Secrets Of Fat-Free Chinese Cooking

by Ying Chang Compestine

Garden City Park, NY: Avery Publishing Group, c 1997. Paperback $14.95

ISBN 0-89529-735-3

While I was recuperating, I tried other foods touted by a teacher of healthy Chinese-style cooking, one with experience at the Boulder Heart Institute. Most of her more than 130 recipes, the cover says, have less than two grams of fat per serving.

Selecting what to prepare in any cookbook can be daunting. In this one, after my very restricted diet, I went at it with relish, I was, after all, looking for healthy secrets, selecting them in random fashion. After all, I did not want my choices to have preconceived notions. In the six I tried, two were great, two tasted of too much Mrs. Dash (a touted healthy salt substitute), and two were out-and-out losers.

The Long-life Noodles in Vegetable Sauce won my heart; its excellent sauce combo of garlic, cucumber, scallions, chili peppers, black pepper, and some five-spice powder was just terrific. Ditto the Steamed Beef and Vegetable Dumplings, whose mix of hot mustard, chili paste, lemon juice and sesame oil was a perfect foil for the ground beef (I opted for two cleavers and minced mine, Chinese style) and the carrots, scallions, and onions. One secret or trick in this recipe was the carrot slice placed under each dumpling in the steamer. That's clever, as the dumplings come out garnished and ready, and the steamer is easier to clean.

Among the losers, taste was in short supply. In one, you had to settle for sharing two sprays of cilantro with the five people I served it to. In the other, there was need to divvy-up just half a teaspoon of Mrs. Dash.

To keep the recipes healthy, the author uses minimal amounts of low-sodium broth, low-sodium soy sauce, and too much of the commercial salt substitute, Mrs. Dash. That may meet the dietary requirements of the American Heart Association, why compromise flavor in any food, particularly recipes from the World's greatest cuisine.

Beyond the recipes, there is an introduction by Dr. R.B. Jenkins, the director of the Colorado Heart Institute where Compenstine taught, a short introduction, a few pages of nutrition information titled "Shopping Guide," and a few more under a sub-heading of "Choosing the Best Ingredients." In the latter, read about ten vegetables, six grains, noodles and soy products, twenty other items such as sauces, spices, herbs, and flavorings, five oils and sprays, and a brief piece about egg whites, egg substitutes, salt, natural ingredients, and fat.

The eight chapters of recipes offer a plethora of choices, most with no or low fat. Each tells the amount of fat, but only some visual imagination catches serving sizes. In two recipes, for example, each person is allotted either a small dumpling made with one wonton wrapper or a pancake with a couple of tablespoons of Mu Shu Pork. Another recipe sets one serving at one-third of one trout, and that tine morsel has 3.9 grams of fat. Other ways the author one's single serving of fat is to share two trout among five people. That's an odd way, and in my mind makes more of a dilemma.

Despite these shortcomings, valuable information is scattered throughout. I loved the excellent advice about (re)hydrating dried mushrooms and how to rinse their oft-filled sandy gills. Compestine also advises how to dine out, and when cooking and eating in, what to look for should you purchase cooking sprays. Enjoy her secrets, many are great, and be tantalized by the one hundred color photographs.

One last thing, in books that use trade names, as does this one, I wonder about their frequent inclusion in the ingredient lists. Perhaps, that is one of the secrets in this book. Brand name products appear in the introduction and throughout the recipe text. Another beef (if you'll pardon that sin), relates as I've mentioned, to portion control. If it is the only control that works, how does she manage when one portion with eight ounces of turkey and three cups of rice needs to be divided into fourteen turkey rolls. Can she survive with a main course a mite more than one quarter of a cup? This a bit much, I mean little.