Chinese food fascinates me but nothing caused me more confusion on initial discovery than this method of cooking eggs. The first Chinese recipe I book I owned was Marks & Spencer's book 'Chinese Cooking' by Deh-ta Hsiung and bought in 1981. I still have it and it brings back so many happy memories of my (retrospectively staid) introduction to this exotic and alien cuisine.
Chinese takeaways didn't feature on my radar until my mid-teens. My introduction came instead from a wonderful family friend, Vera, who took my younger sister and I to Chinatown in London for the first time when I was about 12. I was hooked from the first moment, the smells, the hustle and bustle, and the ducks hanging in the windows of the restaurants as we strolled by. Vera took us to a restaurant on Shaftesbury Avenue where she was greeted as a long lost friend. It's only whilst typing this that I remember that she was brought up across the road in Soho, part of the close-knit Italian immigrant community who have introduced us Brits to the joys of Italian coffee as well as proper Spaghetti Bolognese and Parmesan cheese.
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