Day 37 - Page 176 - Grilled Lemongrass Pork Sausage Ssäm, Page 177 - Fish Sauce Vinaigrette, PageFish 159 - Roasted Cauliflower

Until a few months ago I didn't have any idea what ssäm was. Now when I see lettuce I think of wrapping it around some juicy meat topped with an aromatic herb, pickle, and hot sauce. The ideal ssäm will be sweet/sour, crunchy/chewy, and spicy/cool.

My Lemongrass Pork Sausage was somewhat bland due to a mediocre batch of lemongrass

yet still made a tasty snack when assembled with the suggested Momofuku condiments:  pickled carrot julienne, fish sauce vinaigrette, and mint.

The two dishes in this post have in common Momofuku's version of the versatile Vietnamese Fish Sauce Vinaigrette. Once you taste it you just might crave it for almost all your savory eats. It contains fish sauce, water, rice vinegar, lime juice, sugar, garlic, and chiles. Just the thought of it gets those salivary glands acting up; it could be the singular reason Vietnamese cooking is so popular.

The fish sauce goes into Roasted Cauliflower. I lightly roasted mine because I wanted the florets to maintain a little crunch. Mixed with the puffed rice and deep fried cilantro it was not unlike a warm salad - so many different textures melded together by the sweet and tart vinaigrette.

Day 26 - Page 170- "Ghetto Sous Vide" Marinated Hanger Steak Ssäm

I've seen sous vide cooking on Iron Chef but didn't think that it was something I could do without a big investment in special equipment. For all of us who have wanted to try the technique, Momofuku offers a way to cook sous vide using common utensils we all have around the house. Like many of the recipes, however, Chang delivers some words of warning: "If you are the kind of person who wears a football helmet everytime you take a city bus, or you litigate recreationally, or you're with child, ghetto sous vide is not for you". (D. Chang, 2009, pg. 170-171)

I had no excuses to prevent me from trying it and planned ahead for tomorrow's dinner by making the marinade, putting it and the two steaks into Ziploc bags, and letting them sit in the refrigerator overnight.

This morning I had my sous vide moment. The Momofuku instructions are cumbersome and use tap water. I simplified the process by using two pots filled w/ water and a thermometer. Bring one pot to a steady 125-130 degree temp, turn off the heat, and put the bags in. Heat the water in the other pot to a steady simmer. Whenever the temp starts to drop, put a cup or so of simmering water from the other pot into the bag pot. If it gets too full, take some of the water out. I was able to maintain the temperature for 45 minutes just adding a cup of water every 7-10 minutes.

The cooked steaks stayed in their bags in the refrigerator and when we were ready to eat, I patted them dry, charred them on a hot cast iron skillet, and sliced.

These were a little on the rare side and could have been sous vided for 10 more minutes but still, with a little pureed kimchi and lettuce, the meat made a pretty good ssäm.