Review: China Modern

China Modern: 100 Cutting Edge Fusion Style Recipes for the 21st Century

Another book I got from the library, this one was pretty well done. 

Ingredient lists tend to be short, plenty of pretty photos and clearly written. 

Recipes are for two servings. I thought this was a pretty limiting decision, though it's not too hard to scale up from there. On the other hand, it was written for a European audience and it does make more sense there.

Most recipes are simplified in ingredient list and specialty ingredients but show a good focus and understanding of the cuisines. This serves to highlight particular flavors simply and well. And also make the dishes easier to cook for many who don't have a deep pantry of exotic ingredients

There are dishes from across Asia and some Fusion cooking going on as well such as the Peking Duck Sushi and even some Chinese style Fish and Chips. 

Review: New Classic Chinese Cookbook by Mai Leung

This is an update of an older version of her 1987 book, thus the New in the title. 

Even then, this edition is 13 years old, from 1998 so not so new now.  I discovered it recently at the library and thought it looked worth more than just flipping through. So I checked it out.


A decent effort, covering a good swath of the cuisine, often with stories of the dish from her past. No photos, but enough illustrations where they're useful. I generally prefer cookbooks in this style as they tend to be more substantive in content than relying on fancy food pictures for sales.


She offers a pretty good section on ingredients, recommending specific brands here and there. 

As to the writing, the same sort of thing has been done better by other authors specifically Eileen Yin Fei Lo covering life stories with depth and feeling. That's not why we buy cookbooks so I can't hold this against Mai Leung's work.

The food and cooking more importantly are focused on quality and traditional foods, not the American restaurant food. She uses dark soy in ways I've not commonly seen it used in finish sauces. Which is probably why she spends more time calling out different brands of dark soy in the different styles of dark soy than any other author I've seen. 


She also discusses the oil blanching or passing through oil technique something I don't see taught very often. 


There's a different perspective into Chinese cooking than I've seen before and I like the insightful slant into the food itself. For a fan of the cuisine, this is a book worth familiarizing yourself with. For newcomers to home cooking of traditional Chinese food, I think there are better starting points. I plan on adding a copy to my personal collection.