When I was an undergraduate, there were no options for late-night dining in Cambridge, and only a few for those willing to cross the river into Boston. Having had our fill of Buzzy’s Roast Beef, a sketchy all-night sandwich joint in the shadow of the old Charles Street Jail (now the boutique Liberty Hotel, with a restaurant called Clink), we eventually located Bo Shek, a restaurant in Chinatown that stayed open until 2 AM. The food was tasty, plentiful, and cheap, the waiters were surly, and the cook liked to scream at his staff so loudly that were were certain we were witnesses to murders.

After placing the same order every time we visited, we eventually had the waiters asking “clams with black bean sauce?” when we walked in. The clams were an afterthought, a vehicle for the sauce, which was rich, gingery, and peppery. I had forgotten about that sauce until I saw this recipe in Momofuku. The “OS” in the mane means “oriental sauce,” (not “operating system”), a name Chef David Chang explains:

I enjoy appropriating the out-of-date and borderline-racist term Oriental whenever I get the chance.

I had two fresh two-pound bags of mussels from my local fishmonger, so mussels with OS would be on that evening’s menu. You do know to check the tags on your mussels to see when they were harvested, don’t you?

In addition to the mussels, I assembled a third of a cup of denjang (Korean fermented bean paste), two tablespoons of sherry vinegar, two tablespoons of minced fresh ginger, six thinly sliced garlic cloves, two tablespoons of sliced scallions, a half cup of julienned scallions, a cup of dry sake, and a quarter cup of canola oil.

I combined the denjang, vinegar, ginger, sliced scallions, and garlic in a smal bowl.

I poured the oil into a large pot on high heat, then added the mussels. After stirring for about a minute, I added the sake, covered the pot, and let the mussels steam – about four minutes. After the mussels opened, I added the sauce mixture to the liquid at the bottom of the pot and stired to combine, than tossed the mussels to cover with sauce.

I ladled the muscles into a bowl, garnished with the julienned scallions, and poured the sauce over the top.

The cooking technique is no different than the traditional moules marinière, it just substitutes sake for white wine and the ginger/bean combination for tarragon. The taste, however, is completely different, a recreation of the black bean sauce I remembered, with the added flavor of the fat, juicy mussels. And It all came together in half an hour.

Bo Shek is no longer a restaurant; it’s a bakery/tea house. Fortunately, I now have another way to obtain my sauce fix. I think I’ll try it again with local fresh clams to see if I can reproduce the dish from memory.

Having successfully made – or at least processed – cheddar cheese, I decided to try making gouda, which differs from cheddar by being a washed curd cheese. I’d take advantage of the heat wave which had rendered my kitchen almost unusable to maintain the incubation temperatures the cheese required.

I started by heating the milk to 90°F in a sink full of water at 100°F. I added a packet of mesophilic starter, mixed, and let the milk ripen in the covered pot for ten minutes. I mixed in a half teaspoon of liquid rennet (diluted in a quarter cup of unchlorinated water), covered the pot, and let it sit at 90°F for an hour.

I cut the curd into half-inch cubes and let them set for ten minutes.

Here’s where the process diverges from the cheddar method. I poured off a third of the whey and slowly stirred in 175°F water until the temperature of the curd reached 92°F. I let the curd settle for ten minutes, then drained off the whey again, to the level of the curd.

I stirred in more 175°F water, until the temperature of the curd reached 100°F. I kept the curd at that temperature for fifteen minutes, stirring to prevent matting. After stirring I let the curds set for thirty minutes.

I poured off (and saved) the remaining whey, transferred the curds to a cheesecloth-lined mold, and pressed at twenty pounds of pressure for twenty minutes. I unwrapped the cheese, inverted and re-dressed it, then applied forty pounds of pressure to twenty minutes.

Because the curds hadn’t been milled (mixed with salt), they didn’t release as much water, resulting in a slightly taller cheese.

After a final re-dressing, I applied fifty pounds of pressure and let the cheese sit overnight.

After sixteen hours I unmolded the cheese.

I soaked it in a saturated brine (two pounds of sodium chloride, one tablespoon calcium chloride, one gallon of water) for twelve hours. The cheese floats, so I weighed it down with an inverted plate.

I removed the cheese from the brine, patted it dry, and air-dried it at 50°F for three weeks in my cheese fridge. (You can see the cheddar on the lower shelf.)

After three weeks it had hardened and yellowed (seen at the top of this post), so I waxed and labeled it.

Not including the three weeks of air drying, I intend to age this cheese for at least four months, which means I’ll have gouda for the winter holidays.

In the meantime…

The suspense was killing me. The cheddar I made looked right, but how would it age? Today, after nine weeks of aging, I cut it open and had a taste.

It looked right, it had the correct density and crumbly texture, and it tasted like cheddar cheese. It was mild, but superior to the rubbery supermarket stuff. There was a bit more acidity than I expected, probably due to the short aging period. Still, it was a success.

I think I’ll wind up making at least one cheddar a month. If I start now, I’ll have tasty aged cheese come next spring. If I can wait that long.

In my mad rush to complete a head cheese I almost forgot that St. Julia’s Day – Julia Child’s birthday – was August 15, and I had promised to cook one of her recipes on her birthday each year. A bit of scrounging in the Belm Utility Research Kitchen and the Deep Storage Facility turned up the ingredients for a classic fricassée de poulet à l’ancienne: chicken fricassee. I could make it in one pot, it would take less than two hours, and the cooking technique was dead simple.

I started with a cut up chicken, mirepoix, four tablespoons of butter, and three tablespoons of flour.

I sweated the vegetables in the butter, added the chicken, and cooked it for about four minutes. I covered the pot, lowered the heat, and cooked for an additional ten minutes, turning the chicken once.

I sprinkled the chicken with flour, salt, and white paper, making sure it was evenly coated, then let it cook for an additional four minutes.

I poured in three cups of hot chicken stock and a cup of white wine, added a herb bouquet (parsley, bay leaf, and thyme), and brought the mixture to a simmer.

While the chicken simmered I prepared some braised pearls onions

…and some stewed mushrooms.

After half an hour of simmering, I removed the chicken from the pot and brought the liquid to a boil, reducing it until it thickened. I slowly ladled the liquid into a mixture of two egg yolks and half a cup of cream, whisking the entire time to prevent the eggs from curdling.

I strained the sauce into a clean pan, corrected the seasoning with nutmeg and lemon juice, and boiled for an additional minute.

I returned the chicken to the original pot, added the mushrooms and onions, and then the sauce, and let everything heat up for five minutes.

I served the chicken and vegetables over buttered noodles with a parsley garnish.

A dish as simple as braised chicken in a classic reduction sauce depends on the quality of its ingredients – homemade stock and a locally-raised chicken are an absolute must. You want the dish to taste like chicken, not an approximation, and this version delivered. All it needed was a side of buttered green beans and a glass of chardonnay.

Once you’ve mastered this recipe you can create three more variations with simple additions: add curry powder or paprika after the initial sweat of the chicken and vegetables, or add tarragon along with the stock and wine. I anticipate trying all three this fall.

It’s hard to turn down boneless short ribs at a good price, even if you can’t immediately think of a use for all of it. I knew that some would be reserved for grinding (along with chuck and brisket) into hamburger patties, but I also wanted braised short ribs without heating up the Belm Utility Research Kitchen above its sauna-like temperature. That’s where this recipe from Momofuku came to the rescue: I’d get my ribs with a minimal amount of effort as long as I was willing to wait a few days.

I started with the ingredients for a kalbi marinade: 600 grams of water, 150 grams of light soy sauce, 42 grams of pear juice, 42 grams of apple juice, 23 grams of mirin, 13 grams of sesame oil, 250 grams of sugar, a small carrot, two garlic cloves, and half an onion (standing in for three scallion whites).

I combined everything in a large pot, added about ten grinds of black pepper, brought the mixture to a boil, then simmered for ten minutes. After straining out the solids, I had about three cups of marinade.

I trimmed the boneless ribs into eight pieces, placed two each in vacuum seal bags with half a cup of the marinade, sealed the bags, and then sealed again to create double-bagged portions.

I put the bags in a water bath and set my immersion circulator to 60°C, then cooked the ribs for 48 hours.

On the day I wanted to serve the ribs, I made dashi-braised daikon. I stared with raw daikon that I sliced into inch-long segments and then trimmed to an inch in diameter with a ring cutter. Rather than make a batch of fresh dashi, I chose to use the instant stuff.

I simmered the daikon in two cups of dashi for thirty minutes until it was tender.

I also made quick pickled carrots, using a purple variety to add more color to the plate.

When the ribs were ready I strained the marinade out of the bags into a saucepan, then boiled to reduce.

While the sauce reduced, I blanched and shocked some scallions.

I seared the ribs in a screaming hot cast iron pan with a little oil, let them rest for a few minutes, then sliced them against the grain. To serve, I put some of the reduced braising liquid on the plate, draped a scallion across, laid the meat on top, added the carrots and daikon, folded the scallion over, then topped the daikon with pickled mustard seeds. I added a thin slice of watermelon radish for color and crunch, and finished with a sprinkle of Maldon salt.

Sous vide cooked short ribs are a revelation: they’re as beefy and flavorful as you’d expect, but they don’t disintegrate the way conventionally braised ribs do. They have a bit of chew to them, so you know you’re eating real beef. The braised daikon had a similar texture but a more mellow taste than uncooked radish. And, of course, the carrots added necessary acidity to a dish that was almost too rich.

Bonus meal:

I cooked more short rib than I needed for one meal, so a few days later I seared and sliced the remaining meat, reheated the sauce (thickened with xanthan gum to prevent splitting), and served it over rice with a 13-minute onsen poached egg and some snow peas. It was the most luxurious bibimbap we’ve ever eaten.