Recipe Thursday: Penzey's How We Became One's Hoisin Chicken

One of my goals for 2026 is to sort through all the recipes I have laying around tucked into folders and notebooks as well as my gigantic Pinterest/food blog collection that hasn't been touched in years.  I've been having quite a good time with it.  I enjoy cooking but it can become a chore pretty easily and this has made it a lot more fun for me as I feel like I'm working on a project.   Around here we've taken to calling it Recipe Thunderdome as all recipes have to be auditioned before earning their place in the final recipe binder. 

*For context I'm a reasonably capable home cook but one who is often trying to multitask and who is pretty much completely self-taught. *

Cookbooks aren't exempt from the Thunderdome and here's this week's candidate from Penzey's How We Became One

Hoisin Chicken

1 chicken breast, cut into bite sized pieces
1 T olive oil
1 c sliced onion
3 T hoisin sauce
4 T rice wine
5 T soy sauce
1 1/2 T sugar
1 T sesame oil
2 TB minced garlic
1/4 lb green beans, trimmed

Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat.  Add the onion and cook until softened.  Remove from skillet and set aside.  Add the chicken to the skillet and cook until lightly browned on all sides.  While the chicken is cooking, whisk together the hoisin sauce, rice wine, soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil, and garlic.  Add to the skillet along with the onions.  Stir well.  Add the green beans.  Cover the skillet and reduce heat to a simmer.  Cook about 10 - 15 minutes or until the green beans are cooked to desired consistency.  Serve over rice or noodles.

Changes:  I probably used more than 1/4lb of green beans but no other changes.

Thoughts on Recipe Difficulty:  I found this pretty simple.  There's some chopping but everything is pretty straightforward and goes together well.

Cook Time: 25 - 30 minutes.  Most of the prep can be done while another part is cooking.

Served With: Rice

Results:  This was really good!  The flavor of the sauce was nice and it made enough for both of us plus some leftover.  

Verdict: Survived!  Though the cookbook itself is on the edge. It's super bulky and there aren't that may recipes that interest me.  I might make it a project to try out the recipes that caught my eye, those that I like go in the binder, and then the cookbook itself is exiled.

The Secret Thread - Fiction Review

Goodreads: The Secret Thread by Eve Chase

Rating: Liked It (3 Stars)
Source: Publisher

Description:  At a lavish summer party on an English country estate, tensions between social classes lead to deadly consequences that won’t stay buried in this twisty, engrossing suspense novel by the author of The Midnight Hour.

Even the darkest secrets unravel in time. . . .

2024: Jo O’Mara, a young writer, lands a job working for Mimi Mott, a wealthy style icon and legendary founder of a decorating empire. Newly widowed and in her seventies, Mimi is preparing to auction off her possessions, through them finally telling the story of her early life. Famously private, Mimi has kept her past shrouded in mystery. Jo doesn’t dare reveal how closely it touches her own.

Tasked with collecting the untold tales behind each auction lot, Jo peels back the layers of Mimi’s origin story and discovers it’s far darker than anyone ever suspected.

1969: Mimi and her sister, Pamela, live in a cramped, musty staff cottage on the grounds of Rushwood, an idyllic English country estate owned by the Caswell family, their demanding new employer. Working alongside their gardener parents, the girls have been raised with their hands in the soil and know only a traditional, simple life—but spirited Mimi hungers for more.

When the Caswells’ adult children, Nancy and Lawrence, arrive at Rushwood for the summer, the sisters are drawn into a privileged, intoxicating world, unsettling their own, and passions spark under the blazing sun—until a shattering death at Rushwood’s high-society party tears Mimi and Pamela apart.

Now time is running out. Jo discovers both a missing auction piece and a missing sister and vows to find them no matter how dark the secret they expose—or the cost to herself.

Genre: Fiction/Historical Fiction

Why I Picked This Book: I've read another book by this author and really enjoyed it.  The blurb also caught my attention.

My Impression: I read a book by this author several years ago and one of the big things I remember is the eerie atmosphere she infused in every page of that book.  I felt that was a bit lacking in this one.   I knew something bad was going to happen, but it wasn't because I felt like there was something wrong but more because the reader is told pretty regularly that things go bad.  

The structure of the book was interesting with the modern-day timeline centering around the creation of an auction catalog and each item triggering a flashback to Mimi's early life taking place on an estate in the 1960s.  As the story goes on the story gets closer to the catastrophic event that splintered the family.

It took me awhile to get really invested in the story and at no point did I really feel connected with the characters.  I don't mind not liking them but I teetered on the edge of not caring about them.  

What kept this book enjoyable was the author's writing style.  Even when I wasn't particularly engaged in the story it was never difficult to keep reading.  While the book didn't have an unsettling atmosphere the author did make the setting come to life and I could easily visualize each of the auction items as well as Rushwood both past and present.  

Looking at the Goodreads reviews, I appear to be in the minority with not loving it and I do think there was a lot of positives about the book.  It wasn't my favorite by the author, but I am looking forward to reading more from her.

Would I Read More of this Series/Author? I would.  I like this author's writing even when I'm not loving the story.  

Would I Recommend this Book? I would with some reservation.  Unless you're a big fan of the author, I might recommend getting it from the library instead of buying unread.  

* I received this book in exchange for an honest review. As always my opinions and impressions are completely my own. *