All Under Heaven: Recipes from the 35 Cuisines of China [A Cookbook] Hardcover – August 30, 2016

This is a vast book. It is almost overwhelming in scope. And some cook book readers will want to disregard this one because it does not have pictures. I think that would be a mistake, especially for cooks who want to delve further into Chinese dishes than what they have already found in general Chinese cooking books. "All Under Heaven" introduces the reader into the intricacies of Chinese food culture regions. It is not an introduction into Chinese cooking.I think this book might be a bit overwhelming for an inexperienced cook; someone unfamiliar with Oriental ingredients. Although, if you glance through the very exemplary "Look Inside" feature on this product page, you will see that many recipes are very approachable, and ingredients readily available from a large well-stocked grocery store. If you are inexperienced, yet very interested in discovering the regional cooking of China, you will be able to tackle these recipes with gumption and determination. While a large oriental grocery store would surely be a great help, it is not mandatory for maybe a third-to-half of the recipes. If you are out in the middle of nowhere, Amazon's vast array of foodstuffs can come to your rescue.While many of the line drawings are beautiful, without even a few full-color photos, the book is a bit difficult to plow through if your intent is to just glance at the recipes and whiling away a peaceful afternoon. This is a serious book, loaded with information, and not suited for light reading.Each region is covered, but no region is really covered in depth. Each region has sub-regions, and there is a sprinkling of recipes for each. For instance, I was hoping to learn more about Hakka dishes. While there were a few recipes, I yearned for more. Hence, I call this book an "introduction" despite its 500+ pages. There is enough information on each area to whet your appetite.I've written quite a few cook book reviews, and I usually include some of my favorite dishes before I wrap it up. Not this time. This book is truly vast in scope, and I don't really have any favorites. I can say that I started with a temporary download of the book from the publisher Ten Speed Press, and today, now that Amazon has it offered for sale, I have purchased my own copy. I can say that the recipes I tried so far produced the predicted results. Now, I want to have the book for my own; to have and hold a hard copy to study it better. It is that kind of book. I bought a hard copy because I think it will be easier to manage than the Kindle version. I want to flip pages back and forth between the recipes, the decent glossary in the back, and the extensive index.Maybe it would give you some insight, if I told you that I now live in a large motor coach, and I do a lot of cooking outdoors. And I am really trying to downsize my cookbook collection, and have gone from over a thousand cook books to a single cabinet-full in the bus. And I still indulged myself with this book.....I am looking forward to really getting to know the recipes in All Under Heaven during the cooler months coming up.*I received a free, temporary download of the ARC of this book from the publishers.

A serious home cooking who wants to go deeper and understand what is Chinese cooking all about should get this book. So this is divided into 7 major regions of Chinese cuisines. There are some illustrations made by the author, and she provides essential ingredients for these recipes. The instructions are easy to understand, if you are an experienced home cook, and wonder if it were possible to make these dishes at home. Most of the dishes on this book are available on higher end Chinese restaurants, Chinese eateries and cafe's in America. The author often stresses to use Chinese ingredients, or make your own from scratch which taste better without any of the preservatives and other chemicals listed from brand names products sold in Chinese or Asian markets. This is one of the greatest books about Chinese cuisine which explains the food history of each regional Chinese cooking, she gives recipes that are popular, and recipes that comes from many generations of familiies that specialize few particular dishes on each region. The author knows the differences between American and Chinese ingredients, when a particular is not available to you locally. So she gives you the best alternative to make those at home, and then can be added to a particular recipe you wanted to make.I had tried the preserved egg and pork congee, Fried rice with salted fish and chicken (my favorite, yet really satisfying and comforting), mooncakes with dates and egg yolks, gailan with oyster sauce, Hainan chicken and rice. There are many more that I have to try out. This book is an extensive and comprehensive how each region specialize in particular tastes and ingredients.If you are a novice in cooking, I suggest you buy Wei-chuan's Chinese Cuisine - if you are looking for more techniques, and popular gourmet Chinese cooking. Then if you want a more thorough, comprehensive guide about Chinese cuisine using Chinese ingredients, or make your own from scratch - then this is the book for you. Carolyn has a passion and somehow obsession cooking Chinese Cuisine by writing the food history, anthropology of each region, and how the ingredients came about on different taste, and recipes that had evolved throughout many generations. This is probably one of the best Chinese Cuisine cookbooks taught in English.I bought the Kindle version, and it was really interesting to know each region more thoroughly about their food history where the Silk Road Trade, ingredients, their people came about in many recipes for each region. It has illustrations drawn by the author, Carolyn Phillips, illustrating specific techniques to make these dishes successful. Glad I bought it, and will keep on cooking more recipes from this book- as it taste authentic and can remember how I enjoyed when I was in Hong Kong.

I absolutely love this book! It is so well organized by region and the history given for all of the regions really helps the user understand the roots of the different cuisines. There is a wonderful array of recipes and they all use fairly easy to find ingredients. There are only a few ingredients that I saw that I would have to go to an Asian market for rather than a well-stocked supermarket. The author does a beautiful job of narrating the book as well. Lastly, I LOVE the ingredient breakdown at the back of the book. The author gives the English spelling, the Chinese name in English lettering, then the name in Chinese lettering so that there are no translation issues when purchasing the ingredients. And she also gives a list of essential tools for completing her recipes. I can't recommend this book enough to anyway interested in cooking or culinary. I have hundreds of cookbooks and international culinary compilations, and this is by far one of my favorites. This author is amazing!

A wonderful historic/geographic food and recipe guide. Thorough instruction with drawings but no color photos of finished dishes - smply would have made the book too long. I find this a nice addition to my existing Chinese cookbooks that stick with the types of foods and dishes that are traditionally considered Chinese. All Under Heaven includes cuisine that has had influence from the likes of Russian and Muslim traditions so you will see more unusual ingredients and dishes, including things like crystalline jellied pork, beam curd quenelle soup, and sea moss sandies. While I'm not sure how many recipes I will attempt, there are definitely ones that I am anxious to try out.

I love this book so much. It’s brilliant to curl up with on the sofa with a cup of tea and wander through it on a culinary, cultural and historical journey. I’ve spent hours feasting my imagination amongst its pages.But it’s an excellent cookbook too - this is the only version of mapo doufu I’ve tried that tasted as wonderful as everyone writes it up as (previously I’d thought people were greatly exaggerating); the drunken chicken is a dish I am in love with and make constantly in summer; ‘Three fruits of the Earth’ is an occasional deep-fried guilty pleasure; there’s a multitude of tasty pickles to make; the list goes on. I also like that detailed techniques are given, which are necessary to make dishes the correct way (see mapo doufu above), and the notes at the end of most recipes.Another thing the book is great for is prompting you to venture further away from Western tastes and textures, and at least give them a try (fermented bean curd, jellyfish and preserved eggs are delicious items that spring to mind). And whilst I thoroughly enjoy the specific-area Chinese cookbooks I have, I also found the broader picture of the whole of Chinese cuisine this book gives engrossing. The differences between regional foodstuffs and preferred tastes are fascinating.I bought the hardback a couple of years ago, but was thrilled to see and buy the Kindle ebook too, so I can now use my iPad when cooking as I’d prefer not to mess the HB up too much (more) in the kitchen.

I bought this for my wife as she was struggling to follow her mom's instructions on "add a little bit of this and a little bit of that" recipes, and recipes online were sparse even when searching in Chinese. She has noted that the taste on several are very accurate to what she grew up with in China, and they are sufficiently well explained that you don't have to take a leap in trying to understand a new ingredient or technique.This is our go-to cookbook now - equivalent to Joy of Cooking for more Western food. While it doesn't have everything we want, it covers enough basis to satisfy 75% of what we are looking for. If there was a revised version or a follow up version, I would absolutely purchase it!Authentic, easy to understand, very good handling of substitutes for hard to find ingredients.

Sehr umfangreiche Rezeptsammlung

Negli anni l'Occidente ha maturato un'idea distorta della cucina cinese, quella dei ristorantini economici sotto casa: involtini primavera, riso alla cantonese, chop suey e simili, con raviolini, involtini e carni che quasi sempre cadevano dalla busta dei congelati direttamente nella padella o nel wok, serviti poi con salsa di soia scadente e stucchevole agrodolce.Nessuno di questi piatti ha mai avuto una lontana somiglianza con la reale cucina cinese, neppure con la più povera di prodotti o di inventiva; ma anche se il peggio è duro a morire, qualcosa sta cambiando nella percezione occidentale, una sensazione che coincide con la crescita della Cina a superpotenza economica, con l'invasione di prodotti alimentari freschi sui mercati mondiali, con la rinascita dell'impresa ristorativa sullo stesso territorio nazionale cinese, e, non ultimo, con l'interesse e la curiosità sempre maggiore da parte di cuochi, di professionisti o di curiosi appassionati per tutto quello che salta fuori dal Cappello Magico della gastronomia cinese.Il problema maggiore da affrontare è però in ogni caso che la Cina non è uno Stato omogeneo e ben definito, ma un continente vastissimo che assomma al suo interno continenti minori (o se si vuole, un insieme di 35 Grandi Stati, ognuno con localizzazione e caratteristiche agroalimentari assai diverse); da qui ne deriva una varietà da capogiro che difficilmente può essere imbrigliata nelle pagine di un libro.La prima grande appassionata della cucina cinese, la grande Fuchsia Dunlop, iniziò anni fa la sua ricerca dalla provincia dell'Hunan, passando quindi al Sichuan ed ora allo Jangnan ("The Land of Fish and Rice", 2016) offrendoci forse uno dei pochi modi corretti di visitare ricchezza e differenze di questo enorme patrimonio.Ci prova qui Carolyn Phillips con una panoramica unitaria e più rischiosa (perché è inevitabile lasciar fuori molto), ma il librone di 500 pagine che ne vien fuori è assai bello, esteticamente ben fatto e, dal punto di vista tecnico, riuscito alla perfezione. La scelta vincente è stata quella di sacrificare immagini e foto a colori in favore di una grafica pulita, con disegni, cartine geografiche, piatti, passaggi, ecc ecc., tutto in un raffinato tratto nero e rosso, senza farsi mancare nulla del necessario, magari ritirandolo in riquadri laterali e senza sacrificare nulla del testo. Le 35 cucine della Cina vengono quindi raggruppate in 5 grandi regioni (le Terre Aride, il Nord e il Nordest della Manciuria, i Territori Centrali, Yangtze e regioni limitrofe, la Costa Sudest); capitolo finale dedicato alle tecniche di preparazione, più glossario, indice, e tavole di conversioni delle misure.Edizione con copertina rigida, bella e utile la prefazione di Ken Hom (che risulta anche come consulente, insieme a Harold McGee e molti altri), prezzo di acquisto 18€ più o meno; unica nota negativa (ma non dipende dal prodotto) l'imballo, questa volta poco curato da parte di Amazon (per questi libri grandi bisogna trovare un buon sistema per proteggere gli angoli).

i receive the two Phillips books and it was not really my day, i open this one on "flour" and i read something like"the american flour is no good, then i read the korean one is good but they are of two kinds and you don't say which one is good, then you say that some american flour have the same ratio ??? but again you don't really say for what ???? and oh sur prize when i read the recipes i read "chinese flour" for all the recipes ??????? … also i read some other recipes and you make some change/deviate from the traditional recipes ??? why not give the traditional one and make a note on your "personal" changes ????? you receive so much praise that i guess you deserve an exception ………………………….. as good as can be your book i am still waiting for a "ral" chinese book by a chinese chef, and some other for a master "sim sum" ………….. but you make an impressive work anyway … so.