Flipping through Momofuku the other day, I saw that David Chang gives a recipe for English muffins... which are one of my favorite vessels for delivering poached egg and Hollandaise from a plate to my mouth. He also includes a recipe for Bay Leaf Butter, to be used on the English muffins, which rumors had indicated to be completely fantastic. Turns out the rumors about the butter were true, and also that these were the best English muffins I've ever had.
Let's start with the Bay Leaf Butter. It's quick and easy to make. You simply combine (Amish) butter, rendered pork fat, and fresh bay leaves and end up with something totally awesome.
I always have rendered pork fat on hand these days from cooking pork belly, but I suppose you could use store-bought lard... The best option, though, is probably to just make Momofuku
pork buns and then have your own stash of pork fat in the freezer... The fresh bay leaves are roughly sliced, then pounded in a mortar and pestle to get the flavors to start coming out...
In the meantime, the (Amish) butter and pork fat are gently melted in a small pan.
The bay leaves are added and allowed to steep (off the heat, but re-warmed from time to time if the mixture starts to solidify)...
The "bay leaf mess" (as Chang calls it) is strained out...
The mixture is chilled until it solidifies a bit, then is beaten for 7-10 minutes in your stand mixer. (I had just bought a nifty blade that scrapes the sides of the bowl as it works, and it was perfect for this.) The mixture should be glossy and beautiful when it's done.
Scrape this into a bowl and refrigerate until you're ready to use it.
We made this a couple days before the English muffins and served it on some old-school Betty Crocker biscuits that my mom whipped up. The biscuits were flaky and delicious, and this butter took them to another level. I mean, really... How can you go wrong with Amish butter and pork fat? I can see myself making this just to use a delicious spread on assorted breads, even when I'm not up for the full-on English muffin process... Speaking of which: English muffins. As Chang mentions, these are not hard to make, but you have to be willing to spend some methodical time working on them. The only thing of note in the dough-making process is that there's a whole lot of yeast and also some (Amish) butter in the mix. The dough is shaped into balls (60g for standard size, 30g for the size they serve at Ko, and 15g for the size I wanted to play with, as you'll see below). The balls of dough are gently flattened on a layer of cornmeal. They can sit in the fridge for up to 3 days at this point, waiting for you to have time to do the real work...
I know, I know... They look kind of janky in that picture... but they got better in the pan. Here you can see them puffing up as I cooked the first side over very low heat.
After flipping every 5-6 minutes for about 20 minutes, the temperature can be bumped up a little and the soon-to-be-muffins flipped every 2-3 minutes until starting to get all toasty and beautiful...
I should note here that these smell insane while they're toasting. Stick your nose down near the pan in this final toasting stage, and you'll have complete confidence that you made the right choice in trying out this recipe... From here they go into the oven to finish cooking for about 10 minutes, which leads to your whole kitchen smelling insanely delicious.
The muffins should be split with a fork (knives are for losers...) and you should find yourself with soft, fluffy, goodness full of nooks and crannies...
The Bay Leaf Butter comes into play here, as Chang recommends that you slather a little on and then toast them butter-side-down in a skillet... Here are my super-adorable mini muffins:
And, of course, my regular-sized muffins:
The pan-toasting was a little awkward given that you don't use a knife so you don't get an even cross-section to set on the pan. (The muffins in Chang's picture, above, look like they were sliced with a knife...) I decided to toast the butter-coated muffins under the broiler instead, to get the toasty goodness more evenly distributed.
I alluded to Eggs Benedict above, which is my favorite brunch food of all time. As soon as I thought about making my own English muffins I geeked out about how awesome it would be to make mini muffins and do a miniature Eggs Benedict with quail eggs... so that's what we did:
In case you need a reference point for scale, I put my measuring spoons next to the plate:
They are so adorable, and really delicious, too. I think it could be a really cool appetizer or just a way to impress your friends at brunch. I used some Niman Ranch Jamon Royale to stand in for the traditional Canadian bacon, and its smokiness was perfect. I will definitely make this again. Of course, mini Eggs Benedict do not a full brunch make (I use the term "brunch" loosely, since it was 2:15pm by the time we finished making muffins and could sit down to enjoy them...), so we also made up some full-sized versions on our Bay Leaf Butter-crusted homemade Muffins of Awesomeness...
(Some Blood Farm bacon magically appeared on the side in that last picture... Mmmm...) In summary: homemade English muffins rock. This is one of those things were I tend to say that it's easy to make, when what I really mean (to paraphrase Chang) is that you don't have to carve a swan out of a melon or anything. I realize that a lot of my favorite "easy" things to make are easy in the not-carving-a-swan-out-of-a-melon sense, but often require a few hours in the kitchen and a lot of attention to detail (which tends to irritate friends when I recommend that they try making something and assure them that it's "easy"). I, personally, never mind that... so long as the results are as amazing as this...
Flipping through Momofuku the other day, I saw that David Chang gives a recipe for English muffins... which are one of my favorite vessels for delivering poached egg and Hollandaise from a plate to my mouth. He also includes a recipe for Bay Leaf Butter, to be used on the English muffins, which rumors had indicated to be completely fantastic. Turns out the rumors about the butter were true, and also that these were the best English muffins I've ever had.
Let's start with the Bay Leaf Butter. It's quick and easy to make. You simply combine (Amish) butter, rendered pork fat, and fresh bay leaves and end up with something totally awesome.
I always have rendered pork fat on hand these days from cooking pork belly, but I suppose you could use store-bought lard... The best option, though, is probably to just make Momofuku pork buns and then have your own stash of pork fat in the freezer... The fresh bay leaves are roughly sliced, then pounded in a mortar and pestle to get the flavors to start coming out...
In the meantime, the (Amish) butter and pork fat are gently melted in a small pan.
The bay leaves are added and allowed to steep (off the heat, but re-warmed from time to time if the mixture starts to solidify)...
The "bay leaf mess" (as Chang calls it) is strained out...
The mixture is chilled until it solidifies a bit, then is beaten for 7-10 minutes in your stand mixer. (I had just bought a nifty blade that scrapes the sides of the bowl as it works, and it was perfect for this.) The mixture should be glossy and beautiful when it's done.
Scrape this into a bowl and refrigerate until you're ready to use it.
We made this a couple days before the English muffins and served it on some old-school Betty Crocker biscuits that my mom whipped up. The biscuits were flaky and delicious, and this butter took them to another level. I mean, really... How can you go wrong with Amish butter and pork fat? I can see myself making this just to use a delicious spread on assorted breads, even when I'm not up for the full-on English muffin process... Speaking of which: English muffins. As Chang mentions, these are not hard to make, but you have to be willing to spend some methodical time working on them. The only thing of note in the dough-making process is that there's a whole lot of yeast and also some (Amish) butter in the mix. The dough is shaped into balls (60g for standard size, 30g for the size they serve at Ko, and 15g for the size I wanted to play with, as you'll see below). The balls of dough are gently flattened on a layer of cornmeal. They can sit in the fridge for up to 3 days at this point, waiting for you to have time to do the real work...
I know, I know... They look kind of janky in that picture... but they got better in the pan. Here you can see them puffing up as I cooked the first side over very low heat.
After flipping every 5-6 minutes for about 20 minutes, the temperature can be bumped up a little and the soon-to-be-muffins flipped every 2-3 minutes until starting to get all toasty and beautiful...
I should note here that these smell insane while they're toasting. Stick your nose down near the pan in this final toasting stage, and you'll have complete confidence that you made the right choice in trying out this recipe... From here they go into the oven to finish cooking for about 10 minutes, which leads to your whole kitchen smelling insanely delicious.
The muffins should be split with a fork (knives are for losers...) and you should find yourself with soft, fluffy, goodness full of nooks and crannies...
The Bay Leaf Butter comes into play here, as Chang recommends that you slather a little on and then toast them butter-side-down in a skillet... Here are my super-adorable mini muffins:
And, of course, my regular-sized muffins:
The pan-toasting was a little awkward given that you don't use a knife so you don't get an even cross-section to set on the pan. (The muffins in Chang's picture, above, look like they were sliced with a knife...) I decided to toast the butter-coated muffins under the broiler instead, to get the toasty goodness more evenly distributed. 
In case you need a reference point for scale, I put my measuring spoons next to the plate:
They are so adorable, and really delicious, too. I think it could be a really cool appetizer or just a way to impress your friends at brunch. I used some Niman Ranch Jamon Royale to stand in for the traditional Canadian bacon, and its smokiness was perfect. I will definitely make this again. Of course, mini Eggs Benedict do not a full brunch make (I use the term "brunch" loosely, since it was 2:15pm by the time we finished making muffins and could sit down to enjoy them...), so we also made up some full-sized versions on our Bay Leaf Butter-crusted homemade Muffins of Awesomeness...
(Some Blood Farm bacon magically appeared on the side in that last picture... Mmmm...) In summary: homemade English muffins rock. This is one of those things were I tend to say that it's easy to make, when what I really mean (to paraphrase Chang) is that you don't have to carve a swan out of a melon or anything. I realize that a lot of my favorite "easy" things to make are easy in the not-carving-a-swan-out-of-a-melon sense, but often require a few hours in the kitchen and a lot of attention to detail (which tends to irritate friends when I recommend that they try making something and assure them that it's "easy"). I, personally, never mind that... so long as the results are as amazing as this...
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