JOSH KU and TRIGG BROWN with CATHY ERWAY a Taiwanese american ÙÙ COOK BOOK ÙÙ PRESENTS 盈成餐館 a Taiw anese american cookbook KU AND BROWN WITH ERWAY WIN SON PRESENTS ÙÙÙ U.S.$40.00 Can.$50.00 U.K.£30.00 ISBN: 978-1-4197-4708-3 Cover photographs by Laura Murray Cover design by Diane Shaw “Josh and Trigg have made Taiwanese American food approachable for any home cook.” TOM COLICCHIO, chef and owner of Crafted Hospitality “This book is as much a celebration of Taiwanese culture and cuisine as it is Win Son.” EDDIE HUANG, bestselling author and chef “The food at Win Son and in this book is so vibrant and so damned delicious, you will want to scrape the bowls clean.” CLAUS MEYER, cofounder of Noma ÙÙÙ Cofounders of Brooklyn destinations Win Son and Win Son Bakery Josh Ku and Trigg Brown have teamed up with acclaimed writer Cathy Erway to explore how Taiwanese cooking has evolved in the United States, thriving as a result of an ever- simmering pot of creative influences. With more than 100 brazenly flavorful recipes, including Win Son’s most-beloved dishes, as well as conversations with other chefs and members of the Taiwanese American community, this is a long-awaited celebration of a vibrant diasporic cuisine.8 Prologue: THE TAIWANESE AMERICAN DREAM The content was brief: “Trigg, a friend of the network and former cook at Craft and current chef at Upland, is looking to possibly open a Taiwanese restaurant in Brooklyn. I wanted to introduce you two and maybe Trigg could pick your brain sometime! He read your book and loved it.” I couldn’t believe what I was reading. I had just spent the last few months pro- moting the launch of my cookbook, The Food of Taiwan, which was one of the first US-published cookbooks to explore the island-nation’s cuisine. And I had spent the last several months before that searching for US-based Taiwanese chefs, experts, and other Taiwanese American community organizers who I could partner with on events for the cookbook’s launch. I became friendly with a few Taiwanese American food professionals who partici- pated in things like panel events with me, and I visited Taiwanese American organi- zations from city to city. It was a lot of fun. When I first shopped that book proposal around, in 2010 and 2011, nobody wanted to touch it. I learned then that a lot of Americans had no idea what or where Taiwan was. Uncomfortable meetings with agents and editors ensued. Then, over the next few years, Taiwanese food and culture slowly became more recognizable in popular culture. This was thanks in no small part to Eddie Huang, whose hit restaurant Baohaus helped launch a multifaceted, and highly vis- ible, film and television career. Other young Taiwanese American pop culture sensations, like basketball player Jeremy Lin and fashion designer Jason Wu, proudly branded themselves as Taiwanese American, too. This was all exciting— and yes, I persevered and finally got that cookbook deal. But through all these dis- cussions, meetings, and events that I had after its publication, I began to sense that there was something missing in the current landscape of Taiwanese food cul- ture in the United States. At this time, a lot of the Taiwanese restaurants I encountered in New York City and New Jersey, where I grew up, seemed intent on recreating some of the island’s greatest street foods, for a mostly Taiwanese American audience. Many others IN AUGUST 2015, I RECEIVED A BIZARRE EMAIL. It was from a producer at Heritage Radio Network, where I hosted a podcast, and the subject line was “Taiwanese Food Connection!” 89 were clandestinely Taiwanese —bearing no trace of the word “Taiwanese” on their menus or in their names—like A & J Bistro in East Hanover, New Jersey, where my mom and I would often go for Taiwanese beef noodle soup and fried pork chops over rice. There didn’t seem to be too many restaurants at the time that fash- ioned themselves as being self-aware of both their Taiwanese and American iden- tities—that is, restaurants that strove to really celebrate the changes to a cui- sine that occur in a diaspora, rather than hide them. Those changes might be due to having a different set of accessible ingre- dients, different lifestyle or dining-out habits, or just different preferences; they might even incorporate ideas from elsewhere, based on the chef’s unique lived experiences in America. In short, I was looking for food that was proudly Taiwanese American. But what did “looking to possibly open a Taiwanese restaurant in Brooklyn” mean? Looking back at the email from my friend, what did this chef from Craft and Upland, two New American restaurants in New York City with a local-seasonal bent and European core, have to do with any of that? And what kind of a name was Trigg? Trigg Brown was the full name. We exchanged a few emails that sum- mer, before he headed off to Taiwan for a while. The next thing I knew, it was February 2016, and Trigg reached out to me to ask if I would like to collabo- rate on a soft-opening pop-up event at his soon-to-be restaurant. He saw that I 24 VE GE TA BL ES 25 KOMBU CHASHIRO DASHIDARK SOY SAUCESOY PASTEKECAP MANIS PANTRY RECOMMENDATIONSSNA CK S aNd A PPE TIZERS 25 CLEAR RICE WINERED RICE WINEBLACK RICE VINEGARLIGHT SOY SAUCECHILI OIL ONE OF OUR GOALS WITH THIS COOKBOOK IS TO INTRODUCE HOME COOKS TO THE TRUE INGRE- DIENTS THAT WE USE IN OUR KITCHENS, EVEN IF THEY MIGHT BE A LITTLE OBSCURE FOR THE AVERAGE SUPERMARKET. Thanks to e-commerce sites like Mercato, Weee!, and our favorite desti- nation for Taiwanese ingredients, Yun Hai, there are a lot more international food products that you can have shipped to your door anywhere in the States now. And if you live close to a big city, you can always stock up at any Asian grocery store.104105 NIU ROU MIAN (BEEF NOODLE SOUP) Serves 4 to 6 BEEF NOODLE SOUP REIGNS SUPREME IN TAIWAN. Infused with warm spices, enriched with tomato, and accented with a hint of Sichuan peppercorns, this classic noodle soup will warm you to your bones. The highlight is the Braised Beef Shanks (page 102) that are placed on each bowl, which also appear in our Beef Roll (page 188). And we decided to get a bit more creative with our soup toppings, introducing some oxtail, which shares a similar gelatinous quality that shanks have when braised. For a special, we once even made beef noodle soup using sous-vided boneless short ribs, which we then speared onto a trompo to shave off like shawarma. That’s all to say that in the event that you can’t find beef shanks for this dish, you can use another cut of beef, it just won’t have the signature texture of the classic. NOTE: Use both beef shanks and oxtail or go with just one or the other. As much as we love boneless beef shanks, we know that they can be difficult to find if you don’t live close to an Asian butcher shop. Oxtails can provide that collagen-rich, texturally interesting quality in place of shanks, if not the same visual appeal, but we love a bowl with both shanks and oxtails. If using bone-in shanks, debone them and save the bones in your freezer for the next time you want to make stock.105108109 NOODL ES A ND S OUPS Toss the shrimp with the salt, white pepper, and neutral oil. Heat a grill or cast-iron grill pan and add, once very hot over medium high, the shrimp. Don’t move them for 1 minute, then flip over to cook the opposite sides. Let cook until they’re pink on both sides and have browned lightly. Boil a large pot of water. Drop the noodles in and stir so they don’t clump together. Add the bean sprouts right before the noodles are finished and, using a strainer or spider, strain out both. Set the noodles and sprouts into a metal bowl and stir with a splash of shiro dashi and the sesame oil, then divide evenly among four bowls. In a saucepan, bring the broth up to a boil, stir in the shiro dashi, shrimp powder, and butter, and divide the seasoned broth among the four bowls. On top of the noodles that should now be forming a small island in the center of the bowls, put 1 tablespoon lu rou fan, 1 teaspoon garlic confit, and a grilled shrimp on each portion. Encircle the shrimp with generous finger pinches of cilantro and your choice of chili oil, gochugaru, chile flakes, seaweed, or scallions, if using. INGREDIENTS 4 shrimp or prawns, peeled and deveined Pinch each salt and ground white pepper 1 tablespoon neutral oil, such as soybean 4 individual-size bundles dried Asian wheat noodles 1 bunch (about 2 cups/ 225 g) bean sprouts A splash plus 4 tablespoons shiro dashi 2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil 1 quart (950 ml) Superior Broth (page 261) or chicken broth 1 teaspoon Shrimp Powder (page 260) 2 tablespoons butter, cut into 4 small cubes 4 tablespoons Lu Rou Fan (page 151) 4 teaspoons pureed Garlic Confit (page 256; about 6 to 8 cloves) 1 bunch fresh cilantro, both leaves and stems, chopped Chili oil, red chile flakes such as gochugaru or Sichuan chili flakes, for garnish (optional) Seaweed and/or chopped scallions, for garnish (optional)109 COLD SESAME NOODLES Serves 4 to 6 THE BEST FOOD IS OFTEN THE SIMPLEST FOOD, IN ANY CULTURE. Taiwanese cold sesame noodles are a great example: super-simple and insanely delicious. But it’s all about the sauce. We’ve had them in various ways and have also made a lot of variations on this. But two distinct sauces stick out in memory. One was from a roadside stall in Tainan, where the cold noodles were served in a bowl and covered with a big ladle of deep tan–colored and slightly grainy sesame sauce. The other was at a place dedicated to black sesame paste noodles, with add-on options like wontons and fish balls. It was kind of a wild place, thick with the rusted, nutty aroma of sesame paste and filled with old and young people, all facedown in big bowls of noodles. Both versions were incredible and we were inspired to make two recipes: one using ses- ame sauce made with toasted white sesame seeds—sometimes called white sesame paste, though it is brown from the seeds being toasted—served cold, and the following recipe (page 112) using black sesame sauce, served warm. We’ve used variations of both these sauces for cold noodle specials, high-end tasting-style dinners, and as a dipping sauce mixed with fermented bean curd for hot pot. (Shout out to Eric Sze of 886 restaurant, who helped us understand hot pot culture and the role of sesame paste in dipping sauces for it.) For this classic version, add on an array of toppings such as sliced avocado, poached shrimp, snow pea leaves, soybeans, and bean sprouts, and it’s the best summer dish for a fresh meal or late-night hangover cure. Also, it’s easy to make this recipe vegetarian by subbing out the chicken stock for water or vegetable broth (no shame in water!) and the shiro dashi for light soy.Next >