My Dinner Table

Salted Butter Caramel Ice Cream

 

This may be the tastiest thing to come out of my kitchen in a long time, while maybe since the malted milk ice cream earlier this summer. That was pretty good, but this was fantastic. I've been meaning to make it for a couple of months ago when I first read it on David Lebovitz's blog. He makes the incredibly bold assertion that it is better than the one from Berthillion in Paris, what I believe may be the best ice cream shop in the world. I have fond memories of nibbling away at incredible cassis ice cream from the shop and a brilliant bitter chocolate. But as he says, he's spent more than his fair share of time standing on the Pont Marie eating ice cream, I needed to give the recipe a try. 

This is a terrific ice cream. Sweet and salty. The caramel just barely burned, giving it a slight bitter taste, but in a good way. The use of good quality fleur de sel providing a smart contrast. This was a very adult ice cream. Lebovitz recommends a couple of variations including the addition of dark chocolate truffles, which I would love to try.

Pork Belly Biscuits

So it had to come to and end. At some point I was going to finish the pork belly and now I'm a little sad. I'm going to need to get another one soon. I was out of steamed buns and I didn't want to eat another bowl of ramen with it, so I had to think of another way to eat the pork belly. David Chang has other recipes in the Momofuku cookbook that use pork belly, but I wanted something easy. So here it is. Buttermilk biscuits with slices of pork belly that have been crisped up in a fry pan. A delicious breakfast with a little bit of apricot preserves made by some friends. I was a little wary of the idea of eating the preserves with the pork, but Daphne assured me that's the way it was done. It was friggin fantastic. The salty pork belly. The sweet of the preseves. All with the soft fluffy buttermilk biscuit. I think Chang would approve.

Ramen with Pork Belly

 

Faced with a large piece of pork belly, I'm going to need to find a way to eat it up. I've eaten all the steamed buns I bought at T&T and I don't feel like attempting the recipe in the Momofuku cookbook that makes 50 more. So ramen seemed like a pretty good option and let me say after eating it, it was a friggin awesome option. Noodle Bar serves their ramen with two kinds of pork. The belly and some pulled pork, but I had to suffer along with just one. It was very good. I crisped the slices up in a fry pan before putting into the soup. It was excellent. The fattiness of the pork added much to my bowl of noodles. I'll have no problem eating up the rest of the pork belly.

Momofuku Pork Buns

I decided to go with the pork buns first. The pork buns are what David Chang is famous for after all and judging by the talk online about the pork buns I had to give it a go. I bought my steamed buns to make the sandwiches instead of making the recipe in the book. It made it a lot easier. So, after steaming them up and cutting them in half to make a little sandwich of pork belly and pickled cucumber, they were ready.

Taking my first bite I knew why there is so much talk about them. They are fantastic. The rich fattiness of the pork belly, the sweet-and-salty crunch of the cucumber and the hard-to-describe addition of the hoisin sauce. Brilliant. These are really good. In the cookbook, Chang describes it as a pretty simple take on something you can find all over Asia. Steamed bun + Tasty meat = Good eating. And he's right. The flavours aren't unfamiliar. It is a bit like the steamed char sui bao you get at dim sum, only different. Maybe a cross between that and peking duck. 

Momofuku Pork Belly

There are a handful of foods that if I see on a menu that I can't resist. Most of them are things that I cannot or will not make at home. Chief among them, at least until yesterday, was pork belly. I'd never cooked it, but ever since the Momofuku cookbook arrived on my doorstep I've been thinking I really should give it a try. There is something glorious about pork belly. It really is all about the fat. I mean really. It is where bacon comes from, so how much better could it be. It is the best part of Homer's magical animal that gives us bacon, ham and pork chops. It isn't something that you can eat every day. Maybe not even every month. The pork belly is the key ingredient to two of Chang's iconic dishes. The ramen, which they serve with both pork bell and pulled pork, and the steamed pork buns. So, I was really left with no choice. I had to make one. 

Chang's recipe is simple. He rubs it with a combination of salt and sugar, leaves it over night and then roasts it in the oven. First at high heat, then at a slow heat for just over two hours. Apparently this technique was discovered when Chang cranked up the heat on the oven accidentally before turning it down to finish the cooking. The result for me was that there were a few burned bits, but I ended up trimming them off. I think the burned bits came mostly from the sugar in the rub, but other wise it was a pretty fantastic looking piece of meat. I've now let it cool in the fridge and have to decide what to have it first with. Ramen or pork buns.

Building Blocks - Vinegar Pickles

There are a lot of recipes for little side dishes of things to go with some of the iconic dishes in the Momofuku cookbook. Building blocks for the larger dishes that I suppose you could not do and just buy the product, but what fun would that be. One of them is the vinegar pickles. You need them for the pork buns. You can serve them with the ramen, the ginger scallion noodles. All sorts of things. I've never really pickled anything before, but the book promises that it is dead easy, especially if you are going to eat them immediately and not planning on canning them. The recipe was as promised dead easy. A very simple brine of water, rice vinegar, salt and sugar. Thinly sliced cucumber and 20 minutes and they were ready to eat. It tasted a lot like the sunomono from Japanese cooking and I'm sure that's where the inspiration comes from. After a couple days, the pickles tasted a little more like bread and butter pickles. The delicate flavour of the rice vinegar balanced against the sugar was very good. I can't wait to use this brine for the many other suggestions he has including picked apples, cantelope and chiles.

Ginger Scallion Noodles

David Chang talks a lot about his love of noodles, cheap Chinese food and fried chicken. So I know this is a cookbook that I'm going to love as those are all things that I can agree on. For my first attempt I decided to go with something pretty simple. The ginger scallion noodles. Sorry to those of you who had hoped that I would be starting with the shaved foie gras with lychee and pine nut brittle. Hopefully I will get there, but just not right away. The ginger scallion noodles are what Chang describes as "an homage to/out-and-out rip-off of one of the greatest dishes in New York City, the $4.95 plate of ginger scallion noodles at Great New York Noodletown." So really how could I not want to try it. The book recommends that you use ramen noodles, but I used won-tun noodles because I figured that was probably what the original dish used. I also added back the hoisin that Chang suggests adding back in if I'm not also making the pork buns. Oh, and I also dispensed with the vegetable garnish.

This was a dead easy plate of noodles. It just took a little time to mince the ginger. I also boosted the sherry vinegar a little. It tastes a lot like malt vinegar, which I love and still put on leftover chow mein when I'm at home. But it was delicious. The flavours were simple, but came together oh so well. I'd love to try this ginger scallion sauce on different things. Maybe a piece of chicken or fish. I think steaming a little fish with it would be fantastic. Or perhaps a little spoonful with a raw oyster. I'm not sure it really has any limits to what it can do. I'll make this dish again and again. I'll just have to remember to keep noodles, green onion and ginger around. that shouldn't be so difficult. I might even try the vegetables to go with it next time.

Leftover Osso Bucco as Pasta

There are few things that I like more than noodles to eat. It is probably one of the biggest reason why I will never go on an low-carb diet. I love noodles too much. I love all sorts of noodles from every culture I've tried them. At the top of the heap are probably the Asian versions. Whether it is pho, wonton with noodles or ramen. Maybe curry laksa, chow mein or those great Singapore noodles. But Western versions too. I love them all. And this one I had for lunch might be close to one of my favourites that I've made in a long time. It was leftover osso bucco with egg noodles and a healthy and by healthy I don't mean healthy I mean big handful of pine nut and horseradish gremolata. 

This started by taking the last of the leftover osso bucco, taking the meat off the bone and heating it in a pot with a splash of white wine as the water for the pasta boiled. I also scooped out the marrow and mixed it into what was become a sauce for a little extra richness and broke up the meat with the back of a spoon. Then came the broad egg noodles and tossed them with what had become a bit of a tomato-based sauce with braised veal and poured the whole mess in a bowl. Topped with a handful of gremolata, voila I had lunch. It had all the wonderful qualities of the osso bucco dinner, bites of the rich veal, the sharpness of the gremolata. It was almost better than the dinner because it didn't feel as heavy. And the pasta soaked up lots of the flavours. If you have any leftover osso bucco, I can't suggest this way of eating enough. It was fantastic.

Leftover Risotto - Arancini

After the osso bucco, I had leftovers. I love making meals that leave me with leftovers. But the thing is we don't have a microwave. It is mostly a space thing. There is simply no room for it in our tiny kitchen. There is barely enough room for the coffee machine, a microwave with take up pretty much the rest of the counterspace. Perhaps when we move to a larger space I'll think about getting one, but for now it really is out of the question. There is no space. I'm OK with this though, but it has forced me to think about leftovers a little differently. It isn't just a matter of reheating the same dish that I made the night before. I can do it in the oven, but what fun would that be. So I've started to look for new ways and arancini are the perfect re-engineering of leftover risotto.

I started by taking a little scoop of the cold risotto and putting it into my palm, making a little divot with the handle of a spoon. A little cube of mozzarella and a bit of the tomato sauce from the osso bucco filled it and then a little more risotto was used to make a round ball, bigger than a squash ball, but smaller than a tennis ball. These were left in the fridge to firm up for about an hour or so.

Once chilled, the balls were dipped in egg and rolled in bread crumbs.

And then Daphne fried them in oil that was just north of 350F. I always leave the frying stage to her. She's so much better at it than I am. Something about the Southerner in her I guess.

We ate them with a little arugula salad. The bitterness of the arugula and the sourness of the lemon dressing helped cut the incredible richness of the arancini. The richness of risotto combined with a crisp brown exterior. What's not to love.

Osso Bucco with Pine Nut and Horseradish Gremolata

Ottawa has had a terrible summer. Rainy. Sort of like a Vancouver summer, so haven't really minded all that much, but Saturday may have been the tipping point. Summer is definitely over. It was a very fall day and that meant fall food. Food for a cold and rainy day and for me that means braised meat and at the top of the pile of braised meat is osso bucco. Veal shanks cooked for hours, low and slow. It is comfort food that requires the oven being on for three hours at least. Not exactly something I'd normally cook in August, but the day was asking for it.

The dish begins with the veal shanks that have been seasoned with salt and pepper and dried with a paper towel before being browned in a big oven proof pot with a little cooking oil. Tied with string to maintain their shape and carefully placed in the pot one at a time not to crowd them and have them steam instead of brown. Take your time with this. You're building flavour with the browning that you won't be able to make up for later in the process. I used a medium heat, but played with it constantly though the browing to get the right measure of cooking, but not burning.

After it piece was cooked I took them out and held them aside before dumping in a bowl full of a chopped onion, several carrots and several stalks of celery, plus several cloves of garlic that had been minced. The vegetables were seasoned with salt and pepper and cooked in the same pot and oil that the veal was browned in, then came about two, maybe three, tablespoons of tomato paste. All this was allowed to brown and then about a cup of white wine was added and I scraped up any of the brown bits stuck to the bottom of the pot. This was followed by about a cup of chicken stock from my freezer and about a cup and a half of strained tomatoes. Then came a couple of strips of lemon zest, a couple of bay leaves and a bundle of parsley and thyme that had been tied together so I could fish it out easily when the cooking was down. The meat was returned to the pot, the lid was put on and the whole thing put in the oven for two hours at about 325F. After two hours, I took the lid off and continued the baking for another 30 minutes or so,

This was the result. I carefully removed the veal shanks, trying to keep them as intact as possible and put them on a platter. Then I fished out the bundle of herbs, the bay leaves and the lemon zest before reducing the liquid a little on the stove top. Once done, I returned the veal on top of the sauce and vegetables and put the cover on to await dinner. This was all done hours before our guests arrived for dinner. That's the brilliance of osso bucco as a dinner party food. All the work is done ahead and you don't have to worry about it. Just rewarm it when your guests are ready to eat and you're golden. We served this with a saffron risotto. I will go into the risotto technique another time, but there was nothing special about it. Very standard stuff, taught to me by Jessica, that I use all the time. 

But here's the part that set this osso bucco apart from all others that I've had. The horseradish and pine nut gremolata. If you've made or eaten osso bucco before you'll know that it is one of the richest dishes you'll have. And the heavy nature of braised veal shanks isn't exactly lightened by a side of saffron risotto. What does make it very good is the gremolata. A mixture of parsley, lemon zest and garlic. But this time I did something a little different. I used the one from the Babbo cookbook. It is a mixture of parsley and lemon zest, but it also uses toasted pine nuts and fresh grated horseradish. Plus a little salt and pepper. This was fantastic. The horseradish brings out so much more than just lemon zest on its own, while the pine nuts add an element of texture, plus a little richness of their own. It made all the difference for the dish. I absolutely loved it and will definitely use this gremolata again.

Osso Bucco

Veal shanks.

Salt and pepper.

One onion, diced

Three carrots, diced.

Three stalks of celery, diced.

Four cloves of garlic, mined.

Two tablespoons tomato paste.

One cup white wine.

One cup chicken broth.

One and a half cups strained tomatoes.

Two bay leaves.

Two strips lemon zest.

One bundle of several springs of thyme and several sprigs of parsley.

Gremolata

Zest of one lemon

1/4 cup grated fresh horseradish

3/4 cup chopped parsley

1/4 cup toasted pine nuts

Salt and pepper