A Very Chinese Cookbook is the result of an almost-unbelievable parental surprise. Co-author Kevin Pang, a long-time Chicago food writer who previously worked at the Tribune (and many other places) didn’t have the greatest relationship with his father, Jeffrey. “All my conversations with my parents are very cordial. There’s a bit of a cultural gap, with them being very stoically Chinese,” explains Pang. That is, until he discovered that his father had a massively popular YouTube cooking channel. “You don’t expect your then 63-year-old father who is pretty much tech-phobic to upload these very low-fi videos.” Pang swears he had no idea that the channel existed; his father created it to share family recipes with his children but didn’t actually tell them about it.

Cooking helped to bring father and son together like nothing else had. When Pang started work at America’s Test Kitchen (now trendily labeled “ATK”), he and his father started another popular YouTube show, Hunger Pangs. The new book, written by both of them, is a combination of some of Jeffrey’s original Chinese recipes as well as Chinese-American favorites. Hence the subtitle: 100 Recipes from China and Not China (But Still Really Chinese).

Somewhat surprisingly, ATK hasn’t published a book focused on any Asian cuisine for 30 years. Pang was excited to be able to use the resources of ATK because of their legendary obsession with technique and replicability. “Every recipe, on average, costs $11,000 to be developed. Some of these can take up to two years,” explains Pang. “I’m not sure if there’s ever been a Chinese cookbook that has had this level of science-based testing before.”

One reason why this book was possible at this moment was the wide availability of ingredients on the internet. “In the past, we developed Chinese recipes at ATK, and ingredients were just not available,” explains Pang. “For example, we would develop a recipe with molasses, instead of dark soy sauce, because you just couldn’t get it. Now, you can get dried flounder powder within 48 hours of ordering it on Amazon.”

However, that shouldn’t intimidate a home cook who isn’t ready to buy a pantry full of new ingredients. Each recipe in the book is ranked from 1 to 4 in order of difficulty, which will allow people who want to dip their toe into the water to try to make easier dishes like shrimp toast or sesame noodles. “If you can blend sesame paste and ginger and garlic and add them to noodles, anyone can do that,” says Pang. For more ambitious cooks, there’s a six-page step-by-step spread on how to make soup dumplings.

The book also reflects Pang’s own growth as a food writer, and his acceptance of the importance of Chinese-American food. “The food writer of 10 years ago would have quickly dismissed Chinese-American food. I would have dismissed it off hand,” says Pang. “I came to really accept Chinese-American food as its own genre. The big insight is that it’s not in competition with the Cantonese food I grew up with.” On the other end of the spectrum, some of the dishes in the book are taken directly from a tattered blue notebook of family recipes that Jeffrey brought from Hong Kong in 1988 in his carryon when the family emigrated.

The book comes out October 24, and Chicago readers can get a look at it at a special event on October 26, sponsored by Bookends and Beginnings in Evanston. Pang will be teaming up with star chef Rick Bayless and promises that it’ll be a night to remember. “Bayless and I are doing this weird two-man show,” laughs Pang. There may be on-stage cooking and even some magic, a minor obsession of Pang’s. Even if you can’t make the event, A Very Chinese Cookbook should definitely have a spot on your fall cookbook wishlist.

This isn’t the only awesome Chicago food book coming out this fall: Jason Hammel’s The Lula Cafe Cookbook: Collected Recipes and Stories comes out today, and you should also pick up The Dish: The Lives and Labor Behind One Plate of Food by Andrew Friedman. It’s a deep dive into every element that goes into a single restaurant dish. Friedman spent time at Wherewithall (the former restaurant from chefs Beverly Kim and Johnny Clark that is about to become Anelya) analyzing each part of the supply chain, the labor force, the preparation, and every other thing that goes into making the dish that shows up at your table. The book comes out on October 17.