Shrimp & Grits, Momofuku Style

Having spent equal parts of my life in the Southeast and the Northeast, I was eager to make the recipe for shrimp and grits from the Momofuku cookbook.  Keeping the central components of the classic Southern dish intact while adding a small dash of New York edge, Momofuku's shrimp and grits achieves the right blend of North vs. South, something this blogger has been trying to achieve his whole confused life.  As difficult as it can sometimes be to tame New York 'tude with Southern charm, David Chang shows that it's pretty easy to do so on a plate. 

The hardest part about this shrimp and grits dish is sourcing the ingredients.  I had the good fortune of finding Anson Mills grits--the same South Carolina grits that Momofuku and seemingly every other higher-end restaurant in America with a grits dish on its menu use--at Formaggio Essex in New York's Essex Street Market.  It's worth it to search these grits out or splurge and order them online; they are the best grits out there, tasting as if the corn used to make them had been shucked just days before the grits were ground.

Aside from the grits, the only other ingredient you need to seek out is konbu, or dried kelp, that goes into the Bacon Dashi in which you boil the grits.  Fortunately, New York has no shortage of Japanese markets that carry konbu, but if you can't find it, you should be able to get by with boiling the grits in chicken broth. 

Ingredients and some splattering grits aside, this Momofuku's dish is easy to pull off.  Boil the grits, stir in a stick of butter (I didn't say this was healthy), cook the bacon, sautè the shrimp, poach some eggs, and stir it all together with a few splashes of soy sauce and some scallions and you have an excellent, North-meets-South-meets-Far-East meal.

Pulled Pork Made in the Oven

For a recent office potluck, I decided to honor my Southern heritage by cooking pulled pork. While there is no substitute for wood smoked pork butt, this recipe for beer braised pork butt is as good as any pulled pork dish that can easily be cooked in a New York apartment. If the number of requests I received from my co-workers is any indication, they agreed. The recipe is quite simple, it just takes the better part of an evening to make.

First, rub the bone-in pork butt in the spice mixture. A store-bought spice rub will do, but it's best if you make your own. The rub prescribed in the recipe lends the meat a smoky flavor that gives the dish slight semblance to authentic smoke pork. Let the pork marinate for at least an hour, preferably overnight. Before you are ready to cook the pork, let it come to room temperature.


Next, preheat the oven to 500F. Roast the pork until the pork blackens.


Remove the pork from the oven and reduce the heat to 325F. While the oven is cooling down, pour a 12 oz. dark beer over the pork and have one for yourself. I used Peak Organics Brown Ale. Surround the pork with several cloves of minced garlic. Finally cover it with heavy foil and poke several holes all over the foil to let some liquid escape. Let the pork braise until it is falling off the bone, about 2.5 hours. Remove the pork from the roasting pan and pour the braising liquid into a sauce pan.

Perfecting the braising liquid is key here as it will make for wonderfully moist meat. Add the ketchup, Worchestershire sauce, brown sugar, and dijon mustard to the liquid and let it simmer for about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, shred the pork with two forks:


Finally, mix as much of the liquid as desired back into the pork. It will look like too much liquid, but keep stirring it into the pork, as the meat will absorb lots of the braising liquid.


Serve the rest of the braising liquid with the pork. The pork is delicious by itself or a sandwich on a potato roll with cole slaw.