CLASS SELECTIONS FROM A
YEAR OF COOKING recipes max hull /photography claudia mak
FOR: NINA... OBVIOUSLY.
RECIPES I KNOW IT PROBABLY MAKES SENSE to have some overarching strategy when it comes to choosing which recipes to include in this first volume, but I will openly admit I don’t really have one. It’s not the first five recipes we did (though there are some early ones in there), it’s not all one type of cuisine, it’s not alphabetical, and the first letter of each recipe doesn’t form a clandestine acrostic. It wouldn’t be unfair to describe it as disjointed. Rather, I tried to include a diverse mix of recipe types; quick and easy, essentials, guilty pleasure, and there’s even a bonus recipe we never made together (spoiler alert: it's Parker House Rolls). This first collection takes aim at versatility and fun rather than a cohesive theme. I’ll leave you with the advice I offer most often when it comes to using recipes: They are guidelines, not scripture. Trust your gut, and have fun.
STIR FRIED GREENS The first iteration of this dish appeared on the opening dinner menu of Mei Mei, and it hasn’t changed too much since then. The goal is to achieve the textures and flavors of the Chinese classic steamed greens with oyster sauce, but to add a little interest by using a super hot wok to get some of the fabled wok-hei flavor into the dish as well. This vegetable side is light, but satisfying and could round out any meal. Or simply pair it with some steamed rice for a healthy repast that won’t weigh you down.
PROCEDURE
INGREDIENTS
Add the soy sauce and oyster sauce, and toss to coat.
8 cups g reens (baby Bok Choi, Gai Lan, kale, mustards, etc.) 4 cloves garlic, sliced thin Roughly 2 Tbsp soy sauce Roughly 3 Tbsp oyster sauce Cooking oil as needed
Plate greens, and enjoy.
If available, start a charcoal grill fire and allow to come to full temperature. If not, then simply turn on your most powerful burner to high, and disable your smoke detector. Allow a wok to preheat over the fire until very hot. Smoke should immediately come off the pan when oil is drizzled in. Drizzle in enough cooking oil to coat the surface of the wok, and toss in all greens. Cook, tossing or stirring frequently until wilted, and slightly softened (adding more cooking oil if needed). At this point, add the garlic. Continue tossing or stirring another 30 seconds.
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PARKER HOUSE ROLLS These rolls have been many years in the making, and this recipe is constantly under development. It started when I first got a copy of Rose Levy Beranbaum’s amazing Bread Bible and tried out her butter-dipped dinner rolls. Since then the recipe has picked up bits from many different places. It has some components of the milk bun recipe used at Little Moss (adapted from a formula created by Jake Novick-Finder of Ribelle fame), as well as some inspiration from the dinner rolls we make at The Chopping Block. These little cuties take a while to make, but I promise you won’t regret making the effort. INGREDIENTS 675 g m ilk, scalded and cooled to below 110 degrees 975 g A P flour, split into 375, and 600 grams 30 g sugar 3 g yeast, split into 1, and 2 grams 15 g salt 175 g butter, softened Melted butter as needed (about one stick) One egg (optional) 2 Tbsp milk or cream (optional)
PROCEDURE Two days before you want buns combine the milk, sugar, 375 grams AP flour, 1 gram yeast in the bowl of a stand mixer. Mix ingredients until they form a loose batter. Sprinkle the remaining flour and yeast on top of the batter, cover with plastic wrap, and allow to sit at warm room temperature (75-80 degrees) for one hour before placing it in the fridge overnight. The next day remove the bowl from the fridge, and—using the dough hook on your stand mixer—mix in the flour and yeast sitting on top of the batter. Mix until just combined,then add the salt, and softened butter. Knead on low until butter is fully incorporated then increase speed to medium, and knead for 5-10 minutes, until the dough comes away cleanly from the sides of the bowl. Cover with plastic wrap, and allow to come up to room temperature. Allow to rise at room temperature for one hour before returning to the fridge overnight. The next day, remove dough from fridge and preheat oven to 425 degrees. While the oven heats, portion dough into 65 gram balls (a little smaller than a golf ball). Generously butter a large baking dish. This recipe yields about 28 dinner rolls, so you will need enough space to accommodate them. Shape the rolls by rolling them on the table under the palm of your hand in a circular motion, using your thumb and pinky to tuck dough under the ball as you roll it to build tension on the surface. Once you have shaped the rolls, arrange them in the dish, then generously brush melted butter over the top. Make sure to leave about a half inch of space between the rolls. Allow to rise (proof), covered, at warm room temperature until at least doubled in size. When finished proofing rolls should rebound quickly from a gentle poke, and should have expanded so that all the rolls are touching. If you want shiny rolls, then at this point whisk the egg with the milk or cream, and brush the surface of the rolls with the egg wash. Be sure to get all the exposed surface of the rolls so that as they expand in the oven the egg wash still covers most of the surface. Bake uncovered at 425 for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 375, and rotate the baking dish. Continue to bake until the rolls have an even dark golden brown crust, then remove from the oven and allow to cool for at least ten minutes before serving.
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FRIED CHICKEN SANDO Honestly, what is there to say about this sandwich. It is killer. It’s as close to the platonic ideal of a fried chicken sandwich as I have been able to come. This is the only recipe where I call for specific brands of ingredients, and there is a reason; if you want the best crust possible it really is worth going through the effort of finding Wondra flour (the recipe is still very good without it, but AP will never fry up quite like Wondra). Kewpie mayo is the best mayo out there (thanks, MSG!), and Kraft Deli Deluxe is the longstanding champ of American cheese. These really do bring something special to the sandwich. Try to make sure your brioche buns are soft, and not too dense. If you can’t find nice light brioche a Martin’s potato bun would be an acceptable substitute. Worthwhile additions to the sandwich are swapping the mayo on the bottom bun for a generous smear of chicken liver mousse (trust me), and adding a generous portion of your favorite hot sauce to the honey mustard mayo. N.B. used frying oil can be strained and reserved for further use. Stored in a cool dark place (or in an opaque container) frying oil can last for months, or up to about 10 uses.
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INGREDIENTS BUTTERMILK BRINE 1 Cup buttermilk 1/2 jar’s w orth bread + butter pickle brine 1 Tbsp onion powder 1 tsp garlic powder 2 Tbsp salt 1 Tbsp smoked sweet paprika 1/2 tsp cayenne 1/2 tsp finely ground black pepper 1 tsp chilli powder 4 boneless, skin-on chicken thighs DREDGE 3 Cups W ondra flour (AP will suffice if unavailable) 4 Tbsp onion powder 4 tsp garlic powder 1.5 Tbsp salt 4 Tbsp smoked sweet paprika 2 tsp cayenne 2 tsp finely ground black pepper 4 tsp chilli powder
HONEY MUSTARD MAYO 1/2 Cup Kewpie mayo (other brands will work…I guess) 1/4 Cup sharp or Dijon mustard 1/4 Cup good quality honey TO BUILD 4 brioche burger buns Kewpie mayo Bread + butter pickle chips Honey mustard mayo 4 slices A merican cheese (ideally Kraft Deli Deluxe) Brined chicken thighs in brine Seasoned dredging flour Enough cooking oil to fill a skillet 2/3 of the way
PROCEDURE The day before you want fried chicken make the brine by whisking together all brine ingredients except chicken in a dish just large enough to hold the chicken thighs comfortably. Once mixed, add the chicken thighs into brine, cover, and refrigerate overnight (if you’re in a rush you can let the thighs brine for just a couple hours, but the effect will not be quite as juicy or tender). The next day fill a skillet about 2/3 full of cooking oil and heat to 325 degrees over medium heat. Meanwhile, make the dredge by whisking together all dredge ingredients. Also take this opportunity to make the honey mustard mayo by whisking together all of those ingredients as well, then set aside. To dredge the chicken begin by sprinkling a few spoonfuls of brine into the flour mixture. This will create extra texture for a nice crispy crust. Working with one thigh at a time remove it from the brine and drop it directly into dredge mixture. Make sure entire thigh is coated, then shake off excess dredge, and dip the thigh back in the brine before returning to the dredge for another coating. Place finished thigh on a sheet tray, and repeat dredging procedure with four remaining thighs. Once the oil has come up to temperature carefully drop in dredged thighs. Be careful not to let the oil overflow; you may need to work in batches. Fry until you have a dark
golden-brown crust, and thighs are fully cooked (about 10-15 minutes). Do your best to maintain the temperature at 325. This should produce a fairly moderate amount of bubbles during frying. If it looks like it is bubbling very vigorously, try turning the burner down. While the chicken is frying spread a layer of mayo on both sides of the buns, and toast over low heat (in a pan) until nicely golden-brown. When chicken is done frying remove from the oil, and allow to cool on a wire rack set over a sheet tray. Give the thighs a little sprinkle of salt, and top with a slice of American cheese, which should melt as the chicken cools. If the cheese doesn’t melt to your satisfaction, you can melt it by placing the tray of cheese-clad chicken thighs under the broiler until it is sufficiently gooey. Don’t leave them unattended in the broiler, however. This should only take about a minute or less, and the difference between melted cheese, and burned cheesy chicken thighs is likely a matter of moments. Spread a layer of mayo on both sides of the buns, arrange 3-5 bread and butter pickle chips on each of the bottom buns, and top with the fried chicken. Drizzle on a generous amount of the honey mustard mayo, and finish by putting on the top buns. Enjoy.
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CHICKEN DUMPLING SOUP I have been making some version of this soup for almost 10 years now, though it has changed and been refined many times since I first took a stab at it back in 2010 (which is why it’s such a weird soup recipe now). This version has a few quirks that I think really enhance both the comforting power, and overall execution of the dish. The broth incorporates some Japanese ingredients and techniques (it’s almost a miso-ramen broth), but thanks to the herbs still feels like a classic American chicken soup. It also calls for the vegetables to be roasted separately instead of being boiled in the broth. This gives us control over the doneness of the vegetables so none of them are reduced to mush, as well as concentrating their flavor, and adding some roasty-toasty flavor. This also lets the broth stay as purely and intensely chicken-y as possible. The chicken is also very carefully cooked in the broth to prevent it from drying out. The pâte à choux dumplings use one of my favorite classic French flavor combos of all time: tarragon and shallot. All this combines for a chicken soup that is at once deeply familiar and comforting, but also like… way better than normal.
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INGREDIENTS CHICKEN BROTH 2 qt flavorful chicken stock (homemade is best) 10 dry shiitake mushrooms 30 g kombu 1 sprig fresh thyme 1/2 sprig fresh rosemary 1 sprig fresh sage 2 fresh bay leaves 1 cup shiro miso Soy sauce and black pepper as needed POACHED CHICKEN 1 boneless, skinless chicken breast 1 boneless, skinless chicken thigh ROASTED MIREPOIX 1 cup carrot, obliqued 1 cup celeriac, diced 1/2 leek, sliced 1/2 onion, sliced 1/2 shallot, sliced Cooking oil to coat Salt + pepper to taste
DUMPLING BATTER 50 g water 50 g whole milk 1.5 g salt 1.5 g sugar 50 g butter 60 g AP flour 100 g egg (about 2 eggs) 1.5 Tbsp tarragon, chopped 1 shallot, minced 1.5 tsp Dijon mustard 3 Tbsp s haved Parmigiano Reggiano or Grana Padano TO BUILD Chicken broth Dumpling batter Roasted mirepoix Poached chicken, pulled into strips or chopped 1/4 cup parsley, rough chopped
PROCEDURE FOR THE CHICKEN BROTH Pour the chicken stock into a saucepan or pot that can fit it comfortably. Add the kombu and mushrooms, and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Simmer for 10 minutes before adding the thyme, rosemary, sage, and bay leaves. Allow to infuse for a further 10 minutes. Pass the infused stock through a fine mesh strainer and whisk in miso. Taste for seasoning and adjust with soy sauce and finely ground black pepper. FOR THE POACHED CHICKEN Bring the finished chicken broth up to a simmer in a saucepan or pot, then reduce heat to low. Add the chicken breast and thigh. Poach the breast until just cooked through (155 degrees internal temp), but allow the thigh to poach just under a simmer for 20 minutes. Remove chicken from broth as it finishes, and allow to cool before tearing or chopping into bite size pieces. Taste the chicken broth again to see if it requires any further seasoning after poaching the chicken. FOR THE ROASTED MIREPOIX Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2 minutes to release some steam and heat. With mixer still running add eggs one at a time. Wait until the first egg is fully incorporated before adding another. When eggs are fully mixed in add tarragon, shallot, Dijon, and shaved Parm. Mix until incorporated. Transfer batter to a container just big enough to hold it, and cover until needed. TO BUILD Bring chicken broth to a low simmer. Using two spoons of roughly equal size and shape, take a spoonful of batter and form into a three-sided quenelle before dropping into the simmering broth. Repeat with remaining batter, allowing dumplings to rise to the surface, then continue poaching for about two minutes before removing them with a slotted spoon to cool on a sheet tray or plate. Once all the dumplings have been cooked return them to the pot along with the roasted mirepoix, and poached chicken pieces. Bring entire mixture up to a full simmer, then remove from heat, add chopped parsley, and taste for final seasoning adjustments before serving.
Toss prepared vegetables in just enough cooking oil to coat, and season with salt and pepper. Lay out vegetables in a single layer on a parchment lined sheet tray, and roast until tender and slightly caramelized. You may get a little charring on some of the vegetables, but don’t panic; this is by design. FOR THE DUMPLING BATTER Combine the water, milk, salt, sugar, and butter in a medium sized saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. When mixture reaches a boil add flour in all at once. Turn heat to medium-low, and stir until a smooth paste is formed. Continue stirring over medium-low heat until paste leaves a film on the bottom of the pan (about 3-5 minutes). Transfer cooked paste to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Whisk paste on low speed for
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MANY LAYER LASAGNA The king of casseroles; Le Roi de Americain. Arguably one of the most well-loved pasta dishes in the world. Pretty much any lasagna will be delicious, but there are a few things that set this one apart. Most all lasagna recipes have you use either fresh ricotta to add creaminess, or they will use a Béchamel. This recipe combines the two creating a dairy chimera of sorts. The inclusion of queso Oaxaca provides stringiness that would make any mozzarella shrink away in embarrassment. Then there are the many layers. There are a lot of wonderful things about a good lasagna but my favorite is the satisfying texture of pushing a fork through nigh innumerable layers of super thin pasta. It’s like undoing velcro. In a two inch deep baking dish this recipe should get you a lasagna boasting between 15-20 layers, but the deeper a dish you use, the more layers you can build. This is the most compelling reason to make your own pasta sheets for this recipe. It can be made with store-bought lasagna noodles, but they aren’t as thin as those you can make yourself, so you can’t get as many layers. It’s definitely still delicious and worth making, but the homemade pasta really lets you bring it to another level.
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INGREDIENTS TOMATO SAUCE 1 medium onion, diced 2 cloves garlic, microplaned 5 dashes fish sauce 1 Tbsp tomato paste 1/4 Cup olive oil 1 Cup white wine 40 oz DOP San Marzano canned whole tomatoes, crushed by hand 1 bunch fresh basil 2 fresh bay leaves Salt to taste BÉCHAMEL 3 Cups milk 3 Tbsp butter 3 Tbsp flour 1 Cup fresh ricotta Salt, pepper, nutmeg to taste
PASTA DOUGH 300 g AP flour 60 g semolina flour 4 whole eggs 2 egg yolks 2 big pinches kosher salt TO BUILD 1 lb fresh mozzarella, sliced thin 1 lb queso Oaxaca or Chihuahua, shredded 2 C ups shredded Parmigiano Reggiano or Grana Padano I bunch fresh basil Tomato sauce Béchamel sauce Pasta sheets
PROCEDURE FOR THE TOMATO SAUCE In a non-reactive pot sweat the onion and fish sauce in the olive oil over medium heat until translucent. Microplane the garlic directly into pot, and cook for another 30 seconds or so before adding the tomato paste. Cook, stirring frequently, for another two minutes, before deglazing with the white wine.
Liberally flour the pasta sheets on both sides, and stack neatly before cutting in half lengthwise so each sheet is about three inches wide. Cover loosely with plastic and reserve. TO BUILD Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Let wine reduce until almost dry then add in the tomatoes, basil, and bay leaves. Bring to a bare simmer, and let cook, stirring occasionally, for at least an hour. If the sauce seems like its getting too thick, loosen it with a bit of water and put the lid on for the remainder of cooking time.
Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and ready an ice bath for shocking blanched pasta sheets.
Season to taste with salt.
Spread a layer of tomato sauce on the bottom of a baking dish (many different sizes will work, but I used a 10x15" Pyrex dish).
FOR THE BÉCHAMEL Build a blond roux with the flour and butter, then whisk in the milk. Bring to a boil stirring frequently, then reduce to a simmer. Cook until the sauce can coat the back of a spoon. Stir in the ricotta, and season to taste with salt, pepper, and nutmeg. FOR THE PASTA DOUGH In a bowl combine the flours, and salt. Make a well in the center and add the eggs and yolks to the well. Using a fork or chopstick mix the eggs, and slowly begin to incorporate the flour. Once you can no longer easily stir, and the dough has formed a shaggy mass, turn it out onto the counter and knead until the dough is smooth and elastic, and there are no dry spots remaining (about 10-15 minutes). Shape the dough into a ball, and wrap in plastic. Allow the dough to rest for at least 30 minutes at room temperature. (you can also try making this dough in a stand mixer (same kneading time), or a food processor (will only need a minute or so to reach full development)). After the dough is rested, set up your pasta roller and divide the dough into quarters. Any dough not being actively used should stay wrapped in plastic. Starting on the widest setting, and rolling through each setting until the second thinnest, roll out each quarter of the dough into long sheets. Cut these sheets into lengths equal to the length of your baking dish.
Make sure tomato sauce and Béchamel are warm and spreadable, but not too hot.
Blanch the pasta sheets a few at a time for about a minute, then evacuate to the ice bath to stop the cooking process. Try not to leave the sheets sitting in the ice bath too long or they can get waterlogged. The best strategy here is to make it a two-person job: one person builds the layers and the other blanches and shocks pasta sheets. If you don’t have another person just alternate from one job to the other. To build the layers start by placing a full layer of pasta sheets on top of the sauce on the bottom of the baking dish. Then, starting with another layer of tomato sauce, alternate the tomato and Béchamel sauces with each layer, adding the cheeses and basil leaves at your discretion. Reserve some of each type of cheese for the top. When your baking dish is full add one last coating of tomato sauce, and top with the reserved cheese. Place lasagna on a wire rack set over a sheet tray and bake until cheese is melted and browned on top, and you can see sauce bubbling up from the bottom (about an hour). After baking let lasagna cool for at least 20 minutes before serving.
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WORDS IN WORKING ON THIS BOOK I REALIZED there is another trove of content I have been slowly accumulating over the last year or so, and that is the blog posts I do every month for The Chopping Block. I selected three posts that I thought you would find interesting or useful (one of which is a dense rant against the use of unsalted butter which made such a controversial debut I can still feel the reverberations (i.e., my coworkers openly mock me despite being wrong)). These are not up to quite the same graphic standard as the rest of the book, and some of them contain conspicuous untruths (e.g., “It’s the middle of August”), but I hope they can offer some value nonetheless.
A LAID-BACK GUIDE TO CAMPFIRE COOKING IT’S THE MIDDLE of August and you know what that means; time to hastily plan last minute camping trips that you have put off all season because you can already almost feel the chill of winter’s prickly breath on the nape of your soon-to-no-longer-be-exposed neck. In an effort to make this planning as carefree and relaxed as you were maybe like four weekends ago I decided to write up this little guide. I’ve got some tips and, you guessed it, tricks for you, as well as an outline of my approach. But honestly I’m going to try to keep my yap shut and let the photos do most of the talking because I was accompanied on this trip by a person who I consider to be objectively the best non-Canadian Chicago-based food photographer, and who also (unrelated to above opinion) happens to be my girlfriend.
This guide will be geared towards car camping with a tent because that’s, you know, what we did. When deciding what to bring on a camping trip like this you want to be as prepared as possible while also bringing the fewest number of items. In light of this I packed over 30 pieces of just kitchen equipment. This may seem like ridiculous overkill, but let me assure you that it is. You could definitely get away with one saucepan, one skillet, a cutting board, a chef’s knife, a rubber spatula, some kind of grate to cook on, a large spoon, and tongs (which I actually forgot and is now, in retrospect, pretty embarrassing). For food my strategy is actually one I do recommend trying out. I only brought main course stuff, staples I didn’t want to be without or buy again, esoteric things I wanted to use, but didn’t think I’d be able to find. It came out to roughly the following: • • • •
A dozen eggs A block of cheddar A very large bone-in rib eye Breakfast sausage patties
• • • • • • • •
Flour tortillas Some herbs/flowers Really good salted butter Canola oil Salt and pepper 12 tall boys of Miller High Life (the champagne of beers) Thai Fish sauce Onions/garlic/shallots
The rest I planned to get from a farmers market while I was up there. I really like this approach because not only is the most delicious produce in the area probably going to be at the farmer’s market, but then you can really experience the natural bounty of the region and the season, and isn’t that what camping is all about? We were in Wisconsin so we focused on cherries, corn, and dairy. But mostly cherries. My advice is to start a fire immediately upon arrival. The longer you have to build up a strong fire and robust bed of coals the more pleasant your cooking experience will be, and it’s important to have some coals still smoldering in the morning to start a fire for making coffee and breakfast.
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For breakfast I made simple quesadillas with the breakfast sausage, eggs, tortillas, and cheese. Afterwards it was off to the farmers market. I ended up picking up eggplant, tomatillos, sweet cherries, tart cherries, blueberries, corn, chanterelles, potatoes, maple syrup, fava beans, lovage, and oregano. Before I started cooking I quickly cleaned up the bone on the ribeye, and made a glaze for it out of fish sauce, maple syrup, and salted butter, then seasoned it generously with salt before placing it on the grate opposite the fire so it could undergo a prolonged temper, and pick up some smoke.
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The fava beans and corn got made into a succotash with onions, garlic, and lovage. When the steak was sufficiently glazed and tempered, I finished it off by dropping it directly on the coals. The chanterelles got cleaned, then sautéed with butter and shallots. Once the mushrooms were almost cooked I added the sweet cherries, and fresh oregano. This would be a condiment of sorts for the steak. And the potatoes just got boiled and dressed with butter and salt. For dessert: S’mores. Respect the institution (when it comes to camping, that is).
Now of course camping is fun regardless of how you decide to spend your calories; hot dogs are one of the world’s delicious foods after all. But hopefully if you do decide to give this method a shot you will find it enriches your experience of time and place in a specific location, and that—to me—is a big part of what makes a camping trip memorable •
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WHILE IT IS probably inadvisable to risk alienating large swaths of your audience in the opening paragraph, I’m going to admit something: I love winter.
SNOWFLAKE DUMPLINGS: A VISUAL GUIDE 30
The cold weather lets me show off all my effortlessly cool cable knit sweaters, I can watch from behind a window as fat flakes of snow drift lazily to the earth, and the food is just super tasty. There are rib sticking braises, hearty soups, baked treats of all manner, and we can eat as much as we want because, you know, its like… cold. One of my favorite cold weather treats are dumplings. Now, obviously I’ll eat dumplings any time of year, but they are especially satisfying when the mercury starts to drop, so when I learned about a Chinese preparation called snowflake dumplings my interest was piqued AF. I mean a winter-themed dumpling? How could I resist? Snowflake dumplings are not, despite the name, tiny snowballs folded into a thin wrapper and steamed; they are typically a pent-or-hexagonal arrangement of whatever Chinese style of dumplings you happen to have on hand connected by a lacy network of crispy batter which looks kind of like a snowflake. If you’ve never done it before, I do encourage you to try making your own dumplings, and I do provide some basic instructions on doing so, but you can totally take advantage of this style of dumpling cooking with dumplings you buy out of the freezer aisle in the Chinese grocery store. Simply pick up the instructions with the slurry-making instructions and follow from there.
The first step here is making wrappers. This process is actually easier than you might think. I made mine by adding two cups of flour, and a pinch of salt to my food processor, then turning it on and drizzling in boiling water (about a half a cup) until it started to come together into a dough. After that, I let it ride around in the processor for about one minute before taking out the dough ball, wrapping it in plastic, and letting it rest for 30 minutes. I use boiling water because it denatures some of the gluten proteins which gives us a softer, more pliable dough, which is perfect for rolling into wrappers. While the dough was resting I made my filling. To do this I added: 1 clove garlic, peeled 1/2 yellow onion, rough chopped 1/2 bulb fennel, rough chopped 1 stalk lemongrass, thinly sliced to my food processor and turned it on to mince the ingredients. I then added: 1/2 pound of ground pork 1 tsp kosher salt 1 tbsp soy sauce and turned the processor back on to incorporate, and mince the pork a little more finely. While the processor was running I added: 1 tsp sesame oil 1 tbsp Xiaoshing cooking wine 1/2 tsp Maagi seasoning I then turn out the filling into a bowl and added: 1/2 pound ground pork 1/2 Cup enoki mushrooms, roughly chopped I mixed all this together to form my final filling. The reason I use half finely minced pork and half regular ground pork is because the finely minced pork adds a bit of chew and springiness to the filling which I like in moderation. After I had my rested dough, and finished the filling, it’s time to roll, fill and fold.
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Making the slurry: In order to get the beautiful crispy webbing for which snowflake dumplings are so prized, you want to steam them not with water, but with a slurry. I mixed my slurry by combining in a bowl: 12 grams cornstarch (about 2 tablespoons) 7 grams all-purpose flour (about one hefty tablespoon) 200 grams water (about one cup) It should look basically like milk. I chose the six least aesthetically-challenged dumplings, and arranged them in a nonstick pan with some oil to get a nice brown crust. Once they were nice and golden-brown I added about two tablespoons of slurry, reduced the heat to low, and placed a lid over the pan so they could steam for eight minutes:
I then rolled each piece into a thin disc into which I placed about a tablespoon of filling, folded in half, and pleated with my fingertips to form the finished shape. Repeat the process about 40 times.
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After eight minutes were up I took off the lid to let the water evaporate so the crust could crisp up:
Once I could see that the batter had turned from milky/ opaque to transparent/crispy I turn the heat off, made sure the dumplings were released from the pan, inverted a plate over the pan, and flipped the pan/plate over to turn out the dumplings while keeping their arrangement intact. Let them cool for a few minutes, and enjoy! I know most people won’t be persuaded to enjoy winter the same way I do, but I think most people are on my side when it comes to dumplings. One of the best things about making dumplings is that you can invite friends over to help you roll out and fold them; they bring people together even before they hit the pan. I know I said food is one of the best parts about winter, but another nice side-effect of the cold weather is that people are more inclined to stay inside and spend time with friends and family. This dish happily unites both •
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UNSALTED BUTTER
CONVENTIONAL wisdom tells us a lot of things when it comes to cooking: searing meat seals in the juices, salt your water to make it boil faster, don’t cut raw meat on a wooden cutting board, add oil to your pasta water to keep noodles from sticking, don’t wash mushrooms, and if you’re serious about cooking you should use unsalted butter. We have all heard these so many times before, and believe it or not they also happen to all be demonstrably false. For this post we’re going to take a cool refreshing deep dive into that last one: unsalted butter. Most of the other claims listed above have been long debunked, but there are still thousands of unfortunate souls roaming the land, lips slick with butter grease that is but a pale whisper of what it could be. So why do we even care about this? “Unsalted butter?” you ask. “So what? You don’t like it; put some salt on top and move on, you pedantic piece of human garbage.” Well, hang on a second there. It’s not quite that simple. At what point you salt the butter actually matters a lot. Salted butter is usually salted right after the butter has been churned, when you are kneading it and rinsing it to wash out the whey and make
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the butter mass homogeneous. Adding the salt at this point in the process means the salt is fully dissolved and distributed throughout the butter. For this reason, salted butter tastes like what butter was meant to be. In the same way salt turns up the volume on flavors in savory dishes when applied in the right amount, so too does it amplify butter’s intrinsic butteriness. We call this ‘proper seasoning’ and cooks are obsessed with it, except, bafflingly, when it comes to butter. Try to add salt to unsalted butter, however, and it tastes like just that, bland butter with salt on top. So why did we start using unsalted butter in the first place? The standard rationale goes something like this: You should use unsalted butter because you want to be able to control how much salt you add to your dish. This undeniably makes sense. It’s true that you want to be able to control the salt in your food, and unsalted butter offers you more control over the salt in your food, but there is a lot going on under the surface of this argument so let’s—as they say—unpack it. First, this argument seems to suggest that the amount of salt in salted butter is so high that using it in place of unsalted butter would render the cook unable to add seasoning of any kind, and, in fact, would by itself render the dish too salty. Additionally this line of thinking assumes that high resolution control of seasoning is a virtue higher than deliciousness or that control of seasoning must lead to maximized deliciousness. But is this all true? It seems the real question here is how much control over seasoning do you gain by using unsalted butter, and is it worth the cost of delicious flavor? Another facet of the pro-unsalted argument is that you should use unsalted butter because you don’t know how much salt the company making it has added. This is kind of true. Different brands do add different amounts of salt to their salted butter, but this is a problem that’s easy to solve. Why? Because companies are legally required to tell you how much sodium is in their product, and we know math. All we have to do is take the amount of sodium per serving specified on the nutrition facts label, add 150% of that number (because salt is only about 40% sodium by weight), divide that number by 1000, then determine what percentage of the serving is salt. Sounds
complicated? Well I wrote you an equation to make it easier (figure 1): where x is the milligrams of sodium specified per 14 g serving (they all use this serving size), and y is the percentage of salt per any given weight of butter. Pretty cool, right? No? Well I think it’s cool. Most foods we eat that are considered “properly seasoned” clock in at between 1.5-2.0% salt by weight (you’ll have to take my word for it, but it’s true), and we can plug in the nutrition info for the butters pictured below (a good representation of the salted butters that you are likely to encounter: Plugra, Kerrygold, Organic Valley salted, and Organic Valley Cultured) to discover that most all salted butter is between 1.3-1.8% salt by weight. This means most all salted butters fall under our description of “properly seasoned.” That means that just eaten by itself salted butter is not egregiously salty. Thus it stands to reason that unless your dish is already too salty, it is physically impossible to over-season it with salted butter. The anti-salted argument also starts to sound a little silly when you try to extend it to non-butter ingredients. For instance, no cook would ever tell you to use unsalted Parmesan cheese, or unsalted soy sauce, or unsalted pickles, or unsalted Prosciutto, or unsalted miso.
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So why unsalted butter? Furthermore, let’s try examining the idea that you can add salt to something at any point in its production and yield the same result. By this logic we should be able to cook a steak totally unseasoned and add salt only after its been sliced, and have it taste the same as a steak that was seasoned before it was cooked. An idea that—I promise you— exactly zero pro-unsalted cooks would agree with. Strong as I feel this argument is I didn’t write this to convince you to use salted butter for only your savory dishes. So what about pastry? What about products that can’t really read as salty on the palate at all? Well I had this concern too, and leaving aside the fact that most pastry recipes use too much sugar and not enough salt as it is I wanted to do a test to see if salted butter held up under these conditions. So I tried to think of a recipe that was almost entirely butter by weight, and would come off weird if it tasted even a little salty. I settled on buttercream frosting. I used the following recipe to yield my unflavored base, then folded in some seasoned (with salt) strawberry rhubarb jam to flavor it. Basic Salted Buttercream 75 grams egg whites (about two whites) 183 grams granulated sugar split into 150 grams and 33 grams (about 3/4 Cup, and 2 1/3 tbsp sugar respectively) 42 grams water (about 3 1/3 Tablespoons) 227 grams salted butter at room temperature (two sticks) Place egg whites in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Combine 150 grams sugar and water in a saucepan and bring to a simmer. Cook sugar syrup to 230 degrees F. Once this temperature is reached start whipping the egg whites, gradually adding the 33 remaining grams of granulated sugar until the whites reach soft peaks. When the sugar syrup reaches 248 degrees carefully pour it between the whisk and the side of the bowl with the mixer on medium.
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Whip the egg whites for about 15 minutes until the bottom of the bowl is room temperature to touch. Add the room temperature butter one tablespoon at a time until it is fully incorporated. You’ve done it! Flavor as you like. When the buttercream was totally plain, it came across as lightly salted sort of how a good salted caramel tastes. Still definitely dessert, and honestly pretty delicious, but I wanted to see how it tasted with a flavor because only a complete sociopath would use completely unflavored buttercream. Once I had added other flavors the perception of salt totally dropped away, and left only a delicious frosting that I used to frost a chocolate cake (which was also made with salted butter). Was it the most delicious buttercream I’ve ever had? Well, actually yes. It was. In speaking to my colleagues at The Chopping Block, I did encounter one compelling reason to use unsalted butter, and that’s for teaching purposes. When a student is first learning new pastry techniques like buttercream it’s important to use unsalted butter so that they can focus on the technique itself and not worry about trying to nail seasoning which can be done later (just not as well…). Not to mention basically every pastry recipe you’re likely to encounter in the wild will be dialed in for unsalted butter, but why let our food languish at the hand of the status-quo? Together we can change the recipes. We can usher in a new well-seasoned, full-fat world •
“TOGETHER WE CAN CHANGE THE RECIPES. WE CAN USHER IN A NEW WELLSEASONED, FULL-FAT WORLD.”
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