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The Bear and Fish Family Cookbook

Yabin Yu & Jialin Tian
Jayca, Inc (2009)
ISBN 9780615276274
Reviewed by Kam Aures for RebeccasReads (08/09)

“The Bear and Fish Family Cookbook” is named as such because the author Yabin Yu’s father’s name means ‘bear’ in Chinese and her mother’s name has the same pronunciation as the Chinese word for ‘fish’.  The work is a compilation of favorite family dishes thus it is appropriate that the name of the book reflects this fact.  In the introduction, Yabin states that “The recipes emphasize simple, healthy, and elegant ethnic and fusion cuisine.  Although most of our recipes were inspired by traditional Chinese dishes, some recipes were influenced by Japanese, American, French, and Italian cuisines, while some recipes are purely new creations of our own.” (p. v)

I loved everything about this book!  I am a Food Network and Top Chef addict and one of my favorite parts to watch is the final presentation of the food.  The designs and presentations of the recipes in “The Bear and Fish Family Cookbook” are absolutely beautiful.  The photographs of the food are works of art!

The recipes are printed in such a detailed format that there is no question as to how the dish is to be prepared all of the way down to turning off the stove.  Another positive is that all of the ingredients seem like they are pretty easy to find.  The first recipe that I tried in the book was the one for “Pork Wonton Soup”.  I found the soup very simple to make it had a wonderful flavor to it. 

The second recipe that I tried was the “Stir-Fried Beef with Chinese Broccoli”.  I found this one to be easy as well and super fast to make.  The longest step is marinating the beef which is 15 minutes.  All of the other steps are literally 20 seconds, 40 seconds, etc.  My children even asked for seconds of the dish! 

There are many more recipes in the book that I can’t wait to try.  The two that I did make were fairly safe dishes for me, but I can’t wait to take a step outside my comfort zone and try such recipes as the “Tea Eggs” and “Lotus Root Salad with Red and Green Peppers”.  “The Bear and Fish Family Cookbook” is one that I will keep for a very long time!


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