Momofuku #1: pork buns

I've had the momofuku cookbook longer than I've had ad hoc at home, but I haven't warmed to it as much, even though I like David Chang's food as much as I like Thomas Keller's, and enjoy reading Chang's writing more than Keller's. Maybe I'm just more interested in cooking European/American food than Asian food - I've already documented previously how I'm drawn to Europe so much more than to Asia - although Chinese food is deeply ingrained in me and I cook it regularly. Maybe that's the problem, that I associate it with everyday food, and not special enough to warrant following a complicated recipe.

Chang's simple recipes (i.e. pickled vegetables) are things I already do because my mom did it and taught me many of her easy recipes. The complicated recipes (i.e. chicken wings or brick chicken) seem overly complicated because I already cook pretty damn good versions of it (I make my chicken wings a version of "three cup chicken" with rice wine, sesame oil and soy sauce). Whatever the reason, even now, browsing the cookbook, I love reading it - it's a great read, I share his love of pork fat, and am inspired by his creative uses of fatty pork (aka bacon) - but I don't really want to follow any of his recipes.

Except for the pork buns. When I had them at Milk Bar in NYC, it was one of those rare moments in life when something truly lives up to its hype. And boy was this pork bun hyped up. Everything you read, heard, watched about David Chang referenced these pork buns, and just the idea of it is so genius, I can't believe no one ever thought of the exact combination before: combining fatty pork with the sweet, fluffy "mantou"-style bun usually used for Peking duck. Even more genius, he solved the crunch problem - the duck skin usually provides the crunch for Peking duck - by adding refreshing pickled cucumbers, which also balances the extra fat (yes crispy duck skin is fatty, but side pork/pork belly is even more so). This stuff was good, and I was willing to go to great lengths to eat it again.

It turns out I didn't need to ... go to great lengths, that is. While there are lots of components, and it is a multi-day process (something I'm getting used to after all those Keller recipes) the preparation of each component is surprisingly easy.

Pork

I had done the pork part of the process several times already, with varying results. I usually find 1.5-2 lb slabs of pork belly (side pork works, too), rather than the 3 lbs called for by the recipe, so I've both oversalted and overcooked the pork before. This time, I had a much better sense of how much salt-sugar rub to use, and how long to cook it. I mixed 1 tbsp each of salt and sugar together and used maybe 3/4 of it to rub down my little 1.5-lb slab of side pork. I'm always tempted to pour the rest of the salt-sugar mixture on so as not to waste it, but I resisted that temptation this time, and it paid off.

Twenty or so hours later, I pulled my side pork out of the fridge, dried it off with paper towels. I guess-timated the oven time because my slab was only about 1.5-lb and the recipe is tailored for a 3-lb slab. First on high heat (450 degrees), basting halfway as instructed, until the top is nicely browned, which took about 45 minutes. Then at 250 degrees for about the same time.

Chang claims you can decant the liquids from the bottom of the pan to get both fat and juices, but I always end up with just fat (no juices that are supposed to turn into a gelatinous layer under the fat), which I reserved for cooking. And a good thing, too, because unbeknown to me at the time, I needed that fat, and exactly that much fat, to make the mantou.

If you start cooking early in the morning, you can complete the pork, the steamed buns and the pickled cucumbers in a day (you'd still have to budget the the day before at least for grocery shopping and rubbing down the pork at least 6 hours before roasting), albeit an exhausting day if you're like me, not a professional cook and not used to slaving away in the kitchen for that long. Besides, Chang recommends chilling the pork before slicing for more even slices, so I set it aside in the fridge until the next day, and made something else for dinner that night (something simple).

Buns

The next day, I made the steamed buns, and then the quick pickled cucumbers (and sliced the scallions) right before dinner. He says you can make do with commercially-made buns from "even a well-stocked freezer section at a local Chinese grocery store," but I think he throws this in just to make the recipe seem more accessible. Don't fall for it. The ones from the freezer sections don't even come close to making it fresh from scratch at home. I can't speak to his other suggestion of buying from a Chinese bakery or restaurant, but I know first-hand that the packages from 99Ranch or Marina's freezer sections don't cut it. You're going to get the steamer out to heat those up anyway, so why not get the steamer out to make fresh buns from scratch. Your handy mixer with the dough hook makes it easy.

This was my first time using yeast, so I was nervous about somehow getting it wrong. It turns out I had no reason to be nervous. Active dry yeast does its job, without poking or prodding. All I had to do was drop it into the mixing bowl with some room temp water, and then add in the other familiar ingredients: flour, sugar ... and pork fat?!? Yes, pork fat! Thank goodness I had kept the pork fat rendered from the side pork the day before.

The dough hook does its job, too, and you get this beautiful, fragrant dough.

Which you let rise for 1-hr 15-min. Then you divide it into 50 small pieces, which he instructs you to roll into balls. It's not possible to make them into perfectly round balls because of the resistance from the dough, but it ultimately doesn't matter.

I tried both covering with a dry towel for this rise, and covering with plastic wrap and placing it in the oven (no heat, just dry, dark and a little warm). Both works just fine, although I liked having the towel for easy re-covering for the shaping step later.

They rise again for a half hour, and then they're ready to shape - flatten, roll and fold. A final half hour's rest where it just puffs up a little more, and you're ready to steam. 10 minutes per batch.

Straight out of the steamer, the taste of my homemade mantou was amazing. I'm sure I've never made anything that tasted this pure. It was like eating a warm, perfectly sweet, cloud. It was ... the single most triumphant food moment of my life thus far. My eyes popped wide open, I turned to Mark, and literally uttered the sound "nom nom" for the first time in my life.

I had prepared the accoutrements while the buns steamed: quick pickled cucumbers, hoisin sauce and scallions.

Oh yeah, and the pork. Sliced and heated for a minute or so on each side over medium-high heat.

Nom Nom!

Perfection!

I called my mom right after dinner to tell her how great they turned out. She happily designated me the family mantou maker. Triumph squared!

And guess what? The steamed buns are almost as good frozen and re-steamed days later - still so much better than store-bought frozen packages. It makes no sense to me, but it just is.

ad hoc at home #9: chocolate chip cookies

In his cookbook, Mr. Keller hails chocolate chip cookies as his favorite cookie in the world. I don't recall seeing chocolate chip cookies at Bouchon Bakery, nor ever having them in any form at French Laundry or Bouchon, so I didn't know expect.

As far as I can tell, his cookies are not that much different from other recipes I've seen. The main difference is that he requires that you buy good bars of chocolate, in a combination of semi-sweet and bittersweet, and chop them into "chip-sized pieces," and not surprisingly given his sensitivity to aesthetics, shake in a fine-mesh basket strainer to "remove any chocolate 'dust' (small fragments)." The other variation is his relatively high brown (1 cup packed) to granulated (3/4 cup) sugar ratio.

These two factors create a flat, relatively chewy cookie, with chocolate striations. Maybe Keller is more precise in cutting his chocolate than I am, sifts out more of that chocolate dust than I did, and forms more perfect balls with his dough before baking, but I always imagined his cookies, especially his favorite cookie, to look better than this:

It isn't the prettiest cookie I've ever made, but it did the trick taste-wise. The cookies were a big hit at my summer party, so much so that my mom wants me to make some for her to bring back to LA to share with family!

I made them again a few weeks later for a friend's housewarming party, and had more success making it look as good as it tasted ... at least with a few specimens.

ad hoc at home #7 and #8: duck

I don't think I'm alone in finding duck an intimidating poultry to cook at home, although really for no good reason. I blame the markets, for not carrying more duck meat, and then charging an arm and a leg for it. This means that if you are to try it, you mustn't go wrong, or else you'll have wasted quite an expensive piece of meat. This is where Thomas Keller comes in. His cookbook ad hoc at home has proven so far that I can't go wrong with his recipes.

Before shopping, I studied the recipes for both the duck confit and the pan-roasted duck breasts. I noticed two things: first, the duck confit required lots of duck fat, and second, the pan-roasted duck breasts produce lots of duck fat that is then discarded. Ding! went the light bulb in my head. I'll make the duck breast first, strain and save the fat, and then use it in my duck confit. Since duck fat keeps and duck confit is a two-day process (in fact, it can be stored for even longer), I didn't have to worry about being all duck'd out. It was a brilliant plan.

First, the duck breast recipe. It introduced me to the concept of cooking almost entirely skin-side down, something I've since executed on salmon (per America's Test Kitchen recipe) and chicken thighs (Jacques Pepin recipe) as well, for a perfectly crisp skin. Every instruction in the book is helpful and accurate, down to the removal of the "small white tendon that runs through each tenderloin" of your duck breast and setting "a metal bowl or other container near the stove" for use later. Don't question it, just do it, and everything will turn out right.

As with so many of his recipes, the cooling rack is key. Nearly everything is better after having been cooled on a rack.

The duck breasts came out beautifully.

I served it on a bed of simply sauteed green cabbage, sort of a la Keller's recipe, using, what else, duck fat, but without all of the trimmings (no red cabbage or pistachios).


Now for the duck confit. Keller's recipe makes 8 duck legs, and after trying to do it for 2 duck legs only, I can see why. Duck fat isn't easy to come by for most of us, and it's a bit of a waste of the duck fat if you're not lining at least the entire bottom of your Dutch oven with duck. It would be less of a problem if I had a smaller Dutch oven, but for the size I had, I probably could have fit 4-6 duck legs in one layer.

My thoughts on the duck fat: You can always buy it directly from a good butcher, but why pay separately when you already have to pay for a good amount of it when you buy your breasts and legs. From the duck breast, I had rendered off maybe one-third of the fat called for by the recipe for the duck confit. The recipe also calls for trimming and discarding the excess skin and fat from the duck legs, so I rendered that off, too, yielding almost the same amount as I already had from the duck breasts. In total, I had enough fat to immerse about 2/3 of the duck legs in the fat, but not all of it, as prescribed. Here's where my cooking sense and willingness to edit came in handy. I felt it was enough, and guess what? It was enough.

The duck went into the oven before I went to bed, and came out of the oven in the morning, about 8 hours later. Keller says 8-10 hours, but I opted for 8 since I only had 2 legs. It came out just a little more "meltingly tender" than I think he is aiming for, since one of the legs did fall apart a little when I sauteed them later. I think 8 hours would have been perfect for 4-6 legs. It was delicious, nonetheless.

Even though duck confit is meant to be salty, and I for one love salt, I would heed his warning about over-salting. It came out a bit on the salty side, which I was able to balance out with tomatoes and roasted potatoes, but had I indulged my penchant for salt by adding just a little more than the recipe prescribes, which I often do, I could have easily ruined these beautiful duck legs.

ad hoc at home #4: braised short ribs

Who can resist braised short ribs on any five-star menu? Not only was I sure that the braised short ribs recipe in Thomas Keller's ad hoc at home would be oh-so-good in and of itself, these short ribs were the precursor to two other delicious-sounding recipes. The only problem was that making just the braised short ribs themselves was a two-day process, presuming you make your beef stock from scratch as prescribed.

It was daunting, but it proved a great excuse to invest in the Le Creuset Dutch oven, and I had just spotted one in Cassis (a Sur La Table exclusive rich, purple color) that I just had to have.

Before we get to the Dutch oven, though, day one starts with making the beef stock. Making beef stock Keller-style starts with roasting "meaty" beef bones on high heat for 45 minutes to develop color and flavor. Then there is 6 more hours of simmering and continuous skimming (off fat and impurities for a clear broth), adding charred onion early on, then adding roasted vegetables and herbs for the last hour. Finally, a little rest, twice straining (second time through cheesecloth), and voila, I have a deep, rich beef broth that turns into gelatinous goodness when refrigerated. Phew! Day one was a long, exhausting day on my feet. I need to get a lighter ladle if I'm going to do more marathon skimming.

Now back to the beautiful, brand new Dutch oven. Day two starts with many of the same vegetables and herbs that finished off the beef stock - leeks, carrots, onions, thyme, bay leaves - to flavor the wine sauce, as well as shallots, smashed garlic cloves and mushrooms. It was quite a colorful and fragrant combination:

Per instruction, I added a full bottle of very drinkable red wine, and let it simmer for half an hour while I seasoned, dredged in flour and seared off the short ribs. I added more vegetables, built a cheesecloth nest, laid the short ribs in the nest, topped it off with the beef stock, covered it with a parchment lid, and popped it into the preheated oven.

Two hours later, I strained and simmered the sauce while the beef rested, and then served the braised short rib with a simple salad and plain rice. I, my husband, and a few of our closest friends, were rewarded for my two-day effort with undoubtedly the best short ribs we had ever tasted.

That is correct, they were better than any restaurant short ribs we had before. They were so good, I exerted the effort again a couple weeks later, making sure to braise extra short ribs to use a second day. If I was going to put in two days, I was going to get two dinners out of it!

ad hoc at home #1: buttermilk fried chicken

Eating at French Laundry is a "once-in-a-lifetime" experience, which Mark and I experienced twice last year. After years of skepticism, I chanced upon a reservation (cute story for later), and after the first meal, I easily became one of their biggest fans (so much so that we went back 6 months later and brought a larger party with us). So it was only fitting that one of my foodie friends gave me Thomas Keller's new cookbook, ad hoc at home, as a holiday gift.

Keller waxes poetic about how this book is about home cooking and "family meals," even signing our copy to "Alice & Mark, It's all about family, Thomas Keller." So I decided to embark on a modified Julie Powell-esque journey to try as many recipes as I can and blog about them. But I'm doing it without a deadline or a promise to make every recipe, because I am fully aware of the challenge.

If you know anything about Thomas Keller, you can imagine his idea of home cooking is not anyone else's idea of home cooking. Unlike Julia Child, Ina Garten, Martha Stewart, Nigella Lawson, or the slew of other celebrity chefs that attempt to make their recipes accessible to the average American cook, Keller is unapologetically uncompromising about the techniques, the number of steps (lots of cross-referencing to brines, stocks and other base components you need to prepare prior to carrying out the recipe you intend), and particularly the time, necessary to create the desired flavors. The only area he seems relaxed about is presentation.

So I'm taking it slow, one week at a time - only wise considering most of the recipes are two-day affairs. Yet I think if I am as meticulous as I can be in following the instructions, it will all work out.

For the buttermilk fried chicken, it did all work out, in the end. Becoming all-consumed and pressed for time the day of cooking and eating, I wound up with only one picture of the chicken - raw, after being cut into pieces, but before going into the brine.

In the picture there are only eight pieces when there are supposed to be ten. We realized right after snapping this picture that we were also supposed to separate the drumstick from the thigh (no, this is not even Keller's eight-piece cut, which has separated drumstick and thigh, but without the breast cut in half). So we promptly separated the drumstick and thigh. We took this picture because it was an ordeal just to get this far, a process which taught us that regular kitchen shears are not poultry shears, and that we really should get a pair of poultry shears before we try this recipe again.

My chicken was too big (I used 1 5-lb chicken instead of 2 3-lb chickens as recommended because that is what they had at the farmers market that week), and so I brined for just a bit longer than the prescribed 12 hours, and fried for a minute or two longer than suggested for each piece. Luckily Mark was able to find the temperature-controlled deep fryer from our college days, so I didn't have to bother with maintaining temperature with a pot, flame, and thermometer. Even so, at least half the flour mixture and a good amount of canola oil ended up on the floor and my apron before all was fried and done. Just as well since the use of 1 bigger chicken instead of 2 smaller ones meant I had less surface area to coat anyway.

The result was VERY tasty fried chicken that is definitely worth making again. Crispy and flavorful on the outside; juicy, perfectly seasoned, and lemony (which was unusual, but refreshing) on the inside. I wish I had a picture to show, but it was so delicious we couldn't help but dig in even before the last pieces were fried.