Ad Hoc hosted a special book signing event called “A Morning with Thomas Keller” at the restaurant yesterday, and I was lucky enough to get an invitation. Chef Keller spent the morning signing Ad Hoc at Home cookbooks alongside Ad Hoc Chef de Cuisine Dave Cruz as the Ad Hoc staff served up hors d’oeuvres featuring selected recipes from the cookbook.

The Invitation

It was an exciting day for me because I finally got to meet Thomas Keller and shake the hand of a man whose restaurants have changed my life. As I’ve written before, my first meal at Ad Hoc in June 2007 was a major culinary epiphany for me. It changed the way I thought about how food was prepared and sourced, and it made me appreciate a level of dining that I normally would’ve avoided based solely on cost.

Ad Hoc Chef de Cuisine Dave Cruz (left) and Chef Thomas Keller

When I approached the table, Chef Cruz leaned over and told Chef Keller about my blog and the Ad Hoc Menu Archive. I told Chef Keller about our dinner at the brand-new Bouchon Beverly Hills last weekend (took my mom for her birthday), and he was glad to know we had a great dinner. I also let him know that the entire city of Los Angeles is anxiously awaiting the arrival of Bouchon Bakery. He didn’t really respond to that, but I think he knows that LA wants that bakery. :)

Is he really interested in what I’m saying or does he think I’m a crazy fanboy?

In the end, Chef Keller shook my hand, thanked me for all the support and graciously posed for a picture. Thanks, Simone for snapping this pic. :)

I think this moment could only be topped if I ever met Magic Johnson. :)

Now that that’s out of the way…on to the food! The first thing we were offered were the Albondigas, a veal meatball atop a tomato compote. Unfortunately, I was too busy devouring these to take a picture. Here’s the rest of the spread…

Toast with Fig Jam

It’s not really an Ad Hoc party without some fried chicken.

Fried Chicken Lollipops

A bit of beef stroganoff.

The ratatouille was a simple and brilliant spoonful of soffrito topped with tomato confit, eggplant confit, and zucchini confit.

Ratatouille as you’ve never seen it before.

The lemon bars were like mini lemon meringue pies but also reminded me one of my favorite desserts, Bouchon’s Tarte au Citron.

Perfect Little Lemon Bars

What more do you need when there’s chocolate cupcakes?

Chocolate Cupcakes

Overall, it was a really fun event, and I was honored to have been invited. Thanks to everyone at Ad Hoc for always making me feel at home. Here’s the full set of pictures:

Possibly Related Posts:

• Know Your Ribeye, a.k.a. New Year’s Eve at Ad Hoc
• The French Laundry (with an Ad Hoc chaser)
• Cook the Book: Ad Hoc at Home – Blowtorch Prime Rib
• Cook the Book: Momofuku – Roasted Rice Cakes
• Cook the Book: Momofuku – Ginger Scallion Noodles

In my world, there is no finer snack than some chicharrones, a.k.a. fried pork rinds. It’s something I’ve been eating since I was a kid, and Filipinos love it with sukang sili (chili vinegar) and beer.

Over the past year, chicharrones have been embraced by the “mainstream” through the efforts of chefs like Ryan Farr of 4505 Meats, whose chicharrones, despite my initial apprehensions, are other worldly. They’re incredibly light and when they’re fresh, they snap, crackle, and pop in your mouth like porky Rice Krispies.

Because they’re so cheap and readily available near me, I’d never considered making chicharrones at home until a couple weeks ago. I had some pork skin left over after removing it to making the Momofuku Pork Belly, and it would be a shame to waste such a nice piece of pork skin. There’s also a recipe in the Momofuku cookbook since they serve a piece of chicharron to every guest as an amuse bouche at Momofuku Ko.

The process is pretty simple. First, put the pig skin in a pot of water and boil it for about an hour a half, then chill it in the refrigerator for a few hours.

Pig skin after chillin’ out overnight.

Use a spoon to scrape off any excess fat left on the skin and put it in a food dehydrator for 12 hours. It should look like a brown piece of plastic.

Break this into small pieces and fry them up.

Next, break the dehydrated pig skin into 1×2-inch pieces. This doesn’t have to be exact, as the small pieces make nice chicharrones, too. Heat some oil (preferably one with a high smoke point) to between 390-400F in a deep pot. Drop a piece of pig skin into the oil and agitate it a bit until it puffs up. This should take about 10 seconds. Fry each piece one at a time, so they don’t stick together. Here’s a short iPhone video I shot to give you an idea of how long it takes.

After frying, season the hot chicharrones with a mixture of equal parts togarashi (Japanese 7-spice powder), sugar, and kosher salt. Serve them hot or at room temperature. You should eat them within a few days when they’re still crunchy, but I doubt these will last more than a few minutes. :)

Possibly Related Posts:

• Cook the Book: Ad Hoc at Home – Blowtorch Prime Rib
• Cook the Book: Momofuku – Roasted Rice Cakes
• Cook the Book: Momofuku – Fried Chicken
• Cook the Book: Momofuku – Ginger Scallion Noodles
• Cook the Book: Momofuku – Pork Belly Buns

Momofuku Week ends with this recipe for Roasted Rice Cakes, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be posting more recipes from the book very soon.

Roasted Rice Cakes

I had little interest in Korean food until a few years ago. My experience had been limited to the plethora of grilled meats that most people associate with Korean cuisine, and other standards like bibimbap, soondubu, and even banchan were never on my radar. It wasn’t until I ordered the roasted rice cakes at Momofuku Noodle Bar in 2007 that I started get more interested in non-barbecued Korean dishes.

I remember ordering the roasted rice cakes as an appetizer without having any idea what it was. When they arrived at the table, I marveled at the bright red sauce that coated the crunchy-yet-chewy rice cakes. My friend Soo Jin told me that this dish was called dok boki (dok means rice cake), and it soon became a regular order when I was at Korean restaurants.

Roasted Rice Cakes at Noodle Bar circa 2007

Momofuku’s roasted rice cakes deviate from traditional dok boki by pan roasting the rice cakes instead of boiling them so that they’re crispy on the outside but still chewy on the inside. According to David Chang, pan roasting is something he only saw in Japan, and to me, the texture contrasts make the dish a lot more delectable.

In the book, Chang says:

“I equate the difference between boiled dok and grilled, griddled or fried rice cakes to the difference between boiled and grilled hot dogs. Each has its place, but that char, that extra bit of flavor and texture you get from the direct heat does a lot for the dok, just as it does for hot dogs.”

Like hot dog carts in New York, dok boki vendors are ubiquitous in Seoul, and this recipe is Chang’s interpretation of classic Korean street food. It features pan-roasted rice cakes tossed in Korean Red Dragon Sauce (recipe below) and garnished with green onions and sesame seeds. The Red Dragon sauce includes roasted onions, which I overcooked slightly but still added a nice smoky flavor. I was able to pick up fresh rice cakes and other ingredients from a great little Korean market near my house.

RECIPE
Roasted Rice Cakes
Note: The recipe calls for ramen broth, but I didn’t have any on hand so I substituted it with bacon dashi. They’re two totally different things, but the end result was still really good.

¼ cup mirin
¼ cup bacon dashi
½ cup Korean Red Dragon Sauce
¼ cup of roasted onions
2 tablespoons canola oil
12 rice cakes (about 3-inch-long pieces.)
1 tablespoon sesame seeds (for garnish)
½ cup sliced green onions (greens and whites, for garnish)

Combine mirin and bacon dashi in a saucepan big enough to hold the rice cakes later. Boil to reduce until lightly thickened, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the Korean Red Dragon Sauce, turn the heat down to medium and reduce the sauce to a glossy consistency, 6 to 7 minutes. Stir in the roasted onions. Cover and keep warm until rice cakes are ready.

While the sauce is reducing, heat a very clean cast-iron skillet over medium heat until hot. Add the oil to the pan and when it just starts to smoke, add the rice cakes. Sear the rice cakes for about 3 minutes per side until they’re light golden brown.

Bring the sauce back up to a a boil and toss the rice cakes in for a few seconds until they’re evenly coated. Add sesame seeds and toss again. Transfer to a serving platter and garnish with green onions.

Korean Red Dragon Sauce
½ cup water
½ cup sugar
¾ cup ssamjang (fermented bean and chile paste)
2 tablespoons light soy sauce
1 teaspoon sherry vinegar
(or mix ½ teaspoon rice vinegar and ½ teaspoon sherry wine)
1 teaspoon sesame oil

Bring water and sugar to a boil in a small saucepan, stirring until sugar dissolves. Remove from the heat and let cool for a few minutes, then stir in the ssamjang to dissolve it. Stir in the soy sauce, vinegar, and sesame oil. Taste the sauce; no one flavor should stand out, but all should be present and accounted for. Adjust as necessary.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Cook the Book: Ad Hoc at Home – Blowtorch Prime Rib
• A Morning with Thomas Keller: Ad Hoc at Home Book Signing
• Chicharrones (Fried Pork Rinds)
• Cook the Book: Momofuku – Fried Chicken
• Cook the Book: Momofuku – Ginger Scallion Noodles

Momofuku Week trudges on with a fried chicken recipe that’s my new favorite because it’s super easy and—as David Chang might say—fucking awesome. :)

You might assume that this would be a recipe for Korean fried chicken (KFC), especially since Noodle Bar offers a bountiful platter of both Korean and American fried chicken for up to 8 people for $100. (If you think that’s expensive, it breaks down to $12.50 for 8 people, and in our ravenous group of 8, we had leftovers.) The fried chicken recipe from the Momofuku cookbook is quickly becoming an all-time favorite. It’s up there with the Ad Hoc fried chicken, but the two are so different that they live on their own perfect little islands.

Noodle Bar’s Fried Chicken Platter

The main reason this fried chicken hits home for me is the Octo Vinaigrette that’s used to dress the chicken before serving. The Octo Vin was originally designed as an accompaniment for a grilled octopus dish, but it works wonders on the fried chicken, as well. It’s not an ordinary vinaigrette because the oil/vinegar ratios are reversed, and it’s loaded with fresh garlic and ginger. The smell is enough to get me excited about eating this fried chicken.

Works great on chicken wings, too!

Chang employs a three-step process for this fried chicken: brine, steam, and fry. This is similar to my modification of the Ad Hoc Fried Chicken Recipe where I brine, sous vide, and fry the bird. The brine is a simple salt, sugar and water mixture and the brining time is anywhere between one and six hours. The chicken is then steamed for 45 minutes for so and then cooled for a couple hours. I took the steamed chicken and let it sit on a cooling rack in the fridge overnight. This helps dry out the chicken skin and helps it crisp up really nicely when it’s in the oil.

Take the chicken out of the fridge at least 30 minutes before you want to cook them. Then fry the chicken in 350F oil for about 6-8 minutes. Since the chicken is already cooked, you really only need to fry until the skin reaches your desired level of crispiness. Remove the chicken from the oil and drain them on a rack or paper towels. Before serving toss the chicken in the Octo Vin and garnish with sliced green onions.

RECIPES

Fried Chicken Brine
Good for 3–3½ pounds of chicken. I prefer legs and thighs, but wings work, too.
4 cups lukewarm water
½ cup sugar
½ cup kosher salt

Octo Vinaigrette
2 tbsp finely chopped garlic
2 tbsp chopped peeled fresh ginger
1 small fresh jalapeno seeded and chopped, or 1 tbsp Sriracha
¼ cup rice wine vinegar
¼ cup usukuchi (light soy sauce)
2 tbsp grapeseed or other neutral oil
¼ tsp Asian sesame oil
1½ tbsp sugar
Freshly ground black pepper

Download PDF excerpts of these recipes (courtesy of Time Out New York):

• Fried Chicken
• Octo Vin

Tomorrow: Roasted Rice Cakes

Possibly Related Posts:

• Cook the Book: Ad Hoc at Home – Blowtorch Prime Rib
• Chicharrones (Fried Pork Rinds)
• Cook the Book: Momofuku – Roasted Rice Cakes
• Cook the Book: Momofuku – Ginger Scallion Noodles
• Cook the Book: Momofuku – Pork Belly Buns

Day 3 of Inuyaki’s Momofuku Week lightens things up with a dish that has absolutely no meat in it.

Ginger Scallion Noodles

One of the book’s easiest recipes the Ginger Scallion Noodles. David Chang says that ginger scallion sauce is “one of the great sauces or condiments ever,” and it’s one of Momofuku’s mother sauces. The ginger scallion sauce is a simple combination of finely minced ginger, thinly sliced scallions, light soy sauce, oil, kosher salt and sherry vinegar. I couldn’t find any sherry vinegar locally so I substituted it with rice vinegar, which worked nicely.

Chang says you can use this sauce on anything and encourages improvising, but I liked his suggestion of topping ramen noodles with the sauce, quick-pickled cucumbers and pan-roasted cauliflower. There’s a bunch of pickle recipes in the book, but my wife did her own version with sugar, salt, and rice vinegar to taste.

You can eat this on its own or as part of a larger meal. Either way, it’s a delicious and healthy option to offset the book’s meat-centric focus.

GINGER SCALLION SAUCE
Makes about 3 cups

2½ cups thinly sliced scallions (greens and whites; from 1 to 2 large bunches)
½ cup finely minced peeled fresh ginger
¼ cup grapeseed or other neutral oil
1½ tsp usukuchi (light soy sauce)
¾ tsp sherry vinegar
¾ tsp kosher salt, or more to taste

Mix all the ingredients together and let sit for 15-20 minutes before using. It’ll keep in the fridge for about a week…if it lasts that long. :)

Tomorrow: Fried Chicken

Possibly Related Posts:

• Cook the Book: Ad Hoc at Home – Blowtorch Prime Rib
• A Morning with Thomas Keller: Ad Hoc at Home Book Signing
• Chicharrones (Fried Pork Rinds)
• Cook the Book: Momofuku – Roasted Rice Cakes
• Cook the Book: Momofuku – Fried Chicken

It’s Day 2 of Momofuku Week at Inuyaki and today’s post on Pork Belly Buns is a great way to use the Pork Belly I wrote about yesterday.

Momofuku Pork Belly Buns

The Momofuku pork buns quickly (and inadvertently) became one of Noodle Bar’s signature items, and it’s nice to be able to recreate them at home. It’s basically a steamed bun with slices of pork belly, quick-pickled cucumbers, hoisin sauce, and green onions. My wife decided to pickle both cucumbers and carrots, and she julienned both instead of slicing them because it would be prettier.

The recipe for the steamed buns is in the book (link below), but I didn’t have time to make them, so I picked some up in the freezer section of a local Asian supermarket. They’re a little too thick and not as good as fresh, but they did the job. The second time I made this, I found a different style of buns in the refrigerated section of the market that were bigger and rounder and accommodated 2 slices of pork belly easily.

Steam the buns for a couple minutes until they’re heated through. While the buns are steaming, cut 1/2-inch slices of belly across the grain and warm them up before using—I grilled them in a cast iron skillet for about a minute a side. Depending on how big your buns are, you may have to cut the belly slices in half to get them to fit on the bun.

To assemble the pork belly buns, open up a bun and brush some hoisin sauce on top and bottom halves. Put the pork belly slices on the bottom half and pickled cucumbers and carrots on the top half. Garnish with a little green onion and eat immediately.

For reference, here’s what the pork belly buns look like when the restaurant serves them up (from our trip to Noodle Bar in September).

The “real” Momofuku Pork Belly Buns

Download PDF excerpts of these recipes (via Time Out New York):

• Pork Belly Buns
• Quick Salt Pickles

Tomorrow: Ginger Scallion Noodles

Possibly Related Posts:

• Cook the Book: Ad Hoc at Home – Blowtorch Prime Rib
• A Morning with Thomas Keller: Ad Hoc at Home Book Signing
• Chicharrones (Fried Pork Rinds)
• Cook the Book: Momofuku – Roasted Rice Cakes
• Cook the Book: Momofuku – Fried Chicken

Momofuku Week is a new series I made up yesterday after realizing an epic post I was writing about cooking from the Momofuku book was going to be too long. I decided to break up the posts over the next week since I’ve made enough dishes from the book to cover about a week’s worth of posts already.

Pork belly fresh out of the oven.

Momofuku’s pork belly is really easy to make, which is good because it’s used in a lot of other recipes in the book, including the famous pork buns, ramen, and sam gyup sal ssam. This was the only the second time I’ve ever made pork belly, and it’s safe to say that it was rousing success. (My first attempt at cooking pork belly was a sous vide version that was good, but I didn’t know what the hell I was doing at the time either.) I also have a piece of pork skin in the freezer waiting to become chicharrones. If I’m lucky, that might be the end of this week. :)

A skinless three-pound slab of pork belly sits in a simple 1:1 salt/sugar cure for between 6 to 24 hours. After discarding any excess liquid, put it roasting or baking dish and roast it fat side up in a 450F oven for an hour, basting it with rendered fat halfway through. Then reduce the oven temperature to 250F and cook it for another hour or so until the pork belly is tender and has—as the book says—”a down pillow-like yield to a firm finger poke.”

After cooking, save the rendered fat and cool the belly till you can handle it. Wrap it in plastic or foil and refrigerate until needed—the belly is easier to cut into uniform pieces when it’s cold. When you’re ready to use the pork belly, cut 1/2-inch slices from the short end of the belly (against the grain) and warm it up. I like to use a cast iron skillet over medium heat to lightly char each piece of pork belly on both sides.

Download a PDF excerpt of this recipe (via Time Out New York):

• Pork Belly

Tomorrow: Momofuku Pork Belly Buns.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Cook the Book: Ad Hoc at Home – Blowtorch Prime Rib
• A Morning with Thomas Keller: Ad Hoc at Home Book Signing
• Chicharrones (Fried Pork Rinds)
• Cook the Book: Momofuku – Roasted Rice Cakes
• Cook the Book: Momofuku – Fried Chicken

I’ve had Momofuku on my mind and in my stomach the last couple of weeks, so I’m declaring this week Momofuku Week at Inuyaki. It’s kinda like Shark Week, only tastier (unless you’re really into shark meat).

After getting my feet wet making the bacon dashi that inspired my Bacon Agedashi Tofu post, I went to a book signing with Chef David Chang and author Peter Meehan at Sur La Table in the San Francisco Ferry Building a few days later and got to show them my creation in person. (Chang’s response: Oh, cool!) We also had a brief discussion about the simplicity and goodness of bacon dashi.

Note: The actual signing wasn’t as boring as this sounds. Chang and Meehan had a lot of fun with everyone and engaged in a bit of scrapbooking for every book they signed. Here’s some pictures, including this gem:

I’m so cheesy. And why do we look so bloody happy?

The recipes in Momofuku range in difficulty from dead simple to fairly complicated. Chang even apologizes for some of the more complicated ones like his chicken wing recipe, which he says “…is the world’s longest recipe for chicken wings. Sorry. But they’re very, very good chicken wings.”

I chose to focus on some of the simpler recipes to start, but as with all cooking, simple doesn’t necessarily mean easy and often depends on your whether or not your willing to do some prep work.

That said, Momofuku Week officially starts tomorrow. First up: Momofuku Pork Belly!

Possibly Related Posts:

• A Morning with Thomas Keller: Ad Hoc at Home Book Signing
• Chicharrones (Fried Pork Rinds)
• Cook the Book: Momofuku – Roasted Rice Cakes
• Cook the Book: Momofuku – Fried Chicken
• Cook the Book: Momofuku – Ginger Scallion Noodles

David Chang will be the first to admit that both he and his Momofuku restaurants (Noodle Bar, Ssam, Ko) are overhyped and overexposed. The release of the Momofuku cookbook last month isn’t helping matters much since he’s making the rounds promoting the book around the country, and he’s actually doing book signings in the Bay Area through the weekend. I received the Momofuku cookbook a few days after Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc at Home, and both books are the only things I’ve been reading since—aside from the Internet, of course. :)

(See EatMeDaily.com for great reviews of both books: Momofuku | Ad Hoc at Home)

Bacon Agedashi Tofu, inspired by the Momofuku cookbook.

The first recipe in the Momofuku book that really got my attention was the bacon dashi. In the book, Chang says that when Noodle Bar first opened, he had a hard time finding good katsuobushi (smoked bonito) to make traditional dashi, the seaweed and fish broth that’s the foundation of Japanese cuisine. Chang started looking at other options to replicate the katsuoboshi’s smoky flavor, and good ol’ American bacon was the natural choice. Making the bacon dashi is pretty easy, and the final product looks and tastes like regular dashi but with a hint of smoky bacon flavor. It can be used in any application that calls for a regular dashi, and the first thing I thought of was one of my favorite dishes, agedashi tofu (fried tofu in broth).

For the broth, a.k.a. tentsuyu, I started by warming one cup of bacon dashi in a small sauce pan and added about three tablespoons each of shoyu (soy sauce) and mirin (sweetened rice wine). I did this to taste, but it should be salty and smoky with a hint of sweetness.

Butterfly a block of firm tofu and separate the two halves. Cut the tofu into rectangles and dry them for about 10 minutes on paper towels. Gently dredge the dried tofu in potato starch or cornstarch and fry them in 350F oil until they’re light golden brown. In a separate pan, fry up some finely chopped bacon until crispy. Chop up a stalk or two of green onions and grate some brown onions. Normally, you’d finish off agedashi tofu with grated daikon, but I didn’t have any on hand. Using onions did keep the dish a bit more on the American side and provided a similar texture to what grated daikon would have provided.

To serve, place three pieces of fried tofu in small bowl. Ladle enough sauce into the bowl so that half of the tofu is still exposed. Top with grated onion, chopped green onion and crispy bacon.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Chicharrones (Fried Pork Rinds)
• Cook the Book: Momofuku – Roasted Rice Cakes
• Cook the Book: Momofuku – Fried Chicken
• Cook the Book: Momofuku – Ginger Scallion Noodles
• Cook the Book: Momofuku – Pork Belly Buns

I’ve never been genuinely excited about a new cookbook release, but Ad Hoc at Home marks the first time I’ve had a real personal connection to the recipes in a single cookbook. Inuyaki readers know that I’m a fan and regular diner at Thomas Keller’s casual dining restaurant, and the Ad Hoc Menu Archive is one of the most popular features of this site. My wife and I have been to Ad Hoc 30 times in the last 2½ years (it’s our favorite restaurant) and have always come away wishing we knew how to make some of our favorite dishes, desserts, and condiments at home. I’m very happy to report that Ad Hoc at Home delivers the goods.

The cookbook’s arrival coincided with my birthday, and to celebrate, I invited some friends over for dinner last weekend so that my wife and I could cook for them. From the book, we chose the grilled asparagus and marinated skirt steak and supplemented the meal with polenta topped with a mushroom ragout and SavorySweetLife’s chocolate chip cookies for dessert.

The grilled asparagus, which includes prosciutto, fried bread, poached egg, and aged balsamic vinegar, is pretty easy to put together. After removing the woody bottoms and peeling the asparagus stalks, simply season a couple bunches of asparagus with kosher salt, freshly ground pepper and canola oil and then grill them for a couple minutes per side until tender.

Gratuitous Asparagus Porn

I had some issues poaching the eggs. I know this sounds silly, but they weren’t coming out as pretty as we wanted, so those eggs became snacks. Inspired by our meal at Commis in Oakland a couple nights before, I decided to have some fun and make 63-degree eggs. How is a 63-degree egg different than a regular poached egg or over-easy egg? The answer: texture.

A 63-degree Egg

At 63-degrees Celsius, egg whites are just barely set and the yolks have a pudding-like consistency. To achieve this goal, eggs are cooked in a 63C waterbath for about an hour. The precision is important because at 65C, according Harold McGee, the egg whites become “tender solid” as opposed just barely set at 63C. It’s possible to maintain a consistent temperature using a pot on the stovetop, but I have an immersion circulator, which makes things a lot easier. :)

The immersion circulator in action.

The eggs went on the plate last, so my friends got to see these beautiful eggs emerge from a freshly cracked shell. My wife gets credit for the plating of this dish, which is loosely based on the picture in the book.

The fried bread croutons are awesome, too.

The marinated skirt steak isn’t a difficult preparation either. I substituted the skirt for flap steak, which is similar to skirt steak and a cut of meat I’ve used before in my Bistek Tagalog. It’s marinated for at least four hours in a mixture of olive oil, thyme, rosemary, bay leaves, peppercorns, and garlic. The meat is seared in a thin layer of oil for about 90 seconds total, adding thyme and butter to the pan and basting the meat after flipping it halfway through. After searing, the meat is placed in a 350 oven on a roasting rack and cooked for 8-10 minutes until the internal temp of the meat is 125F. Rest the meat and slice it vertically against the grain before serving.

That meat looks perfect doesn’t it? There was just one problem. I forgot to season the meat with salt and pepper before I seared it, so it was underseasoned. There was still flavor from the marinade, but the meat was definitely lacking flavor. I was crestfallen. My wife saved the dish by making an impromptu beef/mushroom gravy, but I was so disappointed with myself.

We paired this with some Fra’Mani polenta (sold exclusively at Costco) topped with a trumpet and baby shiitake mushroom ragout. I know polenta is pretty easy to make, but as fans of Paul Bertolli’s Fra’Mani sausages, we had to give his polenta a try and it’s really good. My wife added some strong English cheddar to the polenta for some extra flavor and topped it with the mushrooms.

Aside from the underseasoned steak, which was totally my fault, this meal was a huge success and a testament to Ad Hoc at Home’s accessibility for home cooks. It’s a tribute to Keller and his love for good, homey food, as well as chef de cuisine Dave Cruz, whose influence is present in every meal in the Ad Hoc kitchen. According to Ad Hoc general manager Nick Dedier, Ad Hoc at Home is projected to surpass the 10-year-old French Laundry cookbook’s total sales in just three years. With food like this, it should surprise no one when it actually happens.

Possibly Related Posts:

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• Know Your Ribeye, a.k.a. New Year’s Eve at Ad Hoc
• The French Laundry (with an Ad Hoc chaser)
• Cook the Book: Ad Hoc at Home – Blowtorch Prime Rib
• A Morning with Thomas Keller: Ad Hoc at Home Book Signing

I went on a baking spree last weekend because two of my favorite bloggers, Alice of Savory Sweet Life and Ashley of Not Without Salt, started talking smack on Twitter about who had the best chocolate chip cookies. Since they both live in Seattle, there was no way I was going to be able to try their cookies and make up my own mind unless I made them myself.

Lorna Yee from The Cookbook Chronicles also threw her hat into the ring, but she hasn’t posted her recipe yet, so I haven’t had the chance to make them. But Lorna did show off her cookies last week, as well as provide a thorough breakdown of Alice and Ashley’s recipes. Inspired by Lorna’s analysis, I decided to compare their recipes to my favorite recipe, Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc Chocolate Chip Cookies (courtesy of Food Gal Carolyn Jung), and the Original Nestle Toll House recipe.

My attempt at Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc Chocolate Chip Cookies

With a few exceptions, the ingredients and techniques are basically the same, so it’s interesting to see how the proportions vary from cookie to cookie.

Ashley’s cookies could easily be called “pound cookies” since they contain a pound of flour, a pound of sugar and a pound of chocolate. They’re crispy on the bottom and dense and chewy in the middle and reminded me of the Ad Hoc cookies. Her use of chopped chocolate instead of chips allows the chocolate to pool inside the cookie so that you get huge bursts of chocolate in every bite. As Ashley says in her “last chocolate chip cookie” post, the dough is really only there “to hold the chunks of chocolate in place.” The addition of turbinado sugar gives the cookies a nice crunch and texture, as well. I didn’t have 16 oz. of chocolate to make the cookies since I had sort of eaten away at the Scharffen Berger stash I got at BlogHer Food 09, but 12 oz. was still plenty of chocolate.

Ashley’s Chocolate Chip Cookies

I was a little worried when I made Alice’s cookie because the dough was much lighter and airier than Ashley’s, and it showed in the final product. I couldn’t find my usual Guittard chips at Whole Foods, but Ghirardelli’s semi-sweet chocolate chips were a nice substitute. The cookies came out thin and fluffy with crispy bottoms and reminded me of the classic Toll House recipe. When paired with milk from Straus Dairy, possibly the best-tasting milk I’ve ever had, I was transported straight back to elementary school.

Alice’s Chocolate Chip Cookies

I know you’re probably wondering which cookie I liked better, and my extremely political answer is this: I think Ashley’s cookie is a grown-up, sophisticated cookie, while Alice’s is capable of illiciting an Anton-Ego-in-Ratatouille kind of revelation, so it really depends on what you really want out of your cookie. I’m eagerly awaiting Lorna’s entry into this smackdown, but after this experiment, I may be off cookies for a while. :)

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• wd~50
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• Foodbuzz 24, 24, 24: Fried Chicken and Waffles

I recently started buying old cookbooks at a used book sale that’s held biannually at work, and one of my favorites is “The Chinese Cook Book” by Wallace Hee Yong. I picked it purely for the kitsch factor since it was published in 1952 and is an encyclopedia of Chinese American classics that most of us have eaten at some time in our lives. The book has been sitting around since I got it, but yesterday I decided that I was going to use it to make some dinner.

I used ground beef in this version, but any kind of meat or fish can be used. The recipe also says to cook the egg foo yong in 1-1.5 inches of oil or lard, which I found a bit excessive, so we used a thin layer of bacon fat leftover from breakfast and mixed with peanut oil.

INGREDIENTS
4 eggs, beaten
½ cup cooked ground beef (or use your favorite protein – chicken, pork, fish, etc.)
½ cup onion, chopped
½ cup bean sprouts
¼ cup green onion, chopped
¼ cup mushrooms, chopped
¼ cup celery, chopped
1 teaspoon MSG (optional)
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon garlic powder

DIRECTIONS

1. Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl
2. Heat desired amount of oil or lard in a small frying pan until it just starts to smoke
3. Divide the batter into 3 or 4 portions or use a ladle to dispense desired amount into the frying pan.
4. Fry until both sides of egg foo yong are golden brown
5. Dry on paper towels with brown gravy and steamed rice.

I also made the book’s stir-fried beef with tomatoes, which turned out nicely even though I cooked it out of order. I’ll make it again before writing about it, and I expect to be cooking a lot more recipes from this book so stay tuned for more!

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Our New York trip started with a bang at wd~50, Chef Wylie Dufresne’s Lower East Side playground of science and food. Dufresne’s reputation as the mad scientist of American cuisine is well deserved, but what matters at the end of the day is the food, and wd~50’s tasting menu, despite one small unexpected bump, simply rocked.

The meal started with basket of super-addictive, paper-thin sesame flatbread that was great sans any adornments.

Sesame Flatbread

Our first course was the Cobia with mustard seed, mung bean and cucumber. This is probably the first time I’ve eaten a mung bean that wasn’t in mungo, a Filipino mung bean stew. This was a nice light way to start off the meal.

Cobia

The next course was a take on the classic Everything Bagel, except in this dish, the bagel is actually ice cream made with everything bagels and is served with smoked salmon threads, pickled red onions and piece of crispy cream cheese. To understand the origins of this dish, watch Dufresne break it down at Metromix.com.

Everything Bagel

The third course was Foie Gras, a terrine of foie gras filled with passion fruit puree served with Chinese celery. This was the only real disappointment of the night. No one at our table enjoyed the combination of passion fruit and foie gras. As separate entities, they were fine, but if chocolate and peanut butter exemplifies “two great tastes that taste great together,” then this was the exact opposite.

Foie Gras

The Scrambled Egg Ravioli was next and served with charred avocado, kindai kampachi and fried little bits of potato. Breaking open the egg “ravioli” cube reveals a perfect, steamy, slightly runny scrambled egg, and combining all of these elements in one bite was a great combination of flavors and textures.

Scrambled Egg Ravioli

The table was split on the next course, Cold Fried Chicken with buttermilk ricotta, tabasco and caviar. My friend Teresa didn’t like the fried chicken because she thought the texture resembled processed meat, and I think she would have preferred it if it chicken was warm. She did agree with us on the other elements of the dish, especially the awesome Tabasco honey, which tied it all together.

Cold Fried Chicken

If there was one perfect dish of the evening, it was the Eggs Benedict. It’s not on the tasting menu, but we added it as a supplemental course. English muffin-crusted cubes are filled with an incredibly smooth and delicious Hollandaise sauce and fried. When you cut open the cubes, the Hollandaise spreads all over the plate. They were served with paper-thin Canadian Bacon strips and poached egg yolks. This was easily the best course of the night.

Eggs Benedict

The next dish was the beautifully plated Perch with kohirabi, “dirty grape” and cocoa nibs. This wasn’t the most memorable dish, but I remember the fish being perfectly cooked and pairing nicely with the grapes and coco nibs.

Perch

The thinly pounded duck leg with popcorn pudding, kalamansi, and lovage resembled a tuna dish we had a couple days later at Le Bernardin. I always love seeing kalamansi represented at high-end restaurants, but the popcorn pudding was the talk of the table. Its flavor was weird but familiar, almost like the buttered-popcorn flavored Jelly Belly the first time you tasted it.

Duck Leg

The last savory course was the Lamb Loin, a perfect piece of seared meat served with a black garlic romesco, pickled ramps, and dried soybeans. The lamb and romesco were great together, especially if you got bit of seared fat in the bite.

Lamb Loin

The first dessert course was vanilla ice cream filled with aged balsamic vinegar reduction and coated with raspberry streusel. Aside from being really pretty, the marriage of vanilla ice cream and the sweet balsalmic was really nice while the streusel added a little texture.

Vanilla Ice Cream

The chocolate hazelnut tart was perfect and our favorite dessert of the night. It was topped with a little salt and served with a chicory foam some coconut powder.

Chocolate Hazelnut Tart

The last dessert was the caramelized brioche with apricot, buttercream and lemon-thyme sorbet. The brioche and the buttercream were really good, but I wasn’t really into the lemon-thyme sorbet. I also don’t think basil should be an ice cream or sorbet flavor so that might explain it.

Caramelized Brioche

The meal doesn’t really end until you get the chocolate shortbread and cocoa packets. The shortbread was really the coating for a small piece of milk ice cream and was kind of like an Oreo bonbon. The cocoa packets look like ketchup packets, but they’re edible and filled with cocoa. I think the coolness factor outweighs the flavor factor with the packets, which was enough for me since we were all really full at the point.

Chocolate Shortbread and Cocoa Packets

We took a little tour of the kitchen after dinner, and they were in the process of cleaning up for the night. Teresa was so full that she had this strange look on her face and Dufresne asked her if she was “in pain” (she was, but in a good way). The coolest part of the kitchen was what I dubbed the “Wall of Magic.” If you look carefully on the top shelf, you’ll see a bottle of Sriracha up there, along with other interesting things. :)

The Wall of Magic

Of course, no kitchen should be without a disco ball…

The Disco Ball

…and say goodbye to the Wylie Care Bear on your way out.

The Wiley Care Bear

The cool thing about wd~50 is that unless they have other engagements, both Dufresne and head pastry chef Alex Stupak are working the line every night. This is the best way for chefs to ensure that their culinary vision is presented accurately, and it comes through loud and clear at wd~50. There are plenty of oddities on the wd~50 tasting menu, and it’s easy to see how their food might not be for everyone. For the most part, we had a lot of fun both eating and enjoying these dishes.

INFORMATION
wd~50
50 Clinton Street
New York, NY 10002 map
212.477.2900
Web site

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• Foodbuzz 24, 24, 24: Fried Chicken and Waffles