HeartSmart Chinese Cooking

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian studies at
Concordia University, and the author of Kurlek, Margaret Laurence: The
Long Journey Home, and As Though Life Mattered: Leo Kennedy’s Story.

Most of us are aware that we should eat less fat. Transforming this
seminal idea into healthy shopping and cooking habits, however, does not
follow without effort. This book’s introduction—“Healthy Eating
the Chinese Way”—by Nancy Ling, a registered dietitian, provides a
good start toward a healthier lifestyle.

She writes, of course, about the necessity of eating green and orange
vegetables, and grains. In Chinese cuisine, the latter means rice, and
Stephen Wong’s recipe for Gingered Brown Rice looks good.

Ling also writes about the importance of reducing the amount of meat in
your diet, and about alternatives to it. Wong’s recipes partnering
small quantities of pork or beef with Chayote squash or bok choy sound
very appetizing.

Seven pages on stocks—described as “the secret to HeartSmart
Chinese cooking”—are

especially welcome, because unlike commercially available cubes for
stock, Wong’s recipes are fat-free. Other basic flavorings he uses are
ginger, curry powder, and a special “Five-spice Powder.”

HeartSmart Chinese Cooking is well organized, with sections on the
basics (“The Pantry”), soups, noodles, vegetables, tofu, poultry,
and desserts. Full-page color photographs of prepared dishes make it an
attractive cookbook as well as a healthy one.