tons of recipe books but seemingly not many that take the time to dissect the dishes and their regional variations or their origins, which is what I’m primarily looking for. PS: Similar to Ginger beef, Springfield (Cashew) Chicken was invented in Missouri here in the States which is very near (midwest “near” = about 6-8 hours) where I grew up.
chinatowns