A excellent cookbook, lot of different and easy recipes that taste as good as take out, over use of lily flowers.

Finally! A cookbook for vegetarians that focuses on traditionally delicious Chinese dishes and is not impossibly challenging or specialized. I was so happy to see this book, having been vegetarian for nearly 20 years and lover of Asian dishes.

The beginning of the book gives an extremely interesting and useful overview about the tradition of vegetarian dishes in Chinese food, the embracing of vegetables by Chinese culture mainly due to Chinese Buddhist monks and nuns, and even tofu! It's mentioned that "temple vegetarian cuisine" is known and revered among the population, and also that meat has traditionally been considered a luxury that all people could not afford. As such, vegetarian dishes became embraced and meat and seafood substitutes readily available and, including wheat gluten and bean curd to make meat substitutes, going back to imperial China. As an American vegetarian, tofu has only more recently become a staple found in general grocery stores, and it certainly never shows up in American cookbooks that aren't specifically FOR vegetarians.

There is an extremely useful overview of go-to Chinese dish vegetables and their possible substitutes if a certain one cannot be found. It discusses prevalence of various foods in mainstream stores vs. more specialized international and Asian food markets. This section will be essential to anyone looking to dive into recipes who aren't as well-versed in Asian foods or are not near an Asian market.

That leads me to the next great thing about this book, and Hsiao-Ching Chou -- she WANTS you to want to cook and makes every conceivable effort to make the approach to the dishes DOABLE for anyone looking to make a go. She suggests ideal and less ideal, but doable, options for dishes, or for traditional vs. possible/not ideal (but doable!) methods to cooking said dishes. She is aware of the limits of various produce and products, and encourages label reading and gives plenty of synonyms for an ingredient in case packaging calls it something else (i.e. "bean thread" is also known as cellophane, glass, vermicelli or sai fun noodles!).

There is also a useful section, as with most cookbooks, describing essential and useful kitchen tools, such as a wok (she even tells you how to properly season your wok!), cleaver, mesh sieve, wok spatula, etc.

I was additionally fascinated by the section describing the variety of soy sauces and each one provides different aromas and spices and tastes - something I hadn't often thought about, as an American.

The recipe sections of the book are as follows: Dumplings, Dim Sum and Small Bits, Soups and Braises, Stir-Fries, Steamed Dishes, Rice and Noodles, Tofu, Eggs, Salads and Pickles. Each section offers a further in-depth look at the dish, or a useful bit of technique or history. The included finished dish photos are enticing and artful. For the dumpling section, images also include step by step folding techniques - this section seems especially challenging to those not used to making such things, but the author makes it seem possible, which, for me, is essential to a cookbook not becoming a dust collector.

Most of the recipes and dishes in this collection are not for beginner cooks, which the author also states in her opening remarks in the book. It may also take some effort and planning ahead to collect all ingredients - for example, the essential white pepper powder and Sichuan pepper corns are not in my spice cabinet, but sound like they add a depth of flavor and spice needed for many dishes. This is also true of various dried mushrooms and kelp. But the author does provide websites she suggests for finding these items online, or mentions a store she knows has multiple locations.