Simply Chinese: Recipes from a Chinese Home Kitchen

Product Information

While her father still runs the family takeaway, it’s her late mother Celia that Suzie credits as her “home cook hero” and for instilling in her a passion of cooking, "as well as a determination to succeed”.? I was the youngest girl in my family and literally hung on to my mum's apron strings, watching her every move and seeing how she would transform simple ingredients into something really yummy. Mum not only cooked amazing Chinese food, but had a love of baking and pastry.” Winning Best Home Cook opened many doors, but I always describe myself as a chartered accountant who cooks. Cooking is my relief. I haven't lost the fun of it yet and hope to continue both," adds the 38-year-old. For Suzie Lee, food and Chinese home cooking has always been personal - in Chinese culture, food and family are intertwined. Suzie strives to capture and recreate those cooking traditions she shared with her late mother, her inspiration.

While before her success in Best Home Cook Suzie had dreamt of saving for a “retirement plan” which involved opening a little coffee shop or catering company that enabled her to “potter around” with her love of cooking.

Simply Chinese is a sumptuous collection of classic and modern Chinese home-style recipes that can be made, with ease, in your own home kitchens. I’m staring at Angela Hartnett and Mary Berry’s cookbook in my kitchen right now. These are people that I really respect and whose recipes I use, so it was really nice to meet them in person and learn from them.

However, Suzie Lee, the 2020 winner of the BBC's Best Home Cook and presenter of her own TV show, Suzie Lee's Home Cook Heroes, says that Chinese cooking is so much more. They absolutely love being in the kitchen with me. Our lives can be so busy, but cooking together is another way you can spend quality time with your children,” she says. Add the Shaoxing wine, light soy sauce and oyster sauce and mix, then add the peas and pineapple and mix well. Taste and season. You think 'oh wow I've produced this' and as much as it's lovely and beautiful, you wish she was here to share it."Things might have exploded for Suzie Lee since winning Best Home Cook in 2020 – she’s presented two cooking shows on BBC Northern Ireland and is now releasing her debut cookbook – but that doesn’t mean she’s quit her day job. Suzie believes that “food is the glue that holds families together”, and encourages her own children, Zander, aged five, and two-year-old Odelia, to get involved in the kitchen. Since winning Best Home Cook in 2020 Suzie has presented two cooking shows on BBC NI (Image: BBC NI) A cookery book has been in the pipeline for a while but Suzie admits that it all came together in just seven weeks. After her mother died, Lee’s confidence in the kitchen grew – largely because she was forced to take on the cooking role, feeding her 15-year-old brother and seven-year-old cousin.

Suzie Lee’s Home Cook Heroes begins on August 6 at 7.30pm on BBC One Northern Ireland, also available on BBC iPlayer. For accompanying recipes visit Bbc.co.uk/suzielee We never had a choice as children, we just ate what the adults ate and that's the ethos I've brought my kids up on. We may think that Northern Ireland is famous for a good old cuppa, but in Hong Kong hot milk tea is an institution - so much so that in 2017 the Leisure and Cultural Services Department of Hong Kong declared their tea-making technique as an 'intangible cultural heritage'. Ever since my mum passed away I do live my life to the full, and with no regrets, because you don't know what might happen tomorrow," Suzie says. I also want to make the book less scary and more accessible to everybody because your local corner store has most of the ingredients as well as the bigger supermarkets, so you can say to yourself 'you know what I can make this'.Some of the ingredients might seem somewhat unconventional for Hong Kong cuisine – such as spam, corned beef, HP sauce, ketchup, condensed milk and Linton tea bags. I had to really dig deep in the memories and discover the history behind the recipes. I found it quite cathartic," adds Suzie, whose favourite recipes include seafood crispy noodles, Grandad's special steak and her mum's char siu, green bean and egg hash. Each episode features a local family, who road test one of Suzie’s recipes. All filming took place under Covid-19 restrictions, with the testers' self-shot footage providing a portrait of the fun and sometime chaotic nature of cooking as a family.