6 Low-Lift Recipes to Go Spicy or Sweet for the Holidays

+ NYT best cookbooks! + herb tote update + cooking class discount

Hello everyone,

I just returned from San Francisco after 24 hours of mostly work and some play. When I dipped into my emails, there was a message from Kerri Conan, a friend, PTFS subscriber and editor at

The Bittman Project

. Kerri reported that hot off the presses were the New York Times 2023 cookbook picks!

Cowabunga! There’s Ever-Green Vietnamese on the top row!

This has been a year of incredible books by smart debut authors, many of whom are people of color whose voices and topics deserve to be amplified. I’m an O.G. dinosaur! What the reviewer and editor Tanya Sichynsky wrote about EGV:

To top things off, on Instagram, she called out EGV’s shrimp and sweet potato fritters (bánh tôm) as among her favorites of the year. Here’s gift link to NYT’s 2023 Best Cookbooks. I own many of the titles selected and can vouch for their excellence. If you don’t have them, get a copy at your favorite retailer or library.

While in San Francisco, I went to Salesforce offices for a special EGV event. If you ever have the opportunity to go to the company’s tower in San Francisco, do not skip it. They have the best views of the entire Bay Area. The staff also cooks very well. They made a bunch of mini tastings of dishes from the book (they also thanked me for writing recipes that work!). I did a Q&A about my personal journey and the arc of Viet food in America. That was my last 2023 event and it was a highpoint.

Save 25% on the EGV x Milk Street Cooking Class

Thanks to those who signed up for my January 30, 2024 virtual cooking class with Milk Street Kitchen. From now till December 22, there’s a special 25% discount! To nab the savings:

1. Copy this code: BANHMI25

2. Enter the code when you register for the class here.

Viet Herb Totes Arriving on Monday

The tote company emailed that the shipment should arrive next Monday. Put in your pre-order at the shop before Sunday so I can fulfill your order next week.

All paid subscribers save $5 off any item (check this post for discount details). If you’re not already a subscriber, now’s a good time to make the leap!

Edible Gifts: Make them Spicy or Sweet!

In preparation for holiday gifting and eating, I’ve been making hot sauce, cookies, and candies. I encourage you to do the same because they’re easy, low-effort projects with big payoff for the recipients and you, the gift giver.

🌶️ Sauce

I regularly gift homemade condiments to family, friends, and acquaintances. My mom and sister recently got Viet Chile Sauce (Tương Ớt Việt Nam), which is my preservative-free organic dupe of Cholimex, a super popular hot sauce in Viet Nam. For a friend who loves spicy heat, I brought a threesome in recycled jars.

To make all three (on the left), head to Ever-Green Vietnamese and check out the recipes on pages 37, 39, and 40.

If you want the fastest, most simple option, go for the Viet Chile Sauce (above on the right). It’s a wowzer that has won over people who don’t like hot sauce. The recipe is in EGV. If you don’t have the book, you’re in luck. Head to my website for EGV’s Viet Chile Sauce (Tuong Ot Viet Nam) recipe and some video tips! I just shared it for the holiday season.

When quadrupling the recipe like I did in the video, use a 3 to 4-quart pot. Extend simmering time by 3 to 5 minutes.

5 Recipes for Low-Lift, Bankable Sweets

For our family’s Christmas luncheon, I volunteered a number of things, including dessert. We are a buche de Noel (yule log) family but we also love cookies and fruitcake. Nothing is too sweet. There has to be textural and flavor variation too. What’s most important are treats that travel and freeze well. I don’t have time to bake the night before we hit the road.

So I started baking and candying last weekend. After we sampled to verify that they were all good to go, and I photographed this platter to tantalize you 😉, I froze most of what I made. Here’s the run down of what you’re looking at with links to the recipes.

• Slice-and-Bake Matcha Cookies: Malty, rich, with enough matcha flavor but not too much to be bitter or give you a buzz. The recipe is by Sawako Okochi, Aaron Israel, and Gabriella Gershenson from their wonderful new book, Love Japan. This is my household’s current favorite cookie.

  

• Persimmon Spice Cookies: Chewy, soft, and cakey — the unusual cookies are spiced with cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg.

• Petit Palmiers with Viet Cinnamon: Aside from the mapo tofu puffs, here’s another fabulous excuse to use Trader Joe’s excellent puff pastry.

• Candied Orange Peels: Why waste fragrant, beautiful orange peels? Candy them. You just need the peels, sugar and water. You can dip them in chocolate, chop them up for my food processor pound cake, or just eat them. They keep for a long time because they’re preserved!

• Flourless Almond Cookies: Incredibly tweakable, these grain-free delights take 5 minutes to stir together. With only 6 required ingredients, they taste like a fancy almond macaroon. Don’t forget to include leavening like I did the first time this week. Below, my unleavened boo boos on the left were edible but hard like candy. The perfect ones on the right were divine.

How to pack cookies for the freezer or the road? I use a rectangular Tupperware that’s about 3 inches deep. The palmiers need to stand up while the others are fine stacked. I just put parchment between them. Durable cookies can also be frozen in a plastic ziploc bag too.

Next week, expect a tasty, unconventional Christmas idea.