Long time no post.

I am sharing the recipe I should not be sharing... the ramen recipe. Many Japanese chefs keep their own ramen recipe a secret from society. They guard it well, only sharing it to the inheritance of their resturant. Therefore, it is hard to find a legitimate one floating around the vast world of internet.Try looking ramen recipes up, you will only find about 5 types, which they differ very slightly.

Being in America, decent ramen was so hard to come by. I still remember the flavor, the texture, and the aroma of the ramen I had in Japan. It was around 2006 summer when my mom, sister, and I were walking back from visiting family graves. We were starving. We stumble across a small ramen shop underneath the bridge with about 5 seats. And that is still easliy the best ramen I ever had.

And yes, since then, I am picky with my ramen. Other ramen shops in Philly does not satisfy at all.

My journey began in January 2015, I made my ramen with the help of Phil. With countless trials and mistakes, I am 90% close to the ramen I dreamt of: the real shoyu ramen (soysauce ramen).

In Japan, most ramen shop only specialize in one of the four flavors; shoyu, tonkotsu, miso, and shio (salt). I use shoyu ramen as a basis of how good a ramen shop is. If a shop cannot make shoyu ramen, then they cannot make ramen. Period.

To make ramen, it consists of two types of broth. Dashi and Tare. Dashi is the stock broth you make without any salt content. Tare is the sauce that determines the flavor of the soup.

Let's get to it.

Dashi:

• 5 old hens
• 300 g Leek (white part)
• 1 bunch of scallion (white part)
• 15 g Katsuobushi*
• 120 g Ginger with skin
• 57 g Dried shiitake mushroom
• 57 g Dried kelp (japanese grade)

Tare:

• 1 old hen
• 2 cups Light soy sauce (NOT LOW SODIUM)
• 1 cup sake
• 1/2 mirin
• 1 pack of bacon
• 15 g Katsuobushi

Chashu

• 2 lbs of pork belly
• 1 stalk of ginger
• 1 leek and the green part that you cut off for the Dashi
• 1 tbs of hondashi**
• 1/2 of soy sauce dark**
• Water

Egg

• 1 cup of the chashu broth
• Eggs

Noodles:

• 300 g Bread flour
• 1/2 cup warm water
• 1 teaspoon and 1/8 teaspoon of Kansui (potassium carbonate and sodium bi carbonate solution)

*Katsuobushi is dried shaved mackerel. I use the dark shaved one which is only found in Japan as of now...

** This measurement is not finalized. I eye them out

Dashi:

1. Fill about 80% of the 16 quart pot with water and heat it to 170 degrees
2. Add the dried kelp and shiitake mushroom then turn off heat. Cover the pot
3. Leave them in for 2 hours
4. Discard the kelp, then add ginger, hens, leeks, scallions, katsuobushi. Cover the pot
5. Simmer at the lowest heat your stove has for about 12 to 15 hours

Tare:

1. Heat oven to 400 degrees
2. Roast the old hen in an oven safe sauce pan until it is brown and crisp
3. Add the soy sauce, bacon, sake, mirin, and katsuobushi and simmer at the lowest heat setting on top of the stove. We are infusing the flavor, not cooking it
4. Simmer for about 30 minutes then leave the ingredients for about 2 hours

Chashu:

1. Tie the pork belly into a circle
2. Heat oven to 350 degrees
3. Sear the pork belly in a dutch oven until all sides are brown
4. Add the leak and ginger, cook it for a bit, then add water until it covers the meat
5. Add soy sauce and hondashi. Cover the pot and cook it in oven for 2 hours minimum, 5 hours max. We are infusing the flavor into the meat. Do not cook this too long or else the pork belly will not maintain it's shape

Egg:

1. Boil water until it is hard boiling
2. Poke a hole on the bottom fat side of the egg. This will let the air out while cooking
3. Add the egg all at once into the water and cook it for 6 minutes and 15 seconds FLAT
4. Peal eggs in cold water immediately
5. Use the broth you made from the chashu. Marinate the eggs, in a seperate bowl, covering the top with a paper towel, in fridge overnight

Noodles:

1. Mix the kansui and water
2. Add to flour and knead
3. Use pasta maker

To combine: I use about 3:1 ratio of Dashi to Tare. I think I pour less Tare to reduce the sodium but that should be about right. I add the Tare first then dilute it with Dashi

Garnish: I use Japanese pickled bamboo, sweet corn, sauteed onions, scallion, and nori (dried seaweed)

Picture below is my Version 3.0. The picture on the top is my version 5.0.

Enjoy

Croissants. I love to eat Sam's club croissants in bulk. I never thought this would be such a tedious process but now, my mere respect goes to the bakers who wakes up at 5 am to painstakingly make this bread........and sells it for a buck or two...

This is hard and this is still in beta so please follow it with a grain of salt. If you wish to follow it, please follow it precisely.

My goal is to make honeycomb interior croissant but I noticed that is evidently hard. I have use this reciepe with minor alterations.

Btw in order to make this, this requires a lot of planning ahead.

Stuff

Poolish

• 160 g of King Arthur Bread flour
• 160 g of water (heated to about 80 degrees F)
• 1/8 tsp of instant yeast (I used SAF instant yeast)

Dough

• The poolish above
• 362 g of King Arthur Bread flour
• 135 g Whole milk
• 67 g of granulated white sugar
• 1 tsp and 1/8 tsp of SAF instant yeast
• 10 g of Redmond real salt
• 22 g of softened Plugra non salt butter
• Roll in butter 286 g of Plugra non salt butter

Procedure

1. DAY 1: Make the poolish by mixing all the poolish ingredients above. Wrap the bowl tightly with cling wrap and leave it fo rabout 12 to 16 hours. It will become fuzzy like this below

2. DAY 1.5: Now we need to make the dough. Mix the poolish with all the ingredients above, omit the roll in butter, and make dough by using hand. The dough will look ugly. Wrap this tightly, and keep it in fridge overnight...

3. DAY 2: Soften the rollout butter and sandwitch it between two parchment paper or wax paper. Roll it out into 7.5 inch x 7.5 inch square. This should be not too soft or too hard.

4. Roll out the dough you kept in the fridge overnight into 11 inch by 11 inch then place the butter like this below

5. Fold the dough over the butter. MAKE SURE to cover all the butter with the dough. pay attention to corners and edges where butter may spill out.

6. Roll out into a 11 x 24 inch sheet. Do not let any butter spill out during this procedure
7. Cut one edge off from the dough to expose just like the gif below then fold it as if it is a buisness letter. You do this to prevent trapping excess dough into the fold.This will be your first fold

   Folding technique

   
8. Wrap it and rest it in fridge for 1 hour minimum.
9. Make a 11x24 sheet again and repeat step 7 to 8 for two more times. More folds = less flaky dough. Keep about about three folds in total. I have yet to try two but I am lazy at this moment. Wrap it up and rest in fridge.
10. DAY 3: You can leave the dough over night after the third fold but if you are in a rush, rest about 2 hours before you make a sheet again
11. Cut the dough exactly in half. Use a measuring stick! Roll out the dough into 10x18 sheet
12. Mark a small cut on every 4.5 inch on one side of the longer part of the sheet. On the other side (the top) mark a 2.25 inch first and then every 4.5 inch thereafter. Using a measuring stick, make diagonal cuts from the corner to the top mark and repeat. Horrible pic below.
13. Cut a small cut on the bottom of the triangle, then gentle stretch it out. Roll from the bottom to the pointy top. Make sure to roll it tightly.

    Folding technique

14. I like to stretch the tip a little so I can get more small "steps" on my croissants Here this is the end product
15. Beat one egg and add 1 tbsp of water.
16. Egg wash then let it proof for 1 to 2 hours. It will almost double in size.
17. Heat oven to 400 degrees.
18. Egg wash them again, then bake at 370 degrees for 12 minutes and 350 degrees for 15 minutes unitl crisp and brown.
19. You can add things in the croissant like this... but for chocolate croissants, you rather have it square. I do not have any picture or cutting tutorials of such master piece.

Model shots

I love pork. And that, artlessly bold three word sentence, is an understatement. I love cooking pork more than any other meat in the market. It is simple yet challenging because it will dry up if not done right. I personally find it satisfying when I cook pork in perfection.

So here, this is a fool proof reciepe. It is "not that quick" but an easy meal to prepare for friends and family. Its origin is from momofuku roast pork shoulder.

I use this reciepe and made my BAD alterations to make this dish. It is such a versatile flavor, I can use it as the meat component for eggs benedict to asian style pork buns.

Ingredients

• 3 lbs of pork shoulder
• 3/4 cup of kosher salt
• 1/4 cup of coarse smoked salt
• 1 cup of granulated sugar
• 7 tbsp of brown sugar
• 2 tsp of ground cloves
• 2 tsp of mustard
• 1 tsp of dry rosemary
• 1 tsp of dry thyme
• Grade A maple syrup for basting

Procedure

1. Mix the salt, sugar and spice. Rub the mixture on the meat well. Cover it with plastic wrap and let it sit over night in the fridge.
2. Preheat the oven to 275 to 300 F, depending on how crunchy you want the skin. I did 300 F.
3. Dust off excessive salt/sugar, then throw it in the roasting pan. Roast it for 6 hours. Occasionally bast the meat with it's juice and maple syrup. By the way, it will smell like glory (reason why I used grade A is because the flavor more subtle than grade B)
4. Let it rest for about 30 minutes. Cover it with aluminum foil. Just incase you didn't read step 3, it will smell like glory.
5. Eat. Glory in the highest~
6. Eat more. Glory in the higest~
7. Don't stop eating. Glory in the highest~
8. I am singing to Christ, of course, not the meat. Puh lease.

Model shots

When I was growing up, my mom was known for her homemade cream puffs. There was something special about them. My friends and I use to gather around in the kitchen, anxiously waiting for the choux to puff up in the oven. We counted how many we can each eat which subsequently lead into an argument who can have the last standing piece.

The choux was soft and lightly crispy on the outside, but that is nothing special. It was the cream inside that sealed the deal. I remember it being rich and lucsious; smooth and gentle to the palate. Just the right about of sweetness to satisfy my neverending sweettooth.

Few years later, I checked out my mom's personal cook book. The choux reciepe was standard from what I remembered, but cream was different. She made pudding instead of cream, which caught me off guard. I abhor pudding...It's consistency never look appealing to my palate. I have been unknowingly loving this atrocious lumpy paste my whole childhood.

When I made this reciepe, I kept my mom's secret charm to this delightful snack; pudding instead of good old crème pâtissière. By using pudding, the cream puff will taste more "full", due to the higher fat content, than by using crème pâtissière. There is no right way make cream puffs, it is merely a personal preference what you want in your choux.

Here, this is how I make my green tea and earl grey cream puffs.

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Ingredients

Pudding

• 1/3 cup of granulated sugar
• 2 tbsp of corn starch
• 1/4 tsp of salt
• 1 and 1/4 cup of heavy cream
• 1 cup of whole milk
• 3 tsbp of Kerry Gold butter
• 3 large egg yolk
• 2 tsp of vanilla extract
• For green tea flavor: 1 tsp of matcha (green tea)
• For earl grey flavor: 3 tbsp of earl grey leaves. (not tea bags)

Choux

• 1 cup of water
• 1 cup of bread flour
• 1 tbsp of granulated sugar
• 8 tbsp of unsalted butter
• 1/4 tsp of salt
• 4 large eggs

Uhh sorry guys, I forgot to weight them out. I made this receipe before I started to weight each ingredients on a scale to be more precise.

Procedures

Disgusting pudding

1. Combine sugar, salt, cornstarch, and matcha (or earl grey) in a bowl and mix until they are incorporated.
2. Slowly add 1/4 cup of heavy cream and mix until you have a paste
3. Add the egg yolk and mix it throughly. You will get a consistency like this below.

   Weeeeeeee

4. Add the remaining cream and milk into the sauce pan then heat it using medium heat. Stir constantly.

   Ok, I promise I will clean the stovetop later...

5. Stir until ribbons can form when drizzled. Remove from heat as soon as possible. *The liquid will thicken while stirring. As soon as you feel it thickening, do not take your eyes off it. Few seconds of over-cooking it will ruin this custard. (Sorry I couldn't get pictures or video for this step. I had to concentrate on this)
6. Add butter and vanilla extract and stir it in until homogeneous.
7. Strain it. This will make your pudding smooth.
8. Cover it up with a plastic wrap like this
   

   Green tea

   

   Earl grey

9. Keep in fridge

Choux

1. Melt butter in water in a saucepan
2. Mix sifted flour, sugar, and salt in a seperate bowl
3. After butter is melted (do not let it boil), add the flour mixture all at once. Turn off your heat.
4. Return the saucepan to heat and stir until dough forms

   Ok, I promise I will clean the stovetop later...

5. Transfer the dough into bowl and stir until lukewarm. Steam should stop coming out and it should be warm to the touch
6. Add the beaten egg slowly, little at a time. I divided it by 4.

   Weeee~ who else beats egg with a chopstick?

   

   It will look wet and slimy but do not sweat, keep on stirring

   

   Bam, told ya

7. Put the mixture in a piping bag or zip lock and pipette on the baking tray with parchment paper or silpat (if you have one). As you can see I am horrible at pipetting... Give me some slack, I am a pharmacist, not a chef.

   This is hard...

8. optional: Glaze the top of the choux with another beaten egg.
9. Bake for 25 minutes at 400 F
10. Open the oven door slightly to cool down for about 10 minutes and then close it. Leave it on there for 1 hour. (This is also optional however this will make the crust crispy

Garnish

I used melted sugar. It is simple. Melt granulated sugar on a frying pan and drizzle by using a fork on the pastry. The consistency of the sugar will be threadlike and it will continously drop in a straight line when scooped up. If it drips, the sugar is too hot. It takes about 5 minutes to cool down. When the sugar gets hard, simply heat it up and make it the right consistency.

I also tried making pai-chu(japanese pie crust) and put this on the choux. I was not fond of it thus I won't explain how I made it. I made it on the spur of the moment...

Modelshots

Conclusion

You should make the choux the day you serve. Do not get diabetes type II. End of story.

Warning: I advise you NOT to read this blog post if you are hungry. I consider this post NSFH or not safe for hunger.

This is how Phil and I make steak at our house. We have two different ways: cast iron, and sous-vide. Therefore, you can choose between the two reciepes we have provided to impress your guests, your significant others, or someone in interest...Let me stop. I cannot gurantee that you will woo the person in interest. We tried. And we both failed. So best of luck...

Anyways, cut the talk and get to it, right? I like that. I am interested into you already.

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theBADchef's Sous-vide Steak

Ingredients:

Steak Seasoning

• 1 Rib eye or NY strip
• 4 Spriggs of Rosemary
• 3 spriggs of thyme
• 3 spriggs of taragon
• 1 tsp of grinded peppercorn
• 1 tsp of kosher or smoked salt This is the smoked salt I use
• 4 cloves of garlic
• ~ 2 tsbp of olive oil
• 2 tsbp of butter

Poached Starwberry in red wine

• 50 g of sugar
• 105 g of strawberries cut in half
• 150 g of red wine (DO NOT USE RED COOKING WINE)
• 1/8 tsp of nutmet
• 1/4 tsp of cloves
• 1/4 tsp of all spice

Procedure:

1. Mince the herbs just like this picture
2. Grate garlic then add it to the herb mixture. Add salt, pepper, and olive oil to make a oily paste. I have probably put more than 2 tbsp. Add enough oil to make a paste-like consistency. You can add more salt for your desired taste.
3. Coat the meat with ground peppercorn and smoked salt on both sides
4. And then it will spontaneously combust... (I blow torched it. If you don't own a blow torch, you can heat up a cast iron until it is smoking hot and cook each side of the meat quickly)
   It will look like this afterwards
5. Coat the meat in the herbal paste
6. Put it in a zip lock bag along with melted butter
7. Take out the air from the bag: Keep the bag open, then slowly submerge the bag into the water. You will notice the bag will tightly wrap around the steak. However, do not submerge the whole bag. You do not want water in this, therefore submerge the bag all the way up to the bottom line of the ziplock, then close it. It will look like this below. (I am horrible at writing instructions)
8. Sous Vide at 52.5 C for 45 minutes
9. Make the poached strawberry. Put all the ingredient in a small saucepan and boil it in medium heat for about 10 minutes (I did not measure time) or until you get a saucy consistency. Sorry for the dirty stove top. Finished picture
10. Preheat the oven to 500 degrees
11. Carefully take out the steak from the zip lock bag. It is very tender and it will fall apart if done abruptly. Recoat the steak with the herbal mixture
12. I have a baking steel in my oven so I use that to cook my steak. I turn on the broiler to high and here check it out

Yeah, that's how I make my steak.

Sorry about the knife skills. My steak was way too tender and I struggled to make a clean cut without letting it fall apart. Maybe my knife needs to be sharped.

Check out the middle. It is uniformly pink.

FINAL PRODUCT

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Phil's Steak

My steak is decidedly simpler than Masato's. No sous-vide machine is required—all you need is a cast-iron skillet. My goal is to give it that classic, smokey flavor without a grill. According to Amish, it's a manly steak. My method can be summed up as sear and blast.

Ingredients

• Required
  • Steak of choice. I prefer a New York strip or a ribeye.
  • Coarse salt, smoked is preferable
  • Black pepper
  • Garlic granules
  • Onion granules
  • Paprika, smoked if possible
  • Ground dried mustard
  • Olive oil
  • Cooking fat, I use lard
• Optional for red wine reduction
  • 2/3 cup red wine
  • 2 tablespoons of butter
  • Fresh parsley or cilantro

Steps

1. Ideally, you would have planned ahead, and let your steak sit at room temperature for a couple of hours. If not, that's fine.
2. To make sure that your skillet is hot and dry, put it in the oven. Then, set the oven to 500 degrees Fahrenheit.
3. Now, we season the steak. First, pat the steak dry with some paper towels. Then, we rub in the spices. I usually just eyeball it. I start with salt and sweep over it with a shaker on both sides for each spice. After that, I pour a little bit of olive oil and rub in the spices and oil. It will look something like this.
4. Wait for your oven to hit 500, and wait a couple of minutes. It's time for the sear. Put your burner to high, and set your skillet on the burner. Put in about a tablespoon of cooking fat, and wait until it starts smoking. Throw that steak on the skillet.
5. I sear a total of 8 minutes flipping every 2 minutes, so each side gets 4 minutes, but it depends on how strong your burner is.
   

   You can sear the sides, too, if you want.

6. After searing, it's time to blast, so put the skillet and the steak in the oven. Every 2-3 minutes, take it out, flip it, and check its doneness. You can either use a thermometer or the poke test. Just poke the steak with your finger. Be quick, and I promise that you won't burn yourself. The steak is done when it feels like your cheek.
7. When it's done, set the steak aside, and let it rest under tin foil for about 5 minutes. Here it is fresh out of the oven.
8. If you're not making the red wine reduction, you're done. Otherwise, set a burner to medium-high, and put the same skillet without the steak on the burner. Pour the red wine in the skillet along with some of the butter.
9. Continually add more butter and stir, scraping the bottom of the skillet, with a spoon until about 2/3 of the red wine has evaporated.
10. Add some of the fresh parsley or cilantro, and pour as much as desired over the steak. Voilà.

The RCF retreat was on my birthday. I was asked by few 'why aren't you celebrating your birthday like a normal person?' and I answered 'it is just another day passing by.'Some looked at me perplexed, many were repulsed by my peculiar reponse. Yet, I stood there, keeping my own thoughts to myself.

I wasn't concerned at all about how they viewed me at that time. Or maybe I was...

When PDan and PJohn asked me to help out at retreat, I was filled with joy. I am absolutely delighted when I have the chance to serve. Never have I thought I will be serving at a college ministry. For all these days, I was hindered with this dragging thought of incompetence that I was not 'spiritually' ready to serve this growing community. I felt as if my immaturity may hurt it in someway. However, I need to be reminded that I am competent through Him.

Nevertheless, that day was my birthday. The world told me to go out and bask in my own glory. But I questioned (not out loud), why would I bask in something imperfect? I rather glorify God who is perfect and sovereign. And that, to me, is by serving the body of Christ.

It was a blessing to serve the college ministry this year.

I am excited to see all of the college students grow in Christ.

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the event.

ok this is the last one