Ching-He Huang - Chings Everyday Easy Chinese: More Than 100 Quick & Healthy Chinese Recipes

For all my family, friends, fans, and gue-ren, thank you so much from my heart. A little bit more of me to you, with love.

Enough is enough.

Chinese food doesnt get the recognition it rightly deserves in the Western world. French, Japanese, even Korean cuisine all receive high praise from food critics in the press, but Chinese food remains underappreciated. Chinese cuisine can be just as complex or as basic as any other cuisine. It has so much to offer and has given so much already. It has traveled all over the world with immigrant Chinese families and its influence can be seen in the food cultures of many different countries, from AsiaJapan, Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnamto the West.

Did you know that there are more takeout Chinese restaurants in America than every McDonalds, Burger King, and KFC put together? In the UK there are more than 15,000 Chinese takeout shops and restaurants, and Chinese takeout shops have officially overtaken Indian takeouts as the nations favorite type of meal to order in every week. In America, Chinese restaurants first developed to provide food for the railway workers in the nineteenth century. Immigrant chefs had to use local ingredients to cater for their customers tastes, so dishes were given a name and number and served with a very un-Chinese roll and butter. These were the circumstances in which Chinese takeout menus were first devised.

During this period and over the years, many inventive takeout dishes were created, including egg foo yung (omelette served with gravy), chow mein (stir-fried noodles), chop suey (leftovers in a brown sauce), crispy beef, and General Tsos chicken (battered chicken in a spicy sweet ketchup sauce)dishes as well loved in Britain and America as shepherds pie, pizza, or steak and potatoes.

If you are a fan of your local Chinese takeout shop and you then travel to China, my guess is that you will experience more than a culture shock, for the food will seem very unfamiliar. Some English businessmen have admitted to me that they fill their suitcases with chips and other goodies when they travel to China because they cannot stomach the food there! If you go with an open mind, however, youll discover a whole new culinary world. Should you be lucky enough to dine with Chinese friends at their favorite Chinese haunt, youll find the menu will be dismissed, there will be a few exchanges of Cantonese or Mandarin, some quick scribbles by the waiter, and youll be treated to such delicacies as clay pot chicken, braised chickens feet, fish-fragrant eggplant, steamed sea cucumbers, and baked salted chicken.

But there are signs that the disparity between takeout food and real Chinese cuisine is lessening. China has opened up over the last decade and there are now many more opportunities for travel to and from the country. The Internet has helped too. As a result, more people are beginning to appreciate that Chinese cooking is much more than what is served at their local takeout place.

Chinese takeout food has also recently moved on and become more exciting. There are more dim sum restaurants than ever, for instance, and while Cantonese cuisine is still the most widely served outside China, establishments offering dishes from other regions are sprouting up all over the placeno longer just Cantonese, but Sichuanese, Hunanese, Taiwanese, and Shanghainese. Chinese takeout food remains a huge phenomenon. Chinese takeouts can be found all over the world and each one has a unique story attached to it. Often you will hear how someones grandfather started the takeout shop, or how the place has been in the same family for generations. By contrast, others have changed ownership many times, serving as a golden goose for perhaps a decade before being passed on.

When my family first arrived in England and we stood waiting for a train, I remember an elderly couple asking my father whether we owned a Chinese restaurant. That was two decades ago when it was the norm for newly arrived Chinese families to open a takeout shop. The majority of my fathers friends in the Chinese community in London owned takeout shops.

In hindsight, my father thought he probably would have been more successful had he followed suit rather than going into the importexport business. At the time, however, he felt this was the right thing to do, as my grandparents were proud that their eldest son had graduated with a business degree and were prejudiced against him working in catering, which was considered laborious and low skilled (still the view in China today).

My first takeout experience was in Englandat a small place on the Fortune Green Road in North London. Prior to that I had never had food from one. My mother is a great cook, and when we lived in South Africa (before traveling to England), she made all the meals. Her recipes were mainly Chinese but with a South African twist, such as a stir-fried or traditional stewed dish served with miele pap (rather like polenta) instead of boiled rice.

In fact, there were no Chinese takeouts that I can recall during my time in South Africa. There was only one Chinese supermarket in Joburg at the time, which my mum would religiously frequent every week to stock up on provisions for her Chinese larder.

In England, by contrast, there were a lot more takeout shops and one busy weekday, shortly after we had arrived in the country, we ordered from our local. The experience wasnt too bad, but Mum found it overly expensive and the fried rice not up to standard, so she turned her nose up at it and we never ordered from there again. The takeout shop remains in business, however: last time I passed, it was still there. Mum preferred the Cantonese restaurant, the Water Margin, on Golders Green Road, and we went there when she wasnt in the mood for cooking. The restaurant became the place where I could meet my friends (or a date) for a quick Saturday lunch while satisfying my craving for Cantonese roast duck on rice.

Chinese takeout shops are the fast food of Chinese cuisine. A takeout shop is where you would go to get your fried spring rolls, fried wontons, special fried rice, or beef with greens. It is usually a lot more salty and oily than home-cooked Chinese food, in which dishes are a lot simpler, less rich, and better balanced. It is no wonder that Chinese takeout shops have created a bad name for themselves, with many using high levels of monosodium glutamate to enhance the flavor. Although MSG is a natural substance, found in many foodstuffs, used as an additive it can have adverse effects. I personally have an intolerance to it, as it gives me heart palpitations and a dry throat.

To me, if you use the freshest ingredients, you dont need MSG because the dish will be full of flavor, especially if those ingredients are in season and at their very best. Many manufacturers of Chinese or Asian condiments often add MSG, and I have found that a small amount within a sauce is fine, but commercial sauces can contain quite a bit. Try to find ones that dont have MSG and contain ingredients that are as natural as possible. Best of all, create your own saucesin this book Ill show you how to use pantry ingredients to make your own. It is true of all cuisines that the foods you cook yourself at home will be healthier and lighter than any takeout food. In fact, a recent report showed that a meal cooked at home contains on average 1,000 fewer calories than its takeout equivalent and considerably less salt. Even though my grandmother was partial to a little gourmet powder (MSG) from time to time, she always practiced what she preachedto be certain of what youre eating, it is better to cook the food yourself.