Chef David Chang – The Radical Chef

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There are a lot of chefs who give in to what the consumers need and want, and because of this, they lost their culinary personality, making them mediocre. But this is not the case with Chef David Chang of Momofuku Noodle Bar. In fact, he is completely the opposite as this radical chef will do what he pleases. His cuisine, delicious and lovely that they are, is not for the vegetarian. There have been a lot of requests to include more vegetarian dishes in his menu, but he repeatedly defies those requests. One would think that his restaurant will not be a hit, considering that he is alienating vegetarians, but you could never be more wrong. This year, they jumped from 31 to 26 in this year’s list of the top 50 best restaurants in the globe.

Chef Chang was born on the 5th of August 1977 in northern Virginia. His father emigrated from South Korea to the United States where he got a job working in a restaurant in Virginia. In time, his father opened his own restaurant.

Although one might be inclined to think that with this kind of background Chef Chang would naturally take over the restaurant, this is not, however, what his parents wanted for him. In fact, they urged him to take up law or finance, but Chef Chang studied religion instead when he went to college and did not have any particular goal in mind after his graduation. His restlessness took him to London and Japan where he taught the English language before he went back to the United States. In New York, he took on odd jobs to support himself.

In the end, he enrolled himself in the French Culinary Institute and worked with some of the best restaurants in New York like Manhattan’s Mercer Kitchen and Craft, where he stayed for two years. After his stint in Craft, he went back to Japan where he initially got a job at a little soba shop before landing a job at the Tokyo Park Hyatt. Again, his restless nature urged him back home where he worked in New York’s Café Boulud. But these are not enough for him. Instead, it made him realize that the fine-dining restaurants are nothing but a pompous and pretentious show.

Chef Chang vowed to change that, and change it he did when he, together with his co-chef Joaquin Baca, opened Momofuku in 2004 and began offering what high-end cuisine and good food really means. He defied the norms with his cuisine, and with his willful take-it-or-leave-it attitude and exemplary culinary skill, he slowly became known in the area.

It was a slow start for Momofuku, and it cannot be denied that there were times when they questioned their decision. However, their reputation slowly grew, and it was all thanks to the support of their local community that more and more people began noticing the new noodle bar and, pretty soon, even some of the chefs from nearby more popular restaurants began visiting Momofuku. Of course, food critics and gourmands will go to where the chefs eat, and with the influx of diners, come the awards and prizes.

Chef David Chang’s Chicken and Egg

Ingredients:

8 cups lukewarm water
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
1 cup plus 1 teaspoon kosher salt
4 boneless chicken legs
2 strips bacon
5 cups rendered pork or duck fat or neutral oil (more if needed)
2 kirby cucumbers
4 cups cooked short-grain rice
4 poached eggs
½ cup sliced scallions

Directions:

1. Combine the water, 1 cup sugar and 1 cup salt in a large container with a lid or in a plastic freezer bag large enough to accommodate the brine and chicken legs, and stir until the salt and sugar have dissolved. Add the chicken legs, cover or seal, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, no more than 6.

2. Remove the chicken from the brine and discard the brine.

3. Heat the oven to 180 degrees.

4. Pack chicken legs snugly into a pot or other oven-safe vessel – the shape doesn’t matter much, but the less extra space there is, the less fat will be required to submerge the chicken – and tuck the bacon in with it. Heat the pork fat until warm and liquefied and pour it over the chicken to cover. Put the chicken in the oven and cook for 50 minutes. Remove the pot from the oven and cool to room temperature.

5. Put the chicken in the refrigerator to thoroughly chill it in the fat. The chicken can be prepared through this step a week or more in advance.

6. When you’re ready to serve the dish, heat the chicken confit in its pot, in a low oven (around 200 degrees) or on the stove top just until the fat liquefies.

7. While waiting, make a quick cucumber pickle: Slice cucumbers into coins a little less than 1/8-inch thick. Toss with the remaining 1 tablespoon sugar and 1 teaspoon salt in a small bowl and allow to sit until ready to use.

8. Remove the chicken from the fat with a slotted spoon and put it on a cutting board or large plate; set pot aside. Heat a 12-inch cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat for a minute or two, until pan is hot (hold your hand over center of the pan – it should feel hot from an inch or so away). Add chicken legs skin side down (use two pans if too crowded), and brown them deeply, 3 to 4 minutes, on the skin side only, using a bacon press or a small heavy skillet to weigh them down while cooking. Transfer browned legs to a cutting board.

9. Portion the rice among four deep soup bowls. Use the back of a spoon to create a shallow divot in the middle of each bowl of rice and slide a poached egg into it. Divide the cucumber pickles among the bowls, nestling them together into a little mound. Slice the chicken legs into ½-inch-thick slices and fan one sliced chicken leg around the egg in each bowl. Sprinkle with scallions and serve.

10. After dinner, rewarm the confit pot and decant the clear, golden fat into a clean container; pour the juices – i.e., all the non-fat contents of the pan – into another small container. Store both in the refrigerator. The fat will last for months; the meat jelly about a week.

Servings: Serves 4.

Image Credit: topics.nytimes.com

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