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 #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 #5: beef stroganoff

As I indicated in my last post, the ad hoc at home braised beef short ribs are a precursor to two other recipes in the cookbook, and the second time I made them, I made extra to use a second day in one of these other recipes. I chose to make the Beef Stroganoff. And it was rich, well-balanced, full of beef and mushroom flavor, and totally yummy despite (1) the fact that I used store-bought pappardelle instead of making my own, (2) I used a hand blender (instead of an actual blender or fine-mesh strainer, can't remember which he called for) so my mushroom cream sauce still had small bits of mushroom, which is totally fine by me, and (3) it turned out looking like this:


Believe you me the pictures do not do it justice. I knew that the mushroom flavor would be the key to this dish, but boy did I underestimate it's power. The rich, beefy goodness of the short ribs combined with the deep, creamy, mushroom flavors rendered my three-day process (day 1: beef stock, day 2: braised short ribs, day 3: beef stroganoff) totally worth it. Needless to say, after hours of cooking, Mark and I devoured it.

ad hoc at home #2 and #3: crispy braised chicken thighs and creamed baby spinach

What better day to put in some effort in the kitchen than Valentine's Day. On the other hand, you want to enjoy the day with your special someone, preferably with a delicious dinner to share. Mark and I have long since stopped going to restaurants on this day for overpriced, mass produced food. Usually one or the other of us cooks, and then is too exhausted to do much apart from watching TV as the other one cleans. As a testament to the evolution of our relationship to the point where we can share the kitchen (which was not always the case), we decided to cook together. It was brilliant, and I wish we could have come up with the idea years ago.

Mark and I decided to each tackle a single recipe from ad hoc at home. I chose a relatively uncomplicated main course, and he chose an uncharacteristically complicated side dish ... so we were even.

I made crispy braised chicken thighs with lemon and fennel. It was supposed to include olives, but I don't like how olives overpower other flavors I love, so I left them out. You'll find me taking just such artistic license with recipes often because if there's something Mark and I know well, it is what we like to eat.

For this recipe, I learned how to cut fennel into "batons" (I normally slice the bulb into uneven, unmanageable open rings). I also learned that by browning the chicken skin side down to a crisp, and then braising it skin side up, you can achieve braised chicken with a crispy skin.

Like I said, it was a pretty straightforward recipe considering its source.

Mark took on the creamed baby spinach, which seems like it should be simple enough ... not. Like many of his recipes, it was two recipes in one. He had to first learn to make a Mornay Sauce, one of Keller's "basic" sauces involving five herbs and spices, diced onions, butter, flour, milk and heavy cream, some cheese we don't normally keep in the house (Comte or Emmentaler), and 35-40 minutes of stirring. This is all before you cook and strain the spinach, mix it in with the Mornay Sauce, bake it, and then broil it.

To be fair, we left out the cheese because we didn't feel like combing the extensive cheese counter for these specific cheeses. Still it took Mark about the same amount of time to make the spinach as I did to make the braised chicken, so at least the timing turned out nicely. It really was the best creamed spinach we've ever had, but I'm not sure I could get Mark to make it again.

We washed it all down with one of our favorite Rieslings.

And finished the dinner with my first ever chocolate souffles, from a recipe I saw on Gordon Ramsay's The f Word (the "f" stands for food). For this triumph, I had to do a lot of metric to U.S. customary conversions, and learn to make corn flour from corn starch and flour. The corn flour thickens the milk to a "yogurty" texture, the result being a "creme patissiere" (yes, lots of learning happened that day). After 3-4 minutes of stirring, I wasn't sure "yogurty" was an accurate description, and just when I was about ready to give up on achieving the desired texture, it happened. It really took on the texture of yogurt.

Then came the chopped chocolate, egg yolks, whip the egg whites with the superfine (=caster) sugar, load the batter into buttered ramekins pre-sprinkled with grated chocolate, and tada!

Okay, after the prescribed 6-8 minutes, it wasn't quite ready. But given 5 more minutes, tada!

There may have been a more impressive rise had I not disturbed them when they were not ready, but they were deliciously decadent with a very gooey center, and Mark said this was how he wished all restaurants served their chocolate souffles, so I declare victory.

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.