Cooking at Home : Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Recipes (And Love My Microwave): A Cookbook

Overview: The founder of Momofuku cooks at home . . . and that means mostly ignoring recipes, using tools like the microwave, and taking inspiration from his mom to get a great dinner done fast. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST COOKBOOKS OF THE YEAR BY TASTE OF HOME David Chang came up as a chef in kitchens where you had to do everything the hard way. But his mother, one of the best cooks he knows, never cooked like that. Nor did food writer Priya Krishna’s mom. So Dave and Priya set out to think through the smartest, fastest, least meticulous, most delicious, absolutely imperfect ways to cook. From figuring out the best ways to use frozen vegetables to learning when to ditch recipes and just taste and adjust your way to a terrific meal no matter what, this is Dave’s guide to substituting, adapting, shortcutting, and sandbagging—like parcooking chicken in a microwave before blasting it with flavor in a four-minute stir-fry or a ten-minute stew. It’s all about how to think like a chef . . . who’s learned to stop thinking like a chef. Genre: Non-Fiction > Food & Drink "The globally renowned chef of Momofuku, star of Netflix's Ugly Delicious, and bestselling author of Eat a Peach now shares the kitchen hacks and culinary tricks he uses as a new home cook for a growing family--and shows the rest of us how to make the most of our cooking skills. Being a chef can make you the absolute worst kind of home cook. Either you're too fussy when dinner just needs to be on the table (without an hour of dishes to do afterwards), or, like Momofuku chef David Chang, you just never cook at home--your apartment is a place to sleep. But now, with a young family to feed, David finds himself having to retrain every instinct in his kitchen. With a decidedly non-restaurant pantry and no-frills equipment, he now has the same goals as every other mortal home cook: to make something as delicious as possible, in the least amount of time possible, with as little mess as possible. And what David learned is to never cook like a chef. Don't look at recipes. Choose frozen peas over fresh. Put the microwave to use--a lot. And go ahead, make the sauce for pasta cacio e pepe in a blender, no matter what that cool chef says. This is a book of delicious recipes that maximize flavor while minimizing effort and culinary orthodoxy. Rather than outlining formal recipes, David talks through how he tackles a dish step by step, starting with a basic template and then turning to endless variations. You might start with chicken thighs cooked with onion and garlic, but from there you can make coconut chicken curry or gochujang chicken and potatoes. You'll get a lazier version of Momofuku's ginger-scallion noodles, but then see how David riffs on it with a pesto-ish ginger-basil sauce. This cookbook is David's guide to unlocking culinary dark arts of shortcuts and hacks, brought to you by a chef who's made a career of doing everything the hard way...and is as tired of doing it as you are of hearing about it"-- Provided by publisher "The globally renowned chef of Momofuku, star of Netflix's Ugly Delicious, and bestselling author of Eat a Peach now shares the kitchen hacks and culinary tricks he uses as a new home cook for a growing family--and shows the rest of us how to make the most of our cooking skills ... Rather than outlining formal recipes, David talks through how he tackles a dish step by step, starting with a basic template and then turning to endless variations ... This cookbook is David's guide to unlocking culinary dark arts of shortcuts and hacks, brought to you by a chef who's made a career of doing everything the hard way ... and is as tired of doing it as you are of hearing about it"-- "The globally renowned chef of Momofuku, star of Netflix's Ugly Delicious, and bestselling author of Eat a Peach now shares the kitchen hacks and culinary tricks he uses as a new home cook for a growing family--and shows the rest of us how to make the most of our cooking skills ... Rather than outlining formal recipes, David talks through how he tackles a dish step by step, starting with a basic template and then turning to endless variations ... This cookbook is David's guide to unlocking culinary dark arts of shortcuts and hacks, brought to you by a chef who's made a career of doing everything the hard way ... and is as tired of doing it as you are of hearing about it" NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The founder of Momofuku cooks at home . . . and that means mostly ignoring recipes, using tools like the microwave, and taking inspiration from his mom to get a great dinner done fast. JAMES BEARD AWARD NOMINEE • ONE OF THE BEST COOKBOOKS OF THE YEAR: New York Post, Taste of Home David Chang came up as a chef in kitchens where you had to do everything the hard way. But his mother, one of the best cooks he knows, never cooked like that. Nor did food writer Priya Krishna’s mom. So Dave and Priya set out to think through the smartest, fastest, least meticulous, most delicious, absolutely imperfect ways to cook. From figuring out the best ways to use frozen vegetables to learning when to ditch recipes and just taste and adjust your way to a terrific meal no matter what, this is Dave’s guide to substituting, adapting, shortcutting, and sandbagging—like parcooking chicken in a microwave before blasting it with flavor in a four-minute stir-fry or a ten-minute stew. It’s all about how to think like a chef . . . who’s learned to stop thinking like a chef. The chef of Momofuku cooks at home . . . and that means breaking the rules that chefs, magazines, and everyone else tell you about, so you can get a great dinner done fast. Being a chef can make you the worst kind of home cook. Either youre too fussy when dinner just needs to be on the table or, as Momofuku chef Dave Chang will tell you about his early years in the industry, you just . . . never cook at home. But now, with a family to feed, Dave faces the same challenges as any home cook: how to make something as delicious as possible, in the least amount of time possible, with as little mess as possible. Its no time for meticulous searing or searching for the perfect medium rare. This is his guide to the culinary dark arts of substituting, adapting, shortcutting, and sandbagging, like par-cooking chicken in the microwave before showing you seven ways to blast it with flavor in a four-minute stir-fry or a ten-minute stew, because he is as tired as you are of doing things the hard way