crowdingthepan

I'm in the "got the book for Christmas" camp, too. I'd read lots of positive reviews of the Momofuku cookbook that contained the caveat "you'll never actually make any of these recipes." I've been cooking out of it constantly. Here's the Grilled Octo Salad with Kombu, Bamboo shoots, etc.

The January/February 2010 Cooks Illustrated has a piece on making barbecue pork shoulder in the oven that replicates the results you’d get in an outdoor smoker. It involves brining, liquid smoke, and periods of cooking covered and uncovered to create a good crust. You could probably adapt that technique for preparing brisket, ribs, or anything else you'd normally cook outdoors. Check it out.

Thanks Menuinprogress and Ellevan! It's not quite as good as a freshly crafted and well constructed banh mi, but it'll do in a pinch.

Thanks, Judiu! I've got kind of a funny technique for cooking sausages. I set my oven to 180 degrees and throw them in for an hour and a half or two hours. The sausages cook through, but because it's below boiling temperature, they don't rupture and let all the moisture out. Then, I give them a VERY quick browning in a pan. The Veggies in the banh mi sausage do retain their slight crunchiness.

I love banh mi, but assembling all of those ingredients can be a hassle. So, I stuffed a sausage casing with pork shoulder, pork belly, a little chicken liver, pickled carrots, pickled cukes, pickled daikon, Sriracha, and cilantro. I froze most of it uncooked. I pull a sausage out of the freezer when I get a banh mi hankering, and put it in a sliced and toasted baguette with spiced up mayonnaise, more cilantro, and another squirt of Sriracha.

Dan Dan Noodles:

I like to brine for around five hours. Most recipes call for a brine time of twelve or more hours, but I find the chicken too salty if it brines that long. My other trick is to pull it out of the oven when the meat reaches 145 degrees (GASP!). I know, salmonella, blah blah blah. By the time a chicken reaches the typically recommended 180 degrees, it's inedibly dry.

That Minced beef pie looks phenomenal! I'd love to see the recipe for the filling and the crust. I went the comfort food route yesterday, too. Herb brined, skillet roasted chicken. By the time dinner was over, I had consumed every bit of skin off of this thing. Pic of the brine, then the finished product:

Mapo Doufu. I ground up the Sichuan peppercorns rather than adding them whole. So, I wasn't sure how much to add, and the result was a very numb mouth.

I wasn't around to observe your previous attempts, Blether. I'm assuming this is carbonara with uni replacing the egg as the creamy component in the dish? Great idea.

I've worked out a hybrid grilled/broiled pizza system that seems to yield the best pie I can make with my current arsenal of appliances. This one's topped with basil and garlic infused béchamel, some fennel/white wine/garlic sausage that I made, and parmigiano reggiano. A lot of pizza fundamentalists turn up their noses at béchamel on pizza. I'd never tried it before, and I wasn't in the mood for a red sauce pie, so I gave this combo a go. It's a keeper.

Lasagna Verde Bolognese

That tandoori looks great! I'd love to know how you spiced your marinade.

For whatever reason, the seam thing doesn't seem to be much of an issue for me. Following my initial 18 hour room temperature rise, I fold the dough a few times and plop it onto a well floured towel. At this point it's roughly ball shaped and full of seams. But, during the secondary rise, the dough sort of "eats" the seams. The real trick is getting it into the pot efficiently, evenly, and without sticking to the towel. Oddly enough, increasing and decreasing the hydration ratio doesn't seem to have an effect on towel stickery.

Thanks Steve. I've used the 5 minutes a day method too, with decent results. The thing that's sort of revelatory about the Lahey method is not the no knead thing, but rather the use of the preheated pot. It creates a sort of poor man's steam injection oven, leading to a crust that can be as explosively crisp as you want, depending on how you manipulate the pot's lid.

About twice a week, I throw together a loaf using the Lahey no-knead method. I know that there's controversy about whether or not this method produces the full flavor spectrum that the slower, more laborious processes create. But, most of my bread ends up in a toaster, or on a panini press, so those subtleties are a bit of a moot point. The third pic is a rye loaf.

Greetings, all. This seems as good a place as any to make my first post, so here it is: Electrifying Kung Pao. I live in Concord, N.H. so, I'm a solid 50 minutes from remotely authentic Chinese food. Boston is only an hour away, but who wants that drive on a Thursday night. So, here's my Kung Pao chicken, loaded with dried peppers and Sichiuan peppercorns. I'm digging the spicy numb thing so much right now, I'm thinking I'll do Ma Po Dofu on Monday.