Every Grain of Rice: Simple Chinese Home Cooking
A James Beard Award Winner
"A must-have for anyone who wants to cook Chinese food at home, home cooks and professionals alike." ―David Chang, Momofuku
Fuchsia Dunlop trained as a chef in China’s leading Sichuan cooking school and possesses the rare ability to write recipes for authentic Chinese food that you can make at home. Following her two seminal volumes on Sichuan and Hunan cooking, Every Grain of Rice is inspired by the vibrant everyday cooking of southern China, in which vegetables play the starring role, with small portions of meat and fish.
Try your hand at stir-fried potato slivers with chili pepper, vegetarian "Gong Bao Chicken," sour-and-hot mushroom soup, or, if you’re ever in need of a quick fix, Fuchsia’s emergency late-night noodles. Many of the recipes require few ingredients and are ridiculously easy to make. Fuchsia also includes a comprehensive introduction to the key seasonings and techniques of the Chinese kitchen. With stunning photography and clear instructions, this is an essential cookbook for everyone, beginner and connoisseur alike, eager to introduce Chinese dishes into their daily cooking repertoire.
150 color photographs
Author
Fuchsia Dunlop is a James Beard Award–winning author specializing in the cuisines of China, where she trained as a chef. A fluent Chinese speaker, she is the author of several books, including IACP Award finalist Invitation to a Banquet and James Beard Award finalist The Food of Sichuan. She currently lives in London.
Review
"No fancy restaurant techniques that require an army of cooks to execute. No assemblage of seven time-consuming components in these dishes. Instead, the book's recipes replicate how some Chinese people cook at home, in various parts of the enormous, diverse country….Every recipe in Every Grain of Rice is a Golden Retriever: comforting, frisky, and, once you become acquainted, loyal like none other."
― Scott Hocker, The Week
"A home cook's cookbook…[Every Grain of Rice] shows how with some good produce, a decent pantry, and some basic technique, Chinese cooking is no harder or more foreign than making a plate of pasta or building a salad."
― Max Falkowitz, Serious Eats
"[A] workhorse of a book for everyday Chinese cooking...There are so many treasures in here, you can hardly go wrong."
― T. Susan Chang, Boston Globe
"The diversity of the dishes―and their simplicity―makes this a remarkable book."
― Jenn Garbee, LA Weekly
"Masterly…a non-stop parade of easy-to-execute dishes."
― William Grimes, New York Times Book Review
"Fascinating…brimming with important information…. Trust me, this is gold!"
― Mission Food
"Rare is the cookbook that straddles scholarship and ease, and to convey it with clarity makes Dunlop the preeminent English-language authority on Chinese cooking, maybe ever."
― Kevin Pang, AV Club
"Dunlop has written multiple cookbooks, but if you're not sure where to start, many recommend Every Grain of Rice as a good jumping-off point. It includes recipes inspired by various regions in China, all of which are highly accessible for beginners, thanks to the uncomplicated instructions and aspirational imagery.…Wherever you are in your cooking journey, Every Grain of Rice will hold your hand until you're whipping up recipes that impress even the most critical of family members."
― Charlotte Pointing, Tasting Table
"Fuchsia has a rare ability to convey an encyclopedia knowledge of Chinese cuisine in a compelling and totally delicious way."
― Heston Blumenthal, author of The Fat Duck Cookbook and Heston Blumenthal at Home