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Ok, so I'm a student at USC and I've just started cooking chinese food this summer. For a recipe book, you want anything by Fuchsia Dunlop. She's got three books out: Land of Plenty (四川菜), Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook (湖南菜), and Every Grain of Rice (a compilation of the other two). Hands down the best authentic Chinese cookbooks that are written by a westerner, while remaining true to the original recipes.


Finding a good Chinese market has actually been my biggest problem, which is a little ridiculous because it's Los Angeles and I know all the old 阿姨s have to shop somewhere. I'm not sure what the situation is over in Westwood, but the only chinese grocery store that I've found that really has everything is the Ai Hoa market, just a block away from the Chinatown metro station (Cluttered and unorganized, just like the markets over in China! But they really do have everything). I've also heard good things about A Grocery Warehouse. But I haven't really explored K-town or Little tokyo, so there may be some good grocers there. Please share if you find some, and report back if you find some Korean/Japanese grocers that also sell Chinese food!

I won't attempt to pick one as the best, but here are some good resources:

• Madame H's Kitchen -- covers a wide variety of Chinese food. She has a book coming out in August.
  
  
• China Sichuan Food This site deals primarily, but not exclusively, with the food of Sichuan province, where the author lives.
  
  
• The Woks of Life Includes some Americanized dishes and a wide variety of more traditional Chinese cooking.
  
  
• Fuchsia Dunlop has written several excellent cookbooks and has a new one coming out in October.
  
  
• Garden Time Homemade Cuisine Most of these videos have an English-language version, or at least English subtitles. There are a lot of recipes that you won't find elsewhere, at least not in English.
  

Check out this cookbook for easy and authentic recipes. Bonus: it also has history and background on all the recipes. I love it!
https://www.amazon.com/Cooking-South-Clouds-Recipes-Province/dp/1909487783

Chengdu is in the Sichuan region/province and Fuschia Dunlop has written a great, accessible book about Sichuan cooking: https://www.amazon.com/Land-Plenty-Treasury-Authentic-Sichuan/dp/0393051773

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Also, here's a recipe from Anthony Bourdain's Sichuan episode, contributed by Fuschia: https://explorepartsunknown.com/sichuan/recipe-pock-marked-mother-chens-bean-curd-mapo-doufu/

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Good luck!

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)

I don't know about blogs, but I liked Serve the People. The Chinese-American author decides to go to cooking school in Beijing, shenanigans ensue with actual recipes interspersed throughout the text. If you're in Beijing, she now has her own restaurant, Black Sesame Kitchen.

I don’t know where in Europe you live but I buy Sichuan Pixian Douban Co. Ltd (China time-honoured brand). It looks like this.

I've had a good experience with this wok:

It seems that your comment contains 1 or more links that are hard to tap for mobile users.
I will extend those so they're easier for our sausage fingers to click!


Here is link number 1 - Previous text "wok"



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I bought these on Amazon awhile back. Few seeds and VERY intense flavor. I had only ever used red peppercorns and when I first received these I ruined my mapo tofu because the flavor was so intense.

Since it's from a cookbook, I don't think it's OK for me to post the recipe. It came from Phoenix Claws and Jade Trees. https://www.amazon.com/Phoenix-Claws-Jade-Trees-Techniques/dp/0385344686/

I found this recipe, which is extremely close.
https://omnivorescookbook.com/lions-head-pork-meatballs

Hui Guo Rou is a Sichuan recipe, Korean fermented soya bean is the wrong ingredient for the dish. You'll want to buy Pixan Broad Bean Paste/Doubanjiang, which is a lot cheaper at your local Asian Market compared to Amazon. Check out Fuchsia Dunlop's recipe from Every Grain of Rice.

Serve the People - A Stir-Fried Journey Through China, it's more of a memoir but deals with the author's experiences working in the restaurant/cooking industry in China. Also, Fuchsia Dunlop, including her cookbooks.

There's also Chinese Culinary Culture, which is probably the closest to what you're looking for, but it may be a bit of a pain in the ass to find outside of China.

Like JAG Roberts' book it's more about Chinese food in the West, but The Fortune Cookie Chronicles is also a good read.