Ken Hom - Complete Chinese Cookbook
Ken Hom was a celebrity chef long before the phrase had been coined. Born and raised in the United States, he got his start teaching Chinese cuisine at the California Culinary Academy, in San Francisco. But it was his cooking show on British television in the early 1980s that made him famous. Since then, he's written numerous cookbooks, consulted for restaurants, created a line of woks and produced Chinese sauces and ingredients.
Hom's strength lies in his ability to explain ideas: it's much harder to make someone understand a technique solely through words than it is to show them how to do it. His recipes from various Chinese regions have instructions that are detailed and clear. Hom gives recipes for dishes such as cold Beijing pork, stir-fried lamb kidneys, salt-roasted chicken, Cantonese pressed duck, West Lake fish, Sichuan prawns in chilli sauce, spinach with fermented bean curd, Chiu Chow noodles in sesame sauce, and warm banana compote with plum wine and candied ginger.