Ken Hom's Chinese Kitchen: With a Consumer's Guide to Essential Ingredients

by Ken Hom

Book Overview

Ken Hom has introduced countless cooks to the pleasures of China's cuisine. Now he has compiled the ultimate practical guide to Chinese cooking-a recipe book and reference book in one volume. He... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0786860553
• ISBN13: 9780786860555
• Release Date: February 1995
• Publisher: Hyperion Books
• Length: 200 Pages
• Weight: 2.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 7.6" x 10.8"

Customer Reviews

Ken Hom's Chinese Kitchen

I LOVE this book! I use it as a reference quite frequently, even though I cook "Chinese" quite often! My mother, a chef, gave me this book when I first left home - I think she was trying to cut down on my phone bills, calling to ask a thousand questions on what to buy, what to look for, a technique I'd not quite remembered. I would recommend this to anyone, and have purchased a few to pass along to friends who want to learn to "cook Chinese"!

My Favorite Chinese Cookbook

I pride myself on authentic tasting Chinese food and I used to think Hom was too 'white bread' for my tastes. This book changed my mind about him. I bought this book for its first half which gives extensive information on Chinese cooking ingredients likely to be unfamiliar to non-Chinese Americans. However, I've come to value it more for its recipes. Hom's meals run to the slighty dry but very tasty side. You won't find thick, syrupy, sweet concoctions here. I've since also bought his book "Easy Family Recipes from a Chinese-American Childhood" and find it consistent with this one (which means I recommend it nearly as highly).

Great Book

It's a shame this one is so hard to find. There is another one by Martin Yan, with similar ingredient brand-name comparisons.To the reviewer who rated it only 2 stars because its conventions weren't 'American' enough, it's a matter of education. In case you haven't noticed, the rest of the world (including our Canadian neigbors) uses the metric system. Do the math (it's not that hard), or get a Metric conversion chart -- not all of the world's cookbooks were written just for Americans.

Buy this book if you want to learn to cook Chinese

Unlike the reviewer that hated this book, I found Ken Hom's guide to Chinese ingredients extremely helpful in navigating the unfamiliar world of Chinese cooking. Mr. Hom lists all of the essential ingredients, and tips on what brands to buy. If you want to step away from the gooey Sweet-n-Sour glop of Americanized Chinese cuisine and into the THE REAL THING, buy this book.It appears the book was first published in the UK, where Mr. Hom has a BBC TV cooking show, and some of the ingredients are listed in metric with English names for ingredients (i.e., corn flour instead of corn starch).

Best Chinese cook book in the U.S.A.!

Hey have you ever wondered how do they do it? Look no further when you have tried the rest now try the best! Of all the chinese cook books I have read i never could get what you find at the good resturants. This is the one to buy. Frist of all he tells you where you can find all those so foriegn ingrediants. Heck who knows or what for that matter where you can get black bean sauce. If you ever tried to make a dish from some other chinese cook book and thought this doesn't tastes so good maybe it's because you couldn't find the right stuff! I say get this one you will be happy there's no other chinese cook book in the world that will give what this one can!