noodsletter #.0053
Cope and seethe ramen; incredible pho (NYC); bitter gourd (again!)
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Book Bit
Physicians might, I believe, make greater use of scents than they do, for I have often noticed that they cause changes in me, and act on my spirits according to their qualities; which make me agree with the theory that the introduction of incense and perfume into churches, so ancient and widespread a practice among all nations and religions, was for the purpose of raising our spirits, and of exciting and purifying our senses, the better to fit us for contemplation.
To form a better opinion of this, I should like to have tried the art of those cooks who are able to blend foreign odours with the flavour of their meats, as was particularly noticed of those in the service of that King of Tunis who landed at Naples in our own day to confer with the Emperor Charles. His meats were stuffed with sweet-smelling herbs at such expense that to dress a peacock and two pheasants in this way cost a hundred ducats; and then they were carved, not only the banqueting hall but every room in the palace, and even the near-by houses, were filled with a very sweet vapour, which did not disappear for some time afterwards.
“On smells,” Michel de Montaigne, tr. J.M. Cohen.
Work Stuff
I had originally given this newsletter the subject “Happy Thanksgiving!”—which gives you an idea of how far behind I’ve fallen.
You may recall that I noted in a recent noodsletter that a not insignificant portion of this newsletter’s audience is (understandably) annoyed by links that lead to paywalled sites. Well, I’ve got great news! ChefSteps has disabled the paywall on a ton of recipes, guides, tips, etc., for the holidays, part of our 5-year Studio Pass anniversary celebration! You can access a ton of great stuff on our Holiday page. (We did it for Thanksgiving, too!) We will also be doing the same for the holidays.
“Like what?” you ask. Well, there’s big ticket items like sous vide prime rib (actually, check out the sous vide chuck roast!) and sous vide turkey (sous vide turkey breast is life-changing, trust me!), but if I had been limited by the paywall and wanted to give the offerings a trial run, I’d beeline to the chicken-fried turkey, turkey bouillon cubes, the cranberry sauce, and the pumpkin pie—each one is pretty simple, familiar, but with a nice ChefSteps touch.
And if you’re poking around, do take a look at the Ultimate Porchetta, and then at the easy sous vide version. Both great examples of the kind of work we do. Maybe you’ll be into it? Also, if you know someone who might be into it, send them to ChefSteps to poke around!
Right now, we’re also running a 30% off sale for Studio Pass subscriptions. I honestly think it’s a steal—$48 gets you access to a huge library of recipes that literally no one else will (or can!) produce, with new stuff every week. Chicken demi-glace?!? An actually innovative take on a potato terrine that’s better than tater tots and french fries and potato chips combined??
Here’s the stuff we’ve published since the last noodsletter.
Chicken Demi-Glace (it is so good)
Roasted Chicken Fat Mayo (so smart, very good)
A guide to instant chicken stock products and how to use them.
Poulet Farci (this is so cool!)
Perfect Pumpkin Pie (mentioned above)
How to Fix a Broken Pan Sauce or Gravy
Potato Pave (this is so cool!)
Crispy Potato “Croissants” (this is 100x cooler!)
For Thanksgiving this year, I did several ChefSteps recipes:
The farce from poulet farci, formed into meatballs and poached, served with the demi-glace. This was excellent in every way. I fried up the leftover farce into a giant meatball pancake the morning after. The form may have been odd, but the farce is so nicely formed that it ended up taking on the texture of a beautifully cooked boudin
A potato pave. I sort of messed this one up a little, as I winged it when slicing the potatoes on the mandoline…went a little too thick. The slices that made it through the final fry were very good.
Turkey gravy. Did you know you can make the gravy a week ahead of time and it’ll be amazing the day of? I did not. Do it next time.
Happy belated Thanksgiving to all of you, and happy holidays!
Cope and Seethe Ramen
No one wants to hear about the election anymore. (I don’t.) But I have to cop to feeling not right, and it has had a detrimental effect on nearly everything in my life. I think this is what other people mean when they say they are feeling down, or depressed, or “tired,” or “I’ll figure it out.”
Oddly enough, while everything else has deteriorated, I have been making some very good ramen. Not really sure what’s happening, as my cooking usually tracks my mood; feel bad, cook bad, and, consequently, feel worse. I’ve been using a heavy hand with salt and salty products just to feel something good. These bowls were all incredible.
Nothing very interesting to note; most of the noodles were made using the Shikaku method, which I’ve written about before; the uni mazemen had ramen made using my book method, with a formula that was put together on the fly and ended up being so dry (10% tapioca/20% bread flour/70% semolina/40% water) that I wondered whether, in addition to optimism and common decency, I might have to throw my understanding of noodle-making away. They came together in the end and were, ultimately, pretty great. Small victories.
One small observation about uni mazemen: I have made some version of an uni mazemen many times, and I think the best move is to skip trying to turn the uni into an emulsified sauce that coats the noodles. It is not a good use of uni; it looks gloopy (unless you dilute it with enough oil and other liquids so that it looks good, which gets in the way of the uni flavor). Rather, it seems to me that it’s better to simply dress the noodles as you would normally (drained, straight into a big bowl with tare and fat and green onions—and white pepper/gyofun, if you’re using them), whip them around to emulsify the dressing, then plate them with WAY MORE UNI than you think you need on top. All of that uni you would’ve used to make the sauce? Just throw it on top.
One even smaller observation about the uni: I picked up the uni from E-Fish, which sells both uni en sui (in a brine) and “dry-pack” uni. Uni en sui isn’t treated with preservatives, as the brine helps the uni to retain its shape; it is more expensive. Dry-pack uni is treated with preservatives, and you can get literally double the amount of uni for the same price as the en sui. If you are doing anything with uni that doesn’t require the most pristine tongues/lobes of uni, do yourself a favor and get the dry-packed versions.
Amazing Ramen (Kayava, Seattle)
I was just in Seattle for a brief work trip, so I got to try this new ramen spot called Kayava.
It’s related to Tsurumen Davis in Boston, which I’ve heard very good things about, and after eating the pork shoyu at Kayava, I really want to go to Boston!
Is Kayava’s ramen the best ramen in the US? I don’t know; probably not. What I do know is that it tastes like a solid bowl of ramen in Japan—flavor profile is just right, lots of nice bits of pork fatback floating on top, noodles had very nice texture and chew and springiness. Their specialty is apparently paitan—emulsified broths—but this was a better shoyu chintan than almost every ramen spot in New York can produce. (Ishida gets a little advantage by virtue of the fact that they really amp up the niboshi and katsuo notes, but the two bowls are neck and neck.)
Amazing pho (La Dong, NYC)
In the last noodsletter, I linked to an Eater piece about a new Vietnamese spot right off Union Square. I went; it was incredible. The best beef pho I’ve had in New York City by leaps and bounds.
It is quite pricey, and there aren’t any options for meat toppings…it’s sort of dac biet, but without tendon and meatballs and tripe. That said, it’s worth the splurge. We also got the cha gio and chao tom (shrimp paste wrapped around sugarcane and grilled). Everything was excellent.
I asked the server if there was any dried seafood in the broth, and she looked taken aback. It didn’t taste like it had marine elements, but it tasted so good they must be using either MSG or magic.
“News”
As a big fan of blogs, I fully support the creation of Best Food Blog.
Dennis Lee—no one blogs it better.
Many, many people sent me The Onion gag about J. Kenji López-Alt.
“The health of the pies and their whereabouts are still as yet unknown.”
Stealing food is a big business in Britain, I guess.
The price of ramen as an election issue in Japan.
“Is this normal?”—Reddit can really gives you some insight into how dangerous it can be to eat at restaurants.
All you can eat beef shabu shabu run by a company called Chubby Group, nice.
“As we sink our teeth into our next great dining experience, it’s worth pausing to ask: Is there a vast difference between savoring a meal and a novel?” At the risk of being terribly mean…is it worth it?
NYT can make almost any story look amazing. Nerds Gummy Clusters? Sure, why not.
“When i come and I wink twice,” one commenter wrote, “I want that pizza alright lol.”
The murder/assassination of the UnitedHealthCare CEO leading to a wave of negative Yelp reviews of the McDonald’s where an employee identified the shooter is a pretty neat encapsulation of the sentiment: “The internet is poison.”
Bitter Melon (An Actual Recipe)
Oh no, here we are again; another bitter melon bit. However, I realized I have not provided a recipe, to date. So, here it is: an actual recipe for cooking bitter melon.
I also don’t know what to make of this. Both the recipe and the vegetable. I think I can fairly describe my relationship with bitter melon now as an addiction; I will hoover it up in insane quantities, not because I consciously am saying to myself, “This is so delicious, you must have more,” but because my body is demanding it. It is gustatory, not physical, need, but need nonetheless.
They say that bitter melon is very healthy—high in fiber and vitamins, blah blah—so maybe I am dreadfully, chronically, terminally ill, and the bitter melon is the cure. Maybe that is why I keep eating the stuff. Or maybe it truly is just incredibly tasty, but not in a way that I can describe or conceptualize. It is, above all else, bitter. It is a little dry. It tastes, indescribably, green. And no matter how I’ve prepared it, it is amazing.
This recipe…I can’t speak to its merits. As I said before, I’ve found a Szechuan-ish spice mix, a lot of oil, a lot of garlic and ginger, a lot of salt, and a little char go a long way toward making it extra tasty, but you could say that about nearly anything. If you make this, please let me know how/if you like it.
Ingredients
1 dried red chili
1 teaspoon cumin seeds, whole
1 teaspoon Szechuan peppercorns, whole
7 white peppercorns, whole
2 tablespoons neutral oil, divided
3 bitter gourd, seeded, cut into 1/4-inch slices
Kosher salt, as needed
2 celery stalks, thinly sliced on a bias
4 garlic cloves, minced
1-inch piece of ginger, julienne
3 hot chilies (like arbol), sliced
3 scallions, thinly sliced
1/2 lime
1 teaspoon fish sauce
1 tablespoons tamari (or soy sauce)
Toast and grind spices: Heat a wok over high heat. Add dried chili, cumin, and peppercorns and toast until aromatic, about 30 seconds. Transfer to mortar and pestle or spice grinder and let cool slightly, about 5 minutes. Grind to a powder.
Add 1 tablespoon oil to wok and heat until smoking. Add half the bitter gourd, season with a big pinch of salt, and cook, tossing and stirring frequently, until charred on edges, about 3 minutes. Transfer to a plate.
Add remaining 1 tablespoon oil and bitter gourd, season with a big pinch of salt, and cook, tossing and stirring frequently, until charred around edges, about 3 minutes. Add reserved bittergourd back to work along with celery and cook, stirring and tossing frequently, until celery is just slightly softened, 1 to 2 minutes.
Add garlic, ginger, sliced chilies, and all of the spice mixture and cook, tossing and stirring constantly, until aromatic. (You should open up your windows and turn on your overhead vent fan…this will make the air spicy.)
Add fish sauce and tamari around edges of pan and toss and stir to combine.
Add scallions, toss to combine, and turn off heat. Add lime juice and stir to combine. Taste and season with additional salt or lime juice, if needed (it probably need it!).
Serve with rice.
You’ve definitely convinced me it’s time to try bitter melon. Love it all, Sho!!