I just responded copiously to an Ask MetaFilter question about this topic.

In case something unfortunate happens to my reply, I’ll copy it in toto over here, but here’s the link to my answer too.

Despite my earlier remarks where I mentioned Japanese cooking, I honestly know a lot more about Chinese food theory. So I’ll focus on that.

Here’s a pretty good summation of the Chinese food philosophy influences. It’s a lot better than the About page on same, which it links to.

Cookbooks and books I have read that talk a bit more about those theories/influences and execise same:
- Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper, Fuschia Dunlop - this is a memoir and while it does contain recipes, it is mostly about experiences and narrative. Warning that it has explicit text about the violence Chinese can do to living animals in pursuit of a meal, so shields up!
- Land of Plenty: A Treasury of Authentic Sichuan Cooking, Fuschia Dunlop - Lots of recipes here, mostly about Sichuan cooking, obviously, some theory, lots of practice.
- Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook: Recipes from Hunan Province, Fuschia Dunlop - This time an obvious focus on Hunanese cuisine, again some theory, lots of practice.
- Breath of a Wok: Unlocking the Spirit of Chinese Wok Cooking Through Recipes and Lore, Grace Young, Alan Richardson - A lot of this is about “wok hay”, a quality of freshess and texture that you can get with proper wok infrastructure and technique, but there is other helpful stuff along the lines you are looking fo here.
- The Thousand Recipe Chinese Cookbook, Gloria Bley Miller - my (Cantonese) father swears by this, but my Ukrainian sweetie, who has been studying Chinese cooking for probably 5 or 6 years only just recently found it helpful. She had to build a vocabulary in cooking (like what you’re looking for) first, to be able to use the recipes in a derivative way. More like a dictionary than like an encyclopedia in that regard.
- The Chinese Kitchen: A Book of Essential Ingredients with Over 200 Easy and Authentic Recipes, Deh-Ta Hsiung - Good overall despite some occasional gross in accuracies. Could be a good start, but we use it for show and tell with beginners, selectively.
- The Chinese Kitchen: Recipes, Techniques, Ingredients, History, and Memories from America’s Leading Authority on Chinese Cooking, Eileen Yin-Fei Lo, San Yan Wong, Alexandra Grablewski - There are techniques in here that as far as we can tell only tai-tais (grandmothers) can carry off, like making shrimp dumpling skins from scratch, but there’s also a lot of good wisdom in here vis a vis how recipes go together.
- The Modern Art of Chinese Cooking: Techniques and Recipes, Barbara Tropp - A good reference. I can’t honestly remember personally how good it is vis a vis food combinations and cooking vocabulary, but my sweetie’s been referring to it frequently lately, and she’s getting pretty advanced.

Books I have not read, but look like they might be good leads:
- The Book of Jook: Chinese Medicinal Porridges, a Healthy Alternative to the Typical Western Breakfast, Bob Flaws
- Origins Of Chinese Food Culture, Chunjiang Fu, Fu Chunjiang, Qiu Yao Hong
Translated by Qiu Yao Hong - There’s a preview on Google Books that makes this part prose, part comics book look like it might be right up your alley.
- The Key to Chinese Cooking, Irene Kuo - The first blog entry listed on the Google Books page has some recipes that look very accurate. Hit or miss whether it would give you what you want, but hopeful-seeming.
- Chinese Technique: An Illustrated Guide to the Fundamental Techniques of Chinese Cooking, Ken Hom, Harvey Steiman, Willie Kee - not a lot of info, but the title is hopeful.

Plug:
You might want to look at my sweetie’s blog, where recently she’s been posting recipes she’s been following and in some cases innovating, where she talks about combining tastes according to traditional methods.

Tags:   chinese · chinese food · cookbooks · food vocabulary · recipes · resources · techniqueNo Comments