I have five books about dim sum on my shelf, but this is the one I turn to first. The recipes are extremely authentic, providing results that are, if you're good at making the correct shapes, very much what you'll get at a fine dim sum restaurant, and with excellent flavor. You may need to shop at a chinese market to get some of the ingredients, but that's as it should be for authentic dim sum recipes.
The book also has gorgeous photographs of each and every item (reading the book is rather hunger inducing), usually along with a few photographs to show some key steps.
The recipes have ingredient lists in an odd mix of metric and imperial units (it'll mention meats in grams and sauces in tablespoons, for example) but this should be easy enough to deal with if you have a kitchen scale for the weighed items, or you can convert the units easily enough. The english could at times be a little clearer, and sometimes seems to assume you already know what you're doing, but with careful examination I've generally been able to figure out what the book wants me to do. Also, note that many recipes refer to other recipes; a recipe might, for example, ask you to make a batch of dough according to instructions in another recipe. It's therefore important to read the recipe carefully to ensure you know what you'll need before you get started.
Dim sum restaurants tend to make vast quantities of each item in immense kitchens filled with dozens if not hundreds of cooks. (I've been given a tour of a dim sum kitchen, I've seen it.) Items are made during the night so they may be simply heated and served as needed throughout the day. And, the workers are very practiced at making the sometimes complicated shapes out of dough. While the recipes in this book have been scaled for the home kitchen, you should keep in mind that it is time consuming to make one recipe, and usually prohibitive to make several. Also, until you have practice, it will be difficult to make your dim sum pretty. However, even ugly dim sum is tasty, and I enjoyed eating my aesthetic failures from this cookbook.
The book also has gorgeous photographs of each and every item (reading the book is rather hunger inducing), usually along with a few photographs to show some key steps.
The recipes have ingredient lists in an odd mix of metric and imperial units (it'll mention meats in grams and sauces in tablespoons, for example) but this should be easy enough to deal with if you have a kitchen scale for the weighed items, or you can convert the units easily enough. The english could at times be a little clearer, and sometimes seems to assume you already know what you're doing, but with careful examination I've generally been able to figure out what the book wants me to do. Also, note that many recipes refer to other recipes; a recipe might, for example, ask you to make a batch of dough according to instructions in another recipe. It's therefore important to read the recipe carefully to ensure you know what you'll need before you get started.
Dim sum restaurants tend to make vast quantities of each item in immense kitchens filled with dozens if not hundreds of cooks. (I've been given a tour of a dim sum kitchen, I've seen it.) Items are made during the night so they may be simply heated and served as needed throughout the day. And, the workers are very practiced at making the sometimes complicated shapes out of dough. While the recipes in this book have been scaled for the home kitchen, you should keep in mind that it is time consuming to make one recipe, and usually prohibitive to make several. Also, until you have practice, it will be difficult to make your dim sum pretty. However, even ugly dim sum is tasty, and I enjoyed eating my aesthetic failures from this cookbook.
