By the book (Yan-kit So's book)

"Maybe you should relax..." my friend C-- says, her voice trailing off uncertainly.

Perfectionist that I am, I've learned over the years that this is code for "Your intensity is freaking me out, lady."

I've been describing, over a dinner of vegetarian Shanghainese at Kung Tak Lam, how I've been meticulously following recipes from Yan-kit's Classic Chinese Cookbook:



I carefully selected this book after pouring over dozens of others at PageOne bookstore, a statusy megaplex of books in the massive megaplex of retail that is Harbour City shopping mall in TST.

This book stood out from the others because if its detailed instructions on the ingredients, techniques, and traditions that make up Chinese cuisine. With photographs...including one showing a very proper-looking lady balancing a rice bowl on her lower lip.

So, in my efforts to propel myself out of a sink-hole of culture shock, I've been throwing myself at her recipes with the full force of my perfectionism. If I can't learn to speak the d*** language at the very least I will become fluent in the food. And, as with most things, I believe that the fast track to literacy isn't just memorizing by rote (or eating in this case) -- it's constructing my own sentences (cooking the dishes myself).

So...the moment of great intensity. After learning my way around Yan-kit's Kung Pao Chicken and Hoisin Chicken, I've learned that her dainty recipes need to be doubled to feed our American appetites.

Now, I am embarking on Willow Chicken, which is long and skinny, rather than square and chunky. As I stand poised with my rice cooking, greens prepped, everything in bowls in the order they'll be stir-fried, only the garlic left to chop...

I read that I will not be chopping. Instead, I'll be turning 6 (x2 = 12) garlic cloves into "silken threads," which entails carefully slicing into thin chips and then again into miniature matchsticks. I am a slow cook -- defrocking 12 cloves and turning them into silken threads is not a two-minute enterprise. F***.



But I do turn garlic into silk because, while C-- may think I'm nuts I believe that Yan-kit So would appreciate my interest in creating the perfect textures and mouth-feel of a medley of long and slender ingredients rather than a mish-mash of cubes and strips and spheres.

(I hope she will also appreciate that I pulled a measuring tool out of my sewing kit to ensure that my 1/5" strips of chicken were exactly that.)