Stir-Frying to the Sky's Edge: The Ultimate Guide to Mastery, with Authentic Recipes and Stories

Description

Winner of the 2011 James Beard Foundation Award for International Cooking, this is the authoritative guide to stir-frying: the cooking technique that makes less seem like more, extends small amounts of food to feed many, and makes ingredients their most tender and delicious. The stir-fry is all things: refined, improvisational, adaptable, and inventive. The technique and tradition of stir-frying, which is at once simple yet subtly complex, is as vital today as it has been for hundreds of years-and is the key to quick and tasty meals. In Stir-Frying to the Sky's Edge, award-winning author Grace Young shares more than 100 classic stir-fry recipes that sizzle with heat and pop with flavor, from the great Cantonese stir-fry masters to the culinary customs of Sichuan, Hunan, Shanghai, Beijing, Fujian, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia, as well as other countries around the world. With more than eighty stunning full-color photographs, Young's definitive work illustrates the innumerable, easy-to-learn possibilities the technique offers-dry stir-fries, moist stir-fries, clear stir-fries, velvet stir-fries-and weaves the insights of Chinese cooking philosophy into the preparation of beloved dishes as Kung Pao Chicken, Stir-Fried Beef and Broccoli, Chicken Lo Mein with Ginger Mushrooms, and Dry-Fried Sichuan Beans.

Grace Young is an award-winning food writer and the author of Stir-Frying to the Sky's Edge, The Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen and The Breath of a Wok. Her work has appeared in Gourmet, Metropolitan Home, Copia, Gastronomica, Eating Well, More, Fitness, Home, and Health magazine. For seventeen years, Young was the Test Kitchen Director and Director for Food Photography for over forty cookbooks published by Time-Life Books. She is now a consulting editor at Saveur.

"With this extraordinarily inspiring and comprehensive book, Grace Young establishes herself not only as one of the world's great experts in Chinese cooking but as one of its few genuine masters. Buy it, read it, cook from it-and soon you will be on your way to becoming a stir-frying master yourself." --James Oseland, editor-in-chief of Saveur and author of Cradle of Flavor: Home Cooking from the Sipce Islands of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore "For Grace Young, poet-laureate of the wok, a way of cooking is a way of life. Through stories, practical kitchen advice, and eminently doable recipes, Stir-Frying to the Sky's Edge takes the art of stir-frying to a new level." --Betty Fussell, author of Raising Steaks: The Life & Times of American Beef "Stir-Frying to the Sky's Edge is the essential cookbook for anyone who wants to stir-fry with confidence, even mastery. Grace Young has interviewed exceptional Chinese cooks from all over the world to document their stories and recipes and to reveal the many ways in which stir-frying has sustained the Chinese in cultures as far-flung as India, Trinidad, Jamaica, Cuba, Peru, France, and America. Whether you are seeking a practical and inspiring Chinese cookbook or a beautiful culinary history, look no further." --Paula Wolfert, author of Mediterranean Clay Pot Cooking "Trying to flip quickly through this book is impossible. Nearly every page turn caught me up with something I had to read. Grace Young brings us the entire being of the wok. Yes, she's a gifted recipe writer, hand holding through each step, so success comes pretty effortlessly. But the revelation with Grace goes further. The wok is probably the most underrated (and underpriced) piece of equipment we have. Grace knows its life, its place not solely in China, but in the world. The wok is immediacy, tradition and maybe even an instrument of life force. Did I get carried away? Maybe, but that's where Grace can take you. Follow her, you'll love the trip." --Lynne Rossetto Kasper, host of Public Radio's national food show, The Splendid Table (R), from American Public Media "Grace Young's masterful book reveals stir-frying as 'a cooking method of great subtlety and sophistication.' She provides a sense of spirit, of excitement, that makes stir-frying delicious fun. Recipes are clearly written and detailed; you'll get the requisite hand-holding to stir-fry your way to a delicious dinner....Young has done an admirable job showing how this ancient technique can be deliciously new and cool." --Bill Daley, Chicago Tribune "Young, whose expertise in wok technique has already enlightened American cooks, has now gathered recipes for stir-frying reflecting culinary traditions as far-flung as Indonesia and Peru.For the novice, Young offers lots of basic yet learned advice on shopping for unfamiliar ingredients and on assembling a Chinese pantry. Photographs and step-by-step instructions make fundamental wok tools and techniques accessible to even the least experienced. Her sidebars featuring talented stir-frying masters from all over the world add human dimension to the recipes." - Mark Knoblauch, Booklist "If you've ever spent much time with the award-winning The Breath of a Wok, you know that Grace Young's cookbooks feel as personal as they are practical. Her latest is no exception. And if you're expecting food a la Panda Express, this book will be a revelation. Stir-fries, it turns out, can come from almost every continent, and a good one is no slapdash affair. Young reveals the many small techniques that add up to excellence." --Katherine Miller Fran Walden, The Oregonian "Grace Young is one of the very best cookbook authors writing today. Her newest book, Stir-Frying to the Sky's Edge: The Ultimate Guide to Mastery, With Authentic Recipes and Stories is essential reading for anyone interested in Chinese cooking." --Erica Marcus, Newsday "The new cookbook by Grace Young is an extended love poem to the wok. It has more than 100 fab recipes, from classics such as Stir-Fried Beef and Broccoli to delicious hybrids like Chinese Jamaican Jerk Chicken Fried Rice and Chinese Trinidadian Stir-Fried Shrimp and Rum. Young's travels take her around the globe and along the way, fortunate readers will learn how to rock the wok." --Matt Schaffer, The Boston Herald