Lucky Peach Ramen

It’s no secret that I’m an uber-fan of No Reservations and food explorer Anthony Bourdain. Bourdain’s production company recently teamed up with the iconic James Beard Award Winning Chef and Restauranteur, David Chang. Chang’s Momufoku dynansty in New York is apparently the hardest eat seat to get. To make the crass union of David Chang and Anthony Bourdain even more enticing, enter Dave Eggers‘ publishing house, McSweeney’s.

Color me pleased as a fuzzy navel when I got my hands on the first issue of Lucky Peach.

Lucky Peach is a food and travel journal with the attitude of meat cleaver skillfully hacking away at a fresh kill. It’s raw. Authentic. Not pretentious, and yet important. Important because the editors already seem to know their readers after issue 1. It’s for home foodies. Chock full of recipes and how-tos straight out of Chang’s apron under carriage. It’s got banter and argument. Travel and tasting. And thank God, no advertising.

I look forward to seeing this thing develop overtime. You get the idea that it’s the zine of a couple of drinking buddies who happen to be award winning foodists in their night job.

I immediately took to the recipes this week. 

Issue 1 was themed, “Ramen.” Not that crap in the styrofoam cup. Real noodles. Real broth. Real meals.

I kicked things off with Chang’s “Chicken Soup” on pg120. Great meal with little more than a little bit of chopping and an hour or two of simmering. I took his basic recipe for chicken soup with ramen noodles and I added a touch of fatty loveliness on top.

After pulling the chicken off the bones, I was left with a pile of bones, and some skins. So, naturally, I decided to make some chicken cracklings from the skin. I fried them in wok with a little bit of sesame oil until nice and crispy. Gave them a shake of sea salt and garnished the soup with them and a few diced spring green onions.

My wife was skeptical as she saw me taking those nasty boiled chicken skins and tossing them in hot oil. If cooked at the right medium high heat, you’ll end up leaving 3 times the oil in the pan as you started with and have light, crispy skins that are nearly as lovely as bacon, dare I say. I noticed she was a convert as she went back for a second helping of the crackling.

Get yourself a subscription to Lucky Peach here.