Reddit reviews The Chinese Takeout Cookbook: Quick and Easy Dishes to Prepare at Home

Lord, the assumptions/priviledge that is in your post/responses...

The cuisine you're describing isn't an "old food fad" or "old food phenomenon." It's a multi-generation adaptation of a people's (the immigrant Chinese) cuisine in response to the to conditions, available ingredients, and demands of the people around them; in North America. To say that it isn't authentic, or calling it "fake crap," is condescending (and shows a lack of understanding) to the thousands of Chinese immigrants who have lived/worked/adapted/died in the U.S. and Canada for the past 200 hundred years. To think that this cuisine doesn't exist anymore (outside of of old menus) shows how sheltered/closed off you truly are. It is no greater/worse, nor is it less "authentic," than all the [regional] Chinese cuisine from China/Taiwan. It is a food style unto it's own; with it's own influences, responses, techniques and made by people who [usually] identify as Chinese.

If you want to try and know what you're talk about:

Books:

Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States by Andrew Coe

The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food by Jennifer 8. Lee

Sweet and Sour: Life in Chinese Family Restaurants by John Jung

Wu: Globalization of Chinese Food by David Y.H. Wu and Sidney C.H. Cheung

China to Chinatown: Chinese Food in the West by J.A.G. Roberts

Ethnic Regional Foodways United States: Performance Of Group Identity by Linda Keller Brown

The Chinese Takeout Cookbook: Quick and Easy Dishes to Prepare at Home by Diana Kuan

American Chinatown: A People's History of Five Neighborhoods by Bonnie Tsui

Documentary:

Chinese Restaurants directed by Cheuk Kwan (IMDB Overview)

Hopefully i can give you a few pointers. To answer your question "How can I learn to cook chinese food" first you need to know what type you're looking for, sichuan is much different from shanghai and both are different from cantonese cuisine for example. Sichuan tends to favor spicy food, while shanghai food tends to be more on the sweet side and then you have your classic cantonese flavors. That being said, these are some of my recent favorite books, I'd startoff with "Land of Plenty" by Fuchsia Dunlop which has authentic Sichuan recipes and which are quite tasty. Another good book is "The Chinese Take-Out Cookbook" by diana kuan, it has a bunch of different recipes that you would usually find in america. The cool part is that with stir frying which alot of recipes use, generally speaking since there's not alot of oil, it is not too high in fat.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/034552912X/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1398747043&sr=8-1

The Chinese takeout cookbook

$20 on Amazon Prime... I may consider it :)

I recently moved from NYC to the west coast, and have found the type takeaway of Chinese food that's generally available (not including going to Chinatown somewhere) is really disgusting. At the best, it's cut from a different cloth (Szechuan/Hunan vs. Cantonese?? I dunno...) and it's just not what I'm accustomed.

So, I invested in The Chinese Takeout Cookbook by Diana Kuan which has done the trick in a pinch. The General Tso's recipe she has is akin to the original General Tso's, and not the cloying, gloppy comfort food I love, but all the other recipes seem to be spot on. The mooshu and lo mein recipes are fantastic. I haven't tried her Kung Pao recipe yet.

As a NY'er, I feel your pain. You might want to try searching for "NY Style", "Takeout" or "American", in addition to the specific dishes you'd like to recreate, for recipes.

Here's a slideshow of the most popular dishes, with recipe links. I also found this one for Beef and Broccoli. There's also this cookbook, as well as others, that feature American takeout-style Chinese food. Good luck!

If you like making Asian takeout, you might be interested in the Chinese Takeout Cookbook. My flatmates and I have made several of the recipes from it and all of them have been really great.