Let's Start Simple!

Back in a bit.

admin — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 12:05:07 +0000

LSS is on Hiatus for now. But i most certainly hope to pick it up again soon!

Steamed Buns with Peking Duck.

admin — Sat, 15 May 2010 11:35:31 +0000

momofuku steamed buns – hoi sin sauce – scallions – peking duck

Pizza Impressions.

Benjamin Emmanuel Kaiser — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 22:16:06 +0000

thin crust with herbs | tomato sauce | mozzarella and parmesan cheese

Chicken Wings with Taré and Scallions.

Benjamin Emmanuel Kaiser — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 15:00:36 +0000

And I thought Chang’s fried chicken with ‘octo vin’ was good. Good god, i was wrong. Well, not wrong, but there is something even better you can do with some nice pieces of chicken, that still have their skin on. David Changs magnificent recipe from his magnificent book (Momofuku) for the oh-so-magnificent chicken wings. He, himself, claims, that this recipe is the worlds longest recipe for chicken wings and that they’re very, very good. I didn’t know how right he was, when i first read those words.

Two days ago I was finally motivated enough to spend a lot of time on some chicken wings. It was all quite spontaneous. I went to the store, got some chicken wings with tips and a lot of lard. In the original recipe he wants you to cold-smoke the chicken wings, but in my tiny kitchen I really don’t have the possibility to do so. So I decided to do it the alternative way with infusing the chicken with smoky bacon flavor while confiting.

The steps are quite simple. You cut of the tips (reserve them for the taré), cut the wings in two pieces and brine the meat for about six hours. Then you confit the wings in pork fat (or duck fat) for about half an hour while adding smoky bacon to the fat. The wings are then cooled down in the fat overnight. The next step is making the taré for the sauce. Brown the wing-tips, add sake, soy sauce and mirin and simmer for about an hour. Strain and refrigerate. The fat surrounding the wings is then heated until liquified and the wings are strained out and browned on both sides in a hot cast-iron pan while being pressed down. Garlic and pickled chiles are added to the tare before tossing the chicken with it and serving it with a lot of scallions.

I’m not gonna post the full recipe here, because I think I already posted enough of the book’s recipes. So people, please buy the book! It’s so damn worth it!

Anyways, while cooking I already noticed the wonderful smell coming out of the pan and when I had the first bite I knew that the time involved in preparing this wonderful dish was well worth it. It was so delicious that I was immediately scared of my flatmates eating it all up before I got a chance of having enough of the wonderful stuff. Fortunately, I made enough and no one was still hungry after dinner.

I just want to encourage everyone to invest the time and patience. It’s so worth it. Promise.

Oh, and if you’re not sure if you want to buy the book you can check out my other blog posts about food from David Chang’s Momofuku:
Chicharrones
Fried Chicken
Steaks – ‘Ghetto Sous Vide’.
Marinated Steak Ssam
Brussels Sprouts, Kimchi Puree & Bacon.
Pan-roasted Asparagus, Poached Egg and Miso Butter.

5 Twitter Accounts you should definitely follow if you love Food. And Pancakes.

Benjamin Emmanuel Kaiser — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 15:10:16 +0000

As it is Friday, I thought I’d share a couple of foodie twitter accounts, I really enjoy following. If you post those on twitter they get kind of overlooked, so a blog entry sounds like a more permanent and interesting #FollowFriday thing to me. Also, I can write some words (160 characters max.) to each of them.

Also, you can find a recipe to those delicious pancakes I had for breakfast today after the break. Enjoy!

You can also directly follow this list here and by the way, if you don’t do so already please follow my twitter account!

@momofukufor2 The always nice and funny Stephanie cooking her way through Changs magnificent cookbook at momofukufor2.com. The blog is updated daily btw.!

@nytimesdining The New York Times providing you with great food and wine stories, restaurant reviews, recipes and lots of other random food things.

@eatmedaily lots of fun food stories, interesting news including media, books, cookbooks, art, design, celebrity, fashion, robots, and cookery.

@SheSimmers Leela, who is blogging at shesimmers.com and posting delicious recipes, interesting tutorials and howtos and everything with great, mouthwatering photos.

@seriouseats lots of interesting foodie trivia and tutorials including cooking sous vide in a beer cooler, ice cream quizzes and tips on how to make a klondike float.

So, go and follow them, People! It’s definitely worth it!

Ingredients:
makes about 20 pancakes
1 cup all-purpose flour
3 tsp. baking powder
3 tbsp. sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
2 eggs
1 cup of buttermilk
butter for frying

Mix all ingredients until smooth. Set batter aside and let stand for about 10 to 20 minutes. Heat some butter over medium-high heat in a pan until bubbly. Pour in batter for pancakes and fry them for about 2 minutes on the first side. Flip them to the other side and fry for another minute or two. Serve with a piece of butter on top and drizzle with maple sirup.

Asparagus and Smoked Salmon Pasta.

Benjamin Emmanuel Kaiser — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 15:00:20 +0000

As you might have already noticed I’ve been cooking a lot of pasta recently. I don’t really know why, but I kind of felt like I didn’t enough the past months, so I have to catch up a little bit.

I’m still kind of ill, it’s just a cold, but it kind of keeps me from doing big work in the kitchen. So I’m happy about easy dishes, that I can just throw together in a couple of minutes and still have something my suffering body can enjoy in this total agony of cough and snuff. I’m just kidding, but I really need nice food to feel better.

This asparagus and smoked salmon pasta is another great quick weekday dinner dish. It’s easily done in under 20 minutes and still has great and interesting flavor. Fresh asparagus, smoky salmon, zesty lemon, heavy cream and al dente pasta.

Ingredients:
serves 4

1 pound of pasta
1 pound of green asparagus, cut into 1 1/2 inch pieces
6 oz of smoked salmon, roughly chopped
1 1/2 cup of heavy cream
zest of one lemon
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
2 egg yolks
1 tbsp. minced chives
salt & freshly ground black pepper

Cook your pasta according to package instructions or personal preference until al dente. Meanwhile mix the cream, parmesan, egg yolks, chives and lemon zest in a small bowl and heat up a tablespoon of butter in a pan and add the asparagus. Pan-fry the asparagus for a couple of minutes until the pasta is done. Add the pasta and cream mixture to the pan and heat until lightly thickened. Just before serving add the smoked salmon and allow to heat through.

Pork Sausage Pasta.

Benjamin Emmanuel Kaiser — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 00:19:47 +0000

Okay… This is kind of hard for me. I never liked Jamie Oliver. I think it’s just his face. Or his attitude. Or a combination of both? I don’t know. Just seeing him on TV makes me want to hurt myself or others (preferably Jamie of course) in many ways. But some days ago I found this Jamie Oliver Recipe at seasaltwithfood, tried it and actually… I really liked it. There’s one Thing I know for sure: It’s not easy to accept and/or admit that.

But it’s true. This dish is such a great and hearty pasta dish, that just makes you want to eat a whole pot and die happily afterwards. The Lemon in the sauce is a nice contrast to the uber-savory taste of the pork sausage. Perfect balance, that just makes you eat more of that stuff.

P.S.: I’m not saying he’s a bad cook or anything. I mean, who am I to say something like that?! I just (still) can’t stand him. Cheers!

Recipe adapted from “Cook with Jamie” by Jamie Oliver

Ingredients:
serves 4

2 tbsp. fennel seeds (I left those out, just because I didn’t have them on hand)
2 dried red chiles, crumbled
olive oil
1 lb 6 oz coarse italian sausage, without casing
1 tbsp. oregano
1 cup of white wine
zest and juice of 1 Lemon
1 lb 2 oz fusilli or tortiglioni
2 tbsp. of Butter
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
A small bunch of fresh flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped

Heat some olive oil in a cast-iron pan and add the sausage when hot, breaking it up with a wooden spoon. Fry for some minutes and add the fennel seeds and chile. Continue frying, until the meat is all browned and your kitchen smells delicious. (Seriously, it does!) Add oregano, white wine and let half of the wine boil away. Turn down the heat and stir in lemon juice and zest.

Now cook your pasta al dente, according to package instructions or personal preference. When done, drain pasta and toss with the sauce in your pan. Add parmesan, butter and parsley and mix until everything’s evenly distributed on the pasta.

Serve with some more parmesan and parsley.

Asparagus and Caramelized Onion Frittata

Benjamin Emmanuel Kaiser — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 11:01:56 +0000

Imagine the following situation: It’s Sunday, you’re hungry and you ate almost everything you have for cooking a proper dinner/lunch/whatever. You can’t go buy stuff because all the shops are closed. The only things you have left are some eggs and random vegetables. Why not make a beautiful and delicious frittata?

You can use tomatoes, zucchini, onion, mushrooms, fish, meat, bacon and so much more… It’s perfect! You just whip up eggs with some salt and pepper, fry the filling in an oven proof pan, pour eggs on top of it, sprinkle with some cheese and put it in the oven for 5 minutes. Done.

And you can give it any flavor you want. Isn’t that just fantastic? And the leftovers are even better!

I just made an asparagus and caramelized onion frittata. It’s a great combination, especially if you add a little bit of smoky bacon. The asparagus and onions go so well together!

Ingredients:

6 eggs, half of the egg yolks discarded
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
2 slices of bacon
a handful of asparagus tips
some parmesan cheese
salt & pepper

Stir the eggs with some salt and pepper. Heat an oven proof pan over medium-high heat and add bacon slices. Fry them for a couple of minutes and set them aside. Add the onions to the bacon fat and reduce heat to medium-low. Let the onions caramelize for about 20 minutes while stirring occasionally. Meanwhile preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Add the asparagus tips and turn up heat again. Fry for about 2-3 minutes and add the egg mixture. After a minute, when the egg is starting to set in on the bottom of the pan sprinkle frittata with some parmesan cheese and pop into the hot oven until completely set and (if you like it) lightly browned. Serve sliced while still warm.

Chicharrones.

Benjamin Emmanuel Kaiser — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 23:03:46 +0000

Okay, here’s just a quick post with a pretty picture of deep fried pork skin. I tried David Changs method and even though he says drying the skin in the oven is unreliable, it turned out to work great for me.

The taste of the deep fried crunchy pieces for themselves is kind of neutral and just a little bit pork-ish, but once you give them a little flavor with japanese 7 spice powder the thing gets more interesting. The fat brings out the flavor of the spice and suddenly it’s a great snack. I will definitely have to try to put it on other food, like croutons or something.

Fried Chicken. Keller meets Chang.

Benjamin Emmanuel Kaiser — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 12:49:55 +0000

Okay, high speed internet is finally back up and running here. We had to get a new contract, because my one flatmate moved out. Things are finally getting back to normal. We got new furniture, a lot of new stuff for the kitchen and it’s nice and peaceful around here. The only bad thing at the moment is, that I have massive pain in my ears, which kind of distracts me from everything I do. I hope it’ll get better and i’ll get some proper sleep next night.

Well, cooking wise there were some nice things last week. Let’s just start with the fried chicken. We all know it, we all love it. And it’s just so much fun having a fried chicken party at home that ends with you deep frying all stuff that comes to mind for dessert. We tried deep fried marshmallows filled with chocolate and a lot of other delicious things and – unfortunately – also some really disgusting stuff.

There are two major fried chicken recipes that get hyped a lot on the blogs. First of all, Thomas Keller’s Recipe: The chicken pieces sit in a brine with a lot of lemon and some herbs for about 24 hours and are then coated with buttermilk and flour and deep fried.

The second recipe is by my all-time favourite, David Chang. The chicken pieces also sit in a brine, but a lot of sugar is added to it and it’s way more neutral than the Keller brine. Afterwards the chicken is cooked by steaming it for about 40 minutes. It is then cooled down and finished by deep frying without any coating. This results in perfectly juice, not too fatty chicken pieces with an extremely tasty and crunchy skin. It is best eaten after being tossed with David Chang’s “Octo Vinaigrette”.

Well, I had Thomas Keller’s fried chicken before. It was amazing. I wanted to do it again, but suddenly, while making the brine I thought about the Chang recipe. The thought of deep frying chicken without coating was exactly what I was craving. So, I just left out the rosemary, thyme and parsley and added some more of the honey. Afterwards I went the Chang way of steaming, cooling down and deep frying. I just put a little Octo Vin on it and I think it was by far the best (fried) chicken I have ever laid my lips on.

I didn’t try the original David Chang recipe yet, so I can’t compare, but i think I really enjoyed the lemon, bay and black pepper aroma coming from the brine with the Octo Vin. We’ll I might just make some of both, or all three, variations and compare them directly.

Ingredients:
adapted from David Chang & Thomas Keller
serves 2

Brine
8 cups of water
1/3 cup of kosher salt
1/2 cup of honey
6 bay leaves
10 unpeeled garlic cloves
1 tbsp. black peppercorns
3/4 tbsp. grated lemon zest
1/4 cup lemon juice

Other
1 whole chicken
6 – 8 cups of grape seed or peanut oil, for deep frying

Put all of the brine ingredients in a large pot and bring to a boil. Stir until all of the salt has dissolved. Let the brine cool down.

Clean chicken and cut into 8 pieces. Put the chicken pieces into the brine, making sure they are completely submerged.

After about 24 hours take out the chicken pieces and pat them dry. Put them into a bamboo steamer and steam for about 40 minutes until they are all cooked through. Set aside and let them cool down for at least 2 to 3 hours.

Heat up your oil in a large pan or deep fryer to blasjnkfsedfd degrees. Deep fry the chicken in batches for about 6 to 8 minutes, until nicely browned and crunchy.

Serve immediately, tossed with some Octo Vin if you have it.