Recipes: This cookbook is devoted to Chinese food — and food that’s not really Chinese

The cookbook’s title grabbed me: “A Very Chinese Cookbook: 100 Recipes from China and Not China (But Still Really Chinese)” (America’s Test Kitchen). With a dose of culinary humor, the moniker acknowledges that many beloved dishes that are labeled Chinese actually originated in America.

Co-authors Jeffrey Pang and Kevin Pang, father-son hosts of America’s Test Kitchen’s hit YouTube cooking series “Hunger Pangs,” discuss American Chinese food in the book.  Jeffrey Pang writes about the first...