Katie Chin's Everyday Chinese Cookbook. Katie Chin

       Drinks and Desserts

       Chilled Berry Tea

       Banana Spring Rolls with Chocolate-Ginger Sauce

       Chocolate-Raspberry Wontons

       Banana-Walnut Wontons

       Lychee and Ginger Sorbet

       Asian Pear Tart

       Five-Spice Chocolate Cake

       Index

       Resource Guide

       Acknowledgments

      Foreword

      Leeann Chin was an extraordinary woman, and in the case of her daughter Katie, the apple certainly didn’t fall far from the tree. In the early nineties in Minneapolis, shortly after I had started teaching Indian cuisine at a local cooking school, I had the opportunity to attend a class on Chinese appetizers taught by a well-known restaurateur, Leeann Chin. I arrived early, so I was able to witness her efficient moves as she got a bamboo steamer basket ready on one burner and monitored the temperature of a pot of oil on another, all while simultaneously peeling and deveining shrimp for her cilantro-smothered shrimp dumplings. Assistants hovered around to help, but she was clearly in charge. Her passion for teaching came through during the next few hours, as she showed us how to pleat dumpling wrappers just so—her years of work as a seamstress clearly visible in the perfectly pleated pan-fried dumplings she produced. When one came to rest on my plate, it didn’t matter that I was a vegetarian. I inhaled the addictive succulence of that shrimp dumpling in one smooth mouthful.

      I remember asking Leeann about the regional Chinese cooking that was reflective of her youthful days, and whether she missed it. “Yes,” she replied, looking up at me—but then she explained how she relived those days each time she taught Chinese cooking or made a meal for her family. Those meals, by the way, were nothing like the Chinese-American staples that had become synonymous with her battalion of restaurants. Her business acumen shone through as she admitted to serving Minnesotans foods that she knew would appeal to their palates. “Just a bit sweeter than I eat at home,” she clarified.

      Years later, I was working with two master chefs from northern China who came to town to do a series of seminars on the noodle-pulling techniques for which they were well known. I took them to Leeann’s restaurant, where she was the perfect hostess. The chefs ate the same luncheon buffet that she had single-handedly introduced to hundreds of thousands over the years—nothing “special,” nothing different. Out of curiosity, I asked her why. She said they needed to see what was possible in America, and she wanted them to experience what a successful restaurant did to showcase the flavors of a cuisine that was thousands of years old. Leeann was unquestionably a pioneer, and I was fortunate to host an Emmy-winning documentary, Asian Flavors, which featured her life and influences in Chinese cooking over the years.

      Fast-forward to several years later, when I had the opportunity to connect with Katie Chin. I fell in love with her—with her work, her business acumen, her teaching style—and no wonder: I know how proud she made Leeann. Katie’s books are works of passion that showcase her style in terms of accessibility and ease. Paging through this manuscript, I was touched by her poignant stories, laughed out loud when I read about Leeann’s candor, and marveled at their mutual passion for sharing the varied cuisine of China. I hope you not only cook from this book, but also curl up with it at night to enjoy the stories that Katie Chin so eloquently weaves throughout her easy recipes.

       Raghavan Iyer author of 660 Curries and Indian Cooking Unfolded

      The Wisdom of My Mother’s Kitchen

      My mother, Leeann Chin, was born in Guangzhou, China, in 1933. She demonstrated a keen knack for numbers, mastering the abacus at the tender age of twelve. She’d draw crowds to her father’s grocery store, where onlookers would admire her quick fingers manipulating the beads of the abacus. A tomboy, she soon was delivering fifty-pound bags of rice on the back of her bike, riding up to ninety miles a day.

      As a child, my mother was curious about food and cooking, but her mother didn’t want her to learn how to cook—that was a job for the hired help. My mother would sneak into the kitchen and follow the family cook around with wide-eyed fascination. She’d watch as the cook’s cleaver danced across the wooden chopping block, gracefully mincing garlic; she enjoyed the sight of smoking ginger-infused peanut oil with green onion threads being poured over a freshly steamed sea bass, and the sizzling sound the oil made as it hit the fish.

      At the age of seventeen, she escaped the Cultural Revolution and moved to Hong Kong, where a matchmaker paired her with my father, Tony. My parents and my paternal grandmother lived in a modest apartment where my mother adjusted to the bustling streets and bright lights of the city. Although she had followed the family cook around, she had little experience actually cooking on her own; however, she was expected to prepare my father’s favorite dishes immediately upon becoming his bride. She started experimenting with the succulent seafood and plump ducks that Hong Kong had to offer, and her love affair with cooking began.

      My late mother Leeann and I on the set of our PBS cooking series, Double Happiness.

      In 1956, my parents and grandmother were given the opportunity to immigrate to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where my aunt “Goo Ma” and uncle “Bue Jang” operated the Kwong Tong Noodle Company. It was a culture and climate shock. My mother did her best to cook her favorite Cantonese dishes, but it was difficult for her to even find fresh ginger at the grocery store. She learned to improvise, and started growing bok choy, Chinese long beans and Asian eggplant in our tiny garden.

      In addition to my two sisters who immigrated with my parents from Hong Kong, my mother gave birth to my brother and my other sisters in the mid-1950s through the mid-‘60s. Knowing it was hard for her children to assimilate as Chinese-Americans, my mother did everything she could to help us fit in, like bringing us to Sons of Norway events, but every night she made us Chinese food. We didn’t fully appreciate the gourmet Chinese meals we were served, and secretly wished we were eating Hamburger Helper like all the other kids. Foolish, I know.

      Me as a spiky-haired baby with my family.

      My mom with Hillary Clinton.

      My

---

Скачать книгу