Everything I Made From — Salt Sugar MSG: Recipes and Stories from a Cantonese American Home

As an avid cookbook collector, I buy so many cookbooks right when they come out on pub day. My collection continues to grow at an exponential rate but I am rarely caught up to all the reading, let alone cook from them. At most, I’ll make one or two recipes from the book. I have always dreamt of cooking my way through a cookbook for as long as I can I remember. It wasn’t until the past few weeks that I committed to one book and made several recipes from it every week. It was like a little cookbook club in my apartment, and it was the most fun I’ve had with a new book.

For the months of April and May (which fittingly was Asian Heritage Month), I was cooking from Calvin Eng’s new book, Salt Sugar MSG: Recipes and Stories from a Cantonese American Home. I haven’t been to New York in a minute (manifesting that I get to visit sometime this or next year) but I’ve been obsessively stalking Calvin’s restaurant, Bonnie’s, since they opened in late 2021. I love dining out but my true weakness is a restaurant that offers their take on flavours that are nostalgic to me. Bonnie’s menu is exactly that — panzanella with Chinese donut in lieu of bread with heirloom tomatoes, tinned dace fish dip, cacio e pepe noodles with fermented bean curd, and the cha siu (barbecued pork) bkrib sandwich might just make me eat meat again. A carefully arranged fruit plate will always pull at my heart strings, but not as much as a cohesive and inspired menu with Cantonese flavours and inspiration.

Here are the recipes I made each week and a little bit about the recipes from the cookbook.

Week 1: Fuyu Cacio E Pepe Mein, Buttery Oyster Sauce Noodles

Fuyu Cacio E Pepe Mein
“I often compare Cantonese food to Italian food. They are both simple but highly technical at the same time —utilizing minimal components and allowing the main ingredients to shine. Both cuisines are also super umami-forward. Think Parmesan, salted fish, anchovies, fermented bean curd… Now, at Bonnie’s the pasta is garnished with toasted white pepper, a classic note in Cantonese cooking, and grated pecorino to pay respect to the original dish, but the heart of the dish has remained the same.”

Buttery Oyster Sauce Noodles
“Her quick-fix pasta was usually a mound of massively overcooked noodles tossed with whatever Chinese condiments we had in the fridge, usually a mash-up of oyster sauce, hoisin sauce, and sesame oil. It was delicious and definitely not nutritious. My sister and I loved it.So these buttery noodles, coated in savory oyster sauce and toasty sesame oil, are dedicated to that friend, to all the kids who don’t want to eat anything from this book, and to all the parents (like us) who are too tired to think of anything else.”

Week 2: Taro Root Diner Hash Browns, Steamed then Fried Egg Sandwich, Coconut Taro Sago Dessert Soup

Taro Root Diner Hash Browns with Sweet-and-Spicy Ketchup (page 57)
“I also happen to love taro, a nutty, earthy root vegetable that’s great chunked up in hearty, homey braises and stews or fried into puffs to be wheeled around at dim sum halls. But you can also boil it, fry it, or mash it just like you would a potato. Most importantly, you can shred taro on a box grater, toss it with strands of frozen taters, and griddle it in clarified butter for a nuttier, sweeter take on classic diner-style hash browns.”

Steamed then Fried Egg Sandwich (page 64)
“This breakfast sandwich is an ode to that time behind that counter. I swapped out the classic scramble for a fluffy steamed egg that’s lightly coated in panko and then fried like a piece of katsu. The bacon is replaced with Spam, a nod to cha chaan tengs, and the roll is now a pillowy sesame milk bread bun. But the cheese is still two slices of American, which will always be the perfect melty cheese for any breakfast sandwich.”

Coconut Taro Dessert Soup (page 242)
“The final course of a Chinese banquet meal before the check is presented and the orange slices are devoured is often a dessert soup, usually either a lightly sweetened red bean soup or a coconut taro sago soup. It’s the kitchen’s choice, not the diner’s. I always hope they send out the latter.”

Week 3: Stuffed Golden Lava French Toast, Sweet Potato Curry Potpie, Tinned Dace Dip, Fish Mix

Stuffed Golden Lava French Toast with Duck Egg Custard (page 66)
“Hong Kong French toast is not your typical singular slice of stale bread dunked in a milky egg mixture before a gentle cook in a pat of butter. It’s three stacks of crustless, plush milk bread layered with thick smears of peanut butter and Ovaltine, battered, deep-fried, and then doused in sweetened condensed milk. And sometimes, the center of the middle layer is hollowed out and stuffed with salted duck egg yolk custard that turns oozy and molten in the fryer-impossibly luscious and rich, buttery, and, of course, salty too.”

Sweet Potato Curry Potpie (page 194)
“A staple spice blend in many households, curry powder snuck its way into Cantonese pantries the same way many ingredients once did: through British colonization. I distinctly remember feasting on my mom’s chicken and potato curry almost every other week…That was my mom’s recipe, and it was absolutely delicious every time. Of course, I had to go and fuss it up a bit: a buttery, golden potpie crust and a few extra vegetables tossed in for good measure.”

Tinned Dace Dip (page 85)
“Unceremoniously dubbed The No Gas Pop-Up, we packed the space full of old friends and family, new faces and neighbors, and served them dishes we never planned to have on the menu-shucked oysters dripping with gingery white peppercorn mignonette, clams on the half shell filled with an extra-scallop-heavy XO sauce, and this tinned dace dip: whipped fried dace with all the fermented black soybeans from the can, garlic chives, cream cheese, and sour cream. It’s reminiscent of a chicken liver mousse and pairs perfectly with a Premium saltine.”

Fish Mix (page 81)
“There used to be an outpost of the Hong Kong snack food franchise Aji Ichiban on Mott Street in Chinatown just around the corner from my grandparents’ place. It was one of those snacky candy shops where you bought everything by the pound… I never thought too hard about what I scooped into my bag. I just knew to take a mix-and-match approach— a bit of salty, a bit of sweet, and a bit of savory. Delicious every time. Whenever “’m missing that shop (and feeling snackish), I whip up this crispy, sticky fish mix to fill the hole in my heart.”

Week 4: Dao Gok with Fermented Bean Curd Garlic Butter, XO Cheung Fun, Hot Salad

Dao Gok with Fermented Bean Curd Garlic Butter (page 117)
“We had so many beans, my mom would drop off bundles of them on her friends’ doorsteps just so we didn’t have to eat them for every meal. You can treat dao gok like regular old string beans for a simple veggie side dish. But at the restaurant, I like to toss them in this fermented bean curd garlic butter along with big chunks of doughy vauh ja gwai to soak up the compound butter like garlic bread.”

XO Cheung Fun (page 176)
“For the last decade, I’ve been slowly tweaking and perfecting my XO sauce. By the time I opened up Bonnie’s, I knew I wanted to showcase it on the menu in a very special way…. Back at the restaurant, we chop those chee cheung fun rolls up into smaller-size bites and toss them into the wok with a healthy scoop of XO and a garnish of fresh bean sprouts. The rice rolls crisp up on the exterior while maintaining a soft and chewy center, and the XO packs a big hit of umami.”

Hot Salad (page 113)
“The lettuce gets a quick stir-fry, so it remains crisp and crunchy, but it takes on a bit of char in the smoking-hot pan. This is about as classic as a stir-fry can be, and you can swap in pretty much any leafy green in place of romaine. Think bok choy, napa cabbage, pea shoots, kale, yu choy, or Swiss chard. And the best part is it will taste almost exactly like the veg you get under a pile of cha siu or roast duck from the roast meat shops in Chinatown.”

Week 5: Corn and Scallion Fried Rice, Corn Chowder

Corn and Scallion Fried Rice (page 139)
“You don’t need a wok for good fried rice at home. You just need leftover, day-old jasmine rice. That’s because the best fried rice starts with fluffy, separated grains. You won’t get great results with fresh rice because it still holds on to moisture from the pot, which causes it to clump up in the pan. Once you have those perfectly cooked grains, fried rice is kind of a choose-your-own-adventure meal.”

Corn Chowder (page 126)
“This chunky corn chowder leans heavily on that no-waste mentality deeply ingrained into my family’s psyche. Rather than throw away the cobs after removing the kernels, stir them into the soup to reinforce that sweet corn flavor. And maybe spend an extra minute scraping out every last bit of the golden corn milk from the cobs before tossing them for good.”

Week 6: XO Seafood Lo Mai Fan, Charred Cabbage with Shrimp Paste Butter

XO Seafood Lo Mai Fan (page 154)
“Think of this sticky rice as a take on paella. Layers of dried seafood and cured meat build flavor from the very beginning. Fresh shrimp and mussels are nestled into the pan, perfuming the rice as they steam. Plump, chewy grains of sticky rice are coated in soy sauce and oyster sauce and topped with XO sauce. What this sticky-rice variation lacks in socarrat (that crispy, crunchy bottom layer of rice in a well-made paella), it makes up for with the quick and passive, foolproof cook and steam.”

Charred Cabbage with Shrimp Paste Butter (page 114)
“A little shrimp paste goes a long, long, long way. My mom taught me that. It’s insanely good brushed over leftover roast pork or fried in a wok with cabbage and dried shrimp. Or better yet, fold it into a bit of butter, slather it over chunks of cabbage, and roast off until the charred cabbage and buttery shrimp paste flavors meld into wonderfully salty bites.”