Zao Fan: Breakfast of China

by Michael Zee

Let Michael Zee, creator of the popular SymmetryBreakfast account, be your knowledgeable guide to breakfast in China.

Contains over 40 recipes with QR codes that allow you to watch how the dishes are made in China

Breakfast in China is an important affair. At dawn, the streets come alive with vendors setting up for the morning breakfast rush. Each will have their speciality that they make day in, day out, honing their recipe over years, and even generations. Locals are spoilt for choice, with a huge variety of spicy noodles, plump dumplings and fluffy buns all made fresh to order right on their doorsteps.

Michael Zee, creator of the popular SymmetryBreakfast account, has eaten his way around China, hunting down the very best versions of these morning favourites and recreating them at home so that you can too. In China, these are recipes devised for speed and convenience and so are also perfect for filling lunches, nourishing dinners and quick and tasty snacks.

Why not
Dan dan mian – Sichuanese street-style noodles with a sesame paste sauce
Jian bing – savoury filled crêpe
Xiaolongbao – steamed Shangainese soup dumplings
Youtiao – sweetened fried dough sticks, delicious dipped in fresh soy milk or covered in soft serve ice cream

With Michael as your knowledgeable tour guide, you'll be transported to the bustling streets of China, see the mesmeric pulling of noodles and pleating of dumplings and be fully immersed in one of the most exciting and diverse food cultures in the world.

Genres: Cookbooks, Food, Cooking, Nonfiction, China

300 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 25, 2024

Reviews

[Miss✧Pickypants ᓚᘏᗢ · Rating 4 out of 5]

While eggs do make appearances, the breakfast of China is vastly different from what your typical idea of breakfast foods probably is. The range and variety of dishes from all of the provinces is astounding and I was surprised to see many of my favourite Chinese foods, like Dan Dan Noodles, Pot Stickers and Scallion Pancakes, included. Anyone who enjoys eating or learning about Chinese food will likely enjoy what this cookbook has to offer.

Recipes are very well-written and are prefaced with extremely detailed headnotes. The majority of recipes are not for the faint of heart, they aren't necessarily difficult but they are somewhat labor intensive since all elements are made from scratch. Lovely photos of every dish as well as some from around China are also included. My only critique is the matte design didn't do them justice.

[Jessica Feng · Rating 5 out of 5]

This cookbook reminded and taught me that Chinese food is not a monolith. While it covers a lot of ground, it also felt like it barely scratched the surface of Chinese regional breakfast foods, just given the sheer diversity and long history of China. I learned about food, ingredients, cultural assumptions, and Chinese geography and history. I appreciated the meticulous videos via QR code. I don’t think I will be making recipes from this book as they are rather involved but I am glad to have it as a reference. I also loved the photography.

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5. Really lovely primer that scratches the surface of China’s vast array of breakfast foods! The author even takes the extra step to include suggestions for veganizing some recipes, which is incredibly appreciated. I don’t usually see that in cookbooks.

There are several QR codes scattered throughout the book that all direct to video uploads hosted on the author’s site. They aren’t required viewing, but they act as great supplementary material for understanding specific cooking techniques that the reader may not be familiar with. My only concern is the longevity of the author’s site not meshing with the book’s shelf life.

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely fascinating book!

[Cynthia Ayyad · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full disclosure, I have picked some recipes to try that are my favorite from our time in China. I haven’t tried making them yet though.

I am rating this highly for the background stories, history of the food so well written and the photos. See really put me back in the country with the descriptive writing.

[AM · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lots of interesting recipes with context for them. Zee is good about suggesting many variations for vegetarian and vegan preferences. Some ingredients are pretty rare in the West, but Zee offers suggestions of replacements for many of them.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

A sort of regional cooking travel book - looking at different breakfast dishes from different regions in China. Many of the recipes felt a little beyond my skills and were more interesting to learn more about than inspire time in the kitchen

[Lamyip · Rating 5 out of 5]

It has a short video for almost every single dish in this book. Crazy!

[Margery Osborne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Made me so nostalgic for breakfast in Singapore

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Let me start by confessing that I LOVE books that provide a glimpse into another country's food culture. Not glossy cookbooks but compilations of the kinds of foods one encounters along the streets, in people's homes. I love Fuschia Dunlop's books for instance, and more recently, I'd enjoyed Luke Nguyen's Street Food Asia, where he documents his favourite street food items from Hanoi, Jakarta, KL and Bangkok.

Michael Zee's Zao Fan had its start when Zee moved to Shanghai from the UK and started posting to his IG account SymmetryBreakfast. From there, he starting exploring and researching the breakfast foods of China. What I loved about Zao Fan therefore, was the inclusion of QR codes for certain entries that would link you to the relevant posts on Zee's website, where you could watch videos of the relevant dish being prepared by the stall holder.

Concerns about tainted foods from all the food scandals notwithstanding, Zao Fan made me want to eat my way through China - to visit the Pig's Inn in Xidi Village near Huangshan for its breakfast spread including黄山菜贩; to go to Shanghai to have 葱油 拌面 at Lao Ji Shi/Dong Tai Xiang and 煎饼, 葱油饼 and 生煎包 at Dong Tai Xiang, 烧饼 with 豆浆, and 糍饭团 at Wuding Lu; to visit Wuhan to try 热干面, 面窝 and 三鲜豆皮; to Yunnan for 米线, 玉米饵丝 (at Wang Ji Liangfen in Jianchuan town), 粑粑 at Miao Lu, 鲜奶米布 （Kunming rice pudding), and 喜洲粑粑, 饵丝 and 耳快 (Yunnan rice cakes) in Xizhou with its pour-over coffee shops and natural wine bars. The foods from regions such as Chongqing, Xinjiang, Sichuan and Chengdu sounded fascinating as well but given that the kids aren't really into spicy food, I'll probably put those regions on the back burner....

For those interested in recreating these dishes at home, Zee includes recipes as well.