Still on the hunt

More Chashuu to chew through and analysis to do

As promised I'm still trying out the Chashuu ramen around sydney. Stay tuned as the collection of critical analysis to making my ultimate ramen guide is growing!

Ramen Kan

Pizza at home

I guess a lot of people have wanted to try making pizza at home. So I tried it myself, making everything but the cheese from scratch.

As my first test I'm trying to use bread dough to form the base. It seemed like it would work up until I tried to hammer out some bases. I think I lack the technique to stretch the dough :(

3 cups bread flour, 1 1/2 cups water and extra virgin olive oil

After 18 hours of fermentation and rising

Ready for the oven (shouldn't have put the basil there yet)

Delicious! Lacking the crust but the elements are present

Notes:

• Basil should be added after baking
• Need a pizza stone to get right crust
• Learn to toss pizza dough
• Use better cheese

Din Tai Fung

THE WORLD'S TASTIEST! COULD IT BE?? (in world square)

Din Tai Fung is an internationally renowned Taiwanese best known for their dumplings. Although it feels incredibly strange trying to describe such an asian food in plain english, excuse the awkwardness. Let's begin our critical analysis.

 Like all simple foods, high quality control over each aspect and element of the final product is essential to provide a satisfying experience. The worlds' best must achieve an ideal level of perfection in each of the following areas according to my limited experience in asian cuisine:

1. Dumpling skin / "pastry". The dumpling skin should be thin opaque but thin enough to be illuminated by the reflection of the colour of the filling. Skin thickness should be consistent and the wrapping should be as above tapered off to ensure the whole skin remains moist and evenly cooked when steamed. The skin should not stick to the steaming apparatus and when pierced on the spoon it gleams and slips around once coated in the juices. 
2. Juices. The "juice" that comes flowing out of the dumpling serves several purposes. The first is to provide a large proportion of the flavour. The fattiness of the source contains a lot of the flavnoids of the pork and should be derived from pork skin and should be collagenous and therefore have a faintly thick fatty stickiness to it which lubricates the skin of the dumpling, providing a seamless transition between the flavours and textures of the skin and filling.
3. Filling. This is where the juice originates from, the fat and collagen melts during steaming. In other words this is the source of all flavour that isn't from the skin. The yin of the yang which completes the dumpling experience. The intense porky flavour is mellowed by underlying tones of ginger which fill the mouth and perfume the nose. Flavours can vary but pork is the general filling, seafood and prawn are possible fillings which sweeten the filling.

Simply delicious

 I'd almost describe these as I did above. They are definitely very good! My favourite of this restaurant and the best dumplings I've tasted so far :)

Also some other things we had:

Shrimp dumpling - sweeter filling with thicker skin

A very clean and crisp wonton soup

White wonton rose

Pork bun - Pretty, but your average pork bun (not bbq style)

Classic beef noodle soup

 The beef noodle soup is quite the traditional noodle soup. The soup itself isn't made that well, it really lacks a depth of flavour but the noodles on the other hand were really nice. Everything we had paled in comparison to the dumplings, so if you ever find yourself craving some good dumplings you know where to look.