Recipes | Momofuku's 'Volcanoes'

Recipes

Momofuku's 'Volcanoes'

At a time when everyone seems to be looking for meals they can make from 3 ingredients in under 15 minutes Christina Tosi's Volcanoes recipe from Momofuku Milk Bar will strike you as insanely long. It involves 3 separate recipes before you even begin to embark on the Volcanoes themselves. So why am I suggesting you should attempt it?

Because they're the best bread rolls in the universe - stuffed with sliced potato and cheese. I confess I haven't made them myself - yet - but my friend blogger Dan Vaux-Nobes of Essex Eating has and is obsessed with them. I tasted them the other day and could see his point: warm, cheesy and comforting (that's the rolls, not Dan) they're almost a meal in themselves. And not that difficult once you read the recipe(s) through.

Here they are with introductions from Christina.

makes 4 volcanoes (yes, just 4. Insane but they're BIG)

In February 2008, I traveled with Dave to Deauville, France, for the third annual Omnivore Food Festival. The two of us were like fish out of water in this off-season beach town. Straight off the plane from New York and jet-lagged, we were left to our own devices in the tiny, remote town to gather Asian ingredients for a kimchi demo.

We agreed to wake up at 6 a.m. the next day to get breakfast and get going. We met drowsy and confused in the empty hotel lobby and proceeded to sleepwalk through the ghost town until we could smell fresh-baked bread and saw a light on in the only bakery in town. Dave took charge and pointed at nearly everything in the joint, as that’s how we eat when we’re abroad. “I’m full” is not a phrase you’re allowed to use—such is the price of traveling with chef Dave Chang.

We found a bench outside and unwrapped this mound of bread that looked like it had some sort of creamy gravy inside. Still half-asleep, we wrestled the filled bread ball out of the bag and bit in. When you are having a food moment, it’s like tasting food for the first time. Your eyes open wide and then close, as if in slow motion. You chew as if no food with flavor has ever touched your tongue before and what you are eating at that very moment is what will shape all future food opinions you will ever have. That was our 6:05 a.m. February morning in Deauville. Neither of us speaks French, so we decided to call it what it was, a volcano—an explosion of potato, lardons, and cheese like no other. We raced each other to the bakery every subsequent morning that week. And on the plane ride home, we agreed that if and when we opened a bakery, it must serve our very own volcano.

½ recipe Mother Dough (see below), risen

1 recipe Caramelized Onions (see below)

1 recipe Scalloped Potatoes (see below)

1 egg

4g / ½ teaspoon water

100g shredded Gruyère cheese (Dan uses Keen's cheddar)

1. Heat the oven to 190°C/Gas 5.

2. Punch down and flatten the dough on a smooth, dry worktop. Use a dough cutter to divide the dough into 4 equal pieces. Use your fingers to gently stretch each piece of dough out into a mini pizza about 15 cm wide.

3. Divide the onions equally among the rounds, plopping them in the center. Grab the scalloped potatoes from the fridge and cut into four 7.5 cm squares. Use an offset spatula to wrestle each square of potato gratin out of the baking tray and onto a dough round, directly on top of the onions.

4. Take the edges of each dough round and pinch together to seal so that there is no speck of onion or potato in sight, then gently roll the ball between the palms of your hands to ensure the volcano has a nice, round, dinner roll–y shape. Arrange the volcanoes, seam side down, 12.5 cm apart on a parchment- or silicone-lined baking tray.

5. Whisk the egg and water together and brush a generous coat of egg wash on the buns. Use a paring knife to cut a 2.5 cm-long X in the top of each volcano. Divide the Gruyère evenly among the volcanoes, stuffing it into the X in each one.

6. Bake the volcanoes for 25 minutes, or until the dough is a deep, golden brown and the Gruyère cheese on top is caramelized. They are best served warm; allow them to cool for at least 10 minutes before digging in. If you’re saving a couple of volcanoes for later, let them cool, wrap them well in cling film, and store them in the fridge for up to 3 days; warm them in the oven before eating.

Caramelized onions

makes enough for 1 recipe Volcanoes

I love caramelized onions. I make them constantly at home and put them in everything from sandwiches to nachos piled high to scrambled eggs. They add a roasted depth of flavor and an unbelievable sweetness.

20g / 2 tablespoons grapeseed oil

2 medium Spanish onions, halved and thinly sliced

6g / 1½ teaspoons kosher or sea salt

1. Heat the oil in a large heavy-bottomed frying pan over medium-high heat for 1 minute, or until it’s very hot but not smoking. Add the onions and let them cook for 2 to 3 minutes without stirring.

2. Toss the onions with a large spoon or spatula while seasoning them with the salt. Lower the heat to medium-low. The rest of the caramelization process happens slowly over medium-low heat for 20 minutes. Work on another sub-recipe, pay some bills, kill some time productively—but don’t go too far from the onions. Toss the onions over on themselves every 3 to 4 minutes so they all get their time on the bottom of the pan. The onions will weep and then slowly take on color as they release their liquid. When your onions are the color of a brown paper bag, they are done. Cool completely before using in the volcanoes, or store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 1 week.

Dan's Volcanoes

Scalloped potatoes

makes enough for 1 recipe Volcanoes

1 garlic clove

105g/120ml whipping or double cream

85g/80ml milk

½ bay leaf

¼ rosemary sprig

2g/½ teaspoon kosher or sea salt

0.5g/pinch freshly ground black pepper

80g pancetta (Dan leaves this out as his girlfriend Elly is a vegetarian - they're fine without it)

2 baking potatoes

1. Smash the garlic clove with the palm of your hand and remove the skin. Put the garlic in a small saucepan with the cream, milk, bay leaf, rosemary, salt, and pepper and bring to a simmer over low heat, then take the saucepan off the heat, cover, and let steep for 30 minutes. The cream mixture will seem strong and overseasoned, but it will eventually season all of the scalloped potatoes, so don’t freak out.

2. Meanwhile, cut the pancetta, if using, into 1 cm cubes. Brown it in a small saucepan over medium heat. You want to caramelize and cook the pancetta slightly, to increase its presence later in the scalloped potatoes. Set aside.

3. Peel the potatoes and slice just thicker than paper-thin slices, about 3 mm thick. Submerge them in a bowl of cold water.

4. Heat the oven to 180°C/Gas 4. Pull out a 15 mm square baking tray (if you don’t have one, you can probably buy a disposable one at the supermarket).

5. Layer the potatoes in the tray like shingles (overlapping tiles), putting bits of browned pancetta between each layer of potato shingles, until you are out of both potatoes and pancetta. Fish out the herbs and garlic clove from the steeped cream mixture with a slotted or regular spoon, and then pour the cream over the potatoes.

6. Bake for 45 minutes, or until the potatoes on top are golden brown and have a milky translucence but have not burned or turned into potato crisps.

7. Cool and chill the scalloped potatoes in the fridge for 2 to 3 hours, covered with cling film and with a bowl of leftovers weighting them down and keeping every shingle tight and condensed in the tray.

8. Use in the volcano once cool. To store for later use, take the weights off, wrap the scalloped potatoes especially well in cling film, and return to the fridge for up to 5 days.

Mother dough

makes about 850 g

This bread dough is always tasty, very forgiving, and can be fashioned into nearly any style or variety of bready item. It takes a very “don’t take yourself so seriously!” approach to bread baking and is the easiest, most versatile recipe in the book—your resulting bagel bombs, volcanoes, brioche, focaccia, and croissants will be proof of that.

Make this dough one day, refrigerate it, and use it the second, third, or fourth day, if need be. Or freeze it for up to 1 week; just make sure to let it come to room temperature before using.

550g bread flour

12g / 1 tablespoon kosher or sea salt

3.5g / 1¹⁄8 teaspoons dried yeast

370g / 420ml water, at room temperature

grapeseed oil

1. Stir together the flour, salt, and yeast in the bowl of a free-standing electric mixer—do it by hand, using the dough hook like a spoon. Continue stirring by hand as you add the water, mixing for 1 minute, until the mixture has come together into a shaggy mass.

2. Engage the bowl and hook and have the machine mix the dough on the lowest speed for 3 minutes, or until the ball of dough is smoother and more cohesive. Then knead for 4 more minutes on the lowest speed. The dough should look like a wet ball and should bounce back softly when prodded.

3. Brush a large bowl with oil and dump the dough into it. Cover with cling film and let the dough rise at room temperature for 45 minutes.

4. The dough is ready to be used as directed in the following recipes. If you do not plan to use your mother dough the day you make it, you can store it in an airtight container at least twice its size in the fridge for up to 3 days. Take it out of the fridge and let it come to room temperature 30 to 45 minutes before using.

What to drink with Volcanoes
I haven't done extensive research on this (that's obviously to come) but can recommend a creamy oak-aged chardonnay or a glass of good sparkling wine or champagne. They'd probably go pretty well with a Merlot or an American IPA too.

Extracted from Momofoku Milk Bar by Christina Tosi published by Absolute Press at £25.00. There are many other insanely good recipes in it, mostly sweet. Read the Crumb section and try the Crack Pie. No, not that kind of crack.

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