Product Description
An essential resource in the American kitchen and a classic for nearly four decades, this is the definitive Chinese cookbook, perfect for cooks at every level

Here is the largest, most comprehensive Chinese cookbook ever published for the Western world. A Tastemaker Award winner, Gloria Bley Miller distills centuries of Chinese recipes and techniques into concise and easy-to-follow directions that will enable any cook to produce dishes that please the eye, delight the palate, and suit the budget.

With verve and wit, Miller tells you how to prepare everything from egg drop soup and drunken pork to sizzling rice and delicate wontons. There are 150 recipes for chicken alone, plus dozens of variations on pork dishes, vegetables, and noodles, as well as other Chinese favorites. Using Miller's recipes, ordinary meat and seafood become delicacies, while vegetables retain their color and texture. And Miller's delicious recipes are splendidly high in nutrients and low in calories.

The Thousand Recipe Chinese Cookbook contains everything the cook needs to know about Chinese cooking, including how to:

Use special Chinese cooking techniques such as steaming and stir-frying
Create unique seasonings and sauces
Substitute hard-to-find ingredients with those available in any supermarket
Plan menus suited to every time constraint, budget, and occasion

The classic Chinese cookbook, this is the only book you'll ever need to master one of the world's greatest and most versatile cuisines.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 41 reviews)

Not bad for its time, but I'm a little puzzled as to why it's still in print

In 1966, this book was an epic. A doorstop-sized compilation of Chinese cuisine written by a Westerner, this book remains a staple of used bookstores. For what it is, it's not bad -- it's dated, but the recipes are generally pretty tasty. Overall it's got roughly the same feel as a typical Chinese restaurant menu, and it is, as a general rule, a classic. However, I've tackled the issue of anachronistic books before, and the results usually aren't that pretty.

I have to say right up front that this book suffers from one massive and nearly unforgiveable fault -- the near total lack of Chinese names for dishes and ingredients. Even if the recipe for a favorite dish is in here, you won't be able to find it by its Chinese name unless its name was already well-established when the book was written. (Incidentally, there is no recipe in here for chop suey; Miller evidently felt very strongly about keeping authentically Chinese.)

That said, your mileage may vary. Some of the reviews from when it was published indicate that it was quite popular among Chinese-Americans in the 1960s, and the recipes do seem largely authentic, if a bit unadventurous at times. But the language issue is a huge stumbling block that would probably destroy a book written now. Buy it used if you can't get a good deal on it, but make sure to get a more recent book to complement it.
August 05, 2008

Broad-ranging but still lacking.

I have always enjoyed good Chinese cuisine. Recently, I've developed a far greater interest in cooking it for myself -- I've moved from the SF Bay Area to the wilds of northern Massachusetts, and good Chinese restaurants and takeout places around these parts are few and far between. So, I decided to learn how to cook those fabulous dishes I always enjoyed.

At the bookstore, I was taken in by the glowing reviews on this book's cover, but I didn't take the opportunity to truly browse through it. In retrospect, I wish that I had. Although this book does contain a broad variety of recipes, and does introduce a novice into the mystique of experimenting with Chinese cooking, it lacks in more or less all of what many would consider key recipes.

Kung pao chicken? Nowhere to be found. Mongolian beef? Nada. Orange chicken? Nope. Peking spareribs? Zero. Spicy Szechuan chicken? Not a chance. Fresh bao, or dumplings, or shu mai? Can't find it anywhere. Ginger chicken? Nary a one. Cashew chicken? A solitary recipe.

What it does have, on the other hand, are ten pages of recipes to do with chicken livers and gizzards prepared in various manners. Sure, there's the few recipes that look as though they might be worth trying, but to find them you have to thumb through the hundreds of pages of dross looking for those few pieces of gold.

In all, an impressively weighty work, but hardly containing a great deal in the way of useful reference to someone whose life doesn't entirely revolve around trying out new and questionably useful recipes.
April 12, 2008

Good Basic Start

I've had this book for many years and always go back to it. The recipes are very basic and like the ones my mom cooked but never documented. Who ever wrote down family recipes to pass on? How do you measure when the recipe is in the cook's head? This year I purchased a copy for each one my children to have. They are all grown and out of the house. This way they have a starting point and can embellish on the recipes. Unfortunately, it doesn't contain photos, but I know the dishes just by the topic, descriptive receipe name and the ingredients.
January 18, 2007

Fast arrival, excellent conditions

The book is excellent, with a wide variety of recipes and detailed explanations about chinese cooking.
November 22, 2006

Fantastic resource for beginners and experienced cooks

Have owned this book for about 20 years now, and have replaced my paperback with a hard covered book because I used it so much that my first book is now in two peices.

It is such a wonderful, uniquely written, simply to understand book that informs those who really want to understand cooking. I don't think it is written to impress professional chefs but to work with regular people who love to eat Chinese.

My best friend (who is Chinese) and I used to cook all the time, and I have lots of experience making Chinese food
and this book added to my knowledge and is still adding to my knowledge years later. The only Chinese cookbook I would own.

This is definitely worth owning!!!!
You will love this book!

August 25, 2006

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