Ken Hom's Chinese Kitchen: With a Consumer's Guide to Essential Ingredients

Rating:
Summary: My Favorite Chinese Cookbook
Review: I pride myself on authentic tasting Chinese food and I used to think Hom was too 'white bread' for my tastes. This book changed my mind about him. I bought this book for its first half which gives extensive information on Chinese cooking ingredients likely to be unfamiliar to non-Chinese Americans. However, I've come to value it more for its recipes. Hom's meals run to the slighty dry but very tasty side. You won't find thick, syrupy, sweet concoctions here. I've since also bought his book "Easy Family Recipes from a Chinese-American Childhood" and find it consistent with this one (which means I recommend it nearly as highly).

Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: It's a shame this one is so hard to find. There is another one by Martin Yan, with similar ingredient brand-name comparisons.

To the reviewer who rated it only 2 stars because its conventions weren't 'American' enough, it's a matter of education. In case you haven't noticed, the rest of the world (including our Canadian neigbors) uses the metric system. Do the math (it's not that hard), or get a Metric conversion chart -- not all of the world's cookbooks were written just for Americans.

Rating:
Summary: Buy this book if you want to learn to cook Chinese
Review: Unlike the reviewer that hated this book, I found Ken Hom's guide to Chinese ingredients extremely helpful in navigating the unfamiliar world of Chinese cooking. Mr. Hom lists all of the essential ingredients, and tips on what brands to buy. If you want to step away from the gooey Sweet-n-Sour glop of Americanized Chinese cuisine and into the THE REAL THING, buy this book.

It appears the book was first published in the UK, where Mr. Hom has a BBC TV cooking show, and some of the ingredients are listed in metric with English names for ingredients (i.e., corn flour instead of corn starch).