Best Asian Cookbooks of 2010

Posted on 12. Tue, 2010 by grace in Asian Cookbooks, Best of 2010

As holiday gift giving is at its peak, we’re recommending our favorite Asian cookbooks of 2010. These cookbooks are educational, entertaining, informative, filled with personal stories and most of all, they have wonderful recipes ranging from very easy to the more sophisticated according to your level of expertise.

Chinese Trinidadian Stir-Fried Shrimp with Rum

Posted on 07. Sat, 2010 by grace in Chinese, GF-Adaptable, Seafood

By Grace Young

When I was in Trinidad, Winnie Lee Lum showed me how to make this superb dish, which beautifully demonstrates the convergence of Chinese and Trinidadian cooking traditions. Of course, the taste was extraordinary because Lee Lum only cooks with fresh local shrimp that her husband, Tony, purchases for her. Before cooking, she rinses the shrimp in lime juice, a Trinidadian cooking practice said to remove the “fishy” taste.

Kung Pao Chicken

Posted on 07. Wed, 2010 by grace in Chinese, GF-Adaptable, Poultry

By Grace Young, Stir-Frying to the Sky’s Edge: The Ultimate Guide to Mastery, with Authentic Recipes and Stories

Of the many versions of kung pao chicken that I’ve eaten, this is one of my favorites. The dark, rich sauce
clings to the chicken and peppers, with just an undertone of heat and aromatic flavor from the chilies and Sichuan peppercorns. For the dried chili peppers, use kitchen scissors to snip 1∕4-inch from one end to release the seeds during cooking. Use 4 chilies for mild heat and 8 or more for maximum heat. If you cannot find unsalted roasted peanuts, buy raw peanuts in the shell, shell them, remove the skins, and dry stir-fry them in a dry wok over medium for a few minutes until light golden.

Interview with Grace Young

Posted on 01. Wed, 2010 by grace in Interviews/Stories

Woking Around with Grace Young By Grace Niwa Stir-Frying To The Sky’s EdgeThe Ultimate Guide to Mastery, with Authentic Recipes and Stories is a must-have cookbook for those that want to learn the magical story of stir-frying and its techniques.  Treking her well seasoned wok all over the world, Grace provides a global perspective with stories and recipes from as far as India, Trinidad, Cuba, Peru, France and here in America. NAC:  How did you become such an expert in the wok? Grace: I came to the realization that most Chinese Americans know little about their own culinary traditions. They don’t know how to use a wok. When I was in Seattle on a book tour, I found out the [...]

Grace Young

Posted on 01. Wed, 2010 by grace in Chefs

I grew up in San Francisco surrounded, on the one hand, by the immigrant Chinese traditions of my family and relatives, and, on the other, by innovative American culture. My earliest memories of food are of the extraordinary meals my mother and father prepared for us (my brother and me) and of the efforts they made to ensure that we ate well. Their care was not only a matter of selecting the freshest ingredients, but also for the authenticity with which they replicated the traditional Cantonese dishes of their youth in China during the 1930s and forties. This connection to the cooking of old-world China coupled with the discovery of Julia Child on television (and her “exotic” dishes) shaped my [...]