Of Stir-Fries and Hams

The uses of baking powder, recipes, a cocktail, movie and book recommendations, and links we've loved...

Note: Due to travel and work obligations, I must delay today's Saturday newsletter until next Saturday. As a stop-gap, I'm reposting one of my favorites from the archives. See you back here again next week!

In this newsletter from a previous January you will find, among other things:

• Great stir-fry technique.

• The power of baking soda on meat.

• Links to recipes for my biscuits, deviled eggs, and Hoppin’ John.

• My egg peeling battles

• One of our favorite poems.

• And a classic (great) cocktail.

• Ann’s timeless book suggestions.

• And two hilarious Jennifer Coolidge Youtubes.

Stir-fry technique …

I don’t tend to follow recipes—unless they’re Kenji recipes, as in Kenji Lopez-Alt. Most notably recipes in his book on wok cookery, called The Wok. I’ve written about this book and these preparations but the power of baking soda is worth revisiting. Using this alkaline powder is something I’ll do without fail any time I’m stir frying sliced beef flank or sliced pork shoulder for the meltingly tender texture of the best Chinese stir-fries.

First, Kenji recommends that you wash and massage the meat in cold water, squeezing and ringing it hard. This begins the mechanical tenderization. But more important is to treat the meat with baking soda, for the chemical tenderization. Massage a teaspoon or two into the meat.

Even Kenji isn’t quite sure why it works, but work it does, like a charm for a simple beef and pea pods stir-fry on a weeknight. I also made scallion pancakes to go with it.

The pancakes on their own are easy and fun because you roll them out into discs, roll the discs up like cigars, then roll these cylinders around themselves like cinnamon buns, and then flatten them back into discs with a rolling pin. This rolling method, done twice, results in multiple layers of crispy-chewy-scalliony pancakes. Also, you use a hot water dough which comes with its own lessons on the way food works.

But it was the texture of the beef, coated in a glossy sauce, that was the king of the weeknight stir-fry.

The power of baking soda…

Fascinated, I Googled cooking with baking soda and found this Serious Eats article on five ways to use baking soda in cooking. The author, former Serious Eats ed-in-chief, Niki Achitoff-Gray, says this alkaline powder will balance an acidic tomato sauce, tenderize garbanzo beans for a super smooth hummus, and cut the time required to brown onions. She notes that dusting shrimp with baking soda makes for a juicy shrimp with a firm, almost crisp, texture, something I learned long ago from Craig Claiborne’s Chinese cookbook and had forgotten. It works especially well for a shrimp stir-fry.

But the most fascinating use of baking soda is how it turns pasta into ramen-like noodles by adding 2 teaspoons per quart of water. I’ve written about how to make actual ramen, using an alkaline liquid. But this was a fascinating hack I had to try immediately.

All I had on hand was a half box of bucatini (Niki recommends angel hair or spaghetti, which I agree with). I gave it a whirl and dressed the pasta with butter, lime and soy, a felicitous combination Jean-Georges told me he loved.

The pasta takes on a brown hue from the baking soda.

Weirdly, it works. It transforms the pasta, darkening it and changing its flavor and enhancing its texture. Pretzels taste the way they do because they are dipped in lye, another stronger base (other side of the pH spectrum from acid). I recommend experimenting with the more gentle baking soda! (But a warning: adding baking soda to water will cause the water to froth up violently, so use a big pot and leave plenty of room between the water level and the top of the pot.)

New Year’s Day Feast…

New Year’s Day is one of the most boring of the year. So it’s an excellent day to invite friends over and to cook for them. Ann had been obsessing about ham for several weeks (as she will), and her obsession came to be on this day, with a savory sweet rub of salt, fennel seeds, black pepper, brown sugar and crushed red pepper.

I made biscuits, super buttery and tender; a green bean salad with a mustard vinaigrette; deviled eggs; and of course Hoppin’ John with rice.

Peeling eggs…

Ann had requested the eggs. Thoughtlessly, I cooked them the way I normally do. Submerge them in cold water, bring the pot to a boil, turn off the heat, cover the pot and let them sit for 12 minutes. Results in perfectly cooked yolks. But: sometimes peeling them can be difficult. As they were New Year’s Day.

Frustrated, I sent the below image to Instagram and Facebook. (That’s a good thing about social media: you can share your frustrations and it helps!) Readers were eager to offer suggestions: shock in ice water, put baking soda in the water (!), use old eggs.

I’d discussed this issue a while back with Kenji. He said that he’d taken to putting eggs into already boiling water. While this helps, if your eggs aren’t room temp, and mine rarely are, many crack upon being lowered into the water.

The only truly semi-reliable method for cooking eggs so that they slip from the shell, I’ve found, is to use a pressure cooker. Yes, some still crack but if you’re peeling a lot of eggs, it’s worthwhile. We don’t have a pressure cooker (we regifted the Instapot I got Ann one Christmas). But, I should have steamed them.

Bottom line is that there is no 100% reliable method. But this comes close:

Let your eggs temper at room temp for a good hour or so, then steam them for ten minutes. Remove them to an ice bath for 5 to 10 minutes. Peel while smiling (usually).

What amazed me most about the egg affair was that the post, between IG and FB, received more than 400 comments and suggestions. Clearly this is a shared passion among cooks! Have a look at the Facebook post for all the suggestions.

The obit pages …

Sadly, on consecutive days this past week, America lost two of its finest writers, novelist Russel Banks and the poet Charles Simic.

Russell Banks, 1940-2023. (Photo from The Times obit by John Sotomayor.)

Russell Banks was the author of Continental Drift, The Sweet Hereafter and other novels, several made into movies. Ann taught with Banks and had been a friend of his for years. She was especially heartbroken by the news. I met him on one of the occasions when she taught with him, a few years ago, at Writers in Paradise in St. Petersburg, and he was a beaming, happy, friendly presence. A great writer and teacher. (Read The Times obit.)

One of my favorite contemporary poets, Simic was born in Serbia in 1938, experienced WWII from the front row, and emigrated to the United States in 1954. (Times obit here.)

Charles Simic (photo by the famed author portrait photographer Beowolf Sheehan).

Recipient of a MacArthur grant, the Pulitzer and other awards, he published 30 books of poetry and earned his living by teaching. But what Ann and I both love best about him is that few poets surpass his joy in writing about food and eating and drinking.

I even read his bawdy “Crazy About Her Shrimp” at our wedding.

We don’t even take time
To come up for air.
We keep our mouths full and busy
Eating bread and cheese
And smooching in between.

No sooner have we made love
Than we are back in the kitchen.
While I chop the hot peppers,
She grins at me
And stirs the shrimp on the stove.

How good the wine tastes
That has run red
Out of a laughing mouth!
Down her chin
And on to her naked tits.

“I’m getting fat,” she says,
Turning this way and that way
Before the mirror.
“I’m crazy about her shrimp!’
I shout to the gods above.

My spirited reading of “Crazy About Her Shrimp” at our wedding in Abingdon Square, 4/20/17

Dinner: A Love Story: a substack by Jenny Rosenstrach…

I want to thank writer and cook Jenny Rosenstrach for mentioning this newsletter in her own enormously popular Substack publication, Dinner: A Love Story. And I want to welcome the many readers who subscribed to this newsletter after reading hers. Thank you, Jenny!

Have a look at her best-selling cookbooks and subscribe to her newsletter, if you don’t already. The Weekday Vegetarian is not only her book but it’s a practice we should all consider. Jenny seems to be a meat lover but is cognizant, as am I, of the fact that a meat heavy diet isn’t a sustainable practice. So let’s reduce the amount of meat we eat, and be more thoughtful about it. And thoughtful about portions as well. We really don’t need to eat a pound of steak for dinner. I find 6 ounces is more than enough and really, 4 ounces, a quarter pound, is completely satisfying.

What we’re drinking…

Mezcal Margaritas! Ann’s cousin, Gloria-Jean, gave Ann a bottle of her favorite spirit from the agave plant, Mezcal de Pechuga. Pechuga designates that the mezcal was distilled with a raw chicken breast suspended above the still. Why? Oral tradition? Uncommon method of cooking chicken? To impart the soul of the chicken into the spirit? Eater has some explanations.

As far as I’m concerned, there are two ways to drink mezcal: Straight or in a Margarita. Ann loves herself a Mezcal Margarita, so that’s what this week’s cocktail is.

Mezcal Margarita

• 2 ounces Mezcal de Pechuga (or Mezcal of your choice)

• 1 ounce Cointreau

• 1 ounce lime juice

• 1 teaspoon simple syrup or agave syrup (optional)

• lime wedge or orange twist for garnish

Combine all the fluids in a shaker. Add ice and shake just until chilled. Strain into a coupe or into a rocks glass over ice.

This cocktail and many more will covered in my new book, The Book of Cocktail Ratios: The Surprising Simplicity of Classic Cocktails, out May 23rd. Pre-order here!

What we’re watching…

The Whale, in which Brendan Fraser plays a 600-pound man, devastated by the loss of his lover, is in effect eating himself to death. The movie has come under some criticism and controversy, especially from NYTimes columnist Roxanne Gay who was infuriated by it: “A movie like this will only reinforce the dehumanizing ways in which many people understand fatness,” she wrote.

We found the movie wrenching and the performance by Fraser astonishing. In fact, the entire cast is pitch perfect, especially Hong Chau, the Thai actor who was most recently the stony hostess in The Menu (another rec high on our list). The Whale is hard to watch but we’re glad we did. I couldn’t get it our of my head for days.

We highly recommend the documentary Sr., Robert Downey Jr.’s film about his father, an avant garde filmmaker. It’s a fascinating description of Robert Downey Sr.’s career and an intimate portrayal of a bad parent (he routinely gave drugs to his pre-pubescent son) and the current (loving) father-son relationship as Jr. cares for his ailing dad.

While I was away, Ann watched a classic without me:

On a particularly hard night (cousin moved an auntie into a nursing home), Annabelle decided we needed two things: pizza and BRIDESMAIDS. Rewatching BRIDESMAIDS is sometimes exactly what you need.

What we’re listening to…

The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge by David McCullough, because I never read it. The 50th Anniversary edition has a new intro read by the late, great author.

And Dead Dad Club: On Grief and Tom Petty, free from Audible Originals. Our friend Katie Moulton was 17 when her dad died. Her memoir explores family, grief, and rock and roll, a thoughtful ride from the young writer, editor, and music critic.

What we’re reading …

Regrettably, I can only recommend a novel that none of you can buy. It’s Ann’s latest, I’m reading it in manuscript, and I think it’s one of her best, currently called THE MUSEUM OF TEARS. But put it on your list for next year! [PS, January, 2024: There were two other books being published that year, The Museum of _____, so Ann changed the title to an even better one, The Stolen Child, the story of an unlikely duo who travel to France and Italy search for a child born during the first World War, a great mystery travel story.

Ann, our constant reader, has been busily directing The Newport MFA at Salve Regina University in Rhode Island.

Ann directs a conversation on opening night last week in Ochre Court, the Newport mansion where Master’s of Fine Arts students attend readings and craft talks.

It’s a fabulous program if you’re looking for a masters in creative writing. For Ann, it’s a lot of work, but it didn’t keep her from reading. She writes:

Since the last newsletter, I have been immersed in getting ready to direct the Newport MFA January residency and to teach memoir at Writers in Paradise at Eckerd College. That means lots of organizing and reading student manuscripts.

Luckily, I had two slim novels waiting for me and I happily stole moments every day to dive into them. SWEET DAYS OF DISCIPLINE by Swiss writer Fleur Jaeggy first came out in 1989 and has this new translation from the Italian by Tim Parks. This novel about obsessive love and madness at a Swiss boarding school after WW II is not a book for everyone. Fans of Elspeth Barker’s O! CALEDONIA, as I am, might like the darkness and pathos. It’s a curious story, but just right for my scattered, busy mind.

Why not begin another slender, post-war novel, this one set in 1946 England? ONE FINE DAY by Mollie Panter-Downes, originally published in 1947, is about the effects of war on the marriage of Laura and Steve Marshall, but also about the changes in middle class English life. Panter-Downes wrote the Letter from London for The New Yorker beginning in 1939 when she recorded daily life in England during the war. Read a profile in The Guardian here.

The Newport MFA residency ends today, and we’ve had such fabulous guest writers this week. I’ve loved listening to Diane Goetsch read from her memoir THIS BODY I WORE and Helen Schulman read from her upcoming novel LUCKY DOGS (pre-order available!). Poet Wyn Cooper reading from his first novel, WAY OUT WEST, and Edgar Kunz reading poems from TAP OUT.

Links we’ve loved…

• As some of you know, I’ve recently begun learning how to knit. But I didn’t know this craft could be so literally combined with cooking!

• The big restaurant news of the week is that Rene Redzepi, chef of one of the most reknowned and influential restaurants in the world, Noma, will close it down, saying the model for the uber-high-end restaurant is unsustainable.

• I noted the passing of Russel Banks and Charles Simic. Here are a couple remberance pieces—one on Simic from the Paris Review, and one from Banks in Lithub.com about attending Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and meeting his mentor, Nelson Algren.

• Do some armchair traveling with the Times’ interactive 52 Places To Travel In 2023.

• Ann was devastated to learn that Ronzini is discontinuing the childhood staple pastina pasta, the star-shaped pasta.

• Ever wonder how The Cheesecake Factory, one of my favorite restaurant chains (not!), put out a menu of so many dishes? Here’s how.

• A few more movie recommendations, “nicecore” suggestions from Slate.

And finally…

Ann found this spoof on actress Jennifer Coolidge so funny, she must have watched ten times over the holidays. And I’m sure she’ll watch it again. It’s prefect.

And if you doubt the veracity of Chloe Fineman’s impersonation, watch the real Jennifer Coolidge accept her recent Golden Globe award for The White Lotus, below. She goes on and on, but as one commentator put it, she’s just so daffy you don’t care.

Thanks for reading. Hit the heart button if you liked this newsletter and feel free to leave a comment! We read them all!

See you next week with a newsletter!

—Michael