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From Chef Daniel Chen's kitchen videos

The wok tricks restaurant cooks never write down. Now they are yours.

Chicken that stays silky. Fried rice where every grain is its own. Dumplings that never burst. 168 recipes on more than 600 pages, from a family stove in China to thirty years in busy restaurant kitchens, written so you cannot get them wrong.

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About 23 cents a recipe. Less than one takeout order.

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Look inside the book first ↓ ★★★★★ 4.9

0Recipes
0Pages
0Chapters
0Kitchen rescues
0Wok tricks
0Years at the stove

Sound familiar?

You followed the recipe. It still tasted nothing like the restaurant.

  • ✕

    The stir-fry turns soggy and sits steaming in a puddle instead of sizzling.

  • ✕

    The chicken comes out dry and stringy, nothing like the silky pieces from the takeout box.

  • ✕

    The fried rice goes mushy and clumps into one sticky lump.

  • ✕

    The sauce turns thick and gluey, like gravy poured over everything.

  • ✕

    The dumplings burst in the pot and the filling floats away.

  • ✕

    The bottled sauce tastes flat, and you know it is not what your family made.

It was never your fault. Nobody ever told you why. This book does.

Daniel Chen in a courtyard under red lanterns
Daniel Chen, in the courtyard where he learned to cook

Questions from the comments

My grandmother never measured. So I finally did.

I grew up in a courtyard house where the kitchen was the warmest room. My grandmother fed the whole family from one wok and one clay pot, and she never once used a measuring spoon. A splash of this, a pinch of that, and somehow it was perfect every time.

I spent the next thirty years in restaurant kitchens, standing over a roaring wok from lunch until midnight. That is where I learned the tricks that make restaurant food taste the way it does. Most of them are simple. Almost none of them are ever written down.

When I started making cooking videos, the same questions came every day. Chef, how much soy sauce? Chef, why is my chicken tough? Chef, how do I get that smoky taste at home? A thirty-second video can only show so much.

So I stood at my stove for a whole year with a notebook beside me. Every spoon, every minute, every small thing my grandmother did that no recipe tells you, I wrote it down.

This book is that notebook. If you found me through my videos, you already know a few of these tricks. The book has all the rest.

Daniel Chen
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Look inside

Real pages. Big type on purpose.

Large, clear type, so you can read it at the stove while the wok is hot.

Tap a page to see it bigger · swipe for more

What's inside

14 chapters. Every one fixes something.

酱

The foundation

Sauces & aromatics

The five bottles that do most of the work, chili oil from scratch, and the ginger-garlic-scallion start to nearly everything.

炒

Every day

Stir-fries

How to get real wok heat on a home stove, and why your vegetables steam instead of sizzle.

饭

The bowl

Rice

Perfect steamed rice without a cooker, egg fried rice, Yangzhou fried rice, and clay-pot rice with a crispy bottom.

面

Weeknights

Noodles

Dan dan noodles, lo mein that is not greasy, scallion oil noodles, and hand-pulled noodles you can actually make.

饺

Sunday

Dumplings & buns

Dumplings that never burst, potstickers with a lace skirt, soft steamed buns, and wrappers from flour and water.

汤

The pot

Soups

Hot and sour soup, wonton soup, and the clear bone broth that simmers while you sleep.

鸡

Weeknights

Chicken

Velveting, Kung Pao, three-cup chicken, and white-cut chicken with ginger-scallion sauce.

肉

The big pieces

Pork, beef & lamb

Red-braised pork, sweet and sour pork that stays crisp, beef with broccoli, and cumin lamb.

鱼

Celebrations

Fish & seafood

Steamed whole fish that is never overcooked, salt and pepper shrimp, and clams in black bean sauce.

菜

The garden

Vegetables & tofu

Mapo tofu, dry-fried green beans, garlic greens, and eggplant that does not drink the oil.

饼

From flour

Pancakes & snacks

Flaky scallion pancakes, spring rolls that crackle, and sesame balls.

甜

The last plate

Sweets

Egg tarts, mango pudding, sweet rice balls, and almond cookies.

节

The table

Festivals & feasts

The New Year's Eve dinner, mooncakes, and a banquet for ten planned hour by hour.

救

60 answers · The last chapter

Daniel Chen's Kitchen Rescue

Why is my stir-fry watery? Why did my dumplings fall apart? Sixty answers, and how to save dinner instead of throwing it out.

And char siu, wonton noodle soup, Peking-style duck at home, tea eggs, salt-and-pepper tofu, chili crisp, congee…

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Every recipe has

Not just steps. The knowing.

Exact measures

Cups and spoons, and the brands of soy sauce and vinegar you can find at any supermarket. No “a little of this.”

Chef's trick

The one thing a restaurant cook does that the recipe on the bottle never tells you.

Where it goes wrong

What you will see if it starts going wrong, and how to save it before it is too late.

The next day

Tonight's rice becomes tomorrow's fried rice. Bones become broth. Nothing goes in the garbage.

From the first pages

Daniel Chen's twelve rules of the kitchen

  1. 一

    Hot wok, cold oil.

    Heat the empty wok until it smokes, then add the oil. Food will not stick, and that is half of wok cooking.

  2. 二

    Cut everything before the fire.

    A stir-fry takes three minutes. There is no time to chop garlic once the wok is hot.

  3. 三

    Velvet the meat.

    Egg white and cornstarch, twenty minutes. This is why restaurant chicken is never dry.

  4. 四

    Never crowd the wok.

    Too much food cools the pan, and it steams instead of sears. Cook in two batches.

  5. 五

    Fried rice wants old rice.

    Fresh rice is wet and turns to paste. Yesterday's rice from the fridge fries grain by grain.

  6. 六

    Mix the sauce in a bowl first.

    Pour it in all at once at the end. Measuring bottle by bottle over a hot wok burns everything.

And six more inside the book.

The honest arithmetic

What “let's just order takeout” really costs.

The tired-night way

  • Takeout for the family $45–60
  • Delivery fee and tip $10–15
  • A bottle of stir-fry sauce $5–7
  • Frozen dumplings $8–12
  • Leftover rice in the garbage every week

A typical month $250+

Daniel Chen's kitchen

  • Flour and water: 40 dumplings about $4
  • One pot of red-braised pork three dinners
  • Stir-fry sauce from your own bottles pennies
  • Yesterday's rice and two eggs a whole dinner
  • Four weeks of suppers planned in the book

The whole book, once $39

Your numbers will be different. The point is not: one skipped takeout night pays for the book.

Who this book is for

For anyone who wishes somebody had shown them.

  • For the one whose grandmother cooked like this and never wrote it down.
  • For the one who loves Chinese takeout and wants to make it better at home.
  • For the one feeding a family on one paycheck who wants dinner to stretch.
  • For the one who is not Chinese at all and simply loves this food.
  • For the son or daughter far from home who misses the taste of family dinners.
  • For the one who never had anybody standing next to them at the stove.

Everything in one book

Daniel Chen's Chinese Kitchen

168 recipes and the wok tricks nobody ever wrote down

  • 168 recipes in 14 chapters, 612 pages
  • Exact cups and spoons, and the reason behind every step
  • “Where it goes wrong” so a bad wok can be saved
  • Kitchen Rescue: 60 answers to “why did my…?”
  • 100 restaurant wok tricks on a few pages
  • Four weeks of suppers on a budget
  • Big, clear type you can read at the stove
$79 $39 Save $40

That is about 23 cents a recipe.

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Questions, answered honestly

Before you buy

How do I get the book?

Right after you pay, it arrives in your email. It opens on your phone, tablet or computer, and you can print any page and keep it by the stove. Nothing comes in the mail, and the link stays in your email for good.

Why buy a book when recipes online are free?

Because the free ones are the ones that gave you soggy stir-fries and dry chicken. They tell you what to do. They almost never tell you why, or what to do when it goes wrong. Every recipe here comes with the trick and the fix.

I do not own a wok. Can I still cook from it?

Yes. Every stir-fry has instructions for a regular large frying pan, and I tell you exactly what changes. If you decide to buy a wok later, there is a chapter on choosing and seasoning one for very little money.

Do I need special ingredients?

No. Most recipes use what you find in an ordinary supermarket. For the few Asian pantry items, I tell you which ones are worth buying, which brands to trust, and what to use instead if you cannot find them.

Is this restaurant food or home cooking?

Both, and I say honestly which is which. The home dishes my grandmother made every day, and the restaurant favorites you order on a Friday night, with the tricks that make them taste right.

I am not good with computers.

You do not need to be. You pay, and the book is in your email. If anything does not open, reply to your receipt and we will walk you through it.

Can I give it as a gift?

Yes. Enter the email of the person you are giving it to at checkout, and the book goes straight to them. It makes a good Lunar New Year or holiday present.

Is this a subscription?

No. One payment, one time. No membership, no monthly charge, no free trial that turns into a bill.

Daniel Chen's Chinese Kitchen

Sunday, six o'clock. The whole family around one table.

And when someone looks up and asks, “How did you make this?” you will know exactly what to tell them.

$79 $39
Get My Copy · $39
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  • One payment, no subscription

慢工出细活 Slow work makes fine food. Daniel Chen