Chinese-American Barbecue

“I’m thrilled to endorse Winnie Yee’s Chinese-American Barbecue. I saw Winnie’s skills, her enthusiasm for flavors close to her heart, and her ability to tame the flames first-hand on ‘BBQ Brawl.’ Now I’ll be cooking her Tea Smoked Duck and her Pork Belly Burnt Ends with Black Bean Sauce all summer.”

“Winnie Yee takes the deep craft of American BBQ—smoke, fire, patience—and fuses it with the bold, unapologetic flavors of her Chinese and Malaysian heritage. One bite and you realize—this isn’t some kind of bland ‘Asian-inspired BBQ.’ This is something entirely new. So, fire up the smoker and dive in. Taste what happens when tradition meets fearless creativity.”

“In just a few short years Winnie Yee has gone from a barbecue novice searching for brisket recipes on the internet to creating her own unique version of American barbecue at the Smoke Queen Barbecue restaurant. She shares her pitmaster journey and the fruits of her hard work in these pages, and just thumbing through the recipes will compel readers to start a shopping list for their next barbecue adventure.”

“Winnie Yee is at the forefront of where American barbecue is going. Chinese-American Barbecue beautifully blends her native culture and cuisine with the maximalist style of modern barbecue. The result is a step-by-step roadmap to achieve the same spicy, meaty deliciousness in your own home and backyard that she does in her restaurant and special events.”

“Winnie Yee is simply amazing. The tale of her journey from working in her immigrant parents’ restaurants as a child to opening her own acclaimed Smoke Queen Barbecue restaurant in California is both breathtaking and heartbreaking. And her recipes demonstrate incredible creativity. This is where barbecue goes next: the blending of international flavors with American methods produces amazing food. The flavors of American-style smoked and grilled meats meld with Chinese ingredients like peanut butter and jelly. The first recipe I tried was her House BBQ Sauce, with hoisin sauce, spicy chile bean paste, and black vinegar, and I may never go back. The menu of recipes in Chinese-American Barbecue is mind-boggling. If you have mastered the American barbecue canon you need to get out of the box and get into this book.”

“Chinese-American Barbecue is a bold, heartfelt fusion of heritage, hustle, and smoke. Blending the deep traditions of Chinese home cooking with the craft and discipline of American barbecue, the book follows Winnie Yee’s journey from immigrant roots to pitmaster excellence. With vibrant photography and inventive recipes, this is a celebration of identity, grit, and the flavors that rise when two worlds meet over the pit.”

Winnie Yee was born in a small town 60 miles north of Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Her family, members of Malaysia’s large Chinese community, emigrated to the Los Angeles area when she was 6. She earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from UCLA in 2003. Having grown up with Chinese-Malay live-fire cooking, she was inspired to devote herself to barbecue, teaching herself about a wider range of Chinese traditions beyond Chinese-Malay-including mainland Chinese and Chinese-American-and learning the art of Texas-style smoking. She opened her widely praised restaurant Smoke Queen BBQ as a delivery-only ghost kitchen in 2020 and shortly thereafter as a brick-and-mortar restaurant in Garden Grove, in Orange County. Remarkably, by 2021 she was already being lauded by the New York Times and other outlets as a major voice on the US BBQ scene. Aside from the restaurant, Smoke Queen serves up barbecue weekly at Smorgasburg LA in downtown Los Angeles.