Cookbook Club Results and Reminder #4: Three Dishes Made with Fragrant Sichuan Oil (Patreon)

Hello Cookbook Club Frienjis,

Community Vibe Manager and Frienji-in-Chief Erin here! If we haven’t met yet, I introduced myself on yesterday’s Alt-Weekly and I’ll be helping Kenji organize and report back on your Cookbook Club feedback. (And don’t worry: The recipes you're testing will always be from Kenji himself!)

We’re a few weeks out from the release of Cookbook Club recipe #4: three dishes made with fragrant Sichuan oil. Let’s dive into the results thus far!

The Report

We have 40 responses from 25 Frienjis (14 responses for the poached chicken and 13 responses for both the cold peanut noodles and dressed eggplant). As always, you’re welcome to continue testing and submitting feedback for this recipe throughout this month and beyond.

Compared to the first three Cookbook Club recipes, initial reactions to this one included a lot more hesitation. Frienjis are many things—but, it turns out, eggplant lovers are not one of them! There was also concern about poached chicken being bland, the portion sizes not making a complete meal, wariness of cold noodles and/or peanut sauce, and more.

Luckily, 43% of you reported the final results turned out better than expected! And for the remainder of you, whether the dish turned out exactly, different, or worse than expected, we are grateful for your willingness to try the recipe nevertheless. Feedback from a variety of home cooks is what makes this project possible!

In the feedback form, we ask you to rank these taste components: sweetness, savoriness, saltiness, aroma, acidity, and bitterness. Sweetness won the “just right” competition, acidity had the most reports of needing more while saltiness had the most reports of needing less. We saw the most varied feedback on the cold peanut noodles dish, where the peanut butter and vinegar used would play a central role in how these flavor components turned out.

Show us your dish!

Despite not being an eggplant lover, Dave reports back to us as a member of the clean plate club! Dave also put together the cold noodle dish below, using the veg he had on hand and some fresh Yakisoba noodles.

Despite having lost their meat thermometer, Trinity W. tried all three dishes, including braving the chicken. Don’t try this at home, kids! (And luckily, no Trinitys were harmed in the making of this dish.)

Like Trinity, plenty of other Frienjis tried multiple versions of the recipe! Special shoutout to Andreas J., Joe L., Nick S., S. Chua, Dave, wbeckler, Azalea G, Robert H., and Isobel Y.

What else are you Frienjis cooking?

"I've got a couple duck breasts curing in the fridge tonight. Going to rinse, dry, season and hang them up to age for the next couple weeks for some duck prosciutto. I got the idea after seeing [Kenji's] scallion pancake sandwich. The prosciutto sounded delicious for it, but I no longer eat pork for religious reasons... [but] I couldn't shake that craving for some nice, thinly-sliced cured meat. It's hard to come by non-pork alternatives around here, so I just broke down and decided to make my own." — Jon B.

Jon, I speak for Frienjis everywhere when I say: We're impressed!

"I made my own sourdough starter from scratch and have been baking up a storm! Everything from Dave's-like seed bread to caraway rye, jalapeño cheddar, etc. Really wanted to lock in the technique of bulk fermenting, shaping, etc. Also used discard to make crackers, homemade tortillas and <drum roll> cinnamon rolls with vanilla icing. So. Damned. Good." — Stephanie Z.

Stephanie, we need pics in the Patreon chat!

"Buuz and khinkali! We're having a mystery dumplings potluck with some friends: Everyone picks 1-2 types of dumpling to bring along, and we have to guess which country each is from and rate them." — Porcini

Porcini, this is truly what food's all about. I love to see it!

Recipe #5 coming soon...

It's hard to believe we're coming up on five months of the Cookbook Club! You're all playing an integral role bringing this cookbook to life—Kenji and the team couldn't be more grateful.

Keep your knives sharp, 

Erin and the Cookbook Club team.