From
Lokshen to LoMein
The Jewish Love Affair with Chinese Food
The Kosher Chinese Cookbook
Author: Donald Siegel
Gefen Publishing House 2005, Softcover $19.95
This book opens with the old but poignant joke about Jews infatuation
with Chinese cooking. Chinese history dates back about 5000
yeas and Jewish culture dates back about 6000 years. The question
is, how could the Jews survive for the first hundred years without
Chinese food?
What is it that attracts us so much to this style of food and
how do the Chinese make all those wonderful dishes? This book will explain it all. You will learn how to prepare
dishes such as Roast Duck, Whole Gingerroot and Scallion Steamed
Fish and Assorted Dim Sum (special Chinese appetizers). The
book also includes recipes for a long list of Chinese desserts.
The beginning of this book gives a full history of Chinese and
Kosher cooking, Kashrut Laws and Chinese Food, Kosher Chinese
Products and how the author came about writing this cookbook.
It is a rather interesting story that will keep you busy while
you stir the pot - or the wok.
Chinese Cooking Techniques, is an impressive chapter, and includes
chopping and slicing, how to cook with a wok, how to prepare
a basic stir-fry dish along with an all-purpose stir-fry sauce.
Finally there are the recipes, starting with soups, then the
appetizers (dim sum), the noodles and rice, and ten vegetarian
choices. Then come the fish dishes, chicken, duck and other
fowl. The beef dishes are plentiful and last but not least the
dessert list.
This book is a black and white outsized soft cover cookbook
with no color pictures but several hand-drawn illustrations
that contribute handsomely to the explanations. The typeface
is unusually large, which is a great feature for a cookbook. When I cook the ingredients get all over the pages,
which eventually obscures the words. The large print will help avoid this
problem.
One of the things that I especially appreciated about
this book is the step-by-step information on preparing Chinese
meals without a lot of fuss. The main trick seems to be in the
preparation, making sure you have the correct ingredients, and
the cooking devices before you start.
The instructions are very clearly written and advice is given
as to whether children will go for the recipes or not. After
investing all that time preparing the dish it is nice to know
whether it is child friendly. When a recipe needs to be explained
i.e. how to fill an egg roll it is given in great detail with illustrations.
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