Marlene Parrish - What Einstein Told His Cook 2

2.Make the garnish: In a large skillet, combine the peanut oil and sesame oil over low heat. Add the carrot, fennel, and sweet red pepper and cook for about 5 minutes, or until softened but not browned. Set aside.

3.Bring the fish and marinade to room temperature. Preheat the broiler.

4.Remove the fish fillets from the marinade. Place them, along with any marinade that clings to them, in a 9-inch pie pan or small baking pan with sides. Do not crowd the pan. Discard the remaining marinade.

5.Make the poaching liquid: Measure the water in a microwave-safe measuring pitcher and stir in the mirin and sake. Heat in the microwave for 1 minute. Pour enough poaching liquid into the pan to come about one-third up the sides of the fillets, about ¼ inch. This steams the fish a bit while allowing the top of the fillets to brown lightly under the broiler.

6.Broil for 5 to 6 minutes, or just until opaque in the center. For the most succulent results, the fish should be barely done in the center, and moist.

7.Serve the fish in warmed, wide, shallow bowls. Spoon some of the cooking liquid, about ¼ cup per serving, into each bowl. Garnish with the softened julienned vegetables, arranged alongside the fillets.

MAKES 4 SERVINGS

LEGGO MY LEGUME

In high school biology, I learned that legumes are plants like alfalfa and beans that “fix” nitrogen gas by taking it out of the air and putting it into the soil so that plants can use it. But from experience I also know that legumes like beans are responsible for another kind of gas: what happens to us after we eat them. Is there any “fix” for avoiding these unpleasant consequences?

Well, one thing you can do is to cut down on the amount of alfalfa in your diet. But giving up all those other legumes, including peas, peanuts, lentils, and the dozens of kinds of beans, would be too much to ask. It’s just one of those many times in life when we have to balance the benefits against the risks.

Leguminous plants are those that produce their seeds in pods. Nutritionally, legumes (as the seeds are called) are high in protein and contain many, but not all, of the essential amino acids. The problem is that they also contain certain complex carbohydrates (raffinose oligosaccharides, among others) that humans unfortunately lack the enzyme to digest. I say “unfortunately” because those carbohydrates pass straight through the stomach and small intestine to the lower bowel, where bacteria feed on them, producing various gases—odorless carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and methane, seasoned with highly odorous hydrogen sulfide and other sulfur-containing compounds called mercaptans. These gases, finding themselves already in our nether regions, depart the body via the nearest exit.

Unfortunately (again), none of several recommendations for circumventing these ventings has been proven to be dependably effective, including rinsing the beans several times before cooking, or cooking them along with any one of a variety of herbs, such as epazote, that supposedly reduce the gas. And perhaps on the theory that the best defense is a good offense, some people say that the more beans you eat on a regular basis, as is done in countries where beans are a staple, the less your social reputation will be sullied.

Because both beans and people vary so much, it would be difficult to carry out the controlled scientific experiments that would be necessary to determine the efficacy of these strategies. One would have to measure the bean inputs of a large number of people under various conditions and measure the volumes of their gaseous outputs. I, as one scientist, shall not volunteer to do that experiment. Nevertheless, as is the case with many folk practices that lack scientific substantiation, people believe what they want to believe. And who’s to say no?

One defense against your chemical weapons of mass eruption is Beano or one of the other commercial products that supply the digestive enzyme (alpha-galactosidase) our systems lack.

Another measure that apparently works in many people is swallowing capsules of charcoal, which adsorbs gas in the intestine. (Yes, that’s adsorb with a d , not absorb with a b . The gas molecules diffuse into the extensive interior surfaces of the highly porous charcoal grains and adhere there. That adherence phenomenon is called adsorption.)

Both Beano and charcoal capsules are available without prescription. They’re worth a try in an emergency, such as when you’ve had bean burritos for breakfast before church.

In the end (if you’ll pardon the metaphor), there’s really not much you can do beyond letting nature take its course and saying, “Who, me?”

Sidebar Science: Fixing nitrogen (because it ain’t broke)

AS THEkey element in amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, nitrogen is a necessary component of all living things, both plant and animal. On Earth, there is a virtually unlimited supply of nitrogen gas molecules (N 2) in the atmosphere; air is about 80 percent nitrogen. But the bond between those two nitrogen atoms in N 2is very strong, and the energy of photosynthesis isn’t great enough to enable plants to break them apart and make proteins out of them.

In a remarkable case of symbiosis, leguminous plants and certain soil bacteria named Rhizobium have struck a deal that benefits them both. The bacteria produce an enzyme that lowers the energy necessary to break the N N bond, freeing the nitrogen atoms for conversion into ammonia, NH 3, and nitrates. Most nitrates are soluble in water and can percolate down into the soil where the plant roots can absorb them. Ammonia also dissolves in soil moisture to form ammonium salts. The plants can use both nitrates and ammonium salts as raw materials in their protein factories. (One very nitrogen-rich fertilizer is ammonium nitrate NH 4NO 3.)

In the wild, these so-called nitrogen-fixing bacteria contribute only about 5 pounds of nitrogen per acre per year. But in a field crop of leguminous plants, they can produce several hundred pounds of nitrogen per acre per year.

Here’s how the bacteria and the plants work together. When Rhizobium bacteria invade the roots of a leguminous plant, it responds by forming nodules, little sanctuaries loaded with bacteria vittles (sugar-rich juices). There, the bacteria can go on a feeding binge, making ammonium salts and nitrates in the process.

A typical bean plant may produce fewer than a hundred nodules, but a soybean plant may have several hundred, and a peanut plant may have a thousand or more of these miniature fertilizer factories.

SOAK IT TO ME

My grandmother told my mother and my mother told me: Always add a pinch of baking soda to the water you soak your dried garbanzos in. Of course, mothers never tell us why. So, why?

Always do what your mother says. When I was a kid my mother told me (really!) that if I wore my rubber rain boots in the movies it would ruin my eyes. I forgot to take them off once, and today I have to wear glasses.

But seriously, your mother’s dictum is somewhat more rational. Garbanzos, the Spanish name for what Italians call ceci and we call chickpeas, are often sold in dried form—hard, tough-skinned beans that are notoriously difficult to soften. In many South Asian, Middle Eastern, and Mediterranean countries, one of which your grandmother may have come from, it has long been the custom to soak dried garbanzos at least overnight before cooking them. It was also found that a bit of baking soda shortened the soaking and cooking time.