Day Sixteen - Super Bowl Sunday - Page 79 Momofuku Pork Buns, Ramen, pickles + a loaf of bread

Today we had a pre-game pork bun and ramen extravaganza. I started the broth and pork belly at 8 AM and made the shiitake and cucumber pickles. Wendy came later to help roll out the noodles.

Some notes on the prep:
1. I used my reductionist/simplified method on the broth. Browned the pork bones in the pot and set them aside. Simmered together the konbu, shiitakes, and chicken but removed the first two after 20 minutes. Then added the pork bones, onions, and carrots and removed the chicken and vegetables after 1 hour. Then simmered the bones for a couple of hours more. I eliminated the bacon and tare but this was still a full, rich broth.

2. I ran out of lard so used butter for a second batch of buns. Not the same. Entirely different texture and not recommended unless you want your buns to be less light, and have a cake-like texture. So unlike the soft and smooth Chinese buns that inspired Chang. Here are the lard buns at the second rise before steaming.

3. Don't forget to remove the skin before roasting the pork. I didn't and it looked great when I took it out of the oven but it was too hard to slice - and eat. I removed it from the belly and broke it up in little pieces. They were pretty good for some added crunchiness in your bun but watch your teeth!

4. This time I didn't drain the noodles in a colander. Instead, I (actually, Wendy did this) dropped an individual portion in boiling water, as soon as it floated to the top, scooped it out with a spider strainer (flat wire scooper w/ a bamboo handle), drained and dropped the noodles into a bowl, and poured the broth over it. This prevented the noodles from becoming a mass of doughy glop in the colander. I think I saw this method at a saimin restaurant in Lihue, Kauai.

Here is Andrea's demonstration of two-fisted Momofuku fun.

We' ve been experimenting with Jim Lahey's no-knead bread and here is my attempt earlier in the week. You can find the recipe on this page of the NY Times Minimalist column.

For a moist loaf that doesn't dry out quickly, your dough should be very moist. Use at least a 1/4 cup more water than the recipe. Considering the small amount of energy that goes into it, this is a pretty good loaf of bread.