Sunday, February 21, 2010

Bo Ssam


Our Momofuku adventure has begun. For Christmas Jason got me the Momofuku cookbook. Momofuku is a restaurant that me Jason discovered on our first trip to New York. This is one of the most amazing places in the world. We couldn't stop talking about it. We had these pork belly buns that were to die for, a ramen dish that was out of this world and a rice cake shrimp salad. It was a meal that would go on living in our memories forever. So naturally on our next trip to New York, we knew that Momofuku would be part of our journey. Momofuku Ko is one of the hardest places to get reservations in the country. David Chang has never made an exception for anyone no matter how famous in getting reservations at Ko. At 10 in the morning on I think the second week of the month or something specific, you can get online and for a split second try and book a slot to Ko. There are only 12 seats. The moment you click on one, they are gone. Somehow, by the grace of God, my mom got us in. I was having her try and get one at the same time as me. Somehow she got us in for 9 o'clock at night. I didn't care if it was midnight. This place was insane. You will have to read my post on it if you are interested at all. We also checked out his place called Milk Bar which is a bakery with many interesting desserts including cereal milk ice cream and "crack pie". It was good. The chocolate cake I had was insane. I can't remember the exact details but I do know the middle layer was some kind of yellow cake crumbled into a buttercream icing. Delicious. On our next trip we are going to try the only one left that we haven't tried and that is Momofuku Ssam Bar. It is going to be great. All I have read are great things. David Chang is also in the works of opening a place called Ma Peche. It may be open in time for us. We are keeping our fingers crossed.

This cookbook is just off the hook. Things the average person would just not make in their home. However, we are determined to try at least some of them. There are people out there that are cooking their way through this book. To them, I admire you and pitty you at the same time. It is a lot of work, not only to find the ingredients but to make the dish.


Jason has been asking me to make this Bo Ssam for weeks now. Really since he gave me the book for Christmas, so I decided to indulge him. Boy am I happy I did. It was a lot of work but when we sat down to eat that meal on Sunday afternoon, it was worth every bit of it. I think I say it was difficult because it actually took a lot of planning out. Making it was pretty simple. Just make sure you are going to be home for 6 plus hours to baste the pork. He set his alarm and woke up at 5 am on Sunday in order to put that bad boy in the oven. Then woke up every hour to baste it. The night before you cover it in sea salt. Having made it once now we decided we would probably rinse it the next day before baking it as some bites were very very salty. It was flavorful though. During the last 15 minutes you crank up the oven to 500 and cover it in brown sugar and salt. It created this delicious crust on the pork. The pork was so tender we didn't think we could get it from the pot to the platter without it completely falling apart. You can see in the picture when even with the help of two of us, the end came apart. It was phenomenal, amazing, delicious, tasty. Everything we could have hoped for. We created a meal in our home that sells for $200 at his restaurant and must be pre ordered in advance. This was an amazing feast. It is served in bibb lettuce cups.




We made a ginger scallion sauce and kimchi that were also in the book. Both were phenomenal. I mean, I could not stop eating the kimchi. It was so tasty. It was super simple too. The only odd things we really had to add to it were salted jarred shrimp and Korean chili powder but we found them both at our supermarket. The kimchi was a process. That you cut up and set in the fridge overnight with a sprinkling of salt and sugar. The next day you add the rest of the ingredients and let it set another 24 hours. We didn't let it set. It was amazing right away. Kimchi is meant to be eaten after it has become fermented but to us it was amazing right away.


We also served it with white rice and some quick pickled cucumbers that were also in the book. They were perfect. I would highly recommend this dish for any gathering you want to impress the hell out of someone or even to enjoy yourself. There is nothing bad about having leftovers. Trust me, these leftovers only get better and better.

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Tuscan Vegetable Soup

This week I got super motivated to cook as I haven't had the energy to much lately. All it took was me getting angry about eating crap all week. Spaghetti noodles with sauce from a jar and sliced chicken sausage is not my idea of making dinner. So on thursday I drug Lucy out to Garden Fresh to stock up on the goods. For lunch I decided to make us fajitas. And they were delicious. I am craving them right now. Garden Fresh sells a mix in the meat counter so it was super cheap and simple. Had some tortillas already so lunch was done. For dinner I was going to make my tride and true sloppy joe recipe that I have made at least a dozen times according to my cookbook. I always write the date on the page with the recipe so that I know how many times and when I made the dish. I usually comment on how the dish came out as well so I know if I should not make it again. In this case, yeah, I should make it again.

Ellie Kreiger is my hero. I was looking at her cookbook and made all three of my dishes from this book. I have made a fair amount of recipes out of this book. Everything but one has been something I would make again. All of her dishes are healthy but full of flavor. I made her tabbouleh salad. It was really good the first day I must say, however the second and third day it was lacking something. If I wouldn't have been feeding it to Jason I would have put some green olives diced in there to give it some umph. Other than that it was a really light and refreshing salad in the middle of winter.

The last dish I made was really yummy. A Tuscan Vegetable Soup. It was full of healthy vegetables, beans, and tomatoey broth. It was the perfect meal to eat today and the crusty French loaf just put it over the edge. I would highly recommend a sprinkling of parmesean in the end. It really finished off the soup nicely. I didn't have fresh so I just used the old foot powder and it tasted great. I would definitely be making this soup again.