Shipman's favorite Chinese cookbooks

Mrs. Chiang's Szechwan Cookbook by Ellen Schrecker. Excellent for beginners because it doesn't cross-refer at all; everything you need to know is in every recipe. Because of the redundancy, it doesn't have that many recipes, but many of them are highly unusual and have been very popular, such as Ants Climb a Tree, Ma Po Do Fu, Dry-fried Beef, and Deep-fried Smelt.
Key to Chinese Cooking by Irene Kuo. For the more advanced cook. Lots of recipes, many unusual, and they work well.
Henry Chung's Hunan Cookbook. The cookbook from my favorite Chinese restaurant in the entire world, the Hunan at 924 Sansome in San Francisco. The Tung An Chicken, Harvest Pork, and Smoked Ham Hock with Black Beans are among my favorites. Henry Chung single-handedly started the vogue for Hunan food in this country, back when people had just discovered Szechwan.
China the Beautiful Cookbook. This is worth buying as a coffee-table book, just for the pictures. The recipes come from a contemporary effort to get the best recipes from all regions of China. I would have trouble preparing about a third of the recipes due to obscure ingredients (some available only in China), but the recipes I've tried are fabulous, and in many cases (e.g., Phoenix Breast with Sour Sauce) unlike anything I've had in restaurants.

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