noodsletter #.0049
A new way to make noodles; salad shrimp.
Hello!
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Book Bit
So, anyway, let me tell you, I had a taste for soda bread last night, I’m not even sure I like soda bread, you know, the traditional kind, but I suddenly developed the taste, the first loaf came out alright, the second was much better, and I had brought so many eggs you see, once you get in the mindset for baking it is hard to stop even if you don’t really know much about it, I haven’t done any baking since home economics in school, but I had such an urge last night I thought I’d make some oat cakes as well, the smell of them fresh from the oven, my goodness, and some fruit scones too, and I went from there to a fruit cake, an old recipe I dug out of my mother’s cookbook, and it was then it occurred to me that last year for Christmas, Eilish, I didn’t bother to get a Christmas cake, I was just so busy, you know, and he made a comment, Jim, he said he would have liked to have had some Christmas cake, so I made one of those as well last night, but anyhow, when I was done I had a good laugh at the idea of myself baking all these things when I only wanted some bread, and I have no appetite at all whereas you have several mouths to feed, so look, I brought some over for you and I have one here for you as well, a Christmas cake, there are some scones also and some crumble cake—
From Prophet Song, by Paul Lynch.
As far as I know, traditional soda bread does not contain eggs!
Work Stuff
Been a beefy time over at ChefSteps. We’re just about wrapping up this huge steakhouse package, and while steak has been done to death by everyone, we (well, mostly the rest of the team, not me!) did interesting and innovative stuff.
My favorite recipes have to be the light creamed spinach and the laminated wedge salad (as in, I’ll make these frequently), but I found Grant’s poached filet mignon and Kevin Smith’s super interesting (and super rare!) take on “London broil” to be the most interesting of the steak stuff. (The other steak stuff is basically master classes on cooking specific cuts.)
I have made the London Royale several times using London broil cut from the top round from the grocery store and, while it works, it’s very hard to cut away a medallion that’s thick enough to slice thinly after searing. This package really makes the case for becoming friends with/regularly patronizing a butcher.
A “New” Way to Make Ramen
Elvin Yung, who goes by the handle shikaku.ramen on IG, has come up with a new way to make alkaline noodles!
It’s not entirely new, in that it’s apparently a fairly common method for making udon, but it’s new in the sense that the method hasn’t so far been popularized for making ramen.
I’ve tried it once using a very low-hydration formula (about 30% hydration), which I’d never managed to make successfully before. It worked great, but I had misread or was confused about his process. (This was less an issue with his write up than it was with me; my brain has been muddled for months now post-COVID.) I thought the process was designed for low-hydration formulas, when in fact it can be used for any formula. That being said, this process made a heretofore impossible low-hydration formula possible for me!
The idea is pretty simple: Instead of using pasta rollers to knead your dough, you do all the kneading using your feet, stepping on the dough and folding it repeatedly. Once the gluten’s developed, you can pass it through the rollers to thin it out, cut it into noodles, and you’re good to go. The benefit (both according to Yung’s post and what I observed from my trial) is the developed gluten network is substantially more robust than using just the rollers.
I have to try it again using a higher hydration, because Yung says he uses this method all the time. From my limited experience, it doesn’t seem to me to offer results that are so vastly superior to using just the rollers, and using the rollers seems (again, given my one trial) to be faster and more efficient. But I’ll update here when I give it another couple of tries. For now, look at these noodles! They were very, very good!
Salad Shrimp
I avoid talking about/eating/cooking with/making recipes for shrimp because shrimp cultivation is destroying the planet. Sure, some wild and farmed shrimp aren’t harvested by slaves, and harvesting them doesn’t result in tons of harmful bycatch, but most people don’t have access to that kind of shrimp, and even if they do, they are unlikely to buy it since it’s more expensive.
However! I picked up a 5 lb bucket of “salad shrimp” from E-fish because…they’re wild caught and carries a Marine Stewardship Council seal of approval. As I understand it, that means it’s “sustainable,” or about as sustainable as shrimp fishery can be (which isn’t all that sustainable).
Anyway, I was a little skeptical of the quality, since I generally avoid pre-cooked anything. But these shrimp are very nice. They’re quite mild, take well to almost any preparation—hot preparations, just stir them in at the end.
The biggest challenge for me is the quantity. 5 lbs of shrimp is a lot! I immediately repacked them into 8 oz deli containers and refroze them, which obviously isn’t ideal, but it works very well.
Here’s some of the stuff I’ve made with them. Still got many 8 oz portions…
“News”
Food Is Stupid is 5 years old! Maybe the only substack worth subscribing, too (sorry, noodsletter subscribers!).
That’s why I thought that by using the magic of modern packaging, plus my innate ability to, uh, innovate food in the kitchen, I could create a new fascinating hybrid product between escargot and Go-Gurt. I would call it Escargogurt™.
First meal for an Oklahoma couple who got lost at sea during a scuba expedition after they were rescued? A pastrami-corned beef combo. (Good choice!)
The Tradwives Are Making Incredibly Weird Bread
The Exhausting Glut of Generic Influencer Cookbooks
CIA redacted Mike Pompeo’s mom’s fudge recipe in a FOIA request.
What is it with Russia and chefs? First there was the Wagner Group chef guy, now this chef-spy who was going to disrupt the Olympics? (Great headline for that piece, btw: “Michelin Red Star”!!!)
On foreigners being upcharged in Japan, the “it’s not us it’s you” defense: “People say it’s discrimination, but it is really hard for us to serve foreigners, and it is beyond our capacity,” said Shogo Yonemitsu.
Kamala Harris can cook. (As the kids say, “Let her cook!”)
Sorry for the twitter link, but this is good food-related content about Twisters.
Apologies again, but egg scenes in movies!
Pete Wells is stepping down as the NYT restaurant critic. I think he’s the best writer to have done the gig—ever—and I’ve found I mostly agree with his taste. I had lunch with him once at Yuji Ramen, before his Nakamura mazemen write up. Really nice guy.
Janet Yellen, culinary diplomat. (I’ve always been a Yellen stan, not sure why!)
John Ganz Grub Street Diet. Impressive!
I am a late fruit fan bloomer, so I struggle A LOT with finding good fruit. (Vegetables are way easier.) Does this two-finger watermelon rule work? No idea.
Can’t beat a Post headline, so why try:
NYC officials put gelato artisan’s $2.4M illegal rental scheme on ice: suit
I thought this Kayla Jean short story set in a diner was very good.
Mission Chinese is back…again. (Saw another chef on IG raise an eyebrow about how one of the dishes at Mission Chinese was prepared—basically a ton of granulated chicken stock added to it.) (Idk if it’s a bad thing—if you aren’t adding granulated chicken stock to your stir-fries, give it a try!)
International controversy sparked by Danish consumers being wimps about spicy Korean ramen!
How to make Star Wars character names, like Shuta Bogayaki (Gork Pinger), Casta Parbonara, Pacos al Tastor.
The Maillard Overreaction (great title!)
Sort of don’t trust Food and Wine’s verdict on this portable vent hood, but… I wonder if this thing works AT ALL.
For the first few days of my exciting new life as a cancer-free nuclear hazard, I thought the extremely restrictive diet I had to maintain for a month before the treatment (for complicated reasons I can best summarize as, “the thyroid absorbs more of the radioactive iodine if it’s starved of all other iodine”) was the worst part of the whole ordeal. The dreaded Low Iodine Diet proscribes everything. You can’t have iodized salt and therefore can’t have any food/baked goods from restaurants (almost all of which use iodized salt), anything from the sea (sea salt, seafood, seaweed), soy products, canned beans (unless they contain no iodized salt), dairy, and egg yolks. If there is a hell, the chefs there serve low-iodine food, I’m sure of it.