Zao Fan: Breakfast of China

The Breakfast of China is a cookbook exploring the huge variety of dishes 1.4 billion people eat every morning. Recipes for buns, soups, noodles, and dumplings, delicious any time of day, have been expertly adapted for the home kitchen by SymmetryBreakfast creator, Michael Zee.

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 specialty that they make day in, day out, honing their recipe over years, and even generations. Locals are spoiled 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 favorites 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 try: Dan dan mian, Sichuanese street-style noodles with a sesame paste sauceJian bing, savory filled crepesXiaolongbao, steamed Shanghainese soup dumplingsYoutiao, or 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.

Michael Zee is the creator of the online sensation SymmetryBreakfast (685k followers) which has been featured in the Guardian, Washington Post, Telegraph, and many others. Being British-Chinese, growing up helping out in his parents’ Chinese restaurants, and spending five years living in Shanghai, he is uniquely placed to document the huge variety of Chinese breakfast foods and to break down any barriers to Chinese cooking, making the recipes as accessible as possible. The Breakfast of China is his third book after Cook Love Share (2016), and Eat Like a Local: Shanghai (2019). He lives in Bologna with his husband.