noodsletter #.0051
Shikaku noodles trial #2; mugicha panna cotta.
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Book Bit
Through the year, pain came and went. Then came Christmas,
everything right and exact, everything correct,
the golden pillars of Scotch, red sorrel, sea-moss,
the hunger of happiness spread through Philoctete
like a smooth white tablecloth, everything in place,
the plastic domes of hot dishes frosting with dew,
gravy-boats anchored on patterns of doilied lace
withdrawn from camphored cupboards, the napkin holder
of yellow bone, the cutlery flashing in light
after a year in the drawer, shoulder to shoulder
the small army of uncorked wines and the corked-too-tight
explosives of ginger-beer, the ham pierced with cloves,
a crusted roast huge as a thigh, black pudding, souse,
the glazed cornmeal pies sweating in banana leaves,
and a smell of forgiveness drifting from each house
with the smell of varnish, and a peace that drifted
out to the empty beach; that brimmed in the eyes of
wineglasses, his heart bubbling when she lifted
the steaming shield from the rice.
From Omeros, by Derek Walcott.
This is one of the best books I’ve ever read.
Work Stuff
The smoked spareribs recipe I talked about last time? Well, it’s up, and it looks fantastic.
I have a totally free weekend next week so I’m going to bully my brother into letting me commandeer his grill for 8 hours.
Shikaku Noodles
I mentioned a “new” way to make ramen a couple newsletters ago, and I recently had some time to do a side-by-side test with the method I’ve included in my book (which is itself a refinement of the method I described in Serious Eats, which, turn and turn about, was inspired by both Mike Satinover and Keizo Shimamoto).
Long story short, I did not notice much of a difference between the noodles I typically make and the ones made using Elvin Yung’s method. His were, maybe, a little more resilient, but I was trying very hard to distinguish between the two. (My daughter said flatly that they were identical.) One caveat: I used my own method for thinning the dough into sheets before cutting, which could have affected the results. I’m going to try another side-by-side test when I get a chance.
The other issue with this test was I ran out of noodle flour (Nisshin bread flour), so I had to supplement with fancy bread flour from Maine Grains. The Main Grains flour has more bran and is, generally, “tastier,” which I dislike in ramen—ideally, ramen shouldn’t taste like anything other than the weird hit of alkalinity (for me).
Here is the formula I used for both batches, for a yield of 4 portions of ~130 g of noodles:
388 g Bread flour
12 g Tapioca starch
4 g Salt
4 g Sodium carbonate
1.32 g Potassium carbonate
152 g Water
This comes out to about a 39% hydration for the noodles, which means it’s easily doable using my book method. (I noted last time that Elvin’s method makes lower hydration doughs not just doable, but relatively straightforward; not the case with my book method.)
The key to Elvin’s method is stepping on the dough repeatedly. My method calls for stepping on the dough once, simply to encourage the fraction of hydrated gluten in the dough to stick together and form a cohesive sheet. From there, the methods diverge in that I use the pasta rollers to “knead” the dough and develop the gluten network; Elvin does all the kneading with his feet.
The photos I’ve included show the progression of the dough using both methods, and how they look in a bowl of soup. My method is somewhat quicker; there’s fewer rest periods, and stepping on the dough takes more time than just running sheets through the rollers. Elvin’s is undoubtedly more fun. I truly had hoped the noodles would be better than they were.
Since I ended up thinning and squaring off the dough made with Elvin’s method by thinning out the dough then folding it over itself to form more even sheets, if there’s a step that might have messed with Elvin’s method, that’s it. Maybe the gluten network is more compact if you simply thin out the stepped-on dough and then cut it; that would make sense. By folding the thinned-out sheet over itself and running it through the rollers again, I might have introduced more air and/or simply created a less dense network of gluten.
Bottom line: I need to try it again. That said, after two trials, it’s clear that Elvin’s method works very well, and, per the last trial, opens up lower hydration doughs that are effectively impossible to manipulate and cut into noodles using “my” method. I still think that Elvin’s method would be excellent for higher hydration noodles, too, as it’s weirdly difficult to knead the dough using rollers when it’s very soft. (This is somewhat backed up by Motenashi Kurouki’s approach for higher hydration noodles, which also use the soba-stepping method before being run through a noodle machine.)
Phở Gà Vàng
I noted last time that NY Mag and Eater had written up Phở Gà Vàng in Chinatown. I went there with my brother and niece the other day. It was VERY good; one of those bowls of noodle soup that get better as you get deeper into the bowl.
I got the chicken, and I’d be tempted to do it again, but I like beef pho a lot more, and it was great, too. Hie thee to the chicken pho shop.
“News”
What is there to say about the slander about Haitian immigrants in Ohio eating dogs and cats other than that it yet more evidence, if any were needed after the multi-pronged effort to overturn the last election, that the 2024 GOP presidential ticket is manifestly unfit to serve?
The most interesting part of the Chinese influence in NYS government story, other than how Hochul and Cuomo staff are tripping over themselves to blame each other for the fact that the compromise official in question worked for both administrations, is the Nanjing-style salted duck payoffs. It’s apparently an iconic preparation of Huaiyang cuisine, one of the Four Great Traditions… lion’s head meatballs are another iconic preparation. (We’ve got a lion’s head meatball recipe coming soon at ChefSteps!)
I guess it’s similar in status to a nice cured ham; imagine an Italian-American government official pushing for policies beneficial to Italy for regular shipments of prosciutto from Parma. The steady installments sort of make sense in that it isn’t a truly cured product; you’d need regular re-ups! Sounds fantastic to me, even if it’s viewed as being a difficult dish for foreigners.
The Ramen Podcast - Straight Talk with John (Kansuibae) & Elvin (Shikaku Ramen) - some background on two of the most interesting to follow home ramen cooks. (Elvin also seems to go to Japan all the time, and is always posting about ramen shops on his IG.)
Cockloaf with a jerked banana glaze - never know what you’re going to get when you click on a Dennis Lee newsletter.
Andrew Janjigian is back, ready to make you a better baker.
Are teabags poisoning me with microplastics?
Do you suffer from dead butt syndrome?
The 81-year-old Chinese-food influencer.
Italians, an odd people: “Italian players, we are all friends, and we like to go out and eat Italian food wherever we travel,” Ms. Bronzetti said. “I usually don’t try other types of food. Well, in New York, maybe sometimes I like the hamburgers.”
The damming of Western rivers ranks up there as one of the most evil projects against Native tribes in the US. Completely upended the ecosystem in the process!
Everyone should be outraged by the Boar’s Head listeria outbreak. The reporting on it makes it clear that there’s an appalling lack at every stage of ensuring these products are safe. The company line was to do the bare minimum of ensuring safety, and they obviously failed, and when called on it by USDA inspectors, they did the bare minimum to clean up. And the USDA sounds totally toothless.
Plant-based Nutella doesn’t sound odd at all; it’s just sugar and oil anyway.
Celebrating your frozen embryos sounds fine to me, but with fondant shaped into sunny side up eggs on a cake? Idk bout that.
“We called them campers,” said Zachary Spain, a manager at the Red Lobster in Times Square. “This one couple, they came in every Sunday, and I’d say they ate about 100 shrimp apiece, maybe 120. And we’d see people all the time, scraping shrimp into Tupperware on their lap.”
The story behind Red Lobster’s implosion is remarkable for many reasons, but I can’t get over people eating 100 shrimp apiece in a sitting. Gross.
Mugicha Panna Cotta
Back in noodsletter 37, I offered up my roasted barley riff on the ChefSteps sous vide crème brulée recipe. For whatever reason, I’ve been super into panna cotta recently, so here’s a mugicha riff on panna cotta (using Stella Parks’s SE recipe).
All you have to do is steep 20 g (0.70 oz) mugicha in the flavored base instead of the vanilla bean, then follow the recipe as written. You can use more for stronger roasted barley flavor, but it starts to get bitter. (This is less than I use for the crème brulée.)
However, I also deviate from the recipe when it comes to cooling the hot mixture; I set it in an ice bath and stir it frequently until it comes down in temperature. It’s much quicker, and it yields a softer texture, particularly if you’re only chilling it until just set (about 6 hours).
I’m gonna have to try that panna cotta sometime, looks like a winner.
Re boar’s head + food safety stuff - hiiighly recommend Helena Bottemeiler’s work on this if you’re interested. She writes at https://foodfix.co