• PrincessK on November 12, 2010

  Making 4 key items in advance for your pantry: salt and szechuan peppercorns, pickled ginger, hot chilli oil and a flavored oil. Dim sum recipes are good.

Notes about Recipes in this book

• China Moon pickled ginger

  • Lee on December 31, 2015

    Excellent and the juice is very useful.

  • bernalgirl on November 20, 2020

    As noted, easy, delicious, and don’t throw out the juice!

  • ashallen on December 10, 2019

    Easy to make, keeps a long time in the refrigerator, and so delicious that I'll sneak slices as a snack! As Lee mentions, the juice is also very useful - it also has great ginger flavor but in liquid form.

• Stir-fried shrimp with lemon and almonds

  • Lee on November 23, 2014

    Nice sauce flavors

• Stir-fried spicy pork ribbons with summer beans and baby squash

  • Vanessa on May 22, 2011

    Loved this. Velveting the pork is worth the effort. I used corn on the cob cut into 1 1/2" chunks rather than baby corn, and it came out great. (Who would have thought you could stir fry corn on the cob?). As always with the China Moon recipes, the recipe looks a bit daunting; in my copy, this recipe takes up 4 pages, though to be fair, the first page is just the intro paragraph, the ingredients take up an entire page unto themselves, and the last page only had the last (critical) step of the instructions: "serve with rice or noodles".

  • VeryVigario on September 03, 2018

    Good, added a little extra sugar, maybe almost a full tablespoon to balance the salt. Loved how it used all my farm share veggies, but it wasn't super exciting for me... More like "this is good, kind of standard China Moon" recipe.

• Crispy beef springrolls wiith basil

  • DKennedy on March 11, 2015

    Made these in the style of summer rolls. Did not cook the veggies, instead, cooked up the beef, removed the meat from the pan, added the aromatics, rice noodles, meat and sauce back to the pan. Put all this into the wrappers, along with herbs, nuts and veggies. No sauce needed.

• Wok-seared spinach relish

  • bernalgirl on November 20, 2020

    Great hot or on a picnic, can use pea shoots

• Paris salad

  • bernalgirl on November 20, 2020

    Great!

• Stir-fried wild rice with wild mushrooms

  • bernalgirl on December 17, 2020

    Very adaptable recipe although the wild rice and wild mushrooms are key; good with roasted sweet potato and other leftover roasted vegetables tossed in.

• Dry-fried Chinese eggplant nuggets

  • bernalgirl on November 20, 2020

    Truly good hot or at room temp and very addictive!

• Curried pork springrolls with lime

  • bernalgirl on November 20, 2020

    Very tasty filling, spicy but not overwhelming

• Cold poached salmon tiles with ginger-black bean vinaigrette

  • bernalgirl on November 20, 2020

    Absolutely delicious, can be made ahead

• Pan-seared tuna with roasted red bell pepper sauce

  • bernalgirl on November 20, 2020

    Delicious balance of flavors, surprisingly quick and easy

• Grilled Chinese chicken wings with orange zest and garlic

  • bernalgirl on November 20, 2020

    Delicious and easy

• China Moon curry powder

  • bernalgirl on November 20, 2020

    A fragrant and satisfying curry powder

• Serrano-lemongrass vinegar

  • bernalgirl on November 20, 2020

    Faintly spicy, fragrant, delicious

  • ashallen on December 10, 2019

    Like the author's infused oils, this infused vinegar is easy to make, aromatic, flavorful, and balanced - very nice.

• China Moon hot chili oil

  • BlytheSpirit on October 08, 2013

    Followed the recipe to a 't'. Makes quite a supply of hot chili oil - delicious and bracingly hot! I have used the 'goop' that settles at the bottom for many different purposes - also delicious.

  • ashallen on December 09, 2019

    This recipe yields a lovely, aromatic hot chili oil with flavor complexity beyond straight-up heat - excellent! Easy to make, too.

• Strange-flavor eggplant

  • hirsheys on January 20, 2019

    I've made this via Lottie & Doof's website and love it.

  • MmeFleiss on December 26, 2018

    I served this at a Chinese-themed party, and besides being one of the easier dishes from this book it was also one of my favorites. It’s like Chinese-flavored baba ganoush.

• Wok-seared scallops with carrot and daikon noodles

  • springandfall on March 02, 2014

    Delicious and stunning in appearance, but recipe will deter you with multiple sub-recipes and challenging ingredient list, which is why I give it 4 stars, not 5. Although once upon a time, when unemployed and childless, I made many of the condiments in the China Moon repertoire (and they are spectacular), I have none on hand now. Used sushi vinegar for the pickled-ginger juice, substituted chili garlic sauce for red curry paste, garnished with more cilantro instead of chives, used regular sesame seeds instead of black, and left out the flavored oils - I guess you could accuse me of not having made this recipe at all - but my Sunday-night adaptation still captured the spirit of the dish. The scallops have a depth that goes perfectly with the crisp daikon and carrot slivers.

• China Moon chili-orange oil

  • MmeFleiss on December 26, 2018

    The recipe I make the most often from this book.

• Deep-fried chicken and chili won-ton with pickled ginger dip

  • MmeFleiss on December 26, 2018

    These dumplings are well worth the effort. I make a huge batch and freeze.

• Basic bun dough

  • MmeFleiss on December 26, 2018

    This is sweet, an exact copy taste-wise of the filled breads from the Chinese bakeries.

• Buddha buns

  • MmeFleiss on December 26, 2018

    I thought this was just okay, but the vegetarians at my party went nuts for this and took it home. Please note that this makes way more filling than the 24 very tiny buns. If I were to make it again I would make much bigger buns.

• Many mushroom buns

  • MmeFleiss on December 26, 2018

    This was also a hit with the vegetarians at my party although I though it was just okay (though better than the Buddha buns). These also make way more filling than the 24 buns.

• Tea and spice smoked quail

  • jahqdruh on March 26, 2018

    I used Cornish game hens, as I couldn't find quail. The tea-smoked hens were fabulous!! Weirdest smoking mixture I've ever used (tea, sugar, raw rice, cinnamon bark, and Szechuan peppercorns), but no arguing with the results.

• Stir-fried spicy beef with chard, mushrooms, and asparagus

  • jahqdruh on March 26, 2018

    Not as spicy as I was afraid it would be -- very nice! Her velveting technique for the meat was new to me, and it resulted in very tender meat, which has stymied me in past stir-fries.

• Light-style peanut-lime noodles

  • ashallen on November 08, 2019

    An exceptionally fine recipe for peanut noodles. Really delicious. The peanut dressing is also excellent for other uses, e.g. a vegetable dip. Like many of the recipes in this cookbook, it specifies use of infused vinegar and oils made according to other recipes earlier in the book. Off-the-shelf products could probably be substituted for some of them, though I have used the book's recipes to make them from scratch and they're really, really good.

• Traditional fried rice

  • ashallen on October 25, 2019

    Very good! As the recipe title says, this is a traditional and very "clean" tasting version of fried rice - no lashings of soy sauce or other highly-flavored ingredients behind which a not-so-yummy leftover can hide, so I'm careful about the "proteins" I use in it.

• Stir-fried Chinese greens

  • ashallen on December 13, 2019

    Great recipe for making basic stir-fried greens - yum!

• Chocolate stars

  • ashallen on September 04, 2019

    I need to try these again so no star rating for now. Instead of rolling out this cookie dough and cutting out shapes, I lazily rolled the dough into little balls and squashed them flat on a cookie sheet. This produced a cookie with a somewhat dry/dusty yet not crisp texture. Poor cookies. Next time I'll roll them out properly per the recipe's instructions.

• Fresh ginger ice cream

  • ashallen on October 05, 2019

    This is a great but not perfect ice cream. On the plus side, it has a lovely, strong, and very pure ginger flavor. Note that this includes ginger's spicy burn sensation - it reminds me of that sweet burn from eating fireballs or cinnamon red hots - yum! On the minus side, its texture's a little icy from the water that's used to prepare the custard - it's not super-bad, but the ice cream's not as perfectly smooth as some other flavors I make. Still delicious though! I've used anywhere from 1/4-1/2 c ginger - more ginger = stronger flavor + stronger burn! Mincing/pureeing the ginger in a Vitamix with some of the water called for in the custard speeds up prep. A double version of the recipe *just* fits in my 1.5 quart ice cream maker.

• Gold coin corn cakes

  • ashallen on September 15, 2021

    These were super-delicious. Wonderful combination of flavors that, because they don't cook very long, stay fresh tasting, particularly the ginger and corn flavors. The fresh corn kernels also keep some of their "pop," so the cakes have good texture. When I saw the word "fritter" in the recipe, I was worried these might be kind of doughy, but there's only just enough batter to hold the various ingredients together. Also nice is that, unlike many other recipes in this wonderful book, this one requires a modest number of easier-to-get ingredients and comes together pretty quickly. I substituted sriracha for Chinese chili sauce. I'll definitely be making these again.

• Boiled chicken dumplings with pickled ginger dressing

  • ashallen on August 10, 2019

    Excellent, excellent dumplings - tender and extremely flavorful, particularly with the delicious dipping sauce.

• Stir-fried spicy beef with summer tomatoes and purple basil

  • ashallen on October 12, 2019

    Excellent!!

• China Moon chicken stock

  • ashallen on November 30, 2019

    Very nice, flavorful chicken stock.

• Stir-fried spicy chicken with orange and crispy cashews

  • ashallen on October 25, 2019

    Excellent!!

• Roasted Szechwan pepper-salt

  • ashallen on December 10, 2019

    A recipe for the basic Szechwan pepper and salt blend, though this recipe also has Barbara Tropp's great tips for making sure it's optimized! Nicely aromatic!

• Ma-la oil

  • ashallen on December 10, 2019

    All of the infused oils in this book are easy to make and have wonderful flavor. They're specified in many of the recipes in this book, but are wonderful in dishes from other sources, too. This one has intense flavor from the toasted sesame oil.

• Fresh ginger vinaigrette

  • ashallen on November 29, 2019

    Very nice salad dressing - using ginger juice instead of chopped bits of ginger gets the ginger flavor without chomping on spicy ginger bits.

• Ginger-pickled radish rounds

  • ashallen on December 11, 2019

    Easy and great flavor from the ginger pickling juice! Note that you first need to make the author's pickled ginger (also delicious) before making this dish.

• Five-flavor oil

  • ashallen on December 10, 2019

    All of the infused oils in this book are easy to make and have wonderful flavor. They're specified in many of the recipes in this book, but are wonderful in dishes from other sources, too.