The chef behind the groundbreaking Brooklyn restaurant Bonnie’s shares over 85 recipes that showcase his unique style of Chinese home cooking, a mash-up of Americana and Cantonese classics inspired by the flavors of his childhood.****

As an American-born Cantonese kid, chef Calvin Eng grew up watching his mother, Bonnie, in the kitchen. Though he shied away from his culture as a kid, he later grew to love and embrace his upbringing, eventually opening Bonnie&rsquo;s, which was praised as a top restaurant of the year by the <New York Times <and <Bon App&eacute;tit.
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<Salt Sugar MSG< is an introduction to Cantonese cooking through an American lens, full of easy flavor boosts and practical tricks, drawing a thread from his mother&rsquo;s cooking to what Calvin cooks for his own family today. Some recipes stick closer to tradition, like Sizzling Steamed Fish with Seasoned Soy Sauce, Ham Yue Yook Beng (Steamed Pork Patty with Salted Fish), and Ginger Congee, while others upend expectations, like Salt &amp; Pepper Pork Schnitzel with Chinese Ranch, Fuyu Cacio e Pepe Mein, and BLT Fried Rice. While these dishes may not look especially Cantonese at first glance, they certainly taste like it.&#160;

Written with his fianc&eacute;e, Phoebe Melnick, <Salt Sugar MSG< is full of personal stories and practical tips and tricks as a loving ode to what it means to cook together as a Cantonese American family today.

Autorentext
Calvin Eng is the chef and owner of Bonnie’s, a Cantonese American restaurant in Williamsburg. Brooklyn-born and raised in a traditional Chinese family, Eng had been dreaming of opening a restaurant for a decade when he realized how important it was for him to pursue Cantonese food and dive deeper into the dishes of his heritage. Bonnie’s has been praised in the New York Times, The New Yorker, New York magazine, Eater, and Bon Appétit. Eng is a James Beard Emerging Chef finalist, Food & Wine Best New Chef, Forbes 30 under 30 recipient, StarChefs Rising Star, and two-time James Beard Best Chef: New York State Semifinalist.

Phoebe Melnick is a video journalist with a deep love of storytelling and food. She has worked for the New York Times, Martha Stewart, Food Network, Thrillist, and Food & Wine, where she first met Calvin on set in 2016. The two have been inseparable ever since.

Klappentext

The chef behind the groundbreaking Brooklyn restaurant Bonnie’s shares over 85 recipes that showcase his unique style of Chinese home cooking, a mash-up of Americana and Cantonese classics inspired by the flavors of his childhood.**

“Calvin Eng draws on traditional Cantonese techniques and the mixing of Cantonese and American flavors that reflect our own experience. And he does it with a verve and creativity that make us want to run to the kitchen and start cooking!”—Sarah, Kaitlin, Bill, and Judy Leung, New York Times bestselling authors of The Woks of Life

A NEW YORK TIMES BEST COOKBOOK OF THE YEAR

As an American-born Cantonese kid, chef Calvin Eng grew up watching his mother, Bonnie, in the kitchen. Though he shied away from his culture as a kid, he later grew to love and embrace his upbringing, eventually opening Bonnie’s, which was praised as a top restaurant of the year by the New York Times and *Bon Appétit.

• Salt Sugar MSG is an introduction to Cantonese cooking through an American lens, full of easy flavor boosts and practical tricks, drawing a thread from his mother’s cooking to what Calvin cooks for his own family today. Some recipes stick closer to tradition, like Sizzling Steamed Fish with Seasoned Soy Sauce, Ham Yue Yook Beng (Steamed Pork Patty with Salted Fish), and Ginger Congee, while others upend expectations, like Salt & Pepper Pork Schnitzel with Chinese Ranch, Fuyu Cacio e Pepe Mein, and BLT Fried Rice. While these dishes may not look especially Cantonese at first glance, they certainly taste like it.

  Written with his fiancée, Phoebe Melnick, Salt Sugar MSG is full of personal stories and practical tips and tricks as a loving ode to what it means to cook together as a Cantonese American family today.

  Leseprobe
  Introduction

  This is not a Cantonese cookbook. Not in the traditional sense, at least.

  I grew up surrounded by a family chitchatting in a seamless mix of Toisanese and English, with bits of Cantonese scattered throughout, never speaking in the same language for more than a few words. Honestly, my Toisanese has always been significantly better than my Cantonese. It’s a dying dialect that often wins me an extra egg tart from the ladies behind the counter at my favorite bakery—a hint of street cred with the old crowd—a slow, sneaky smile. They aren’t used to hearing anyone under the age of fifty speak it. But everyone in my family does. It’s the dialect of Toisan, a county in the Guangdong Province in southeast China—the place where both sides of my family originated.

  My mom was barely thirteen years old when she immigrated to New York with her sister and brother. She met her dad for the very first time when they landed in the city. He had moved to Manhattan’s Chinatown in the hope that one day the whole family would be able to join him before she was even born. It took a bit longer than anyone had anticipated, but my mom, her parents, and her two siblings settled into a one-bedroom apartment on the center of Bayard Street at the heart of the neighborhood. It was impossibly tiny; a clawfoot bathtub filled the middle of the kitchen and a broken oven stood in the corner, serving only as extra storage. My mom and her sister slept in a bunk bed, a somewhat sturdy contraption my grandfather pulled together to squish as many people as possible into one bedroom. Her brother slept in the kitchen on a pull-out cot that was tucked away the second his eyes opened each morning. Anything to keep the family together under one roof. My grandparents stayed in that place for over fifty years. They made Chinatown their home.

  My mom lived on Bayard Street until she met my father when she was twenty-four. Almost a decade after moving to the States. When they married, he whisked her away to south Brooklyn, to the neighborhood his family now lived in after moving from those same tiny villages in southern China her family had once called home. But weekend after weekend, she dutifully and diligently returned to Chinatown. She dropped in to run errands for my grandparents and bring them groceries, to take them to doctors’ appointments and occasionally out to lunch. For years, she took my older sister around the neighborhood with her, and eventually, when I was old enough, she dragged me along too. I’d sit curled up on the couch, coloring on pads of paper while my mom, aunt, and grandma caught up on the weekly gossip. More often than not, though, they spent those hours sitting in silence, enjoying their time together again under the same roof.

  It’s embarrassing to admit now, but I hated that apartment when I was younger. That space and those blocks felt like the physical representation of everything that made me different, a constant reminder of my not-so-traditional American upbringing. Different from the kids at school whose moms packed them buttered noodles and peanut butter and jelly for lunch. Now I desperately miss it all. The space where I learned to play mahjong with my grandma on the tiny foldout table. The kitchen I snacked on fresh rice rolls stuffed with slivers of marinated steak drenched in sweet soy with my grandfather and fried bow ties dripping in a sticky honey syrup with my aunt. The early weekend mornings I chased my mom up and down and all around Chinatown while she grocery shopped…