Momofuku: A Cookbook Kindle Edition

I've made a few of the recipes form this book; pork buns, scallions and ginger sauce, and tare sauce for chicken wings. I've had various degrees of success.This book is great for the story that Chang tells. Its not just a recipe book but describes his insecurities of starting a restaurant as well as journey to building an empire.I thought the recipes were written very well. There are some things that are a little bit difficult to understand. I still don't understand his process of cold smoking indoors. But generally the recipes are written very well and usually helps you understand why a particular process or ingredient is used. Not always. I'm still not sure why he decided to use usukuchi over regular soy sauce. I'm guessing its due to the saltiness of the soy sauce and/or the color. I'm sure there is another characteristic that he likes as well.Some of the recipes are deceptively simple! His pork belly recipe literally have only 3 ingredients: pork belly, sugar and salt. The result is mind glowingly good. This book will make you feel and look like a genius!I haven't made a batch of ramen from this book… yet! But it can be something that will take a home cook a full day or a few days to make.Some of the ingredients can be a little hard to find. I had a hard time finding the soy sauce he uses (usukuchi). I've found it at one of the Korean grocery stores, but the ingredient was expired. I'm not sure if that matters very much with soy sauce, but I didn't buy it. I don't like expired ingredients. I used the soy sauce that I usually use. I'm not sure what effect that had on the dish. However, the tare turned out very good. The scallions and ginger sauce was very pungent. But the recipe calls for outrageous amounts of ginger and scallions. I'm not sure what effect my substitute ingredients had on the recipe, but I would like to try and find out.This book is great if you are wanting experience some of Momofuku without going to NYC.

This is one of my "go to" cookbooks. First its a fun read, like the Vivien Howard book I read cover to cover before making anything from it. Its an interesting story and well written. No its not an Asian Cookbook - Its a David Chang cookbooks packed with "mother" recipes that can be used and applied in every day cooking. So YES several of the recipes reference other recipes as ingredients but that is part of the fun and the efficiency! For example - I few times a year I make the ramen broth and freeze batches (followed by the pickled shiitakes and seaweed salad because both are delicious and are leftover from the broth), at the same time I also make a batch of red beans (not a David Change recipie) because I put the chicken from the ramen broth in my beans. So one afternoon of cooking leaves my freezer stocked. I do the same with pork belly and steamed buns - so I always have the building blocks for a quick meal. Because so many of the recipe's work in multiple recipes the investment in time and ingredients pays off for me. No I will probably NOT be making the 48 hour Sous vide short ribs but I might make the sauce for braised beef cheeks. For Christmas 2019 I did both the Kewpie Mayonnaise with YuZu for Jonah crab claws and the hamachi crudo with edamame cream - super quick prep and easy. Bo Ssaam is perfect for a casual dinner with friends and the dragon sauce is delicious on almost anything. This cook books works for me and the way I like to cook. LONG LIVE BENTON'S BACON

This is not a replacement for Joy of Cooking. It tells the story of David Chang's Momofuku line of restaurants and provides recipes for popular menu items at Noodle Bar, Ssam Bar, Ko and Milk Bar. You will learn about Benton's Bacon and Wylie Dufresne and meat glue and other oddities that pique Chang's interest. You will see more profanity than any other cookbook. It's a good story, good cooking, but most importantly, provides interesting perspective on ingredients and recipes.Chang's cooking varies wildly between classics like kimchi, ginger scallion noodles and pan-roasted steak and really interesting new recipes like his "brick" chicken, the foie gras/lychee/brittle concoction and cured hamachi. However, I think the best recipes are those that combine old and new, like the bacon dashi. While the recipes themselves are good, it's the way Chang thinks about food and dishes that I find really riveting.Some people may be put off by the informal style, but that's right up my alley. In addition, other reviewers have complained about the size or practicality of some recipes. While for some people, that is a downside, I find Chang's warnings ("Hey, if you're going to go to the trouble to find transglutaminase to make this recipe, I'm thinking that deboning a chicken is something that's right up your fun alley.") to be sufficiently informative and cautionary. There are a few recipes that are nearly impossible for the home cook, but I expect that in a restaurant cookbook. I'm thrilled by how many recipes are possible, compared to other cookbooks like Alinea, Fat Duck or Under Pressure.I've tested numerous recipes out of this book, and I almost always keep some ginger scallion sauce, kimchi and slow-poached eggs around now as a result. The cured hamachi was a great success, but trying the same recipe with sea bass was an abject failure.This is a stimulating cookbook that tells the story of the food, not a cookbook that lists recipes. If you're aware of that and still interested, you're almost certain to enjoy this book.

David Chang en una composición culinaria hermosa.

I've bought a few recipe books based off famous restaurants recently and I've been broadly disappointed -- they're often overly-sycophantic with underwhelming recipes or extremely vague descriptions/instructions.NOT the case here! I love how this book is written and presented -- great recipes, with clear, detailed descriptions. Measurements in metric (very unusual for a US-based book, but SO appreciated!), carefully laid-out instruction when needed and small tips and tricks throughout so you learn from masters of their craft (for example, a few great tips on how to get the best from your ramen broth and tare as you're making them).The prose in between recipes has some great self-deprecated humour and is interesting, with good background and explainers without ever drifting into the pretentiousness or self-congratulatory tones that similar books fall into.Sure, some of the ingredients are tough to get hold of, but there are often easier-sourced alternatives listed. A few of the recipes are long -- but invariably come with the disclaimer up-front, "The is the world's longest recipe for chicken wings. Sorry. But they're very, very good chicken wings." However, there's a great mix of simple recipes to start, more involved recipes and very complex, multi-day affairs.The photography is great, showing most of the dishes off at their best. A few additional photos showing techniques (deboning, torchon etc.) would have been appreciated, but don't take away from the book itself given the in-depth descriptions.If I was forced to think of a gripe, it would be the layout. The book is ordered by the different restaurants/bars that make up the Momofuku brand: Noodle, Ssam and Ko. This means that the recipes themselves are ordered in a slightly counterintuitive fashion.Overall though, I am so impressed with how this book has been written and produced -- it should genuinely serve as a template for similar restaurants looking to produce their own.

Muito bom! Boas referências de influência oriental.

David Chang è un grandissimo chef. Il libro è molto molto bello. Sia per il racconto che per la parte tecnica delle ricette. Vale solo per il capitolo sui pickles! Belle foto.

Great book. Makes more sense for people who visited his restaurants but even without doing so, you get a lot from this book. It’s really thick and well made. Seems to me that many people sat there and thought about the design of the cover.I have to admit that I have not tried any recipes yet but I’m thrilled to read about the story behind each of them.