My mom is obsessed with keeping a stocked freezer, but I guess I don’t really take after her, because my freezer tends to be relatively empty, aside from random containers of stock/ramen broth, frozen dumplings and pierogi. I admit, I store buy frozen chinese dumplings and pierogi for those times that I just don’t feel like cooking. I tell myself it’s because of ease and convenience, but really, I just love the taste of frozen pockets filled with deliciousness.

Pierogi are fast, tasty, and ideal for when I let myself get too hungry and become a crazy unthinking monster. (This happens more often than you would believe). I’ve always been a frozen pierogi buyer, but now I think I’m going to have to go homemade forever.

It’s Oktoberfest right now and that means two things: beer and sausages. I don’t partake in the beer much (Mike drinks up my share), but I do love sausages. Sausages and pierogi are just one of those pairings that I find perfect, especially when the weather turns a bit chilly.

I found an old Gourmet magazine pierogi recipe on epicurious.com and for my first pierogi making experience, it was great. The dough was a dream to work with and for an extra treat, I fried up pierogi in some butter to crisp up the skin. They kind of ended up looking like some sort of Asian dumpling-guess I just can’t get that out of me-but they were all pierogi potato deliciousness.

I couldn’t resist putting my own twist on the pierogi though: instead of filling all the pierogi with a potato cheddar cheese filling, I mixed up potatoes with green onion oil. The result was insanely good. The green onion oil made the potato filling rich and umami filled.

The green onion pierogi were so good that it was a little like playing the odds while we were eating-all the pierogi looked the same, but biting into one of the green onion ones was a little like winning the lottery.

Pierogi Recipe adapted from Gourmet Magazine April 2004 as found on epicurious.com

yield: 48-50 pierogi

For dough
3 cups all-purpose flour plus additional for kneading
1 cup water
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
1 teaspoon salt

For potato filling
1 1/2 pound russet potatoes
6 ounces coarsely grated Cheddar or 4 tablespoons green onion oil*
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Special equipment: a 2 1/2-inch round cookie cutter

Make dough:
Put flour in a large shallow bowl and make a well in centre. Add water, egg, oil, and salt to well and carefully beat together with a fork without incorporating flour. Continue stirring with a wooden spoon, gradually incorporating flour, until a soft dough forms. Transfer dough to a lightly floured surface and knead, dusting with flour as needed to keep dough from sticking, until smooth and elastic, about 8 minutes (dough will be very soft). Invert a bowl over dough and let stand at room temperature 1 hour.

Make filling while dough stands:
Peel potatoes and cut into 1-inch pieces. Cook potatoes in a large saucepan of boiling salted water until tender, about 8 minutes. Drain potatoes, then equally divide in two bowls. In one bowl add the cheese, salt, and pepper, in the other bowl, add the green onion oil. Mash the potatoes until smooth and mix thoroughly.
When mashed potatoes are cool enough to handle, use a small cookie scoop to scoop out the filling. Cover and keep the filling in the fridge until you are ready to fill your pierogi.

Form and cook pierogie:
Halve dough and roll out 1 half (keep remaining half under inverted bowl) on lightly floured surface with a lightly floured rolling pin into a 15-inch round (1/8 inch thick), then cut out 24 rounds with lightly floured cutter. Holding 1 round in palm of your hand, put 1 potato ball in centre of round and close your hand to fold round in half, enclosing filling. Pinch edges together to seal completely.

Bring a 6- to 8-quart pot of salted water to a boil. Add the pierogi, stirring once or twice to keep them from sticking together, and cook 5 minutes from time pierogi float to surface. Drain and pan fry in butter or oil over medium heat until crisp.

In Momofuku, Chang mentions that his Scallion Oil is one of Momofuku’s mother sauces. He basically says you can’t live without it and I tend to agree. Scallion oil, or green onion oil, as I like to call it, is a delicious, delicious sauce. While I tend to like my recipe better than his, I’ll definitely back up his claim about never going hungry with green onion oil in your fridge.

Mixed with noodles, fried with rice or even drizzled over meat, green onion oil is one of the most versatile things you can keep in your fridge. It tends to loose it’s vibrant green colour after a few days, but if anything, the taste gets better with age.

Everyone has their own way of making green onion oil and the great thing about it is that you can tweak it so it’s just right for you. I like adding in shallots for sweetness and I always finish it with a dash of sesame oil.

I’ve used green onion oil in a lot of dishes, but until the other day I never considered using them in devilled eggs. I’m not quite sure why I had a craving for devilled eggs filled with green onions, but I’m sure glad I did because these were some of the best devilled eggs I’ve ever had.

Most people make devilled eggs for parties, but I like to make them for a snack for me and Mike. Green onion oil devilled eggs are a party regardless of how many people eat them. Rich egg yolks, fragrant, aromatic green onions and a hint of sesame oil make me want to eat devilled eggs forever. Add a squirt of sriracha and you’re in heaven!

Green Onion Oil Devilled Egg Recipe

*this recipe will make much more green onion oil than you’ll need for the eggs, but I’m sure you won’t find it hard to come up with ways to eat it.

4 hard boiled eggs, peeled, chilled and cut in half
1/2 bunch of green onions, thinly sliced (about 3/4 to 1 cup)
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 small shallot, minced
1 small knob of ginger, minced
2 tablespoons canola oil
2 teaspoons sesame oil
salt and pepper to taste
sriracha (optional)

Make the green onion oil by heating up the canola oil in a small pot over high heat. When the oil is shimmery and hot, add the green onions, garlic, shallot, and ginger. Be careful, the water content will cause the oil to bubble. Remove the pot from the heat and stir in the sesame oil. Salt to taste.

Remove the yolks from the eggs and place in a bowl. Mash with a fork until the yolks are crumbly. Add 1-2 tablespoons of the green onion oil. Stir and taste. If you need more green onion oil in there, by all means, add it! Fill your egg halves and top with freshly ground pepper and a squirt of sriracha, if using. Enjoy!

Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s ginger fried rice as interpreted by Mark Bittman has been floating around the internet for a while, but it took me a while to finally work up the courage to give it a try. You see, Jean-George is a well respected world renowned chef and I didn’t want to make his his fried rice and not like it. Fried rice, much like how you cook your instant noodles, is a very personal thing.

Give a bunch of people the same fried rice ingredients and I guarantee you, there will be a variety of cooking styles. Some people like to fry up each ingredient separately, some people like to scramble their eggs and some just like tossing the eggs right in with the rice.

Jean-George tops his fried rice with a runny-yolk fried egg and in my books, runny yolks with rice is a good thing. Opposite to what the article claims, I don’t think this fried rice is any more finicky than a regular fried rice. Yes, there are separate cooking processes, but I think fried rice is all about the separate cooking processes.

I shouldn’t have worried about not liking this recipe. It was delicious. It had an almost meaty, umami taste to it. I loved the crispy ginger and garlic and with the runny egg mixed in it was divine. Mike on the other hand thought differently.

Mike: Would you make it again?
Me: I don’t know. It’s pretty good. Do you want me to make it again?
Mike: Between this and the kimchi bacon fried rice, definitely kimchi bacon.
Me: Well, there goes “French” fried rice…

Ginger Fried Rice Recipe adapted from the nytimes.com
serves 2

1/4 cup canola oil
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 tablespoon minced ginger
Salt
1 cup thinly sliced leeks, white and light green parts only, rinsed and dried
2 cups day-old cooked rice, preferably jasmine, at room temperature
2 large eggs
1 teaspoons sesame oil
2 teaspoons soy sauce.

In a large skillet, heat 1/4 cup oil over medium heat. Add garlic and ginger and cook, stirring occasionally, until crisp and brown. With a slotted spoon, transfer to paper towels and salt lightly.

Reduce heat under skillet to medium-low and add 2 tablespoons oil and leeks. Cook about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Season lightly with salt.

Raise heat to medium and add rice. Cook, stirring well, until heated through. Season to taste with salt.

4. In a nonstick skillet, fry eggs in remaining oil, sunny-side-up, until edges are set but yolk is still runny.

5. Divide rice among two dishes. Top each with an egg and drizzle with 1/2 teaspoon sesame oil and 1 teaspoon soy sauce. Sprinkle crisped garlic and ginger over everything and enjoy hot.

I confess: I eat Chicken McNuggets with smiling faces and I love doing it! The real question is: do the faces make you want to eat Chicken McNuggets anymore than you normally do?

If you’re looking for a cosy baked vegetable dish, look no further than Ad Hoc’s Summer vegetable gratin. Seeing as Summer officially ended yesterday I had to hurry up and make this before it was too late. I was able to find all the vegetables, except the yellow squash. I guess yellow squash season is officially over.

As sad as I am to see Summer and yellow squash season go, I’m super excited about fall. Crispy, sunny days, crunchy leaves, and a chill in the air leave me wanting to cozy up at home with a big bowl of comfort food. Even though this isn’t your typical cold weather gratin, I find it completely appropriate for fall.

Thinly sliced rounds of zucchini, eggplant and tomato are layered over sautéed onions and topped with panko, rosemary, and parmesan. After all the slicing and arranging, the vegetables are put in the oven to bake until they become meltingly creamy and yielding.

The smell of this gratin baking is so delicious that if you’re anything like me, you’ll be peeking into the over every 5 minutes or just to check if it’s done. Be patient, it isn’t, but if you wait, it’ll be worth it.

I’d say this is one of Ad Hoc’s most accessible recipes, but if I were to change anything, it’d be the instruction order. In the book, Keller tells you to slice the vegetables first, but it just made more sense for me to sauté the onions while I was slicing. Also, I think I’d slice thinner than the suggested 1/4 inch, just because I think thinner vegetables layer better.

I’ll definitely be making this gratin again, maybe with some more fall appropriate vegetables. Do you guys have any favourite fall vegetables?

I love, love, love cheese. So much so that a visit to a cheese shop is almost better than a visit with brand-new dachshund puppies–almost, but not quite. Puppies aside, one of my ultimate favourite cheese shops is Murray’s, in NYC. The Murray’s on Bleecker Street has a Murray’s Melts counter with create your own grilled cheeses and ready-made, grill to order sandwiches.

My first ever Murray’s cheese sandwich was the French Onion Soup: gruyere and roasted onions on rye. It was in the middle of a scorching hot summer and a grilled cheese sandwich would be the last thing that anyone would want to eat, but there I was, sitting on someone’s steps, stuffing my face with bread and cheese. The sun was beating down and I burnt my fingers and my tongue, but I couldn’t stop, it was that good.

I don’t see the French Onion Melt on Murray’s online menu, but I refuse to believe that they don’t have it anymore. The French Onion Melt is divine: melty, sweet onions, salty, ooey gooey gruyere and the unmistakeable texture of grilled buttered bread is to die for.

It’s been a couple of months since I’ve had one (you New Yorkers don’t know how good you have it!) and the craving hit so hard that I knew I had to try my hand at making the sandwich at home. Essentially, it’s a simple sandwich to make; it’s the ingredients working together that make it magic.

Do yourself a favour and make yourself this sandwich and imagine yourself walking around in NYC on a crisp fall day, sandwich in hand and leaves on the ground. Trust me, you won’t regret it; this sandwich is perfect, no matter where you are.

French Onion Melt Sandwich Recipe
serves 2

4 slices of your preferred bread (I used French bread, because, it’s a French onion sandwich after all)
1/2 Walla Walla sweet onion thinly sliced
1 tablespoon olive oil
shredded gruyere, about 1 cup, loosely packed
1 tablespoon butter
pepper

Over medium-low heat, heat up the olive oil. When hot, add the onions and turn the heat down to low. Cook slowly, until transparent and cooked, but not mushy.
Butter the bread on one side. Lay out the bread, butter side out and top with a generous amount of shredded gruyere. Top the gruyere with the onions, season with pepper and close the sandwiches.
Place the sandwiches in a pan over medium heat and grill until golden brown. Enjoy hot!

I’m not to sure why casseroles have such a bad reputation. When I was a kid, I would always hear my classmates complaining about eating casseroles. I have no idea what they were complaining about. Whenever I got to eat casseroles at my babysitter’s house, they were delicious. Then again, I was only five and my babysitter had the habit of rolling cigarettes while she was cooking, but I remember her casseroles being creamy delicious messes of meat and pasta.

I have a deep love for casseroles. I like one dish meals and casseroles, with their creamy, messes of starch and meat are the ideal. Pastitsio is a great example of what I look for in a casserole: a hearty meat, a starch and some creaminess. The cinnamon spiced lamb and Parmesan béchamel make this dish extremely satisfying on a rainy day.

Pastitsio Recipe adapted from marthastewart.com

Coarse salt and ground pepper
1/2 pound penne, cooked and drained
1 pound ground lamb
1 medium onion, diced
1/4 cup red wine
1/2 can (3 ounces) tomato paste
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup flour
1 1/2 cups milk
pinch of cayenne pepper
2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cook pasta, and drain; reserve. Meanwhile, in a large saucepan, over medium heat, cook lamb, breaking apart pieces with a wooden spoon, until no longer pink, 6 to 8 minutes. Add onions; cook, stirring occasionally, until translucent, about 5 minutes.
Add the wine and cook over medium heat until almost all liquid has evaporated, about 5 minutes.
Stir in tomato paste, cinnamon, and 1 cup of water; simmer, stirring occasionally, until thickened, 15 to 20 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
Make Parmesan Cheese Sauce while mixture is simmering: In a medium saucepan, melt butter over medium heat; whisk in flour until incorporated. In a slow steady stream, whisk in milk until there are no lumps.
Cook, whisking often, until mixture is thick and bubbly and coats the back of a wooden spoon, 6 to 8 minutes. Stir in cayenne, if desired, and Parmesan.
Add pasta to lamb mixture; transfer to a baking dish. Pour sauce over the top, smoothing with the back of a spoon until level. Bake until browned in spots, 35 to 40 minutes. Remove from oven; let cool 15 minutes before serving.

*Note: I was impatient and didn’t bake my casserole, instead I stirred the cheese sauce in with the pasta and topped it with some Italian parsley.

I love brownies. They’re soft, chocolately, dense and delicious. I haven’t had a lot of success with baking brownies because, I confess, I compare every brownie I’ve bake to those Two Bite Brownies that they sell at Costco. Am I the only one who finds them insanely delicious? I won’t go as far as to buy them myself (I do have some pride, after all), but I do get unreasonably excited when I go over to my mom’s house and I see that over-sized clear container filled with those tiny, cupcake-shaped, fudgey bites.

Between my refusal to buy Two Bite Brownies and my mediocre brownie making, we don’t get much brownie action around here. It’s dangerous baking a pan of brownies around here. The brownie depravation combined with Mike’s deep love for brownies means that a pan will disappear in minutes. Thankfully, we were invited over a friend’s place and instructed to bring dessert.

I flipped through Ad Hoc to find a suitable recipe and as always, the photo of the brownies called to me. The Keller brownie recipe is actually pretty easy going, both in execution and in ingredients.

Keller’s brownie recipe is unlike any other brownie recipe I’ve ever tried. Half the butter is melted, then poured over the remaining butter and stirred so you have creamy melted butter flecked with little small bits of unmelted butter. It seems like a extra unnecessary step, but these brownies were the best I’ve ever baked. That may be due to the fact that there are three (yes, three!) sticks of butter in these brownies.

You may think three sticks of butter is too much. Even I, a lover of butter, thought three sticks was a bit excessive, but seriously, after tasting the brownies, I didn’t remember the butter at all. Soft and fudgey, with chocolate chips throughout, these brownies are an indulgence that I’ll be making again and again – I’ll just have to make sure to make them when people are coming over so I don’t consume three sticks of butter on my own.

I’ve really been struggling with the blog lately. I feel like it’s been uninspired and well, let’s face it, flat. Don’t get me wrong, I love cooking, taking photos and even writing, but somehow without an end goal I feel just a little bit funny. I guess I’m just one of those people who needs to work towards something.

It’s weird because I thought I would really enjoy free blogging whatever I felt like, but instead, I feel a little bit lost. I really think cooking Momofuku threw me out of my regular cooking comfort zone. While being outside of my comfort zone isn’t, well, comfortable, it’s definitely interesting. Left to my own devices I think this blog would see a lot more re-posts on the dishes I love to make and eat over and over again.

So I thought about it long and hard and I decided I need another cookbook. Not one to obsess over, but one I can turn to when I don’t know what to make. So, soon this blog is going to be known as The Blog Formerly Known as Momofuku for 2. (Hey, if Prince can do it, so can I. At least I’m not choosing an unpronounceable symbol…or should I?)

As for the cook book, I’ve decided on Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc at Home. I’ve already made a couple dishes from Ad Hoc to rave reviews from my taste buds. They (and Mike) are demanding Ad Hoc and I’m not one who likes to disappoint. I’m simultaneously looking forward to and dreading Keller’s precision-based recipes.

I’ll be starting on the Ad Hoc journey very soon, but of course, because I can’t be goal-oriented all the time, I’ll round out the blog with random, unrelated posts of all the other foods that I cook at home. Really though, I can’t wait because I’ve loved everything I’ve made from Ad Hoc, so I’m hoping the rest of the book doesn’t disappoint.

Check out these Ad Hoc dishes I’ve already made:

• Buttermilk Fried Chicken
• Braised Beef Short Ribs
• Beef Stroganoff
• Scallion Potato Cakes
• Creamed Summer Corn
• Chicken Soup with Dumplings
• Potato Pave

One of our good friends is a consultant. I’m not too sure what this means or what he does on a day to day basis, even though he’s explained it to me multiple times. What I do know is that he travels a lot, which means he gets to do what I like to call “travel eating.”

Travel eating is the best kind of travelling. It means planning out your vacation based on food. Really, it’s the only kind of travelling I do and thankfully, Mike is kind enough (hungry enough?) to indulge me. Don’t get me wrong, we throw site seeing in there occasionally, but really, what is travel for if not to experience new places and cultures? To me, really food is the perfect way to discover a new place.

The Consultant (as I’ll now refer to him) is currently situated in LA, and he kindly invited us to live in his spare bedroom so we could check out the LA food scene. When I asked him what he had that was good he told me: the balls.

Apparently the potato balls at Porto’s were out of this world. Deep-fried mashed potato balls stuffed with spiced ground beef. I love potatoes, especially in ball form, so when The Consultant sang Porto’s potato ball praises, I was hooked.

Mike and I went early one morning to the location in Burbank. We had potato balls (of course!) and a Cuban sandwich. The Cuban was amazing and I loved the fresh plantain chips that came with. But honestly, the sandwich was nothing compared to the potato ball.

The potato balls were seriously amazing. Soft, flavourful mashed potatoes with a centre of saucy ground beef, the potato balls were addictive. The outsides weren’t crisp or oily, but the just the right texture. Really, I could have ate a dozen of them, easy.

Next time The Consultant comes back to Vancouver for a visit, I know what I’m asking him to bring: a dozen potato balls please!