Welcome to “Cookbook of the Week.” This is a series where I highlight cookbooks that are unique, easy to use, or just special to me. While finding a particular recipe online serves a quick purpose, flipping through a truly excellent cookbook has a magic all its own.
Salt, Sugar, MSG is hot off the presses—it was published on March 18—and comes from chef Calvin Eng along with Phoebe Melnick. It may be Eng’s cookbook debut, but if you’ve ever tried his food at Win Son or Bonnie’s, you know that he is no flash-in-the-pan recipe developer. He’s been charming New Yorkers with interesting and bold flavors for some time—and there are many great examples of exactly that in Salt, Sugar, MSG.
Not only does the actual food benefit from the addition of monosodium glutamate, but I appreciate him using MSG in the title. It normalizes an ingredient and an entire community that once heavily suffered from the complete bullshit toxic myth of “Chinese restaurant syndrome.” Chef Eng has even teamed up with Ajinomoto to help dispel the myths surrounding MSG. If you’re just stretching your MSG wings, this cookbook offers plenty of opportunities for you to start getting your reps in.
A great cookbook for mix-and-match pairings
Everything in that area of the store had been freshly made that morning, and we’d pick up a little bit of everything. We’d grab congee, pork buns, soy milk, hot noodle dishes, vegetable stir fries, and armfuls of scallion pork floss buns. At home, my mom would unpack everything and we’d all snack and basically chow down on this kitchen table banquet. Salt, Sugar, MSG welcomes this mix-and-match style of eating.
While other cookbooks might give you a single recipe that includes the meat, veg, and carbs all together, Salt, Sugar, MSG gives you space to formulate the perfect meal for what you’re craving. This style of eating reflects how you might order at a dim sum restaurant or banquet hall—a plate of greens, a dish of steamed prawns or roast pork, steamed egg custard, and some rice. It’s actually a great cookbook for small appetites (just make a few plates for snacking) as well as for big family meals.
The dish I made this week
Credit: Allie Chanthorn ReinmannThe milk tea recipe, as simple as it is, was the first thing I decided on. It asks for orange pekoe tea, so I grabbed the Twinings Ceylon at my Shoprite and set up my boiling water, evaporated milk, and condensed milk. I was a little nervous that it would be too sweet (sometimes Thai iced tea overwhelms me) but it was perfectly creamy and sweet with a welcome bitter edge. I saved the rest for the morning so I could make the Bonus Recipe Yuen Yeung, which is just the addition of black coffee.
Where to buy it
Salt, Sugar, MSG is available as a hardcover, or as an e-book for a reasonable price. Since it’s brand new, you will definitely be seeing this one at the big box book shops and likely even at the local independent bookstores. Even if you don’t see it on their shelves, ask to see if they can order it to their location.
Salt Sugar MSG: Recipes and Stories from a Cantonese American Home $14.99 at Amazon Shop Now Shop Now $14.99 at Amazon Read More Details
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