The Momofuku recipe for chicken wings starts with a warning – “This is the world’s longest recipe for chicken wings. Sorry. But they’re very, very good chicken wings”.

The writing in this cookbook takes this tone often, but I like it. It’s straight forward, and often admits that some things are ridiculously tedious, whereas the Ad Hoc cookbook casually mentions that one tiny step in the recipe will take you three hours. That Ad Hoc cookbook is deceivingly time consuming.

I started by cutting off the wing tips and brining the wings. I left the drum and the flat attached. No idea why.

The sauces starts by browning the wing tips.

Then sake, mirin, and soy sauce is added. This sake is Koji Sake, the inexpensive name brand from the local sake master. I went to a tasting where Koji discussed sake and let us taste a variety of styles – I learned a lot and got a nice sake buzz. He does these throughout the year, I recommend trying to find one.

The sauce reduces for almost an hour, or until you can scrape a rubber spatula across the bottom and it leaves a trail. That’s a good measure of moderate viscosity.

The wing tips are strained from the sauce. No one else was around, so I popped a few of these in my mouth and enjoyed the collagen/salty/sweet flavor for a few moments. I’d do it again.

After the wings had brined, they are covered by the reserved pork fat and they cook in the oven for 30 minutes. I don’t really understand how 30 minutes at that low of a temperature is enough time to confit the chicken, so I gave them an extra 30 minutes in the oven.

At this point the chicken can be reserved in the fat for a number of days. When it’s time to serve, the fat is warmed up, the chicken wings are removed and drained, then the wings are seared in an cast iron skillet. I had two cast iron skillets going at once.

Once there is nice color on a side, the wing is flipped and pressed again.

Finally, the wing is tossed in the tare sauce and garnished with pickled habaneros and scallions.

ZOMG! For real, Chang wasn’t lying. Everyone was moaning over these. The sauce was deliciously salty and sweet and sticky, but any sauce could rock with this chicken, which was a crazy combination of crispy and tender that I’ve never had in a wing. They easily fell apart, like a smoked wing, but they weren’t dry. I imagine I have the brine and the confit to thank for that.

This was a pain the ass, but when I do it again, I will brine then confit a boat load of wings, and save them in the fat and eat them throughout the week, lessening the blow of spending this much time on one fourth of a meal.

Please try this dish if you like wings.

As soon as I saw the recipe for this month’s post, I ear marked the page and knew this would be the recipe I’d make. I’ve been wanting to deep fry an egg for a while, well, because I love deep frying, and I love eggs. Double bonus that this recipe comes from Jeremy Fox, chef at Ubuntu.

I started by soft boiling the egg in lightly simmering water.  Like a dumbass I didn’t gently lower the egg into the water, I dropped it in there, and it cracked when it hit the bottom. Instead of cooking another egg I just let it go, curious if it would still work. The egg spilled out of the shell slightly, but cooked instantly and created a seal in the opening. After plunging in the ice bath, I peeled the egg, and though the egg is shaped funny in the bottom, it all worked out.

For the bed I quickly sautéed some kale and turnip greens.

Then breaded the egg in the panko/flour mixture. Instead of semolina, I used Korean potato starch.

The egg didn’t get quite the exterior that is shown in the recipe photo, so perhaps using the exact instructions will provide that more even and rich coating.

The remoulade was easy and tasty. I didn’t have mayonnaise so I quickly made my own using a method I found online last year. Crack one egg in a tall, plastic measuring cup, add 1 Tbsp of cider vinegar (lemon juice is often used, but I didn’t have any – any acid will do), 1 tsp of Dijon mustard, and a pinch of salt. Then stand up a hand held immersion blender in the cup and pour in 200mL of olive oil. Mix until it’s whipped into mayonnaise. Easy.

Note – I didn’t add cornichons, tarragon, or hard boiled eggs to my remoulade because I didn’t have some of that stuff and it seemed a bit tedious for a sauce that tasted great without them. Though, this recipe comes from a restaurant, and that’s one great thing about restaurants – they take the time to do things I’m too lazy/busy to do.

How did it taste? Fantastic. Deep fried eggs, with a creamy yolky center, spiced up with sriracha…that one is quickly being added to the super easy yet cool repertoire.

Thanks to my brother Thomas for the chopstick/plate/spoon set seen in these photos.

I can’t believe it’s already Christmas. It always sneaks up on me. So is it any shock that I’m behind on buying gifts?

This Saturday I made a mad dash to try to wrap up my Christmas shopping, plus I needed to buy some stuff for a cheesy Christmas sweater/pot luck party that night. Instead of cooking I decided to get a spread of charcuterie and cheese from Star Provisions, but on my way there, I hit a pothole (seen above) on Huff Rd. and blew out two tires. Merry Christmas.

So as I sat there in my car waiting for a tow truck, across from the street from a speaker store that was blasting rap music in the parking lot (“I wanna, lick lick lick lick ya from ya head to ya toe”), thinking about how this was some sort of penance for prior sins, when I realized I was walking distance from urban pl8.

I walked over to find they were still serving brunch. I contemplated eating in so I could relax with a bloody mary, but decided missing the tow truck would be the icing on the cake, so I ordered huevos rancheros to go, then sat in my car and ate while the apartment complex security guard curiously watched me from afar.

I enjoyed the breakfast. Two corn tortillas with two sunny side eggs, salsa, refried beans, sour cream, and cilantro. You can’t really see the beans in the picture, but that was the best part. They created a refried bean cake and cooked it on a griddle so that it was crusty on the top and bottom. The salsa was above average too. Recommended. Also, the staff at urban pl8 are super nice.

The tow truck finally arrived and towed me to Gordy Tires, across from Flip. A little over $400 later, and I was on my way.

I finally did get that charcuterie at SP. It was a hit at the party.

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This photo has nothing to do with this story, but it’s my Sunday breakfast from this weekend. I’ve been making rice bowls a lot for breakfast since our house got a rice cooker. They are great for using up vegetables in the fridge. This one is rice + bacon + asparagus sautéed in bacon fat + two poached eggs + sriracha + soy sauce. Delicious.

Of course imitators have followed, such as Calbi, another LA truck which recently sold out to Baja Fresh, who is trying to franchise the idea. Yes, the same Baja Fresh that had multiple locations around Atlanta, only to pull out of the market entirely, and is now trying to come back and get new franchisees. Why would anyone want to buy into a franchise that less than ten years ago decided they couldn’t compete in this market?

Myself, I’ve never tried Kogi or Calbi, but when Hankook opened up within walking distance of house, I was excited to try Atlanta’s first foray into this hip genre. But one problem was that with my knowledge of Kogi, expectations of quality and creativity were high. Not only that, everyone I know was so eager to try it, we dashed there in the first two days they were open, and it seemed the general consensus was that it was a little boring and execution and ingredients were slightly off. At least that’s what I thought, I hate to speak for others, though I linked to a bunch of other blog posts at the bottom of this page.

My bulgogi taco from my first visit was just too bland. The meat was soggy, like it had been in the steamer too long, the flavor wasn’t what I expect from bulgogi at all, and there was lots of empty space in this average tasting tortilla.

The fish and rice cakes from the visit weren’t bad, I liked the texture, but the flavor of the sauce wasn’t my favorite.

I also got the bibim-bop on this visit. This was a ton of food, a good value. I liked the variety and flavor of the cold sprouts, mushrooms, and marinated cucumber, but it was the same meat from the bulgogi taco.

It was almost two months between my first and second visit, and on the second visit I was in a rush on the way home, so I popped in and got two tacos to go. I went with the bulgogi again, as well as the “dae ji gogi”, which is a spicy pulled pork taco.

I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised when I got home and unwrapped my tacos. The tacos just looked better. They were more full, the toppings were more vibrant, and there was noticeably more meat.

Also, because the hot tacos were wrapped in the foil for a few minutes, the tortillas were softer, a nice side benefit of the to-go order.

I really enjoyed both of these tacos. The flavor of the meat was wonderful. I could taste the sweet and salty marinade on the bulgogi, and the additional meat balanced better with the flavors of the hot sauce and the onion and cilantro toppings. I could really do without the cheese and the large amount of lettuce, but no big deal.

The pork was similarly delicious. There was plenty of tender pork, with just enough, but not too much, of the spicy BBQ sauce.

I’d enjoy some more exciting vegetables in these tacos like kimchi and radish, or really any of the pickled/fermented vegetables that are offered as banchan at many Korean BBQ restaurants. I also think there’s a lot they could do create more interesting and flavorful fusion sauces. The tortillas could probably benefit from a few seconds on the grill too, or perhaps they could experiment with corn tortillas, which is what Kogi uses.

But I don’t mean to be too big of a complainer – I was very happy that I tried Hankook again. At under $5 for two tacos, I felt like it was a good value.

I made my final stop today, as on my visit last week I noticed some new offerings on the “street snack” section of the menu. I had to try one more taco though, so I started with the tofu taco. Again, the cheese and tortilla aren’t my favorite, but I loved the soft tofu and the bean sprouts. If this had some of those aforementioned vegetables, it would have been rocking.

From the street snacks I tried the kook-su, soba noodles and vegetables in a spicy “vinaigrette”. There was too much sauce and lettuce for my tastes, but the actual flavor and heat of the sauce was great. The vegetables were carrots, cucumbers, scallions, and onions. These are pretty much the same vegetables I see in every dish and again, some variation would be welcome.

I also tried the pa-jeon, the vegetable pancake with dipping sauce. Definitely tasty, I recommend sharing an order as it’s huge. Mine was slightly undercooked, but no big deal, I took the leftovers home and when I reheat them on my grill they will come out perfect. You better believe I also brought the dipping sauce home too, it’s my favorite part.

OK, so there’s my marathon post on Hankook. Yeah, it’s very much a “here’s a picture of what I ate and what I thought” sort of post, but from my visits I’ve also formed a strong opinion about Hankook.

I’ve decided that even though it isn’t perfect, I’m a fan. Maybe it’s not as good as Kogi, not that I or many others in town would know. Some preparations and ingredients could be better. Perhaps some things aren’t authentic, exciting, or inspiring. But there is nothing like Hankook ITP. They’re whipping up an ever-changing menu, with many items that I would consider progressive for our town. They are pushing our palates. AND they are doing it in an awful location. I think if they last, it’s only going to get better, and I’m getting in on the ground floor.

Hankook on Chow Down Atlanta
Live to Feast
Foodie Buddha

Sean took the lead, ordering all the food, and cooking most of it too (sorry Sean), and we had a great time. “All you can eat” Korean BBQ makes me a little wary, but I was pleasantly surprised. The quality of the meat was solid, they didn’t skimp, there was a lot of variety, and the meat was replenished often.

The banchan wasn’t the best in town, and there wasn’t an extremely interesting variety of offerings, but I was pleased with it considering the banchan is self-served from a buffet. But for less than $25 a person, it was very reasonable considering all that we ate. Read Sean’s post for full details, but I highly recommend trying Song Do. The Google directions are off, so just know that isn’t almost directly next door to Haru Ichiban. If you search for the Haru you will easily find Song Do.

Another tip: Sean asked the server to replace the grill grate a number of times, as it was becoming very charred and will impart a bitter flavor on the meat if you don’t change it. They will happily change it for you, but only if you ask.

If you haven’t checked it out yet, you need to read Tami’s Day 3 post on Running with Tweezers. She talks about Project Open Hand, a local Atlanta charity which offers a variety of food related services, including meals on wheels. I’ve really enjoyed reading the posts from the other participants in this challenge, but not just for their buying strategies and the dishes they create. Many of the bloggers have touched on the hunger issues that affect us locally and nationally, and I need to give this more attention as it’s the basis of the Eat on 30 challenge. I would like to do some more research on this when I get back home, particularly in regards to how it affects people in Atlanta and the various ways to help. I will be sure to pass along what I find.

For now, I have to get to bed, I have another long day ahead of me, including waking up a bit early to cook my lunch for tomorrow. Below are my photos from today.

I had a banana for breakfast ($0.28) and hit the road. Before I left I printed a coupon for QT from coupons.com which offered a free sandwich or wrap with no other purchase necessary, not a bad deal at all for $4 sandwich.

For lunch I had chicken noodle soup, using the broth from yesterday. Nothing fancy, just some egg noodles, chicken breast, celery, and carrot. The cost came to $1.64. I had half the soup with lunch, along with my average, but welcome QT sandwich.

lunch 3: chicken soup + turkey/roast beef gas station sandwich – cost: $1.65

For dinner I ate the rest of the soup, then made some pot stickers. I had never made the wonton dough from scratch before, but it was technically easy, I can’t say I will be making them myself very often, as it’s fairly time consuming and the $1 packs of wrappers from an Asian market are pretty good.

The filling was a small amount of ground pork + blanched/chopped cabbage and zucchini.

They weren’t bad at all, but it was very sticky and I had a hard time getting the dough thin enough.

dinner 3: pork + zucchini + cabbage pot stickers – total cost: $0.72

Today’s post, Red-Cooked Pork, is from a different Fuchsia Dunlop cookbook (Revolutionary Chinese), but there is a red pork belly recipe in the Land of Plenty cookbook that looks to be the same thing. I found this recipe on the Appetite for China website, which has fantastic Chinese recipes and amazing photos.

I had a nice slab of bacon that was given to me (shout out to Liz!) which you are instructed to boil for a few minutes to partially cook the pork – the photo below is post plunge.

While that was boiling I got the spices together – star anise, sliced ginger, cassia bark (cinnamon bark), and red chiles.

Slice up the bacon – the recipe calls for cubes but I went with more of a rectangle shape.

First you heat sugar and oil over low heat to let the sugar melt, then add the pork and the Shaoxing rice wine.

Then add enough water to cover all the pork and add all your spices, bring to a boil, then simmer.

Below is after ~ 30 minutes.

This is after almost an hour. Turn up the heat and the sauce will start to quickly thicken. As soon as it’s very thick, splash in your soy sauce, stir, and you are ready to plate.

My plating/photos doesn’t even compare to the Appetite for China photos, but the taste was surely as good, because this tasted incredible. The salty/savory/sweet/heat combo was in full effect. It wasn’t overly spicy, but the star anise and chiles did add enough to counteract the rest of the flavors. There is of course large amounts of fat, but I couldn’t resist eating it all, sometimes savoring the fat for a few moments on my tongue before chewing.

One out of one terra cotta soldiers agree.

But one benefit that I had not planned on is that I’ve met a handful of bonafide foodies who have been kind of enough to guide me in my on-going food adventure, particularly in the area of Korean and Chinese cuisine.

Shamefully, my previous residence was right by Buford Highway (slightly ITP), yet I rarely took a chance and tried anything new; Penang and Little Szechuan was pretty much it. I’m doing my best to make up for it, any chance I get. So when Chloe agreed to take me along to Wan Lai, which she and Bliss have both written up recently, I was pumped.

We met up for lunch, which had drawn a large crowd – always a good sign. I would have been lost trying to order from their large menu, but Chloe quickly suggested a few items, “Jimmy – congee or three dumpling soup?” Before I could answer, she answers herself, “Let’s get both!”. (please watch that video, it’s awesome!)

Chloe placed our order, after which the waiter counted out all seven dishes, then looked at us with a quizzical and sarcastic look. Move it along. We’re hungry.

With my recent Sichuan experimentation, I was interested to see how Cantonese differed. While writing this post, I did some research, and discovered that many of the dishes/ingredients we ate at Wan Lai are Cantonese mainstays – congee, century eggs, and beef chow fun are all staples. Similar to Sichuan, stir-frying, braising, and steaming are the primary cooking methods, but Cantonese sauces are often much lighter and less intense and full of heat as Sichuan. The most often used spice is Chinese 5 spice, which can actually vary and have more than 5 spices, though anise, fennel, and cinnamon are almost always going to be included.

So there’s a small bit of knowledge. But how did it taste? Well, it was one of the best all around Chinese meals I’ve had. I love the heat and boldness of Sichuan, but Wan Lai is rocking. You need to get out there and try it. Order a ton like we did, and you’ll be left with enough leftovers for 3-4 meals. Lucky for me, Chloe doesn’t like leftovers.

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Dish #1: Century egg congee. The eggs looked like mushrooms to me at first, but read the century egg link and you’ll understand. Much like porridge, this wasn’t bad, but can be very plain tasting if you don’t get a big bite of pork and egg. Worth a try if you haven’t had it.

Dish #2: Three dumpling soup. This was ridiculously good. Chinese cabbage (appeared much like broccoli rabe to me), amazing broth, and firm, crunchy (from the shrimp) dumplings. I had to pace myself at this point.

Dish #3: Beef Chow Fun. I loved the beef and the delicious noodles in this dish. The beef was soft, succulent, and texturally awesome. The flavor of the whole dish was overpowered by bean sprouts to me, but this is definitely something to try.

Dish #4: Fried Rice. Eh, it was fried rice, not bad, but too filling for me to waste valuable stomach space on, except for the wonderful pork mixed in with the rice.

Dish #5: Ong choy water spinach. Tubular and leafy greens, sautéed with garlic in a light sauce. I loved this, please try it. 

Dish #6: Pork belly and taro casserole. This was one of the casseroles that takes 20 minutes or so for them to prepare, but I didn’t even notice the wait with all the other food on our table. The sauce was rich, very sweet, obvious 5 spice flavor, and there was tons of pork belly and taro. I thought taro is a root vegetable, but you actually eat the “corm”, which is like a root, but it’s actually an underground stem.

Dish #7: Garlic fried chicken – Ridonkulous. Perfectly crispy and covered with garlic, you are going to want to savor the skin on this bird.

The whole point of this series (for me) is to gain understanding of Sichuan cooking methods and ingredients, so that I can add them to my repertoire and into my regular cooking routine. Lately I’ll stir fry whatever vegetables I have on hand, maybe add some ground beef or pork, put together a quick sauce, follow the Sichuan method of sauce/flavor layering, then toss everything with some Chinese noodles, and the end results have been quite satisfying, and better yet, quick and easy.

However, this doesn’t mean I’m moving on from the cookbook. There’s plenty to learn and too many dishes that I can’t wait to eat, such as today’s post – Spicy Cold Noodles with Chicken Slivers.

Cold Asian noodles is a personal favorite of mine, and this recipe is quite similar to many recipes such as this one, but the sauce is distinctively Sichuanese. You can substitute many ingredients (rice vinegar instead of Chinkiang Chinese vinegar and peanut sauce or tahini for the sesame paste), but I would definitely recommend you seek out Chinese noodles, whose primary ingredient is wheat flour. Fuchsia calls for fresh pasta in this recipe, but the dried pasta will work just fine. Just remember that fresh noodles weigh much more when converting quantities for dry noodles.

First I took more of my butterflied chicken breast and sautéed it in a grill pan in a small amount of olive oil. Then I let it cool and gently shredded it with a fork. Fuchsia recommends smacking the cooked chicken with a rolling pin (a mallet or you bare fist will work too!) to loosen the chicken fibers, making it easier to shred. This little trick worked extremely well!

While the chicken was cooking I prepared my noodles, mixed in a small amount of oil, and set them out to cool as well. Unlike Italian food, Sichuan noodles are always cooked “well done” instead of to al dente.

The recipe called for blanched bean sprouts, but I discovered mine had gone bad. Those suckers don’t last as long as I wish they would. However, I just picked up some lovely radish from The Local Farmstand, and thought they would be a great replacement for the “crunch factor” of the bean sprouts and they always add fantastic complementing color.

Next up I whipped up the awesome sauce of light and dark soy sauce, black Chinese vinegar, sesame paste, sesame oil, sugar, garlic, ground/roasted Sichuan pepper, and chili oil.

I mixed up the noodles with the sauce, transferred to my serving bowl, then topped it with the shredded chicken, sliced radish, and scallions. Besides looking fairly fantastic, it happened to taste delicious. The sesame paste gave it a rich peanut-like flavor and the dish of course had the common Sichuan sweet/spicy/savory flavor combo going. Watch out for the large chunks of garlic. My breath was kickin’ later that day.

Kung Pao is great because it has significant heat, a touch of sweetness, stark flavor/texture contrast from the roasted peanuts, and an altogether pleasing aesthetic. But I’ve never made it at home, and I’ve never seen it on an “authentic” Sichuan menu. I’ve pretty much been relegated to ordering the fast-food Chinese delivery version. I was interested to see how this compared – the ingredients appeared to be the same as the mass-produced version, though this dish of course utilizes the Sichuan peppercorn, and the preparation method could result in something very different than the dish to which I’m accustomed. Let’s find out.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about cooking Sichuan, and cooking with a wok in general, is that you need to get your shit mise en place put together before you start cooking. I threw about 1/2 cup of raw peanuts (from Super H Mart in Duluth) in the oven at 350 and amassed all my other ingredients: soy sauces, vinegar, rice wine, sesame oil, potato starch, dried chiles, Sichuan pepper, ginger, garlic, the bottom part of the scallions, and some butterflied chicken breast from the Buford Highway Farmer’s Market. BHFM had a great price on this chicken, and the butterflied version is perfect because your Sichuan recipes are always going to have you cutting thin, small strips of meat. This saves you some time, money, and I don’t see any degradation in quality over a full breast.

I roasted the peanuts for 15 minutes, and they came out a little overcooked. I don’t mind them this way, but I should have taken them out after 10 minutes, or perhaps only cooked them at 300 instead of 350 degrees.

Aaron (my roommate/saucier for those that don’t know me personally) was kind enough to create the marinade for the chicken, as well as the sauce, while I prepared the vegetables and the chicken. I could improve at cutting more uniform slices of chicken so that everything cooks evenly.

I started by cooking the Sichuan pepper and the cut chiles in peanut oil over a high flame. They will cook/burn quickly, so I recommend having your wok very hot and only cooking them for 10-15 seconds before you add the chicken. Be sure to stir rapidly throughout this process.

After the chicken cooked for 30 seconds or so, I added the garlic/ginger/scallions and let that cook until the chicken was almost cooked through, again, stirring very rapidly over as high of heat as possible.

Above – now I’m ready to add the sauce.

The sauce has now been added, and I let it cook for about 20-30 seconds so that it would thicken up. The potato starch is what is causing it to thicken into a great sauce. At this point, I removed the wok from the heat, stirred in the peanuts, and plated.

Here it is plated, ready to be devoured. I thought it was very good, and I think Aaron agreed, but be forewarned that this meal brought some serious heat. I love spicy food, but this was getting close to the “hiccup threshold”.

The potato starch marinade on the chicken resulted in a fantastic texture, and the chicken was still tender and moist, I thought it was cooked very well. The sauce was a little different than what I’m used to in a Kung Pao, having a slightly thicker texture, and a bit sweeter than I’m accustomed. The ginger was a nice touch, though sometimes it can overpower a bite if you get a large slice. The addition of the Sichuan pepper is amazing – the smoky/wood flavor and aromatics that it adds is incomparable. I enjoyed this version much more than any other I’ve had at a restaurant. That could be the home-cooking talking though. :-)

If you like Kung Pao, I definitely recommend trying Fuchsia’s recipe.

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