Potato Pave

Another Thomas Keller "Ad Hoc" recipe. It's simply a refined potato gratin that is pan fried before serving. Texturally this dish is perfect. There is a soft, subtle creaminess in the center contrasted by a crisp exterior. Surprisingly, the dish also only has 5 ingredients.

Ad Hoc Fried Chicken

My favorite thing I've made from the Ad Hoc Cookbook thus far!!!!!!

Impromptu Dinner Party #2

This past weekend I hosted dinner party #2 at my sister's house. I invited the same folk plus some, cooked just as much food, and managed to still not serve dinner until really late. The night before the dinner I only slept 2 hours. That right there should have been a warning sign to tell people this dinner may potentially be a midnight breakfast, but I tried to stay optomistic throughout my busy Friday which would officially begin at 5:20 AM and not end until 7AM the following day. I was awake for over 24 hours and the last time I did this was a year and a half ago at work during my first busy season. To make a long story short, my co-workers and I had to get out roughly 2,000-3,000 K-1s to one of our clients by Monday and of course we don't start printing these K-1s until Friday. Although I probably billed a 21 hour work day - without overtime may I add - I had a lot of fun. If I reminisce back at that day and this weekend that just passed, I probably should stay up for 24 hours more often.

My Friday started at 5:20AM after I couldn't fall back asleep. Instead of using this time to study for my REG test which is coming up this Saturday, I read more of "The Soul of a Chef" before I started getting ready for my trip to KOP for the Ad Hoc/Thomas Keller book signing. I rarely get excited or feel the need to go out of my way to meet a celebrity, but since I loved per se and also wanted his new cookbook, I thought I'd make the trek even if it meant waiting in line for 2 hours, which did end up happening. I also wanted to be able to use some of the recipes from the book for that nights dinner party. I didn't expect this to happen, but once I finally reached my turn to meet Thomas Keller I was literally shaking. He looks exactly the same in person as he does on TV and he's a giant. It was quite nerve-racking and I probably looked like an idiot during the 45 seconds or so I was with him. In addition to the cookbook, I had him sign my per se menu from my last visit and I also got a picture with him, which I considered using as my new facebook pic, but I've decided against it. Overall, I'm glad I made the trip and he was definitely a pleasure to meet. Once I master some of the Ad Hoc recipes I'll pick up the French Laundry book. Although Ad Hoc is his family style meals cookbook, most of the recipes we made on Friday contained detailed and intricate steps, yet in the end it all made sense, well maybe not the parchment lid instructions.

Amy also went with me to KOP since she wanted to buy an iPhone. She picked up her phone at the Apple Store while I initially waited and I still had another hour to go once she came back to meet me in line. I was hoping the book signing wouldn't last an eternity since after KOP I needed to pick up my friend Tim who would also be joining us for dinner. He took a train in from NY and he needed to be picked up at the Trenton train station. It was during the drive to pick up Tim that we decided to cook Cauliflower Soup with Torn Crutons, Pernil/Roasted Pork Shoulder, Buttermilk Biscuits, Banana Bread Pudding, and a salad. Since we were already running late I was very skeptical that a roasted pork shoulder would work, but since we didn't know what else to make we just stuck with that. Amy would also tell me that she would need to go to a classical guitar recital with her brother and that she wouldn't be able to prepare dinner with us. I asked her to convice her mom to let her not go, but there was no way out of it. I really felt we needed her there since last week Amy tackled a lot. She took care of dessert, helped out with the sliders, and even gave food processor tutorials. Amy not being there to help us prep dinner was warning sign number 2 that dinner wasn't gonna happen at my goal of 8PM. I'd eventually pick her up later that night so she could have some dinner and it was not until then that we opened a bottle pinot and tried the banana bread pudding around 1AM.

Tim would eventually get picked up around 4PM and afterwards we all went to Wegmans to pick up groceries. Since Amy wanted to get back to her house around 6:30 to get ready for the "boring" guitar recital she would need to go to, we made sure to be efficient at Wegmans. With Amy entering our grocery list on her new iPhone we were able to get out of Wegmans fairly quick and after dropping her off, Tim and I were able to finally get started on prepping and cooking around 7PM. Third warning sign that dinner wasn't gonna happen as planned. I had Tim get started on the Banana Bread Pudding, while I prepared the Pernil. I watched Tyler Florence prep this dish in like 5 seconds, yet it took me 30 minutes. Tim did a great job of helping out. Tim would help me prep veggies for the soup, make buscuits with Joe, and most importantly make clarified butter, which happens to last a month in the fridge. However, when it came time to toast the bread for the dessert, I'll take the blame for burning the bread, but Tim takes the blame for setting the fire alarm off.

Joe, who also came to last weeks dinner, would come by shortly after I pop the pernil in the oven. He brought his kids again and his brother Gerry would come along too. Joe got promoted from last weeks meatball roller and he helped out with various takes such as assembling the bread pudding, cutting parchment lids, and preparing buttermilk buscuits. The parchment lids are a particularly funny story because it probably took us 15 minutes to finally get it right. We kept getting half circles and probably wasted half the pack of parchment paper. The book failed to mention a step of folding the paper twice; maybe I'll write to Thomas Keller or just tell the folks at per se when I visit NY again. Joe would need to step out for an hour or so, but he does come back in time before we finally eat dinner around 11:30 PM.

Although we may have used up all the butter that was in the fridge, all the recipes and flavors came out great. I loved the creaminess and almost "smooth and velvetly" texture of the soup. The pork was juicy and cooked just right at about 3-3.5 hours, but I think I'll add more cumin next time. The biscuits, although they reminded me of red lobster, were great. I'm contemplating on making the next dinner party an Iron Chef party. Instead of all of us cooking the night of the dinner party, I would e-mail everyone that's coming the secret ingredient the day before and everyone would just come in the next day with their prepared dish. This pretty much guarantees we all get to eat at a decent time. I got the idea from a co-worker of mine and after she told me how her "Orange" party was a success I knew I needed to do it. Jose Garces of Philly did win the Next Iron Chef so maybe I'll pick a spanish/latin ingredient. I'll need to e-mail Chuk for some suggestions.

To wrap this up, my Friday didn't end until 7AM since after Amy, Tim, Joe, and I all decided to call it a night, Joe on his way home around 3:30-4AM blew his front right tire out. Tim and I luckily were on the road since we needed to drive Amy back home. Joe didn't have a jack or a lug nut wrench so we meet him on route 63 around 4:30. This would be an interesting experience since I've never fixed a flat tire and all I could really do is watch Joe and occasionally hold the flashlight. I also purposely didn't have a jacket on since I wanted the cold to keep me awake while we dropped off Amy. Bad idea, but it surely added to the randomness and craziness of the night and the rest of the weekend I would have. All I have to say is I hope to experience another incredibly amusing weekend and maybe see some forest rats again. Also maybe I'll have my iPhone by then and I'll be able to look up youtube videos on "How To Change a Flat Tire."

Meatball Sliders!!!!

It's finally time for me to update this blog. I really have no excuse since I'm currently on sabbatical for 2 months. There is some CPA studying I should be doing considering my test is in 5 days - and I even stopped by wawa at 1:30AM to get coffee to keep me up - but there are other things I'd rather be doing such as telling the 5 people that read this blog that I had my first official dinner party at my sister's house.

My motivation was to recreate the famous meatball sliders from the Little Owl in greenwich village. I had the opportunity to have dinner at this restaurant about a month ago and unlike the numerous failed attempts of me getting reservations, I magically walked in with no wait on a random tuesday. It took me a long time to realize this, but if you show up at almost any restaurant in NY around 5-6 PM you're pretty much guaranteed a table, well maybe not at Momokuku Ko. I feel restaurants purposely don't book that many tables around this hour and until it reaches 7 are restaurants at capacity.

It's a shame that I never went to little owl sooner because I really loved it. It's around a nice, quiet, tree lined street surrounded by brownstones. Also, across the street happens to be an owl sculpture atop a building. There's some story behind that owl and somebody was explaining it, but I don't remember the details. Anyway, the meatball sliders along with everything else ordered for dinner was amazing. When I went, my friend and I also ordered a lobster ravioli, 2 pork chop entrees, and the chocolate souffle dessert. Rather than babble on about the food all I really need to say is that everything just tasted really good. Trust me when I say the food is good. Why else would I go out of my way to find a recipe for the sliders and attempt to make them.

The recipe I found explained how to make the meatballs & sauce and even the garlic buns. I didn't realize they were homemade until I found the recipe. I figured Little Owl probably got them from sulivan street bakery, but no..they were homemade, which made the recipe a priority on "my things to cook list" since I've always wanted to bake fresh bread. Ever since I got a dutch oven I kept telling myself, "I'm gonna make no knead bread."

Before tonight, I first thought about making the sliders a couple weeks ago. I went to wegmans - the supermarket that has everything including black truffles at $300lb - and started filing my cart with everything I needed. I picked up my ground meats, produce, cheese, cans of tomato sauce, etc., pretty much everything needed for the recipe, but when I go to the dairy section to find fresh yeast needed to make the fresh buns for the sliders, I notice the shelf it's supposed to be on is empty next to the gross nestle break and bake cookies. I probably called customer service at least 3 times asking them if it would be any place else and if they could check the back, but there wasn't any to be found. I bought everything else, but that night I ended up not making them since I feel the buns are the most important part of the slider. I did buy these frozen dinner rolls as a back up, but didn't even bother once I got home. I'm one of those persons that feels pizza is all about the dough and I wasn't about to waste my time making sliders if the buns weren't gonna be right.

Fast forward 2-3 weeks and we finally have a successful trip to wegmans. Reading the recipe, it didn't seem too bad. Even though we'd be making everything from scratch, a lot of the wait times were like "cook sauce for 30 minutes", "knead dough and let sit in bowl for 30 minutes", "cook meatball in sauce of 30 mintes"...nothing read "let dough rise for 5 hours" so I felt this would be quick. I figured since we have 6 burners and 2 ovens at my sister's house we'd be able to multitask and knock these out. I also had my friends Amy and Joe over, but even with 3 people making these we didn't eat out sliders until almost 10:15 PM. Now we probably didn't start prepping until 5:30. I also had to take my nephew Jude to his guitar lesson at my dad's house so there was a good 40 minutes I was away. I'd glad Joe came earlier then I expected and he was able to do an awesome job rolling 36 golf sized meatballs. I really think what made these meatballs are the fact that they are deep fried and the brown bits that remained in the pan after frying definitely made the sauce. You can throw all the herbs, onions, and garlic you want, but without burnt bits you won't have a good sauce.

Now the rolls came out much better then I expected. These are what prevented us from eating at 9:30 instead of 10:15 since the dough needed to rise for the millionth time before being put in the oven. There were also a lot of random steps involved such as pureeing roasted garlic and mixing it into the dough mixture, and spraying the round dough balls with water, seasoning with salt, pepper, and some grated pecorino romano cheese.

Assembly while a lot of fun, also delayed us a little bit. First you slice the freshly baked garlic rolls, second you place a meatball, third you shave a slice of perocino romano cheese, fourth top with fresh arugula, the finally top the meatball with the other side of the bun. We probably only assembled 20 or so sliders, def not all 36. I had Amy and Joe take home a good portion that was leftover. After we assembled the first three, I really thought we all did a good job and it looked almost identical to the sliders we had at Litttle Owl. The pic above is our finished product. I couldn't have made these without them and if I was on my own we'd be eating the sliders the next day. As far as taste, I don't know if they were identical, but they sure were awesome. I'll need to go back to the Little Owl for that.

To bad I gave up beef and pork for lent

thu 03/19 fri 03/20 sat 03/21 sun 03/22 mon 03/23 tue 03/24 wed 03/25 06:50 pm 07:10 pm 07:20 pm 07:30 pm 07:40 pm 09:10 pm 09:20 pm 09:30 pm 09:50 pm 10:00 pm (c)2009 momofuku | help is here When I get my life back, I promise I'll post a review of my 2 somewhat recent trips to Ko.

David Chang

Given that David Chang's Momofuku empire has been around for at least 2 years, I don't understand why I never tried any of his restaurants sooner. I've been to 2 out of his 3 restaurants and each experience has been positive.

My first encounter happened about a month ago on a Friday night. Sometimes, or maybe I should say most of the times I go drinking I have this urge to eat afterwards. I had just left a bar based on a recommendation from someone I met in Philly called Death and Company. If I ever open a bar, this is what it would be like, and if I ever throw a party, this is where I would have it. They make incredible drinks and they probably have the nicest doorman you'll ever meet in NYC period. If any of the 3 people that actually read this blog decide to go, not only should you call me, but you should go for the punch and any of their drinks that have egg whites.

Anyway after leaving this place I knew Momofuku Noodle was close. I knew I wanted to order their ramen since I had been on a ramen mode after going to Ippudo. I always used to think this was strictly a ramen shop, but there is a good share of non-noodle dishes. I think I tried the Momofuku Ramen and it tasted nothing like I expected. Nothing about it seemed Japanese, but I loved it. It was salty, but in a good way and the braised pork and broth it came with was so savory that I pretty much finished everything. Sill not full I ordered the peanut butter ice cream and after that I was satisfied. So much that on my way home I actually missed my subway stop by one station. I've fallen asleep on trains, but not to the point where I miss my stop. I think the combination of the awesome drinks and an 11PM meal put me to sleep.

My second encounter took place the other day at his other restaurant Momofuku Ssam. Now I would have loved to say that my second taste of David Chang's food was at Ko, but given the circumstances surrounding the extremely flawed online reservations system, it's literally impossible to eat here. In my 10+ unsuccessful attempts, I've resorted to tricks of pasting post-it notes on my monitor pointing to where the drop down menu is indicating your party size to opening multiple logged in windows on my double screen at work. The day I finally get to eat at Ko will probably be equivalent to winning the lottery. The odds are really against me.

I went to ssam after going to a riesling tasting around union sqaure. I don't know what it is, but I seem to always be drinking shortly before I go to a Momofuku restaurant. Wait for two was about a half hour, better than I expected. Although a table would have been nice, the seat at the bar was great as my roommate and I got to watch the staff dry wine glasses coming out of the dishwasher that was behind the bar. It's amazing how shiny the glasses got and how quickly they were being used. I didn't realize how much wine people drank, but I feel most of it went to the loud table in the back.

This meal definitely was more gluttonous than my ramen meal. As appetizing as bread with butter sounded for like 8 bucks, it was agreed upon that steamed pork buns would be ordered. I've heard people rave about these things and biting into one was the highlight of my day, if not my week so far. Well it will be considering I'll be in class in less than 8 hours and most likely studying the rest of the weekend. They were so yummy that a second order was placed after finishing the first. The blend of the juicy pork belly, hoisin, crisp cucumber and a little bit of sriracha chili was unbelievable. I would compare eating this pork bun to trying the grilled corn at Cafe Habana for the first time. It has that delicious, addicting quality. For my main dish I ordered the pork shoulder steak with buttermilk and zucchini, which was huge, and my roommate got the the skate with fingerling potatoes. Both were very good and we topped our meal with the rhubarb shortcake. I loved the cream fraiche that came with the dessert that I think I want to use it when I make potato gratin again.

My only regret that night was not ordering the Japanese Hitachino White Ale beer. I didn't notice it until I saw someone across the bar drinking one as we were about to leave the restaurant. I first tried this beer at where else but Death and Company, but had I gotten one I probably would have fallen asleep on the train again and miss my stop.

Order two burgers

Although May is approaching shortly, the weather this past weekend seemed oddly suggestive of a my nights in San Francisco. During this time of year, I expect to be wearing shorts and a tee, but earlier I dressed warmly in jeans and sweater.

Considering the weather, I thought this past afternoon would be the perfect time to finally try the burgers at Shake Shack for the first time, hoping to avoid an extremely long line. However, after exiting the R train and crossing the street to get to Madison Square Park I noticed a considerable amount of people in line even before I entered the park. There were probably about 40 people in front of me once I got in line. I contemplated just leaving and going to City Bakery - mmmmmm pretzel croissants - but I stuck it out and waited about 20-25 minutes. Standing in line wasn't so bad. I overheard a couple stories about how this girl standing behind me parties with this 70 year old man and very quickly, I saw a co-worker, whose name I could not remember, from a job I had 2 years ago walk past me.

I also watched the people that already had their food to see what they were eating since I was undecided about what to exactly order. Although, many people were eating cheese fries along with their burgers, I ultimately decided on one shack burger, one shroom burger, one order of french fries, and a regular size arnold palmer (half ice tea/half lemonade). Before I explain the food, I just want to illustrate how small of a world we live in. One of guys I saw eating cheese fries around 3PM would later be grocery shopping, list in one hand and cart being pushed by the other, at the Dean and Deluca in Soho around 7PM. I wanted to stop and tell me him I saw him at Shake Shack, but I was actually more interested in asking him why he grocery shops at Dean and Deluca since it's rather expensive. I'm a sucker for Teany's Ice tea with lemon and bought the remaining 4 bottles at 2.25 each. This isn't the first time encounters like this have happened to me in New York, but the next time it does I will stop the person.

I purposely ordered all this food since I couldn't decide on one burger and I didn't want to have to go back and wait in line again to try the other burger. I also asked for my order to go since I didn't expect to eat all my food in one sitting, but I ended up eating all of it with the exception of half my fries. My uncertainty worked out since I don' think I would have been full if I just got one burger. In fact, a guy who sat in front of me told me how he wished he got a second burger.

I first took a bite out of the shack burger which is a cheeseburger with lettuce, tomato, and some special sauce. It only took me one bite to realize that this is the most well seasoned and tastiest burger I've had in a long time. The meat was also juicy and perfectly cooked. Even the tomatoes on my burger were good. They were room temperature which is how tomatoes should be served. I finished my burger so quick that I'm glad I had the shroom burger to try. My first bite of this burger tasted amazing, but my last wasn't so much. The shroom burger was a deep fried portobello stuffed with munster and I believe american cheese. In my first bite I saw melted cheese ooze out and tasted a great meaty burger. I probably could feed it to my nephew who hates veggies and he would like it. However, a little over halfway of eating this burger, it got cold and it didn't taste as great. Maybe it's because I ate this second, but it's definitely worth trying. Fries were nothing too special, but still good and my drink was unsweetened which is how I normally drink my tea now.

Overall, Shake Shack was worth the wait. I've read reviews of people that waited an hour and my roommate - yo Jules - told me the line once circled somewhere outside the park. I will without any question visit again when I'm craving burgers; though, I might pick a day when the weather is colder or rainy. Maybe the line will be shorter or maybe it will be longer.