Chinese-ish

'Utterly delicious, compelling, idiosyncratic and refreshingly honest, by two of this country's most dynamic young talents.' Kylie Kwong

As immigrants with Chinese heritage who both moved to Australia as kids, Rosheen Kaul and Joanna Hu spent their formative years living between (at least) two cultures and wondering how they fitted in. Food was a huge part of this journey - should they cling to the traditional comfort of their parents' varied culinary heritage, attempt to assimilate wholly by learning to love shepherd's pie, or forge a new path where flavour and the freedom to choose trumped authenticity?

They went with option three.

Chinese-ish celebrates the confident blending of culture and identity through food: take what you love and reject what doesn't work for you. In these pages you'll find a bounty of inauthentic Chinese-influenced dishes from all over Southeast Asia, including the best rice and noodle dishes, wontons and dumplings, classic Chinese mains and even a Sichuan Sausage Sanga that would sit proudly at any backyard barbecue. There are also plenty of tips and shortcuts to demystify any tricky-sounding techniques, and reassuring advice on unfamiliar ingredients and where to find them.

Chinese-ish is modern, unconventional, innovative, vibrant, tasty, colourful, incredibly delicious food.

About the Author

Rosheen Kaul is head chef at Melbourne's Etta restaurant, where she cooks a menu as culturally diverse as she is. Born in Singapore to parents of mixed Asian heritage (Kashmiri, Peranakan Chinese, Filipino), she grew up between Melbourne, Malaysia, China and Indonesia. To her parents' horror she pursued a career in cooking, working at new-style Chinese diner Lee Ho Fook and Smith & Daughters, followed by Dinner by Heston Blumenthal. It was at the beginning of the pandemic that her employer shut the doors and as a project to occupy herself, Rosheen began documenting all the inauthentic Asian recipes she most loved to eat each day.

About the Illustrator

Joanna Hu is an illustrator and ex front-of-house at Vue de Monde, Saint Crispin and Fat Duck restaurants. The daughter of Chinese Australian parents, she eschewed a career in law for a whirlwind few years in hospitality before settling into a life of painting, knitting, watching crime procedurals and buying an excess of charity shop tweed blazers.