Momofuku (Hardcover)

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From Momofuku: Ginger Scallion Noodles and Ginger Scallion Sauce

Our ginger scallion noodles are an homage to/out-and-out rip-off of one of the greatest dishes in New York City: the $4.95 plate of ginger scallion noodles at Great New York Noodletown down on the Bowery in Chinatown.

Ginger scallion sauce is one of the greatest sauces or condiments ever. Ever. It’s definitely a mother sauce at Momofuku, something that we use over and over and over again. If you have ginger scallion sauce in the fridge, you will never go hungry: stir 6 tablespoons into a bowl of hot noodles--lo mein, rice noodles, Shanghai thick noodles--and you’re in business. Or serve over a bowl of rice topped with a fried egg. Or with grilled meat or any kind of seafood. Or almost anything.

At Noodle Bar, we add a few vegetables to the Noodletown dish to appease the vegetarians, add a little sherry vinegar to the sauce to cut the fat, and leave off the squirt of hoisin sauce that Noodletown finishes the noodles with. (Not because it’s a bad idea or anything, just that we’ve got hoisin in our pork buns, and too much hoisin in a meal can be too much of a good thing. Feel free to add it back.)

The dish goes something like this: boil 6 ounces of ramen noodles, drain, toss with 6 tablespoons Ginger Scallion Sauce (below); top the bowl with 1/4 cup each of Bamboo Shoots (page 54 of Momofuku); Quick-Pickled Cucumbers (page 65 of Momofuku); pan-roasted cauliflower (a little oil in a hot wide pan, 8 or so minutes over high heat, stirring occasionally, until the florets are dotted with brown and tender all the way through; season with salt); a pile of sliced scallions; and a sheet of toasted nori. But that’s because we’ve always got all that stuff on hand. Improvise to your needs, but know that you need ginger scallion sauce on your noodles, in your fridge, and in your life. For real.-- David Chang

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups thinly sliced scallions (greens and whites; from 1 to 2 large bunches)
• 1/2 cup finely minced peeled fresh ginger
• 1/4 cup grapeseed or other neutral oil
• 1 1/2 teaspoons usukuchi (light soy sauce)
• 3/4 teaspoon sherry vinegar
• 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt, or more to taste

(Makes about three cups)

Directions

Mix together the scallions, ginger, oil, soy, vinegar, and salt in a bowl. Taste and check for salt, adding more if needed. Though it’s best after 15 or 20 minutes of sitting, ginger scallion sauce is good from the minute it’s stirred together up to a day or two in the fridge. Use as directed, or apply as needed.

---

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Chang, master restaurateur and chef, and Meehan, a New York Times food writer, join forces in this stellar collection of recipes from Chang's restaurants—Momofuku, Ssäm Bar and Ko. Chang is a man possessed with a deep love of ramen and a clear passion for food. This book pays tribute to the humble noodle, which Chang has elevated to a near art form, and the wide array of cuisine he serves. Filled with 150 gorgeous, full-color photos and an engrossing narrative, this book is a treat for the eye, mind and palate. Chang's special touches are seen in every dish. Chicken wings are cooked with bacon in rendered pork or duck fat, and pan-roasted asparagus are adorned with poached eggs and miso butter. Fried (or roasted) cauliflower is drizzled with fish sauce vinaigrette, and roasted New Jersey diver scallops are served with kohlrabi puree and iwa nori. Of course, recipes for noodles abound, including Momofuku ramen, ginger scallion noodles, and Alkaline Noodles. Other staples include ramen broth, ramen toppings, and rice with miso soup. Be forewarned: Chang gears the cookbook to only the most experienced of cooks, with many dishes requiring several steps. Nevertheless, Chang presents a collection both stunning and engaging. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Clarkson Potter (October 27, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 030745195X
• ISBN-13: 978-0307451958
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 8.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #124 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Deadhouseplants' Review: Momofuku, September 24, 2009

By	Deadhouseplants (Tualatin, Oregon, United States) - See all my reviews

What is Momofuku? Is it a book about Asian food, a cookbook, or an outfielder for the Cubs? As it turns out, it is both a book about Asian food and a cookbook. The book starts off telling the great tale of how famed chef David Chang put everything aside and aspired to attain his dream of owning and operating his own successful restaurants.

That is just the story part of Momofuku, what most of you will want this book for is for the cookbook. This is where I have to give a warning to perspective buyers of this book. These recipes are genuinely Korean, meaning, that some of the ingredients might not be easy to find at your local supermarket. In fact, this is where you might want to look up your local H Mart or other Asian supermarkets to find ingredients such as;

Konbu (Kombu)
Nori
Fish cakes
Bonito flakes (katsuo-bushi)
Bamboo shoots
Ssamjang

And so on, and so on, the list is a hearty one. In my humble opinion, this cookbook is best for strong intermediate cooks to even gourmet cooks. I can't see a novice cook doing even the easiest of recipes such as momofuku fried chicken.

This brings up the second point I wanted to make, that being of time. These recipes are lengthy. I've had the book for 3 days now, and have made 4 recipes. Each of which was very time consuming. This isn't a bad thing. More or less a heads up, to the people who work a 9 to 5 who might or might not want to toil in their kitchen for 30 to 90 minutes. What creates these lengthy recipes is the fact that most recipes refer to another recipe in the book. So you'll have to prep one ingredient to prep your meal. Yes, that can be tedious and mind-warping at times. However, I have always believed that the best meals come from the ones you work so hard at.

Some highlighted recipes are:
Spicy Pork Sausage & Rice Cakes - My friends thought I was insane or messing with them when I pulled out all of the ingredients for this recipe. I chose it simply because I had most of the 17 ingredients it calls for, sans the rice sticks and tofu. The aroma that emanated while I was simmering the sauce was amazing.

Momofuku Shortcakes - I needed a dessert for my meal, and this seemed to be the most appetizing for my guests. You will need 3 hours to make this recipe, as the strawberries need to go through a macerated process.

All in all, I'm more or less dying to try the steamed bun recipe. Problem is, the recipe serves up 50 buns, and I have no place to store that much food in my pantry or freezer at the moment. In summation, I would have to say this is a solid entry for a Korean cookbook. I can't believe that a chef was so willing to share his prized secret to the masses. For that, I give this book a 5-star rating. Good eating.

(Just got the e-mail as I wrote this review, Amazon does sell a lot of the ingredients needed for this book. However, they are quite costly for this poor college student's budget.)

43 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars For (party-hosting) Momofuku fans only, September 29, 2009

By	Michael Suh - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I'd like to take many of the other reviewers here to task. If you're going to review a cookbook, TRY TO COOK FROM IT! The back story to David Chang is interesting, but the stories lead to the food. Why not try to understand his cooking and story a little bit better by trying to make his stuff?

I've had the privilege to eat at Momofuku Ko when Chef Chang was cooking that night. The black and white pictures in the proof copy don't do justice to the food. I've also eaten at the Noodle Bar and the Milk Bar, but somehow just skipped over Ssam (though friends of mine say it's really good). So I was pretty excited to get this book.

I offer this critique, and I think it's a pretty major flaw: this book in general is not practical. The recipes are daunting and clearly in quantities only a catering company or large dinner party would serve. Many people will probably find the recipes too difficult to do on their own.

For example, his ramen broth alone is very long and complicated, and makes literally gallons of the stuff -- and that's after you cut it in half. The ramen noodles are equally terrifying -- beyond the scope of most at-home cooks. Needless to say, I didn't try this.

I did try to make the steamed pork buns. It is incredibly time consuming -- making the dough alone takes a few hours, especially for an amateur cook like myself who has never done it before. The pork belly takes hours, too. And it makes more pork buns than I care to think about -- I lost count at around 35. The taste comes close to Noodle Bar, but there's just something about their food that's just different (and better). Maybe it's their hoisin sauce. Instead of slaving away in the kitchen literally all day, you almost think it's better to drive to the restaurant in NYC and get the pork buns there instead, regardless of where you live in the US. Or abroad.

The pork belly ssam in the book is just a hop, skip, and jump away with the pork belly cooked for the pork buns. But since I've never been to Ssam Bar, I can't compare it.

The frozen foie gras is a revelation when eating at Ko. Reading the recipe turned my stomach (picking out veins and green bile spots?? Bleah!). Didn't try this either. The pine nut brittle that accompanies the foie gras looks good to make, but who has isomalt lying around?

You can kind of tell Chef Chang doesn't care too much about desserts. When I ate at Ko, all I got was funnel cake. In the book he only includes two or three, most of which are just impossible to make. There are no recipes from Milk Bar in the book, either. I wish there were -- I really like the pies there.

If nothing else, this book makes you appreciate how much work Chef Chang puts into his food. But at the end of the day, this won't be a book I'll open to find recipes to serve for dinner parties; I'll look at it before my next trip to New York City to remind myself to get more pork buns at Noodle Bar.

28 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Momofuku, October 18, 2009

By	Spyce - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

I enjoy cooking Asian cuisine and was excited about getting this book and trying some of the recipes. After receiving the book, the excitement was over. Most of the recipes have a long list of ingredients, and a lot of them include another recipe in the ingredients which makes them time consuming to make. So far, I've only managed to try 4 recipes, and those were ones that didn't require a lot of prep time. I especially like the ginger scallion noodles. Others just aren't practical for me, like the Pig's Head Torchon. I can just imagine running all over town trying to find an available pig's head :-)

There are times when it's just best to go to the restaurant to eat rather than try to duplicate what they do at home because as in this case, it's not practical. This is not a cookbook that I would buy or recommend.