Cooking the books: Momofuku

So, this round of Cooking The Books lunch was Momofuku. The usual group of food bloggers turned up to lunch at the Cooking Space with their dishes in tow. In some case, their dish came in several bags.

Momofuku is the brain child of David Chang, a much celebrated , Michelin Starred Chef.  He has many restaurants and cafes branding the Momofuku name in New York.  Penny chose this book as it was definitely a challenge to cook from. Very different to the one we chose last time. I’m glad this book was chosen as it stretched my culinary skills, though I wasn’t completely happy at the time of cooking.  It was kinda stressful, actually.

Shellie and I teamed up to tackle two desserts. The Fried apple pie and Cereal milk. As we were the only ones providing dessert for the lunch, the pressure was on. Both desserts were about 4 pages each and included ingredients both Shellie and I have never heard of.  Thanks to twitter and google, we manage to get all the ingredients together and we accomplished what we thought was nearly impossible.

We needed  to be organised. Shellie started some components of the dish almost a week before hand and I made the apple pie filling a couple days before. The day before the lunch, Shellie came over and we tackled most of the components so we didn’t have to do much on the day.

 Even Deanna helped out by crunching the corn flakes.

On the day of the feast, everyone brought along their dishes and it all looked and tasted fantastic. Some recipes in the book were complicated while others were easier but consisted of a lot of ingredients.  I think even though some people had some initial problems with their dish of chose, we were all generally happy with how all the dishes turned out.

Take a look at what everyone cooked for the lunch.

Agnes made the infamous Momofuku pork buns

Kat made Marinated hanger steak Ssam witth red kimchi puree and ginger and spring onion sauce

Kat also made brussel sprouts with kimchi and bacon

April made Pork sausage, lemongrass Ssam, grilled with daikon, carrot, herbs and fish sauce vinaigrette

I-Hua and Aaron made roasted rice cakes and pork belly Ssam with mustard seed sauce

I-Hua and Aaron also made Momofuku Ramen

Penny made brick chicken

Thanh made Pan roasted Dry-Aged Rib-eye

After meat filled lunch, we managed to squeeze a little dessert in.

Penny also made blueberry and cream cookies

Cereal Milk with Avocado puree, Chocolate-Hazelnut thing

and Caramelized Cornflakes

Shellie and I decided to serve the cereal milk first as it only need to be assembled and plated. There were mixed reactions to this dish as there were a lot of components and some people didn’t like all of it.  I think the avocado threw some people off and didn’t know if it actually goes with the rest of the dish. Personally, I didn’t mind the cereal milk and the crunchy cornflakes.

Fried Apple Pie with Cinnamon Dust, Miso Butterscotch

and Soured Cream Ice Cream

For our apple pie, we had to deep fry the frozen apple pies. I was really nervous about it as there were holes in the pastry and the thought of deep frying was terrifying.  In the end, it turn out well though I think we may have put too much filling as it was bursting out of the pastry.  The taste was fantastic.  I think I will try this again without all the other components.

As usual, we all  ate too much.  I think we chant that after every lunch we have but why have a feast if we don’t eat till our belly’s burst?

Bon Appetite,

Cherrie