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Attend a cooking class at Studio of Good Living in San Francisco and you’ll soon discover a new world full of culinary adventures. More than just a cooking school, the Studio of Good Living shares the art of living well with all its students!
Studio of Good Living offers exceptional cooking classes and events in the Bay Area and Beyond. Want to learn how to cook or brush up on your cooking skills? Take a class with us! Escape to San Francisco for a Taste of San Francisco or indulge yourself with Cook, Shop, Spa. Burned out? Drop into Live Well, Eat Well for yoga lovers. Continue the journey with the Art of Dinner Blog and view our video classes for new ideas to spice up your dinner table. . Need a change of scenery? Join us for a total culinary and lifestyle retreat in beautiful Maine. Discover the possibilities with Chef Phoebe Schilla and the Studio of Good Living. Life is Beautiful by Design.
 Yup, it feels like summer in San Francisco and by that I mean an actual summer and not the cold and foggy kind. Last night was actually too hot for blankets!! Can you believe it? So today, as I was flipping through cookbooks looking for inspiration I caught a glimpse of a salad with filet mignon. It looked so enticing I had to make it almost immediately. Sweet cherry tomatoes, cold, crisp lettuce, chilled steak that has been cooked medium rare, intense ‘Roaring 40’s’ blue cheese and a pungent mustardy vinaigrette has almost done me in. The most wonderful thing about salads is the versatility of ingredients. If you wanted to you could easily add hard boiled eggs, avocado, pickled red onion, cucumber, bacon or crispy prosciutto. You could subtract the meats and add grilled or marinated tofu and more vegetable too.
The perfect wine for a dinner salad with complex flavors would be a glass of chilled rose. (Check with your local wine merchant for recommendations, but I like Cote du Rhone Roses, and domestic producers that I have enjoyed include Bonny Doon, V. Sattui, Lewis Cellars and Etude.) White wine simply can’t handle the flavors; particularly the blue cheese and most red wines are too heavy.
When it is hot out, what do you like to eat? I have a tendency to run out of ideas in the summer and just repeat old favorites.
I’m sitting here at my mom’s desk in Winslow, Maine, right now, trying to figure out the ins and outs of her laptop. It’s always interesting working on an unfamiliar computer. My daughter, Lily and I took the trip across the US together. It was much more intense to travel with a 16 month old than I anticipated. (I thought she would sleep! But no. The world is a large and exciting place and much too interesting to even think about sleeping!) I was a little surprised that Airport security asked me to take off Lily’s shoes. I’m thankful that she is too young for a belt wearing/jewelry wearing etc.
Maine is lovely—very quiet, peaceful and relaxing. The shops are closed by 8pm and you can’t find an ice cream joint open after 9pm. (We tried.) It is really life in the slow(er) land and a welcome change from the hectic and frenetic pace of life in the Bay area. I wish that I could stay here for a few more days! Lily and I are here to set up for our longer visit at the end of the month(and to see Grandma, my mom who we both miss!) Lily, Pete and I will be spending the 4th of July at our family camp on Pattee pond with my best friend, her beau and her two year old son. This weekend has been a whirlwind of naps, antique-ing, lobster eating and garage sale-ing. This morning we went to the Fairfield antique mall, the largest single antique mall in the state. It boasts 5 floors of antiques and is a dangerous place for me to shop. I love collecting 1960’s California pottery and vintage glass ware and serving pieces. It’s only a few minutes from our house. It is much less expensive here than in California. Actually, it’s really cheap. I like vintage pyrex too. So, maybe you can understand how I ended up with two boxes to ship home. 
We’ve stopped at B and F vegetable and fish stand on China Road almost everyday. They have wonderful, fresh seafood and fantastic local fruit, vegetables and products such as whoopee pies, sour cream and grass fed beef. The sweet corn was fabulous. So good I had two ears without butter or salt and it inspired me to make a corn chowder. A Chowder is a type of soup or stew that is indigenous to New England. To be classified as a chowder you need three specific ingredients: bacon or salt pork, potatoes and a dairy product such as cream or milk. Manhattan Chowder has tomatoes in it and a true Northern New Englander doesn’t consider this to be classic chowder. Boudin Bakery based in San Francisco has made serving chowder in a sour dough bowl fashionable. Although chowder typically contains seafood, there are vegetable versions available. I love a sweet corn chowder that has corn so fresh and sweet the kernels literally pop in your mouth. No overcooked, freezer burned corn here! It should be laced with smoky bacon, and swirled with a little cream at the end to give it richness and weight in your mouth.
I adapted this recipe very loosely from one in Ina Garten’s The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook. Enjoy! May your summer be sweet!
Corn and Bacon Chowder
8 oz Bacon
2 Tbsp Butter
1 large onion, small dice
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
½ c. flour
6 ears of corn, kernels cut off of the cob (about 6 cups)
6 cups of chicken or vegetable stock
1 # of potatoes, peeled, small dice
1 ½ cups of half and half or heavy cream
Melt the butter in a large stockpot over medium heat, add the bacon, render the fat and continue to cook the bacon until it is crisp. Once the bacon is crisp, remove it from the pan and add the onion and garlic to the fat in the pan. Turn the heat down a little and slowly cook the onions until they are translucent. Sprinkle the flour over the onions and stir to make a roux. Cook for a few minutes, until the flour is pasty. Slowly, stirring constantly, add the stock or water. Bring this mixture to a boil and add the potatoes. Simmer until the potatoes are just tender, then add the corn. Simmer for 5-8 minutes, until the kernels are just cooked and the potatoes are tender. Finish the soup with the half and half, and season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve the chowder in bowls garnished with crispy bacon.
I’m really excited about a new project that I am putting in place. I’ll be doing cooking demonstrations at one of the Farmer’s Markets in San Francisco twice a month this summer. You know all those lovely veggies at the farmer’s market that you have never seen before and haven’t a clue how to prepare? I’ll be on hand to answer any food related and cooking questions you may have. I’ll be doing cooking demonstrations using vegetables and products exclusively from the market. I will also be selling my first product at the market too!
Selling a product and doing cooking demos at the market is far more complicated than it sounds. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time and I finally think that I am ready. I have to find a commercial kitchen (got one, natch.), navigate the San Francisco Department of Public Health, change my liability insurance to cover the farmer’s market space and the commercial kitchen rental….it’s a lot. It’s why I have put off creating a product for so long. It’s time though. I’m looking at this as a test run. If it doesn’t work out, that’s okay. Vendor licenses have to be renewed every 90 days in San Francisco so it is a short term (although pricey) investment. My assistant and right hand, Justine, will be partnering with me on this adventure.
I’m particularly pleased that I will be doing cooking demonstrations in the community. I passionately believe that we need to support our local farmers and in doing so, our local economy. In this modern world of facebook, email and skype we need to have more family connections around a dinner table filled with authentic foods and smells. Food nourishes us and has the power to enrich our lives. I want to share with you how to best utilize your time in the kitchen so that you have more time for yourself, your family and your friends. Cooking for yourself and your family can be like homework. You may moan and groan about it, but you feel good once it is done and you can enjoy the fruits of your labor (in this case a good meal and not a good grade on a test!)
I will be sure to keep you updated as things move along. Wish me luck!!
Phoebe
There is something so enticing and haunting about Saffron. It is neither an herb nor a spice. It is the stigma (the female part of the plant that catches pollen.) Saffron is mysterious—it has been used as a health aid and aphrodisiac for centuries. Although I like Saffron and the glorious yellow color associated with it, it has a delicate flavor that is easily overpowered. It’s an expensive spice (for lack of a better word), costing upwards of $600 a pound and at those prices I don’t want to use it as food coloring.
 This Saffron Garlic soup is a wonderful showcase for both the flavor and color of Saffron. The most time consuming but necessary part of making this soup is to blanch the garlic no less than three times. Taking the extra step to blanch the garlic renders the garlic to a mild background flavor and allows the saffron to shine through. This recipe is from my new-favorite-cookbook-of-the-week. You know the one I mentioned in Monday’s post? The recipe originated at Fleur de Lys, where it is referred to as Garlic Saffron Soup. But for me this soup is all about the saffron.
P.S. The coloring of this soup is perfect for Easter Sunday!!
Saffron and Garlic Soup
Adapted from The Secrets of Success Cookbook. Signature Recipes and Insider Tips from San Francisco’s Best Restaurants by Michael Bauer
3 large or 4 small heads of garlic, separated into cloves and peeled
1 Tbsp. Olive Oil
2 small leeks, white part only, thickly sliced
1 quart of chicken broth, vegetable broth or water (I used chicken.)
Salt and pepper to taste
1 small potato, peeled and finely diced
1 generous pinch of saffron threads
½ cup of heavy cream
Garnish with chopped chives or chervil
Blanch the garlic 1 minute in a medium pot of boiling water. Remove the garlic and repeat the process 2 more times, changing the water after each batch.
Heat the oil in a heavy bottomed saucepan over medium heat.
Add the leeks and cook until soft, stirring often, about 6 minutes or so.
Add the broth and blanched garlic. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil. Add the potato and saffron threads, reduce the heat and simmer until the potato is soft, about 7 or 8 minutes.
Stir in the cream and return to a boil.
Remove the soup from the heat and cool slightly. Working in batches, puree the soup in a blender or food processor until smooth. Return the soup to a clean saucepan and heat through. Taste and reseason if necessary.
This week I am having a love affair with ‘The Secrets of Success Cookbook’ Signature Recipes and Insider Tips from San Francisco’s Best Restaurants’ by Michael Bauer. I have to tell you that this book is out of print, but is available on Amazon. (Seriously what would I do without Amazon.com? It’s hard to imagine a world without the internet, isn’t it?) This past week I have made no less than five different recipes, and they are all the ‘make again’ kind. One of my clients flipped through it and earmarked a bunch of recipes that he would like me to make for him—I love it when my clients do this. They often choose recipes that are not my first choice and it gives me a great chance to expand my repertoire. (It also takes the guess work out of the daily ‘what am I going to make for dinner tonight’ question that I deal with everyday.
Most of my clients give me free reign with the dinner menu—they say, ‘Oh, make whatever, you know what I like.’ This is in turns deeply gratifying and terrifying. It really keeps me on my toes. ) The first recipe that I chose to make from this book was the Sesame Spinach Rolls with Soy Lime Vinaigrette from the now closed Hawthorne Lane restaurant in San Francisco. I have a soft spot for Hawthorne Lane. It was one of the first restaurants that I went to when I moved to San Francisco—I had an amazing duck dish there, and my assistant worked in their catering department for a while, so I have gotten some titillating insider stories from her.
 I am always, always looking for new and exciting vegan and vegetarian dishes that look and taste good. These rolls were perfect served with Teriyaki Glazed Portobello Mushrooms and Brown Rice Pilaf. (Hawthorne Lane served them with Miso Glazed Black Cod—it would be delicious with that too.) I just love the way these look. The brilliant green of the spinach next to the pale green of the cabbage leaves is just fantastic. Sometimes I feel like a painter, only I work in the rainbow world of vegetables. Make sure to season your spinach well with salt and pepper when you make these, otherwise they could be rather bland, and well ‘too spinach-y’. The vinaigrette is the perfect complement with these rolls and takes them from being just another ‘vegan’ recipe to a crossover dish that will appeal to flexitarians as well.
As Julia would say, ‘Bon Appétit!’
Sesame Spinach Rolls with Soy Lime Vinaigrette
The Secrets of Success Cookbook. Signature Recipes and Insider Tips from San Francisco’s Best Restaurants. By Michael Bauer.
Spinach Rolls
2 large Savoy cabbage leaves—I used 3 medium sized Napa cabbage leaves.
Salt
2 Tbsp. plus 1tsp. olive oil
1 shallot, minced
1 garlic clove, minced
2 (10 oz) bags of spinach, about 5 cups
Pepper
1 Tbsp. sesame seeds, lightly toasted
Vinaigrette
3 Tbsp. Fresh Lime juice (1 large juicy lime or 2 small ones)
2 Tbsp. soy sauce (I used Tamari)
2 Tbsp Rice Wine vinegar
1 Tbsp. Shallot, minced
1 small garlic clove, grated
Salt and Pepper
1/3 Cup Peanut oil
½ tsp. sesame oil
For the Spinach Rolls: Blanch the cabbage leaves in a medium saucepan of boiling salted water until limp. Drain. Spread each leaf flat, pat dry and cut off the thickest part of the rib. Set aside.
Heat 2 Tbsp of the oil in a saucepan over medium high heat. Add the shallot and garlic and sauté to release the aromas. Add the spinach and stir to coat with the oil. Cook until the spinach becomes completely limp, just a few minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Remove from the heat and cool.
Squeeze out all of the liquid from the spinach. Place an equal amount of spinach at one end of the cabbage leaf and roll up tightly into a cylinder. Rub the cabbage cylinders with the sesame oil and roll in the sesame seeds.
To serve cut each spinach log into bite sized medallions using a sharp knife. Cut straight down—don’t saw back and forth. Arrange on plates and serve the vinaigrette on the side for dipping.
The Vinaigrette
Combine all of the ingredients in a container that has a lid and shake vigorously to combine. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
What a great name, huh? I have always been a firm believer that chocolate could change the future and now I know that other people feel the same way!! I spent this evening at a great event hosted by San Francisco hotshot chocolate maker Tcho. Their chocolates are exquisite. I highly recommend that you seek them out whether or not you are a chocoholic. FRED is not all about fun and games, no matter what you might hear. This was an event with a purpose. All proceeds from the event went to three different Haiti relief efforts. I was asked to donate some hors d’oeurves to the event. I couldn’t say no to such a worthy cause. I firmly believe that we all need to help each other out in this world, in whatever way we can, whenever we can.
 One of the questions that I am asked most frequently about what I do is: Where do you shop? The answer is a long list of places all over the San Francisco Bay area. It depends on where I am cooking, convenience, and who has the highest quality ingredients available. I typically go to the Farmer’s market on the weekend for most of my produce shopping. For fish, I highly recommend Cook’s Seafood in Menlo Park—I rarely purchase seafood anywhere else. On the other side of the bay I recommend Monterey Fish Market. I shop Whole Foods for items such as flour, sugar etc.
 Most Tuesday mornings you will find me at Bianchini’s Market in Portola Valley. Portola Valley has a remote quality that makes it feel very unique. It is undeveloped and whenever I am there I find it hard to believe that I am just 40 minutes away from an urban city center. You will probably see a doe and her babies meandering by the side of the road. If you are driving only a few miles over the speed limit, or come to a ‘rolling stop’, the local law enforcement will surely stop you. It’s that kind of town. The easiest way to get to Portola Valley (from SF) is to take 280 south to the Alpine Road exit. Bianchini’s is located just off of the freeway, on the main road through town. It is family owned and operated. Bianchini’s opened as a full service grocery store in 1998. It now has a second store in San Carlos that opened last spring. What I like the most about the store is the commitment to quality and their support of local farms.  Of course, they do carry long distance items such as bananas and pineapples but they really make an effort to bring in local produce. I believe that they have some of the best local produce in the area. Chanterelle mushrooms when they are in season, a bounty of tomatoes and stone fruit in the summer, squash and apples in the fall. The meat department is also excellent. They do a fantastic job trimming and tying roasts, and the butchers are extremely knowledgeable. They carry high quality grass fed beef from Marin Sun Farms, items such as waygu brisket, as well as Mary’s air chilled chicken. They have high points for customer service too. The only department that I am not impressed by is the seafood department. However, it is worth a stop if you are driving thru Portola Valley.
One of the questions that I am asked most frequently about what I do is: Where do you shop? The answer is a long list of places all over the San Francisco Bay area. It depends on where I am cooking, convenience, and who has the highest quality ingredients available. I typically go to the Farmer’s market on the weekend for most of my produce shopping. For fish, I highly recommend Cook’s Seafood in Menlo Park–>Portola Valley has a remote quality that makes it feel very unique. It is undeveloped and whenever I am there I find it hard to believe that I am just 40 minutes away from an urban city center. You will probably see a doe and her babies meandering by the side of the road. If you are driving only a few miles over the speed limit, or come to a ‘rolling stop’, the local law enforcement will surely stop you. It’s that kind of town. The easiest way to get to Portola Valley (from SF) is to take 280 south to the Alpine Road exit. Bianchini’s is located just off of the freeway, on the main road through town. It is family owned and operated. Bianchini’s opened as a full service grocery store in 1998. It now has a second store in San Carlos that opened last spring. What I like the most about the store is the commitment to quality and their support of local farms. Of course, they do carry long distance items such as bananas and pineapples but they really make an effort to bring in local produce. I believe that they have some of the best local produce in the area. Chanterelle mushrooms when they are in season, a bounty of tomatoes and stone fruit in the summer, squash and apples in the fall. The meat department is also excellent. They do a fantastic job trimming and tying roasts, and the butchers are extremely knowledgeable. They carry high quality grass fed beef from Marin Sun Farms, items such as waygu brisket, as well as Mary’s air chilled chicken. They have high points for customer service too. The only department that I am not impressed by is the seafood department. However, it is worth a stop if you are driving thru Portola Valley.
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 Delessio Bakery (delessiomarket.com) Lily is our Peanut Butter Princess. Aka the great Peanut Butter Traveling sales women in training or the Peanut Butter Whisperer. Whatever you may call her, she just loves the stuff. I have to admit to a certain fondness for peanut butter too—peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are my go to food when there is nothing else in the house to eat. Peanut butter and chocolate is one of my all time favorite combinations. I was hooked on Reese’s as a kid, both the cups and the pieces. I also love Tagalogs—you know the girl scout cookies? One of my very guilty pleasures is to stash a box of Tagalogs in the freezer. I eat the peanut butter patty on top first, then the somewhat naked shortbread. I have always been very specific about how to eat my sweet indulgences. (Don’t even ask about Kitkats or Twix bars.) Lest you are shocked by these revelations, don’t worry—I only eat mass produced treats when I am desperate. Or out of gummy worms.
But Lily’s first birthday is coming up—this Friday to be exact and I want to make her something so delicious she will not be able to resist putting her entire face into her piece of birthday extravaganza. When Lily likes something she screams with joy and puts her entire face in it. Sometimes I wish that I could do that too!
 cakes from Delessio Bakery (delessiomarket.com) When I first started working in the restaurant business, I worked the cold station and helped make desserts. One of the desserts that I introduced to the The Cannery (now closed) in Yarmouth, Maine was Richard Sax’s Peanut Butter Pie with Fudge Topping. It rocks. It’s fast, easy and can be made with one hand on the kitchen aid and a baby on your hip. If you wanted to speed up the process you can make this delicious pie with a purchased graham cracker crust. I love the fudge topping. It’s just soft enough. (Really it’s just ganache, not fudge.) The chocolate that I really like to use is Guittard—it’ a San Francisco based company. They have exceptional chocolates and I really like supporting family owned businesses whenever I can. To complement the pie, I ordered up a small Chocolate Retro cake from Delessio Bakery in San Francisco. They make really great cakes and pastries among other things. Check them out if you can.
Peanut Butter Pie with Fudge Topping
Adapted from Classic Home Desserts by Richard Sax
Graham Cracker Crust
1 cup graham cracker crumbs (about 15 individual crackers)
¼ cup sugar
½ stick unsalted butter, melted
Filling
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1 cup creamy peanut butter (do not use old fashioned or freshly ground)
1 cup confectioners sugar
2 Tbsp. butter, melted
1 Tbsp. vanilla extract
Fudge Topping
½ cup heavy cream
6 oz semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, chopped
- Graham Cracker Crust: Preheat the oven to 350F with a rack in the lower third. In a medium bowl, combine the graham cracker crumbs, sugar and butter until well blended. Press evenly into a buttered 9 inch pie pan, reaching up to but not over the rim. Bake until lightly browned, about 10 minutes. Cool the crust completely on a wire rack.
- Filling: Beat the cream cheese and peanut butter with an electric mixer or Kitchen Aid at medium speed until well blended. Add the confectioners sugar, butter and vanilla and continue beating until fluffy. (For a more mousse like filling fold in ½ cup not-quite stiffly whipped cream at this time.)
- Carefully spoon the filling into the cooled crust, spreading evenly. Loosely cover the pie and refrigerate until firm, about 3 hours. (At this point you may put the pie in the freezer to speed it up. You may also freeze the pie for 2 weeks at this point.)
- Fudge Topping: Bring the cream to a simmer in a small heavy saucepan. Add the chocolate and stir until smooth. Set aside to cool to lukewarm. Gently spread the topping over the cooled pie. Refrigerate until firm, about 3 hours.
- Cut the pie into wedges and serve cold.
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As soon as I saw this recipe I knew that I had to make it. It has three ingredients that I love, it was cold and rainy in San Francisco and I had just enough wild rice and pecans in my pantry to make it. This recipe is perfect for the Holidays and everyday in between. It is slightly heavy, chewy from the wild rice, nutty and rich from the pecans and slightly sweetish from the dried cranberries (you could substitute dried cherries or raspberries) nuanced gently with honey and some whole wheat flour. The whole thing just shouts ‘Yum!’. And you know, there are some days that are just bread baking days. The days that you want to spend next to the stove mixing and kneading –pouring your heart and energy into want you are making.
Here is the recipe—I tweaked in gently. Although this calls for 2 9-inch loaves, I made one smallish 9 inch and 2 mini loaves to give away.
Wild Rice, Cranberry and Pecan Bread
Adapted from Beatrice Ojakangas ‘The Best Casserole Cookbook Ever’
1 cup of wild rice
1 ½ cups pecans
2 cups warm water
1 pkg active dry yeast, 2 ½ teaspoons
¼ cup honey
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons salt
4 cups bread flour (I used all purpose, and it worked out just fine. )
1 cup dried cranberries, cherries or raspberries
- In a large pot, cover the wild rice with water and bring to a boil. Cook over moderate heat until tender. This is really important. You don’t want hard, jaw breaking bits of undercooked wild rice floating through the loaf. My wild rice was old and took over an hour to cook. I kept adding water to cover when it started to dry out. When the rice is tender, drain and set aside.
- Toast the pecans in a 350F oven until they are fragrant. Set aside and when they are cool, coarsely chop.
- In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle, mix the warm water with the yeast and honey until the honey is dissolved. Let stand for 5 minutes, until bubbly. In a small bowl, mix the whole wheat flour with the salt: add to the mixer and beat until a smooth dough forms. Mix in 2 cups of the bread flour until smooth. Add the wild rice, pecans and cranberries and mix until incorporated. Switch to the dough hook. Add the remaining 2 cups of bread flour and mix at medium speed until a soft, springy dough forms, about 10 minutes. Cover with plastic wrap and let stand in a warm place until doubled in volume, about an hour. (At this point I punched the dough down and put it in the fridge to coo k the following day and it worked out perfectly.)
- Turn the dough out onto a lightly oiled surface and divide it into either 2 large loaves or 2 minis and 1 large. Place each loaf in the appropriate loaf pan. Cover and let stand until doubled in volume, about 45 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 375F. Bake the larger loaves for about 35 minutes, until a wooden skewer inserted in the center of each loaf comes out clean. The smaller loaves cook in about 25 minutes. Let the loaves stand until cooled slightly, about 30 minutes.
The recipe also says that the bread can be stored in an airtight container for up to 5 days or frozen for up to 1 month.
Good Luck and Happy Baking!
 I have spent the past month being fascinated with Momofuku, the cookbook by David Chang and Peter Meehan. David Chang has received a James Beard award, and has had articles about him in magazines like the New Yorker and Esquire. It’s safe to say that his restaurants—Momofuku, Ko and SSaam Bar have been on my radar for a while now. Raw is the word that came to mind as I read the cookbook cover to cover. It’s in the same vein as Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential, except it’s an actual cookbook. It’s a great cookbook too—but, this guy is controversial and I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t work for him…ever. Wow, does he know what to say to tick people off or what? For example, he caused a mild furor in San Francisco last month when he said “fuckin’ every restaurant in San Francisco is just serving figs on a plate.” Now I can understand why he said it—I’ve gone into restaurants where our party has been sent out apple slices and peanut butter as an amuse bouche. (I mean come on I can stay at home and eat organic apples and peanut butter.) But he could have phrased it differently. Oh well. The cookbook is awesome and the recipes are truly spectacular. After reading the book I was inspired to make Momofuku’s ramen. Making the broth was a journey. Locating the ingredients took me to the local Hispanic market and the Asian market as well. The broth is really fantastic and totally worth the wait!
Momofuku’s Ramen Broth
Makes 5 quarts
Adapted from David Chang and Peter Meehan
Two 3 by 6 inch pieces of Konbu
6 quarts water
2 cups dried shitakes, rinsed
4 pounds chicken, either a whole bird or legs
5 pounds meaty pork bones (Neck bones are recommended. I found mine at the local Hispanic market on the recommendation of the butcher in my local grocery store. He told me that they would be cheaper at the Hispanic market and easy to find. He was right.)
1 pound smoky bacon (I used a pound of double smoked slab bacon.)
1 bunch scallions
1 medium onion, cut in half
2 large carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
Konbu was essentially the only ingredient that I had on hand when I decided to make this recipe. The reason that I got it is long forgotten but I was pleased to finally use it up and have a reason to go to the Asian grocery to get the dried shitakes. Dried shitakes are so much cheaper at Asian groceries than they are at American grocery stores! I made the mistake of going Nak’s in Menlo Park while I was hungry. I should never go grocery shopping while I am hungry especially if it is a store that I don’t always frequent. I left Nak’s with no less than 10 pounds of rice; 5 pounds of long grain brown, 5 pounds of black sticky rice (I do love sticky rice!) 2 bottles of sake, usukuchi (Japanese light soy sauce), Litchi gummies, wood ear mushrooms….point is I should have lunch then go to the grocery store. Fortunately I went to Chavez market after lunch or else I would have brought home a slew of dried chilies, tamarind soda and fresh corn tortillas in addition to my pork neck bones and a 4 pound whole chicken.
Ingredients in hand, away we go!
- Rinse the konbu under running water, then combine it with the water in an 8 quart stockpot. Bring the water to a simmer over high heat and turn off the heat. Let steep for ten minutes. (I used the handy dandy alarm on my blackberry.)
 2. Remove the konbu from the pot and add the shitakes. Turn the heat back up to high and bring the water to a boil, then turn the heat down so the liquid simmers gently. Simmer for 30 minutes, (out came the blackberry) until the mushrooms are plumped and rehydrated and have lent the broth their color and aroma. I discarded the leftover konbu. Chang recommends re-using the konbu in a grilled octopus salad. I didn’t have the time for that! I was making ramen broth.- Heat the oven to 400F
- Remove the mushrooms from the pot with a spider or slotted spoon. Chang recommends making pickled shitakes with these babies, and that is what I did. They were delicious and worth making even if you are not making ramen broth.
- Add the chicken to the pot. Keep the liquid at a gentle simmer. Skim and discard any froth, foam or fat that rises to the surface of the broth with the chicken is simmering and replenish the water as necessary to keep the chicken covered. After about 1 hour, test the chicken; the meat should pull away from the bones easily. If it doesn’t, simmer until that’s the case and then remove the chicken from the pot with a spider or slotted spoon. I saved the meat from the chicken to use in a simple pasta dish for dinner—I couldn’t see just throwing it away.
- While the chicken is simmering, put the pork bones on a baking sheet or in a roasting pan and slide them into the oven to brown for an hour; turn them over after about 30 minutes to ensure even browning.
- Remove the chicken from the pot and add the roasted bones to the broth, along with the bacon. Adjust the heat as necessary to keep the broth at a steady simmer; skim the scum and replenish the water as needed. After 45 minutes, fish out the bacon and discard it. Then gently simmer the pork bones for 6 or 7 hours—as much time as your schedule allows. Stop adding water to replenish the pot after hour 5 or so.
 Add the scallions, onion and carrots to the pot and simmer for the final 45 minutes. (Out came the blackberry again.)- Remove and discard the spent bones and vegetables. Strain the broth. You can use the broth at this point or if you are making it in advance freeze at this time.
- Finish the broth by seasoning it to taste with tare. I didn’t have time to make tare so I just used salt, soy sauce and mirin as Chang suggests.
For the final serving of the ramen, my friend Justine picked up some really good fresh ramen from Japantown for our feast. I picked up some kim chee, scallions and fried onions for garnishes. We also added a poached egg and slow roasted pork shoulder to our delicious broth.
This was a complete feat to make, but it was delicious. The greatest challenge was what to do with the leftover ingredients that infused the broth. I can’t just throw away food! I froze some of the broth and loved having it on hand for a quick meal. Will I make it again? Sure, not tomorrow, but someday soon.
Good Luck!!
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Yup, it feels like summer in San Francisco and by that I mean an actual summer and not the cold and foggy kind. Last night was actually too hot for blankets!! Can you believe it? So today, as I was flipping through cookbooks looking for inspiration I caught a glimpse of a salad with filet mignon. It looked so enticing I had to make it almost immediately. Sweet cherry tomatoes, cold, crisp lettuce, chilled steak that has been cooked medium rare, intense ‘Roaring 40’s’ blue cheese and a pungent mustardy vinaigrette has almost done me in. The most wonderful thing about salads is the versatility of ingredients. If you wanted to you could easily add hard boiled eggs, avocado, pickled red onion, cucumber, bacon or crispy prosciutto. You could subtract the meats and add grilled or marinated tofu and more vegetable too.
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