Phoenix Claws and Jade Trees

Sad as it might be, the reason why you rarely ever see any Chinese recipes on this blog has everything to do with the fact that…I don’t know how to make anything.

That might be a slight exaggeration. I know how to make some things (e.g. the ones listed below–some of em’ are super super old, so please excuse the picture quality–I’ll remake em’ and fix em’ up someday!)…

炸醬麵 (Fried Sauce Noodles)

薑汁燉蛋 (Steamed Ginger Egg Custard)

醋溜魚片 (Fish in Vinegar Sauce)

腊肠饭 (One-Pot Lap Cheong/Chinese Sausage with Rice)

饺子 (Dumplings) | Variation 2 | Variation 3

蛋塔 (Egg Tarts)

But it stands to reason that if I didn’t want to be so much of a failure to my own culture, getting a cookbook on Chinese cooking would be a step in the right direction! I am very hopeful that this book will lead me to greatness!

Phoenix Claws and Jade Trees

Essential Techniques of Authentic Chinese Cooking

By Kian Lam Kho

In case you ever wondered what “phoenix claw” was, it’s a dish that you can get at most every Cantonese establishment for dimsum. Phoenix claws are actually…chicken feet, but let’s face it–what sounds more awesome?

Genre: Cookbook
Pages: 368

Ninja (my adopted battle tank) was curious! <3

Phoenix Claws & Jade Trees is the first and only Chinese cookbook I own, and I love that it’s organized by cooking method, and also has different sections describing each of the regional cuisines, as well as the culture (so maybe I’ll stop being such a failure to my own culture)! It also has a section on food as medicine, which is definitely a philosophy I believe in!

The book contains over 150 different recipes and has gorgeous photos. (My mom took em’ and sent them over, because I was a sloth over the weekend and neglected to do so–she works night shift, so please excuse the glare–she took em’ before going to work!)

I like how this book breaks the different cooking techniques down into step-by-step instructions, and am really excited to try making food with my parents when I’m back home! Chinese food is their favorite, and I’ve had many a conversation in the past that would end with:

: Why don’t you pick where to go for dinner?
F: How about this place? (Not Chinese food.)
: …Wouldn’t you rather go here instead? (Chinese restaurant)
F: Uh, sure, if you insist.

As with standard cookbooks (see the rest of my cookbook reviews!), each recipe came with a little introduction, as well as serving size (for main dishes vs. side dishes), ingredients, and instructions.

…But two extra tidbits I especially enjoyed were:

• Recipe title in Chinese characters
  (So I get to practice + can order it at restaurants!)
• The province the recipe was from!
  (A lot of people think Americanized Chinese food is all there is to Chinese food, but my goodness, there are so, so many different styles of cooking and flavoring within different regions in China. They only have over a billion people, tis all. :O )

Just as a sidenote, there were what felt like a lot of pork dishes in here, but that’s always been fairly typical [at least to me] in Chinese cooking. I don’t eat pork, but it can be very easily substituted out for another type of protein, so it wasn’t a problem! If you live in the middle o’ nowhere, obtaining a couple of the ingredients might be a little difficult, but…guess who’ll be back in California very very shortly?!

P.S. The attached red ribbon bookmark was a really nice touch–I can’t wait to get started on this! :] (While I haven’t tried out any of the recipes yet, I had my dad look em’ over and he says they’re legit!)

• Sound intriguing? Get the book on Amazon!
• Do you have a favorite Chinese dish?
• Have you ever had phoenix claws?

Check out my other book reviews!