The Key to Chinese Cooking
Irene Kuo, Alfred Knopf, 1977
In the 2015 spring issue of the Gazette, I wrote about stir-frying, a culinary technique that I thought would awaken diners to the new season. There have been several great books on the topic, two written by Grace Young, who has been called the poet laureate of stir-frying. However, the first book I read back in 1977 that focused on technique as much as on the recipes was Irene Kuo’s The Key to Chinese Cooking. It was Kuo who first taught American cooks the meaning of skills like flavor-potting, velveting, slippery-coating, and red–cooking.
Kuo was born to an aristocratic family (her uncle was the tutor of the last Chinese emperor). Their wealth and influence allowed her to travel extensively throughout China. Given her keen interest in food, she was delighted to experience everything from the meat-based dishes of the north, to the rarefied vegetarian cuisine served at Buddhist retreats. She slipped into the family kitchen and learned from cooks hired by the household to prepare everything from the most opulent dishes to the humblest. After Mao’s ascension to power, she fled to the United States. She and her husband eventually settled in New York City where, in the 1960s the Kuos opened two very fashionable restaurants, the Lychee Tree and the Gingko Tree. Celebrities like Barbara Streisand and Johnny Carson dined there frequently, and she became a well-known figure in New York. In the 1970s, she approached the famous cookbook editor Judith Jones about doing a book on Chinese cooking. Jones, impressed by Kuo’s extensive knowledge, her articulate prose, and the sincerity of her voice, took on the project.
In the Key to Chinese Cooking, Kuo focuses on four basic categories of technique: cooking in liquid, cooking in oil, cooking with wet heat, and cooking with dry heat. In each of these categories, there are different approaches with specific guidelines. For her, the key to Chinese cooking lies in understanding technique and how it affects ingredients.
I return to this book again and again. Sadly, it is now out of print, but search the internet for a copy––it is worth the effort.
Recipe
Velveted Shrimp with Broccoli Flowerets