A Peek Inside Five Brand New Brooklyn Cookbooks
The cookbook: Mast Brothers Chocolate: A Family Cookbook by Rick Mast & Michael Mast
The recipe: Chocolate Milk
The difficulty level: You have to make your own chocolate syrup, so it’s slightly more difficult than squirting chocolate syrup into a glass of milk. Pleasant surprise: this book does not ask you to make your own chocolate!
The verdict: The homemade syrup, made with dark chocolate, the seeds of a vanilla bean, cocoa powder and sugar, gave this chocolate milk rich, deep flavor. It’s a perfect example of the simple, straightforward recipes in this beautifully photographed book. We’re saving the leftover syrup to make the Chocolate Black Velvet recipe – a stout-champagne cocktail with orange bitters and orange zest.
The next recipes we’ll try: We might go for the Chocolate Meringue Pie, the Chocolate Gingersnaps or the Chocolate, Maple & Pecan Cookies, but we’re also intrigued by the chocolate-infused savory options, like the Mole Sauce and Cincinnati Chili. To be honest, we look forward to trying most of the recipes in this book. With a jacket modeled after the Mast Brothers’ beautifully designed candy wrappers and a forward by Thomas Keller, this may me the most gift-able cookbook of the holiday season.
Chocolate Milk
Serves 4
Chocolate Syrup (makes 2 ½ cups)
2 cups Water
½ cup sugar
½ cup cocoa powder
1 ounce dark chocolate, chopped
vanilla bean, seeds scraped from 1/3 bean
Chocolate Milk
1 cup Chocolate Syrup (or to taste)
3 cups whole milk
Make the Chocolate Syrup
1. In a saucepan, mix water, sugar, cocoa powder, chocolate, and vanilla seeds and bring to a boil.
2. Take off heat, strain, and let cool.
Make the Chocolate Milk
3. Stir Chocolate Syrup into milk.
Reprinted with permission from MAST BROTHERS CHOCOLATE by Rick Mast & Michael Mast, copyright © 2013. Published by Little, Brown and Company, a division of Hachette Book Group.
The cookbook: Pok Pok: Food and Stories from the Streets, Homes, and Roadside Restaurants of Thailand By Andy Ricker with JJ Goode
The recipe: Yam Khai Dao (Fried Egg Salad)
The difficulty level: If you don’t mind traveling to Chinatown to pick up some ingredients – like Chinese celery and palm sugar – this recipe is pretty simple. We got everything we needed at the huge and insanely crowded Fei Long Supermarket (6301 8th Ave. between 63rd and 64th Streets). For those who enjoy vats of live frogs, tanks of enormous spider crabs and getting shoved in the produce section while looking up photos of Chinese celery on your phone, this is a worthy field trip. Less adventurous types can substitute those thin, leafy stalks of greenmarket celery for the Chinese celery and use any old simple syrup in place of the Naam Cheuam Naam Taan Piip – but remember, guys, the whole point of this cookbook is to use authentic Thai ingredients and techniques.
The verdict: Fry a couple of eggs and throw some lime-sugar-garlic-chili-fish sauce dressing in the pan, and suddenly your home is filled with eau de Pok Pok. It’s not the prettiest dish, but it’s as sweet, spicy, sour, salty and funky as anything you’d taste in the restaurant. We see ourselves making this salad again and again.
The next recipes we’ll try: We’re interested in trying out Pok Pok’s signature dish, Ike’s Vietnamese Fish Sauce Wings, and the “weird and wonderful” Tuna Salad, made with canned tuna, ginger, lemongrass, lime juice, cilantro and chiles, with the Mango with Sticky Rice for dessert.
Yam Khai Dao (Fried Egg Salad)
Serves 2 to 6 as part of a meal; the recipe is easily doubled
EGGS
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1/4 to 1/3 cup vegetable oil
DRESSING
1 1/2 tablespoons lime juice (preferably from Key limes or spiked with a small squeeze of Meyer lemon juice)
1 1/2 tablespoons Naam Cheuam Naam Taan Piip (Palm sugar simple syrup, see recipe below)
1 tablespoon Thai fish sauce
3 grams peeled garlic, halved lengthwise and very thinly sliced (about 1 1/2 teaspoons)
2 grams fresh Thai chiles (about 2 small), preferably green, thinly sliced
SALAD
14 grams green leaf lettuce, cut into 2-inch-thick pieces (about 1 cup, lightly packed)
1 ounce peeled yellow onion, thinly sliced with the grain (about 1/4 cup, lightly
packed)
14 grams peeled carrot, cut into long (about 3-inch), thin (about 1/8-inch) strips (about 1/4 cup, lightly packed)
1/4 cup very coarsely chopped Chinese celery (thin stems and leaves), lightly
packed
1/4 cup very coarsely chopped cilantro (thin stems and leaves), lightly packed
FRY THE EGGS
Heat a wok or nonstick frying pan over high heat, then add just enough oil to reach a depth of a generous 1/4 inch. Once the oil begins to smoke, carefully crack in the eggs (holding them close to the oil to avoid splatter) and decrease the heat to medium. The eggs should spit, bubble, and crackle wildly. The whites should puff and develop large transparent bubbles.
Once the whites get crispy and deep golden brown at the edges, 45 seconds to 1 minute, use a spatula to flip the eggs (try not to break the yolks, but if you do,
it’s fine) and keep cooking until the bottom is golden brown and the yolks are set but still molten, 30 to 45 seconds more. Transfer the eggs to paper towels to
drain. Discard the oil, then rinse and wipe out the wok and let it cool. You can fry the eggs up to 15 minutes or so before you make the salad.
MAKE THE DRESSING AND ASSEMBLE THE SALAD
Add the lime juice, simple syrup, fish sauce, garlic, and chiles to the wok, set it over medium heat, and heat the mixture just until it’s warm to the touch, 15 seconds or so. Turn off the heat.
Quarter the eggs through the yolks and add them to the wok along with the remaining ingredients. Stir gently but well, then transfer the salad, liquid and all, to a plate in a low heap, so that most of the herbs end up near the top, and serve.
Naam Cheuam Naam Taan Piip (Palm sugar simple syrup)
Makes about 1/2 cup
2 1/2 ounces palm sugar, coarsely chopped
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon water
Combine the sugar and the water in a very small pot or pan. Set it over medium heat and cook, stirring and breaking up the sugar as it softens, just until the sugar has completely dissolved. If the water begins to bubble before the sugar has completely dissolved, turn off the heat and let it finish dissolving in the hot liquid. Let it cool before storing. The syrup keeps in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.
Reprinted with permission from Pok Pok by Andy Ricker with J.J. Goode, copyright © 2013. Published by Ten Speed Press, a division of Random House, Inc.