English-Language Stir Fry Cookbooks

[Chris Hennes]

I have a wok burner, I have a wok, and I have Grace Young's Breath of a Wok and Stir Frying to the Sky's Edge. I've cooked a bunch of the recipes from Breath and just started in on Sky's Edge, but Sky's Edge is starting to feel like a simple rehashing of the same recipe style from Breath. I'm looking for some variety: what are some of your favorite cookbooks that focus on (or at least have a lot of recipes for) stir frying? Any other good resources for this Westerner?

[nakji]

For CHinese, I rely heavily on Fuschia Dunlop's Revolutionary Cuisine and I picked up Sichuan Cookery recently. They're not wholly about stir-frying, but of course those kinds of dishes are heavily represented.

I learnt a lot about stir-fry technique from Yan Kit-so Essentials of Chinese Cuisine, where by reading through her recipes, you can get a sense of the order of stir-frying, and how to treat the ingredients. I rarely use any of her recipes exactly, but I often freestyle off of them, using the ingredients I have to hand.

[C. sapidus]

For CHinese, I rely heavily on Fuschia Dunlop's Revolutionary Cuisine and I picked up Sichuan Cookery recently.

Listen to nakji, but note that Ms. Dunlop's Sichuan cookbook is called "Land of Plenty" in the U.S.

[John Rosevear]

I learnt a lot about stir-fry technique from Yan Kit-so Essentials of Chinese Cuisine, where by reading through her recipes, you can get a sense of the order of stir-frying, and how to treat the ingredients.

As did I. I rarely use her recipes anymore, but I learned an awful lot from that book. Worth seeking out.

More generally, in addition to the above, Irene Kuo's "Key to Chinese Cooking" is also a top-notch basics-of-Chinese-cooking text. Very much worth having. It's out of print, but used copies are readily available.

Edited November 18, 2010 by John Rosevear (log)

[nakji]

Agreed. I feel like I can come up with my own stir-fry recipes, because she taught me the essential method of a stir-fry - what's happening in the pan, and when.

[janeer]

I really love both of Dunlop's cookbooks, especially Land of Plenty. I also recommend Nina Simonds's books Classic Chinese Cuisine and China Express. If you can find it, Craig Claiborne and Virginia Lee's little-known but excellent The Chinese Cookbook. For something a little more contemporary but still quite clearly Asian, Barbara Tropp's China Moon. I use all of these regularly.

[mbhank]

Irene Kuo's "The Key To Chinese Cooking" is a classic which should be on every Chinese cooking chef's bookshelf.

Martin Yan's and Ken Hom's excellent books are based mainly on stir frying.

[Blugerass Ron]

One of my favorite cookbook's is "Chinese Cooking" The secret of a great cuisine unveiled

with recipe contributions by Lee To Chun

it was published in 1973 by Garland Books