Barbara Tropp - China Moon Cookbook

BY BARBARA TROPP

Assisted by Arminda Asprer Schreil
Dessert and Bread Recipes by Amy Ho

Illustrations by Sandra Bruce

WORKMAN PUBLISHING NEW YORK

To the China Moon Staff for their loyalty and excellence and to B.R. who fills my heart with joy

The chef gets all the glory, but it is the staffthe cooks, dishwashers, waiters, prep people, hosts, and managerswho give a restaurant its renown. To the fine staff who have given a slice of their lives to China Moon Cafe, my first thanks go to you.

I owe a particular debt to my lineage of sous-chefs. These are the senior cooks who do daily battle against the forces of restaurant mayhemreceiving produce, overseeing the kitchen staff, tasting their way through everything, and somehow doing it all with streaks of brilliance in spite of plumbing backups and people freak-outsthe untimely chaos that is the essence of restaurant life. Barbara Haimes, our opening sous-chef, set our standards and devised many of our favorite dishes. She trained me to run a restaurant, and a better teacher and friend could not be had. Rachel Gardner, Camille Convy, Mindy Schreil, Andr Fecteau, Katy Ross, Nance Tourigny, and Betsy Davidson have each followed in her path, enriching our cooking and my knowledge both. To these special cooks, my special thanks.

For me, writing a cookbook is a good deal easier than running a restaurant. However, I could not have done it these past three years without extraordinary help. Mindy Schreil, our finest sous-chef as well as my twin palate and right hand in teaching, tested the recipes through two pregnancies and gave birth without missing a beat. Andr Fecteau, our most gifted natural cook, took over when Mindy was too big to fit behind the stoves. Barbie Debarros, our effervescent floor manager, and Mr. Luong, our impeccable senior scrubber, kept the business going gracefully while their boss was going bonkers. Amy Ho, China Moons superlative pastry chef since Day One, committed to paper many of her recipes for desserts and doughs. Such is my delight in what Amy brings to China Moon Cafe and its cookbook that I cant imagine either of them without her.

Writing a book can be a joy or a horror. Thanks to Workman Publishing, it was a joy. Suzanne Rafer, my editor, is the best. Every cookbook author should be so lucky. Lisa Hollander, the designer, and Lori Malkin, her assistant, made the book fun and beautiful. Andrea Glickson got it all off to a sweet, cool start, figuring out how to dish up ginger ice cream to a thousand starving booksellers at their annual convention. Peter Workman heads a wonderful family, and Im lucky to be in the wings.

Life is hard when youre a single parent and your child is a restaurant. Fortunately, I have great friends. If not for them, cheering loudly on the sidelines, I would have long ago fled the Moon and gone home to polish my toenails. Among the best friends one could have are Ellen Brown, Denise Fiedler, Rosemary Manell, Margaret Fox, Maggie Mah, Suzy Davidson, Barbara Kafka, Susan Herrmann Loomis, and Jan Weimer. Hooray for my buddies!

My last and sweetest thanks to Bart, my new husband. (I never had an old one; it just took many years to find him.) Life without your love would be like food without flavor. Je tadore.

The better-than-store-bought basics that make China Moon food distinctive.

Dishes of color and dash that stave off hunger and enliven main courses.

The secrets behind our sauces, plus bowls of good-and-plenty, to eat with other dishes or as a whole meal.

Baby chickens, big chickens, duck, quail, and rabbitfor baking, smoking, steaming, deep-frying, and casseroling.

Whole fish, fish nuggets, and shellfish from sea and river. Hot and cold dishes to show off their flavor.

Dishes from Mongolia and North China to warm you in winter.

The classic Chinese red meat, as savory as it is light. Loins, butts, and ribs cooked to perfection.

Dumplings, buns, and other teahouse fare, along with platters of cold noodles and crispy springrolls.

Rice, potatoes, vegetables, and salads to anchor and embellish a meal.

Tiny cookies of good fortune, fabulous tarts and tartlets, and inimitable ice creams.

This book is a private cooking school. Its curriculum is the world of traditional Chinese flavors combined with exclusively fresh ingredients, a corner of the good-cooking universe I call California-Chinese cuisine. This is a world where cans and bottles are banished in favor of fresh foods, and the tyranny of MSG and cornstarch holds no sway. It is the world of a traditional, albeit slightly eccentric Chinese home cook, who shops a daily market with intelligence and passion, and who would sooner use a fresh American ingredient than a canned one from China.

This book is also the culinary record of a small restaurant called China Moon Cafe, which I opened in 1986 in downtown San Francisco, in a 1930s art deco coffee shop. The setting was small and my goal was equally modest: I wanted to introduce fresh Chinese home-style cooking to a city that adored good food. My eyes on fire with missionary zeal, waving fresh water chestnuts in each fist, I found myself with a roaring restaurant beast and no cage in which to put it. China Moon consumed me, and somehow in the process, I became a professional chef.