I have to warn you, even if you do get your hands on some meat glue so you can try making brick chicken, you’re going to have another problem: smoke. Chang’s fondness for searing on the element and then finishing in the oven works wonders for meat but will set your fire alarm off not once, but three times.
If you’ve ever read my post on Ad Hoc’s braised beef short ribs, you’ll remember my story about the friend who “accidentally” ate the best scallops he ever had in his life. The scallops were wrapped in bacon, and as this friend is a practicing Muslim, pork is a big no. I personally can’t remember the first time I ate the bacon-scallop combo, but for him, he just can’t forget it.
The more I work with meat glue, the more I realize how crazy it is and how limited my imagination seems to be. The other day I was at the grocery store, wondering what to glue, when Mike suggested deli meat. I figured, deli meat is already made with meat glue, so why not? We thought about layering and then cubing, but ultimately ended up rolling everything like a Swiss meat roll.
I love noodles, I always have and I always will. But there was one time in my life when I renounced not only noodles but all Chinese food. I was four and for my day care lunch my mom had packed me my favourite: pan-fried Shanghai noodles. At lunch time I was super-excited to dig in, but just when I was lifting the fork to my mouth I heard a loud chorus of “ewws.” I turned to look what everyone was “eww-ing” about, but then I realized, it was me. “Stephanie’s eating worms!” came the chant and I soon lost my appetite. That afternoon, in the car on the way home I told my mom I never wanted to eat noodles or even Chinese food ever again. From then on it was going to be sandwiches or nothing.
I grew up eating Chicken McNuggets; they were one of the few types of meat I would eat and whenever my mom wanted to get some protein in me, she’d take me to McDonalds. Before Chicken McNuggets were introduced in the eighties, there wasn’t much of a market for boneless chicken, but afterwards, boneless chicken pieces exploded in popularity. McDonald’s created Chicken McNuggets to fill a gap, but what the ended up doing was creating a whole new fast food group.
The Momofuku name is a registered trademark of Momofuku and David Chang. I'm just using it (fair use?) to refer to his restaurant and cookbook.
All original content and photos is © 2010 copyright & all rights reserved Stephanie Le.
momofukufor2.com is where I document the little tips and tricks I learned while cooking through the Momofuku Cookbook by David Chang and Peter Meehan.
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