Introduction

Now that you are familiar with the basic techniques and have built up considerable confidence and dexterity by doing the recipes in the first part of this book, here are hundreds of recipes, both traditional and special, that I have developed and put down carefully so that you should be able to accomplish them with relative ease and superb results. But where to begin, how to select, how to choose and combine from so many dishes, you may well ask.

First of all, I have always tried to describe exactly what a dish is going to taste like so that you will know just what to expect in terms of taste and texture—how mild or spicy, how soft or crunchy—and these pointers should help you in your selections. I have also given the number of people a recipe will serve in terms of a Western-style meal, where you have one main dish accompanied by rice and/or a vegetable, perhaps preceded by a soup. In this country, to some people, a dish containing a pound of meat plus secondary ingredients would serve four nicely while others might deem it adequate for only two people; the final judgment must be yours. In a Chinese meal the same recipe would be ample for two or three times the number of people because you would serve at least three other dishes all at the same time, along with a soup. But until you are really proficient and have acquired an insatiable appetite for Chinese food, let it enter your diet little by little. Attempting Chinese cooking gradually, without pressure, perhaps even sharing the preparation with a friend or a spouse, gives you time to practice the techniques until they become second nature, as they are to those who grew up on it.