The rest bought rent, wages, the carton, the app's commission, and the driver. None of it bought better noodles. The noodles were the same noodles.
$29 once, plus sales tax where your state charges it. No subscription. Seven day refund, keep the files. Typical 2026 prices; yours will differ.
One book · Two bonus PDFs · 60 dishes · 72 numbered fixes
Who is talking
In my family, everyone cooked, and everyone had a rule. The rice had to be dry. The oil had to be smoking before anything went in. The sauce got made on Sunday and used all week. Nobody wrote it down; you learned it standing next to someone at the stove.
That is where this book comes from: family habit, and a great many plates cooked on a home burner until the method held and the numbers were written down. I have never run a restaurant and I will not pretend I did. Trust the recipe, not a resume.
$29 once. No subscription. PDF, yours to keep.
The receipt, line by line
You are not comparing your noodles to their noodles. You are comparing your noodles to their noodles plus everything on the receipt that is not noodles.
What the receipt saidAmount, $
Chicken chow mein, menu price14.50
Delivery fee3.99
Service fee2.90
Tip4.68
Tax1.02
Total paid27.09
The groceries in the same plate, 20263.40
Reconstructed from delivery app fees in 2026. No restaurant or app is named.
The $27.09 bought
The $3.40 bought
Difference in the noodles: none.
| What you blamed | What it actually was | Fixes |
|---|---|---|
| The pan | The pan was not hot enough | 1 to 10 |
| The rice | Fresh wet rice, undried noodles | 11 to 26 |
| The meat | Breast, not velveted | 27 to 38 |
| The sauce | Five bottles poured in one at a time | 39 to 48 |
| Your hands | Garlic first, everything at once | 49 to 66 |
Ninety seconds
Five things a restaurant cook does before the food touches the pan. Each has a cue you can see or hear, and a fix number in Part 2. My mother's phrase was "do not make me wait," and she meant the pan.
The cue The smoke is not a warning. It is the starting gun. Fix 2
The cue You can see pan between the pieces. Fix 3
The cue The slices look glossy and slightly translucent, and they slide against each other. Fixes 29, 31
The cue Rice grains fall apart when you rub a clump between your fingers; noodles do not stick to each other when you lift them. Fixes 13, 21
The cue It bubbles the moment it hits the pan and coats the back of a spoon within ten seconds. Fixes 39, 64
The numbers
Every recipe carries four prices at the top, before the ingredients. I put them there so you can catch me.
The receipt above is one real order, in one city, on one night. The table below uses typical menu prices and cost per plate, so the figures will not match it exactly. That is the point of the column the book leaves for yours.
| Dish | Menu, $ | Delivered, $with fees and tip | At home, $per plate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chicken chow mein | 12.00 | 18.50 | 0.85 |
| Egg fried rice | 9.00a quart | 14.00 | 0.55 |
| Chicken fried rice | 11.00a quart | 17.00 | 1.10 |
| General Tso's chicken | 14.00 | 21.50 | 1.45 |
| Chicken with broccoli | 12.00 | 18.50 | 1.15 |
| Beef and broccoli | 14.00 | 21.50 | 2.05 |
| Mapo tofu | 13.00 | 20.00 | 1.05 |
| Egg drop soup | 5.00a pint | 8.00 | 0.40 |
| Crab rangoon | 7.50for six | 11.50 | 0.30each |
| Honey walnut shrimp | 18.00 | 27.50 | 2.30 |
What you get
The receipt did not have a line for talent. It paid for decisions, and the book gives you seventy two of them by number.
Before you cook anything
How a cue based recipe reads, where the numbers come from, and the one habit that is half the book.
Part 1 · The receipt
Three chapters: the $27.09 chow mein itemized, what you are really paying for, and the five things nobody told you.
Part 2 · The fixes
72 numbered fixes in eight chapters, from heat without a wok (1 to 10) to serving and storing (67 to 72). Five diagrams.
Part 3 · The pantry
The twenty ingredients behind all fifty dishes, priced, with a named example and the store brand. The four sauces in a Sunday jar.
Part 4 · The fifty dishes
Fried rice 6, noodles 7, chicken 10, beef 6, pork 5, shrimp 5, tofu and vegetables 5, soups 3, sides 3.
Part 5 · The week
One trip, five dinners for four. The Sunday hour. The shopping list, priced by section. The budget page.
The velvet
A baking soda step, explained once and used fifty times. It is why restaurant chicken is tender and yours is tough.
If yours looks wrong
Every recipe ends with the three or four things that go wrong most, each with a one line fix.
The rescue index
Thirty five problems sorted by what you see: mushy, gummy, tough, watery, cloudy, bitter, grey. Then the fix number.
Back matter
The rescue index, 26 substitutions, the fridge card, and an index by dish and by ingredient.
Twelve of the fifty, with their prices
And two bonuses, included
Both come in the same download. I do not sell them on their own, so I will not put a made up price on them and cross it out.
Bonus 1 · Included
The pages you will actually use with wet hands, one to a sheet in large type:
Bonus 2 · Included
Ten favorites that did not fit in the fifty, in the same format with the same four prices.
One grocery trip · One Sunday hour · Five weeknight dinners for four
Run it on your own prices before you believe mine. I will not multiply it by fifty two weeks, because a book that promises you a yearly figure is guessing.
You get home at six with nothing ready, and by Wednesday the app is open. The book gives you one week instead, Monday to Friday for four people, from one grocery trip and one Sunday hour. Do the Sunday hour and weeknight dinners come in under 30 minutes. The crispy fried chickens take 45, and I will not pretend otherwise.
The week, from the book, $
Groceries for the five dinnersabout 42
Per plate, twenty platesabout 2.10
The same five dinners, deliveredabout 175
The pantry, $
First trip70 to 90
Keeping it stocked15 to 25 a month
Typical 2026 prices; yours will differ.
Mon chicken with broccoli · Tue pork fried rice · Wed wonton soup · Thu beef lo mein · Fri General Tso's
The book
The chow mein on the receipt was $27.09. The book is $29.
$29once
One payment of $29, plus sales tax where your state charges it on digital books. No subscription. Three PDFs for phone, tablet, and computer, formatted to print at home.
Secure checkout by Gumroad, Inc., the merchant of record · Instant download · Apple Pay, Google Pay, and cards
Sold by Auntie Fong Cooks through Gumroad · Refund policy · Terms
Seven days, no argument. Email support@auntiefongcooks.com from the address you bought with and you get the full $29 back to the card you paid with, usually within two business days. You do not have to send anything back, and a PDF cannot be returned once it is downloaded, so keep the files.
If the link is broken or the email never arrived, write to me first. I can almost always fix it the same day. Full terms on the refund policy page.
How it works
The checkout page is run by Gumroad. It takes your card, Apple Pay, or Google Pay and an email address for the download. Your card goes to Gumroad, not to me.
Three PDFs. The main book is about 14 MB.
It comes from Gumroad, so you can open the book on your phone in the store and print the cards at home. Check spam if it has not arrived in a few minutes.
No account to create. No subscription. Nothing recurring.
Questions
No. The whole book assumes a heavy 12 inch skillet on a home stove. There is a dedicated section for electric coils and glass tops.
Most of the twenty pantry ingredients are at any supermarket. Five are easier at an Asian grocer or online: dark soy sauce, Shaoxing wine, Chinkiang black vinegar, fresh egg noodles, rice noodles. The book gives a substitute for each.
It is the Chinese American takeout menu, made the way the restaurant makes it, at home. The book says so on the first page. Four Sichuan dishes are included: mapo tofu, dan dan noodles, twice cooked pork, dry fried green beans.
Most stir fries are 25 to 35 minutes from the first cut. Soups 10 to 25. The crispy fried chickens 45. Do the Sunday hour and weeknight dinners come in under 30.
Yes, on the numbers in the book. Every recipe carries four prices at the top and a blank column for yours, and the budget page is built so you can run the week on your own store's prices before you believe mine.
The safety temperatures in the book are the USDA and FDA numbers: 165°F for chicken, 145°F for pork and beef with a rest, cooked rice refrigerated within two hours and used within four days. USDA and FDA did not review or endorse this book.
Email support@auntiefongcooks.com within seven days of buying and you get the full $29 back. You keep the files. The details are on the refund policy page.
No. One payment of $29 and it is finished. If I correct or add to this edition, you get the new file at no charge for as long as the book is on sale. Download the files and back them up; they are yours to keep.
Restaurants are not the enemy; I go to mine every other Sunday and I tip well. But once the technique is right, homemade is the same dish, minus everything that is not the dish.
Do not make the pan wait.
$29 once · PDF, instant download · seven day refund, keep the files