Stirring Up a Storm: Meet the Game-Changing Cookbook That’s Redefining Home-Cooked Chinese Cuisine
The popular cookbook “Real Chinese Food” contains recipes for “real Chinese food” that have been loved in Chinese homes for many years.Easy and refreshing, the kind of Chinese food you’ll want to eat every day.‘ (Saketo, Magazine House) recently won both the “Professional Choice Recipe Award” and the “Cooking Category Finalist” at the 11th Cooking Recipe Book Grand Prize.
Author profile:Alcoholic
A quarter century has passed since he first fell in love with authentic Chinese cuisine in China, and now makes it his life’s work to travel around the country and try different dishes. He was stationed in Beijing, Guangzhou, and Shanghai for 10 years before returning to Japan in 2019. His “Chinese at Home” magazine on note, which introduces easy-to-make, authentic Chinese recipes he learned in China, has a circulation of over 10,000 copies. The food photos he posts on social media often go viral, and he has become so popular that he was even invited to feature on Chinese food in dancyu. He is highly recommended by celebrities who love good food, and is known only to those in the know as a “gourmet drinker.”
This is the long-awaited first cookbook by Sakuto, a popular Chinese food enthusiast who writes the note magazine “Chinese at Home,” which has a circulation of 10,000 copies.
When Japanese people hear the word “Chinese food,” images of rich, strong flavors, lots of seasonings, oily, and upsetting may spring to mind, but the home-cooked meals served on Chinese dining tables are the exact opposite.
This book features 78 recipes for “real home-cooked Chinese food” that is not yet known to Japanese people, and has a light, mild taste, few seasonings, and little oil, so it is easy on the body even if you eat it every day.
Below are excerpts of photos and comments on typical authentic home-cooked Chinese dishes featured in this book. Everything is “new” and the true deliciousness of “home-cooked Chinese” that is yet to be discovered, so please come to your local bookstore and enjoy the taste!
3 incredibly delicious “New Homemade Chinese Recipes”
A refreshing and stimulating dish! A quick and delicious cold dish of raw zucchini
Chilled shredded zucchini (cold dish)
Just by slicing raw zucchini into strips and mixing it, it becomes so delicious, it’s overwhelming. The spiciness of the chili peppers and the aroma of the garlic will push you forward, and you’ll be hooked! Make a lot and eat it heartily.
Sexy Abura Soba! Surrender to your instincts
Shaanxi Youpomin (Shaanxi style・oil)
This is a specialty dish of Shaanxi Province. In fact, it is the soul food of the Shaanxi people. When you pour boiling hot oil over the freshly boiled noodles, a gorgeous aroma rises up like a tornado.
The unbeatable taro Chinese cuisine!
Taro stir-fried with scallion oil
Every year, when taro is in season, this is the best taro dish I make first. The thick scallion oil clings to the sticky taro, transforming it into an incredibly delicious dish.
Author Shuto’s tour of all provinces in China! Check out the recipes featured
Beijing’s Forbidden City and Beijing cuisine
The Forbidden City as seen from Jingshan Park in Beijing.
As a student, I was interested in studying Chinese history, and the Forbidden City was a place I longed to visit. I first visited it in the summer of my 18th year. Under the clear blue sky, the endless golden roof tiles took my breath away. It has been my favorite place ever since, and this is a photo I took when I took my son to Beijing for the first time.
Beijing cuisine calls for alcohol. The dishes are all subdued in color, but the strong flavor with little sweetness is a favorite of alcohol drinkers. The perfect pairing is, of course, baijiu (distilled alcohol with an alcohol content of over 50%). The eggplant in the foreground (sesame sauce eggplant) and the Qianlong cabbage in the background (sesame sauce cabbage) are simple to make and delicious, so they are very popular in my house. Along with the baijiu, my tongue is reminiscing about Beijing.
Cantonese cuisine “Dim sum”
My life in Guangzhou was also full of dim sum. On weekends, many Guangzhou residents gather at tea houses from early in the morning. I frequented many tea houses and enjoyed a variety of dim sum. The key is to order boiled vegetables. They are a good palate cleanser among the dim sum, which is mainly made of flour and meat. Bai Zhuo Sheng Cai (boiled lettuce) has been my favorite food since that time.
Yunnan Cuisine “Lemon Sauce”
Lemon chicken, a specialty dish of the Dai people of Xishuangbanna, Yunnan, is made by cutting boiled chicken into small pieces, mixing it with various herbs and fresh chili peppers, and squeezing in plenty of key lime juice. The refreshing aroma, moderate acidity, and intense spiciness stimulated my appetite and made it impossible to stop eating. I often make this at home in the summer. The trick is to use the tastiest chicken possible!
Sichuan’s “Open Sky Teahouse”
Tea houses in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. In Chengdu’s parks and temples, there are open-air tea houses called tea houses. You just take a gaiwan (a covered teacup) with tea leaves and sit wherever you like, and the staff will pour you hot water. The Chengdu people’s style of relaxation is to sit on a bamboo chair, sip hot green or jasmine tea, and enjoy conversation or playing cards. I love it too.
Shanghainese cuisine: Scallion oil noodles
I was instantly captivated by the Kaiyang scallion oil noodles I ate on the streets of Shanghai. They look plain, but when you mix them together, the impression changes completely. The aroma of the scallion oil and soy sauce warmed by the heat of the noodles rises, and a “simple yet supreme” noodle dish is born. It’s vulgar, simple, and powerful. Even now, whenever I make it, I finish it in no time.