Flashback Friday - Compost Cookies

To tell the truth, I never did try to make anything like these again.

--Kathy

This post was originally published on August 24, 2010.
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Compost Cookies

When I was in New York in April, I stopped by David Chang's bakery, Milk Bar, to pick up a couple of their lauded cookies. The "compost cookie" that I had read so much about was tooth-achingly sweet and had a weird gritty texture from crushed breakfast cereal. Fail.

Although the cookie did not impress me, I thought I'd try my hand at baking them after discovering that the recipe was online. And my cupboard was chock-full of miscellaneous add-ins like white chocolate chips, cinnamon chips, a plethora of dried fruit, and about nine boxes of cereal. It seemed like a good way to get rid of last Christmas' left-overs before I started thinking about baking for this year's winter holiday.

Christina Tosi's recipe, as presented on the Regis and Kelly Web site, admonishes bakers to portion the dough then refrigerate it for a minimum of one hour before baking. Lacking the fridge space for baking trays and dough balls, I refrigerated the entire bowl of sugary goodness for about three hours. The first batch resulted in cookies that spread into a massive greasy mess, a uni-cookie, one which required refrigeration in order to achieve some sort of vaguely crisp texture.

It made a fine ice cream topping, but that was not my goal.

After that disaster, I froze the remaining dough, thinking that extreme cold would definitely help.

A few weeks later, I decided to attempt a two-cookie batch in the toaster oven. I set the temperature and the timer for the required 400º and 11 minutes. About eight minutes later, I removed two quite burnt specimens. They were, however, the proper size and shape. After letting the oven cool slightly, I tried again, this time ending up with two flat puddles, a near repeat of the very first try.

A week later, I went at it again, this time photographing the results. After 8 minutes in a toaster oven set at 350º, I had cookie-shaped cookies, albeit with very uneven coloring.

So why were the cookies such a failure each time? This clever blogger deduced that Tosi's recipe was for a professional kitchen with snazzier ovens. And that the flour should be increased by about 1/2 cup. While the home version seemed less cloyingly-sweet, they were overly greasy, which an increase in flour might alleviate. I had a suspicion that the dearth of flour compared to the amount of butter and sugar called for would create the spreading cookie issue, so I overcompensated by adding more than the required 1 1/2 cups of starchy add-ins (like pretzels and cereal; I used Cocoa Krispies, corn flakes, 2 crumbled Wheatabix biscuits, and dry oatmeal). Still, I could not overcome that problem.

While I like the idea of using a multitude of ingredients in a cookie recipe, I'm thinking this isn't the recipe for me. I should continue to experiment with a standard chocolate chip cookie recipe, maybe one with slightly more butter and sugar than the typical Toll House version, but not as much as the compost cookie recipe. Does anyone have suggestions?

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Posted on Minxeats.com.

Ma Peche

The Minx wrote about Chef David Chang's Midtown Manhattan restaurant Ma Peche a few years ago, but the menu has changed since then to a dim sum-style format. Given the menu change and the fact that I had never been there, we decided to give it a try. The restaurant is located in the basement level of the Chambers Hotel. Amber light filters through walls covered in muslin, creating a quiet and serene atmosphere quite apart from the bustling world outside.The old communal tables have been replaced with conventional two- and four-top tables so the dim sum carts can be maneuvered around the room.

Like traditional dim sum, the diner is provided with a sheet listing all the small plate dishes that will be brought around on carts. When a cart comes by, the diner selects whatever items he or she wants, and the server marks it off on the sheet. Larger entree-style dishes can be ordered from your waiter. When the meal is over, the items marked on your sheet are added up and the bill is tallied. Unlike traditional dim sum, however, the selection  is smaller and more eclectic.

The first cart to arrive offered a broccoli salad with toasted pine nuts and a mayo-based togarashi dressing. A pleasant, light start to the meal.

Also on that same cart was an avocado crab dip with toasted Cassava crackers. Hey, it's creamy avocado and crunchy chips! How could you go wrong? The slightly spicy kick helps as well.

One item the Minx definitely wanted me to try was the pork bun, so we ordered two. Slabs of tender pork belly are wrapped in a pillowy steamed bun. The Minx said that these were less fatty than the ones she had eaten before, but that was just fine with me since I'm not a fan of fatty pork. At the same time, the lean pork did not have as much flavor as I would've liked.

One of the chef's specials that we ordered was the lamb noodles. The noodles and shredded lamb are topped with scallions, cabbage, chili jam, and a soft egg. Stir all the items together with your chop sticks and you have a thick, spicy, and thoroughly unctuous soup. The lamb flavor is prominent and the noodles are silky smooth. This was something I could have eaten as a meal by itself.

There was still more dim sum, however, and one must do what one must, so we also chose the fritters and jerk chicken wings. These were recommended by one of the attendants in the hotel lobby and they turned out to be solid choices. Surprisingly, neither dish was terribly spicy, so it's possible Chef Chang is toning down the heat factor for the Midtown crowd.

Since my eyes are always larger than my stomach, I decided to order the spicy rice cakes as well. This dish truly was spicy in the best possible meaning of the word. Crunchy shallot bits top a bed of soft rice cakes about the size of small gnocchi. Underneath is a pork ragu and water spinach.

Would I prefer this form of dim sum over the traditional dim sum found in a strip mall Chinese restaurant? Probably not. But for sheer inventiveness, Ma Peche is worth the experience. I can honestly say that I've never tasted anything like the lamb noodles or the spicy rice cakes, and I'm always quite happy when a restaurant can introduce me to a new taste experience.

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Pretzel Crunch

A recent party opportunity presented an occasion to make the pretzel crunch from the Momofuku Milk Bar cookbook I received for my birthday last month. I had originally wanted to make Chex Mix, but cereal is so damn expensive! Instead, I bought some malt powder, milk powder (which can be used for other Milk Bar recipes in the future), and a bag of pretzels, and whipped up some salty sweet crunchy goodness that ended up being a huge hit.

While it's lovely as is, I think it would be even better with the inclusion of some toasted nuts. Or maybe chocolate. Or both. Give it a try!

Posted by theminx on Minxeats.com.

Holiday Gifts for Foodies

If you're looking for foodie-appropriate gifts this holiday season, look no further than my list here.

Posted by theminx on Minxeats.com.

Choice Bites 10.20.11

Playboy's got a new interview with Anthony Bourdain in which he discusses Haiti, celebrity chefs, and makes some interesting insinuations about Ronald McDonald.To save you the trouble of rifling through pages of T&A, it's also online.

Eater has another interesting interview with Christina Tosi, of Momofuku Milk Bar. Her first cookbook is coming out next week, and I, for one, am interested in getting my hands on a copy.

Guy Fieri - nice guy, or douchebag? I've always gone with the latter, and after reading this article, I stand by my opinion.

Serious Eats is a site I check literally every day. It's full of good food-related stuff. And just in time for Halloween, they have an article on pumpkin-carving. Props also to their chat board, which is full of ordinary people talking food. No elitist super-food-snobs there. ...well, not many.

Hopefully it will soon be cool enough to eat soup on a daily basis. Here are eight delicious-sounding recipes from super-chef Marcus Samuelsson. I particularly want to try the carrot with star anise.

Salon.com's short-lived food section seems to have disappeared, but Francis Lam is still cranking out some interesting stuff for Gilt Taste.

Posted by theminx on Minxeats.com.

Ma Peche

Because I had enjoyed Momofuku Ssam Bar last Spring and wanted to experience more of Chang's Asian-esque food, the first thing I did when I arrived in New York last Friday was to make a bee-line to Ma Peche, David Chang's first Midtown restaurant.

Ma Peche is a larger restaurant than Ssam Bar, but to maximize the space most of the seating is at communal tables. I'm not a big fan of eating with strangers, but this time I really lucked out. Across the table from me was a lovely couple, Blaine and Tim, who were celebrating Tim's birthday with a Changian feast. Like me, they were foodies, and did not object to my obnoxious photo-taking.

summer rolls – shrimp, lettuce, hoisin, peanut

I had a hard time deciding what I wanted to eat. The menu offers a three course prix fixe for $25, with a Milk Bar cookie serving as dessert. I find those to be a bit too sweet for my taste, so instead I opted to spend a few more dollars and order a la carte. I chose a fairly tame appetizer - the summer rolls stuffed with shrimp, pickled carrot and daikon, lettuce, and the unusual addition of long pieces of scallion and grissini (Italian bread stick) which stuck out of the back end. Also unusual was that instead of whole crustaceans, the shrimp appeared to be in the form of a mousse, cut into pieces.

While the flavors were fine and traditional, I think I would have preferred the natural crunch of a well-cooked shrimp over the artificial crunch of the bread stick.

pork ribs (newman’s farm, mo) – thai basil, lemongrass caramel

For my second course, I chose the pork ribs. The ribs themselves were toothsome, yet fall-off-the-bone tender at the same time. Unfortunately, the caramel sauce was so extremely sweet, I couldn't really taste the lemongrass or Thai basil at all.

While chatting with my tablemates about food and blogging and whatnot, they decided that I needed to taste more of the menu's offerings; to allow me to do this, they shared their food.

Clockwise, from top: fried shrimp po boy
pork loin chop
rice noodles with lamb ragout

I have to admit that I am spoiled by the po' boys at Cajun Kate's. While Chang's version was delicious, I felt it was a bit over-sauced. My favorite on the very generous sample plate was the loin chop, which was nearly fork-tender and had a very subtle flavor profile. The noodles, however, were not quite what I expected. I'm used to Chinese rice noodles, which are soft and slightly chewy; these Bún du riz had been crisped a bit, making them very chewy and rather crusty. While I know that's the texture that was intended, it reminded me too much of pasta that had been left out or uncovered for a long period of time and had air dried. The sauce itself was an interesting Bolognese-like concoction with a huge chile kick that I'd love to try on softer noodles.

Because it was Tim's birthday, they had ordered a small Milk Bar cake, which they also very kindly shared with me. The cake was pretty much straight-up banana bread, accented by the various textures of fudge and crunch. Mmm!

Banana Cake - banana cream, hazelnut crunch, gianduja fudge

While I wasn't as impressed by this meal as by the one at Ssam Bar, I did enjoy it, particularly the company. Thanks again, guys, for sharing! And once again, happy birthday Tim!

Ma Peche
15 W. 56th St.
New York, NY 10019
www.momofuku.com/ma-peche/
(212) 757-5878


Posted by theminx on Minxeats.com.

Compost Cookies

When I was in New York in April, I stopped by David Chang's bakery, Milk Bar, to pick up a couple of their lauded cookies. The "compost cookie" that I had read so much about was tooth-achingly sweet and had a weird gritty texture from crushed breakfast cereal. Fail.

Although the cookie did not impress me, I thought I'd try my hand at baking them after discovering that the recipe was online. And my cupboard was chock-full of miscellaneous add-ins like white chocolate chips, cinnamon chips, a plethora of dried fruit, and about nine boxes of cereal. It seemed like a good way to get rid of last Christmas' left-overs before I started thinking about baking for this year's winter holiday.

Christina Tosi's recipe, as presented on the Regis and Kelly Web site, admonishes bakers to portion the dough then refrigerate it for a minimum of one hour before baking. Lacking the fridge space for baking trays and dough balls, I refrigerated the entire bowl of sugary goodness for about three hours. The first batch resulted in cookies that spread into a massive greasy mess, a uni-cookie, one which required refrigeration in order to achieve some sort of vaguely crisp texture.

It made a fine ice cream topping, but that was not my goal.

After that disaster, I froze the remaining dough, thinking that extreme cold would definitely help.

A few weeks later, I decided to attempt a two-cookie batch in the toaster oven. I set the temperature and the timer for the required 400º and 11 minutes. About eight minutes later, I removed two quite burnt specimens. They were, however, the proper size and shape. After letting the oven cool slightly, I tried again, this time ending up with two flat puddles, a near repeat of the very first try.

A week later, I went at it again, this time photographing the results. After 8 minutes in a toaster oven set at 350º, I had cookie-shaped cookies, albeit with very uneven coloring.

So why were the cookies such a failure each time? This clever blogger deduced that Tosi's recipe was for a professional kitchen with snazzier ovens. And that the flour should be increased by about 1/2 cup. While the home version seemed less cloyingly-sweet, they were overly greasy, which an increase in flour might alleviate. I had a suspicion that the dearth of flour compared to the amount of butter and sugar called for would create the spreading cookie issue, so I overcompensated by adding more than the required 1 1/2 cups of starchy add-ins (like pretzels and cereal; I used Cocoa Krispies, corn flakes, 2 crumbled Wheatabix biscuits, and dry oatmeal). Still, I could not overcome that problem.

While I like the idea of using a multitude of ingredients in a cookie recipe, I'm thinking this isn't the recipe for me. I should continue to experiment with a standard chocolate chip cookie recipe, maybe one with slightly more butter and sugar than the typical Toll House version, but not as much as the compost cookie recipe. Does anyone have suggestions?

Best Restaurants in the World 2010

S. Pellegrino's annual "World's 50 Best Restaurants" list was released on Monday at a celebrity-chef-studded event in London. Eight of the fifty restaurants are in the U.S.: Alinea in Chicago, Daniel, Per Se, Le Bernardin, Momofuku Ssam Bar, wd-50, and Eleven Madison Park  in New York; and the French Laundry in Yountville.

Shockingly, I've dined at one of them. Alinea, Per Se/French Laundry, Le Bernardin, and wd-50 are on my culinary bucket list, as are El Bulli (Spain - a pipe dream) and the Fat Duck (England).

What about you? Do you have aspirations to dine at any of the 50 best restaurants in the world? If so, which ones?

Momofuku Ssam Bar

I received the Momofuku cookbook as a Christmas gift and immediately read it from cover to cover - it was one of those cases when the narrative is more interesting than the recipes. Not that the recipes weren't interesting, exactly, it's just that most of them are a bit much for the home cook. Author David Chang has been a food-world darling ever since he opened Momofuku Noodle Bar, and while I had used Chang's recipe for short ribs a few times in the past, and I've made his version of brussels sprouts, I had never eaten at any of his restaurants. That changed on my most recent visit to Manhattan.

Upon dumping my luggage off at my hotel near Grand Central Station, I hopped the 6 train and headed to the East Village to visit Momofuku Ssam Bar. It was early lunchtime and I was able to score a seat at the bar. After asking my server for suggestions, I got my pork on. (Kevin Gillespie, eat your heart out.)

First I had the famous pork buns - pillowy soft steamed buns stuffed with slices of pork belly, cucumber slices, and hoisin sauce. A mini bottle of sriracha was provided to add heat.

The pork belly was so tender and unctuous, it dribbled clear fat onto my hands and the plate. Um nom nom! I could have eaten ten of these babies. As far as I am concerned, they lived up to the hype. Here's a recipe, if you're curious enough to make them yourself.

For my second course, I went for the "crispy pig's head" accompanied by pear mostarda, a lightly cured sauerkraut, and a tiny pile of watercress in a tart dressing.. The patty was comprised of various meat bits from a pig's head, rolled in panko, and fried. It was tender and juicy and not at all like "head cheese" which is what the waiter called it. The pear mostarda was incredibly tasty - very much pear, very much mustard. And a lightly cured sauerkraut is much better than the stuff from a can. Much. And I grew up eating the stuff.

After lunch I went next door to Milk Bar and picked up a compost cookie and a blueberry cream cookie. They were far too sweet for my tastes (and I like sweet). The compost cookie had a weird gritty texture (from crushed cereal). But...they made for a decent dessert that evening and breakfast the next morning.

One Momofuku restaurant down, three to go.

Momofuku Ssam Bar
207 2nd Ave
New York, NY 10003
(212) 254-3500

David Chang is Character Approved

USA Network announced this week the winners of the first-ever Character Approved Awards, a new program created to honor individuals from a cross-section of creative disciplines who are positively influencing American culture. In its inaugural year, USA Network selected seven visionary characters based on their cultural impact, legacy and persona. While each honoree is at a different stage in his or her career, they are all cultural trailblazers who are influencing our opinions, style and view of the world.

The full list of honorees is:
Patrick Robinson, Head Designer for Gap, Inc. (Fashion)
Shepard Fairey, Artist and Street Art Sensation (Art)
Lupe Fiasco, Hip-Hop Superstar (Music)
David Chang, Renowned Restaurateur and Owner of Momofuku Restaurants (Food)
Jimmy Wales, Founder of Wikipedia (New Media/Technology)
Charles Best, Founder of DonorsChoose.org (Giving)
Jennifer Siegal, Celebrated West Coast Designer (Architecture)