MY MILK SHAKE - Roy Choi

 If I’m anal-retentive about anything, it’s milk shakes. I’ve been making milk shakes since I was a kid in my family’s apartment kitchens, using our green Oster blender with the color-coded Chiclet-shaped buttons. Funny thing—my mom used to use that blender for pureeing kimchi marinade . . . ha! Back then, my family used to go to Bob’s Big Boy and Carnation on Wilshire Boulevard after the movies and get strawberry shakes. In high school, I visited every burger stand from Inglewood to Anaheim searching for the perfect banana milk shake, full of chunks of banana and the sweet creamy magic of life.

When I moved to Stateline, California, to work at the nearby Embassy Suites, I would hop the California-Nevada border late at night and hit the twenty-four-hour coffee shops in the casinos, just for a milk shake. I couldn’t wait for that frosty metal tin and dripping fluted glass. With a long spoon in hand and pounds of maraschino cherries in my stomach, I’d drink it up.

SERVES 4 TO 6

3 cups premium vanilla ice cream

1 banana, chopped

1 cup shaved ice, made by putting ice cubes in a resealable storage bag and crushing them with a can of soup or any other heavy object

3 tablespoons sugar

Microscopic pinch of Maldon sea salt

2 cups whole milk

Frosted Flakes, crushed, and caramel sauce (optional) for garnish

Pack the ice cream down into a blender. Add the banana, ice, sugar, and salt. Pour 1 cup of the milk over the top.

Cover and blend everything until it’s nice and creamy. With the blender still going, open the top and gently add more milk until the shake gets to your desired thickness. Mine is thick but viscous and drinkable with the ice shavings as a backdrop.

Pour the milk shake into a frozen glass and garnish with crushed Frosted Flakes and a drizzle of caramel, if you wish.

POST THIS NOTE:

PUT EVERYTHING IN THE FREEZER TO KEEP IT ICE-COLD, INCLUDING THE BLENDER, BLENDER TOP, AND THE BLADES, THE MILK, AND THE GLASS.

PORK FRIED RICE - Roy Choi

 When I think about pork fried rice, I think about time in slow-mo. But to most people, everything about pork fried rice is quick and fast. A hundred-meter dash in nine seconds fast. But before that starter gun can fire its blank, you have to prep for the race. For pork fried rice, you need day-old rice; leftovers from last night’s meal; and cured, smoked, glazed char siu pork cooked for hours in a hot box. The flaming wok is that nine-second dash. The char siu pork belly here is done with a Korean kid’s twist to fit your home oven.

At the casinos, this was my go-to dish, served on medium-size oval plates, their edges decorated with Chinese pagodas, a mound of steaming, pale white rice studded with bits of pork, slippery egg, minced vegetables, and soy sauce in the center.

Eat this with a big, frosty glass of Coke, some chili garlic sauce, chopsticks, and a cheap-ass wide-mouth stainless-steel spoon. If you have any leftover pork belly, mix it into a salad—it’ll be delicious.

SERVES 4 TO 6

2 pounds pork belly, skin off

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

MARINADE

1 cup kochujang

¼ cup fresh orange juice

5 garlic cloves, peeled

1 jalapeño pepper, chopped

¼ onion, chopped

¼ cup chopped scallions

FOR THE WOK OR FRY PAN

¼ cup canola oil

2 tablespoons minced peeled fresh ginger

2 tablespoons minced garlic

2 tablespoons minced scallions

¼ cup chopped leftover cooked vegetables—anything you got, man

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

4 cups day-old cooked rice

3 eggs, whisked

2 tablespoons Asian sesame oil

¼ cup soy sauce

GARNISH

½ teaspoon minced scallion greens

Season the pork belly on both sides with salt and pepper. Place on a rack set on a sheet pan and put it next to the fan in your refrigerator or somewhere cool and let it rest for 3 hours.

Meanwhile, make the marinade. Combine all the ingredients in a blender or food processor and blend until smooth.

Preheat the oven to 200°F. Take out the pork belly and slather with the marinade, barbershop style.

Place the pan in the oven and cook for 3 hours, then turn the temperature up to 450°F and roast for another 30 minutes.

Pull out the pork and let it cool for 1 hour.

Meanwhile, do all your knife work for the vegetables that will go into the wok. Pay attention and take some time to make it right—it ain’t that much knife work, and don’t act like it’s this major fucking deal to mince some veggies.

Chop up the cooled pork into bite-size pieces.

Now organize yourself.

Then heat up a big pan or a wok until smoking over high heat. Add the canola oil and start with the GGS—ginger garlic scallion—and fry them all at once until they’re aromatic, about a minute. Immediately add the rest of the vegetables and season with a touch, just a touch, of salt and pepper.

Work this muthafucka in and out for 30 seconds, being sure to constantly keep the vegetables moving.

Add the pork, toss toss toss; then add the rice. Pound down the rice with a wooden spoon, stir it up, and make this come together.

Fold in the eggs, sesame oil, and soy sauce. Turn off the heat and mix well

NINE SCONDS,

GOLD MEDAL IN

THE 100-METER DASH.

ENJOY IN FRONT

OF THE TV WITH

A BIG, FROSTY SODA.

BUTTERMILK PANCAKES - Roy Choi

 Sometimes, when your whole life, your whole fucking life, is threatening, you need something that comforts you. Pancakes were that thing for me, and I know it’s not just for me. Because nothing says comforting in the morning or in a foggy, drug-induced state more than a plate of pancakes: It’s just batter, butter, and syrup. Easy as 1-2-3, and maybe enough to help you count back to what got you here in the first place.

SERVES 4 TO 6

2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted

1 tablespoon plus ½ teaspoon sugar

¾ teaspoon kosher salt

1 tablespoon baking powder

¾ teaspoon baking soda

1½ eggs, beaten, or ¼ cup liquid eggs (to get ½ egg, beat 1 whole egg and use half of that beaten egg)

2 cups buttermilk

¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons melted butter

1 teaspoon olive oil

Mix together the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and baking soda in a medium bowl. Mix together the eggs, buttermilk, and butter in a larger bowl.

Slowly mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and beat for 2 minutes.

When all the ingredients are just incorporated, let the batter rest for a little bit while you heat up a griddle or pan. Once it’s hot, add a generous drizzle of olive oil to the grill or pan.

Ladle in the pancake batter to make pancakes as big or small as you wish. Cook over low to medium heat until you see a million bubbles on the surface of the pancakes and their undersides become brown and crispy. Once you see that, flip the pancake over. You should get that signature rise.

Cook for about a minute more, and there they are, wonderful pancakes. I like to eat my stack with pure maple syrup and some good, softened butter, and that’s about it.

VARIATIONS

For blueberry pancakes, add rinsed dry blueberries to the pancakes in the million-bubble stage, right before you flip them.

For johnnycakes, substitute cornmeal for half the flour.

GHETTO PILLSBURY FRIED DOUGHNUTS - Roy Choi

 I love doughnuts, but I really love malasadas. And ever since I visited Hawaii, I got up on this game. One day, a friend of mine showed me how he did it growing up in Oahu: take a pack of the Pillsbury biscuits and fry them, then toss them in sugar. “DUDE!!!!!!” I said. Try it and you’ll see. You too will say, “DUDE!!!!!!!!!” and deplete your local grocery store of Pillsbury biscuit dough just to make these.

MAKES 8 DOUGHNUTS

½ cup sugar

2 tablespoons ground cinnamon

2 tablespoons roasted and crushed sesame seeds

1 tube Pillsbury original biscuit dough

4 cups Crisco shortening

Mix the sugar, cinnamon, and sesame seeds in a medium-size bowl.

Pop open the tube of dough and pull apart the biscuits—they come preportioned, so this will be easy. In a big, heavy pot, heat the shortening over high heat; you’ll know it’s ready when a tiny piece of biscuit dough sizzles when added to the oil. Fry the biscuit dough until each piece becomes puffy and brown on all sides, about 2 minutes. Flip the pieces over and fry them for 2 minutes more.

Pull out the doughnuts and rest them on paper towels for a minute or two, then toss them immediately in the sugar mixture.

REPEAT.

EAT.

GET BLOATED.

Splash sauce - Roy Choi

 SPLASH

The Latinos I grew up around always had a lime somewhere, anywhere—just to give that extra little boost to whatever they were eating. I like to have this sauce around to sprinkle a little love on my day—and hopefully yours.

1 cup soy sauce

¼ cup natural rice vinegar (not seasoned)

2 tablespoons minced scallions

1 tablespoon minced jalapeño pepper, seeds and all

2 teaspoons kochukaru

1 teaspoon roasted sesame seeds

1 tablespoon minced garlic

Mix all the ingredients together in a small bowl. Spoon over rice or even use it to amp up a salad. Add it to anything. Everything.

Horchata - Roy Choi

 HORCHATA

Big Styrofoam cup the size of a football, fútbol playing on the tube, the sound of extraction coming from the tube when poured out of the machine, tacos about to be eaten . . . nothing could be better. The sweet flavor of cinnamon on your lips and the viscous milk and toasted rice. That moment when you’re eating tacos and drinking horchata, nothing else matters.

SERVES 4 TO 6

1 cup white rice, rinsed

4 cups water

Juice and grated zest of 2 limes

One 3-inch stick cinnamon

2 tablespoons blanched almonds

2 tablespoons roasted sesame seeds

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 cup whole milk

¾ cup sugar

Soak the rice in the water, along with the lime juice and zest, cinnamon stick, almonds, and sesame seeds for 1 hour.

In a food processor or blender, blend it all together and let it sit for 3 hours at room temperature.

Strain the rice mixture into a pot, place over low heat, and whisk in the ground cinnamon, milk, and sugar. Bring to a low simmer and keep it there until the sugar dissolves.

Strain again and chill.

SERVE ICE-COLD.

SALSA VERDE - Roy Choi

 There are two sauces that define L.A. and OC: salsa roja and salsa verde. It’s who we are and who we’ve become. I could eat anything with salsa verde; now so can you.

MAKES ALMOST 2 CUPS

¼ cup mirin

½ cup natural rice vinegar (not seasoned)

½ cup fresh mint leaves

1 cup roughly torn fresh cilantro

¼ cup fresh Thai basil leaves

3 garlic cloves, peeled

½ shallot, peeled

2 serrano chiles

1 jalapeño pepper

Juice and grated zest of 1 lime

2 tablespoons roasted sesame seeds

2 tomatillos, charred

½ cup canola oil

½ cup olive oil

½ avocado

Pinch of kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Combine all the ingredients in a blender or food processor and puree.

DRINK.

BURP.

SMILE.

KUNG PAO CHICKEN, PAPI STYLE - Roy Choi

 I love kung pao chicken, and we—me and the Grove Street crew—ate loads of it because it was cheap or we were stoned. I love it in any way, any form, mall food court to fancy to hole in the wall to family home. This is my little homage to the steam well that exists in every city in every 99-cent-egg-roll storefront. Use equal parts chicken and vegetables

SERVES 4 TO 6

SAUCE

2 tablespoons oyster sauce

2 tablespoons chili garlic sauce or sambal oelek

1 tablespoon Chinese chili oil

2 tablespoons fish sauce

1 tablespoon Tapatío, Cholula, or other hot sauce

2 tablespoons natural rice vinegar (not seasoned)

3 garlic cloves, peeled

2 tablespoons roasted garlic

2 tablespoons fresh orange juice

1½ teaspoons sugar

1½ teaspoons kochujang

1½ teaspoons kochukaru

2 tablespoons soy sauce

½ jalapeño pepper

¼ cup fresh Thai basil leaves

¼ cup roughly torn fresh cilantro

2 tablespoons minced lemongrass

onion, peeled

¼ cup chopped scallions

1 tablespoon Sriracha

1½ teaspoons roasted sesame seeds

¼ cup Asian sesame oil

FOR THE WOK

Canola oil

Dark-meat chicken, diced

Dried chile de árbol

Bell peppers, julienned

Onions, julienned

Scallions, julienned

Baby bok choy, julienned

Watercress

Chinese water spinach, roughly chopped

Eggplant, julienned

Fresh Thai basil leaves

Roasted peanuts

Fresh cilantro, chopped

Lime, halved

Combine all the sauce ingredients in a blender or food processor and puree the shit out of them.

Heat a wok or large pan over high heat and add the oil, heating until it starts to smoke. Add the chicken and move it around until the meat is lightly caramelized and cooked almost through, about 4 minutes. Transfer to a paper-towel-lined plate.

Add a touch more oil to the pan and turn the heat up full blast. Add the whole chile de árbol and swirl it around the pan. Then add all your veggies in whatever batch size you decide to make, but add them in equal portions.

Immediately after you throw in your vegetables, add ¼ cup of the pureed sauce for every two cups of chicken and/or vegetables, plus a splash of water to thin it all out slightly.

Add the chicken back to the pan and cook the stew together until the chicken is cooked through, about a minute. Turn off the heat.

Add the Thai basil and peanuts. Garnish with more Thai basil and cilantro. Splash it with half a lime if you have one around, then serve with rice.

PORK AND BEANS - Roy Choi

 My parents came home from American supermarkets with a lot of random-ass canned food, so we had everything from onion dip to Spam to corned beef hash to cream of mushroom soup to Vienna sausages to pork and beans. And when I popped open that can of pork ’n’ beans, I always tripped on that little piece of white lard that would swim in the mix. It was like a toy in a cereal box. I hope you enjoy my version and find your own imaginary toy within it.

SERVES 4 TO 6

1 pound dried pinto beans, soaked in cold water overnight and rinsed

1 pound pork belly, cut into cubes

3 tamarind pods

½ cup garlic cloves, sliced

¼ onion, chopped

2 jalapeño peppers, chopped

1 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 tablespoons roasted sesame seeds

Put the soaked and rinsed pinto beans in a large pot, cover with water by at least an inch, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer and add the pork belly, tamarind pods, garlic, onion, and jalapeños.

Simmer everything until the beans are tender, about an hour. Add the cilantro, reserving a bit for garnishing the bowls, and season with salt and pepper to your liking. Simmer for another 30 minutes.

Ladle the beans into bowls and garnish each with some roasted sesame seeds and chopped cilantro to make it look pretty.

YELLOW RICE AND GOAT STEW - Roy Choi

 When I was in high school, me and the Grove Street guys used to break into a Greek shop called the Mad Greek late at night and cook ourselves up a feast. The goat the shop used in the gyros was amazing, and I’ve liked the taste of goat and saffron and turmeric ever since. There is something very grounding about these flavors, and I put them in a stew here to make it that much more homey. I hope you and your crew can enjoy them and fill your party with smells that seem to stick to the walls.

SERVES 4 TO 6

MARINADE

3 dried chiles de árbol

1 dried California chile

¼ jalapeño pepper, charred

1 teaspoon kochukaru

1 Roma tomato, charred

3 cloves garlic, peeled

3 sprigs fresh cilantro

onion, charred

2 scallions, charred

¼ cup cubed mango

Juice of ½ lime

Juice of ¼ orange

2 tablespoons cider vinegar

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

½ teaspoon ground turmeric

¼ teaspoon ground allspice

Pinch of ground cumin

Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

MEAT

3 tablespoons canola oil

1 pound goat meat, cut into chunks

RICE

2 cups jasmine rice, rinsed

¼ cup coconut milk

¼ cup fresh lime juice

5¼ cups water

Good pinch of saffron threads

Good pinch each of kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

½ cup chopped fresh cilantro, chopped

1 tablespoon butter

Combine all the ingredients for the marinade in a blender or food processor and puree. Coat the goat with the puree and marinate it in the fridge, covered, for 2 hours.

Heat a heavy pan or Dutch oven and drizzle in the oil, heating until it’s smoking lightly. Remove the goat from the marinade, reserving the marinade. Sear the goat on all sides, then pour in the marinade, adding enough water to cover the meat completely. Simmer everything until the meat is nice and tender, 1 to 2 hours.

HOW TO CHAR VEGETABLES

CHARRING VEGETABLES IS AN EASY WAY TO ADD SOME NICE, SMOKY FLAVOR TO YOUR DISH. PUT THE VEGGIE IN A DRY PAN OVER MEDIUM HEAT AND TURN IT A FEW TIMES UNTIL IT’S BLACK ON ALL SIDES. IF YOU HAVE A GAS STOVE, YOU CAN PUT THE VEGETABLE DIRECTLY OVER A LOW FLAME, TURNING IT PERIODICALLY UNTIL IT’S BLISTERED ON ALL SIDES.

When the goat is almost done, combine the rice, coconut milk, lime juice, water, saffron, salt, and pepper in a rice cooker or in a saucepan. Cook, covered, over low heat until all the liquid has been absorbed and the rice is nice and fluffy, 20 to 30 minutes. Fold in the cilantro and butter.

Taste the goat stew and adjust the seasoning if necessary.

Pour the goat stew over the rice and EAT SLOPPILY.

CARNE ASADA - Roy Choi

 There are few foods more emblematic of Los Angeles than carne asada. In fact, the phrase has become so recognizable that you don’t even have to translate it to English: just say it out loud, and most people will know it’s marinated beef, thinly sliced and grilled to a char on a sunny Cali picnic day. I have heavy roots with carne asada: I grew up around it in Koreatown and ate it almost every day as a lowrider. I love that it’s a wet marinade but somehow dries the meat just right. Whenver you eat carne asada, it feels like L.A. Wash it down with some fresh horchata. Orale, carnal.

SERVES 4

MARINADE

¼ cup garlic cloves, peeled

¼ onion, peeled

¼ cup chopped scallions

¼ cup ancho chile powder

1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper

2 jalapeño peppers

½ bunch fresh cilantro

¾ cup Budweiser or any other beer you got in the fridge

Juice and grated zest of 1 orange

Juice and grated zest of 2 limes

½ kiwifruit, peeled

¼ cup mirin

Good pinch of kosher salt

Good pinch of sugar

1 pound skirt steak

Combine all the ingredients for the marinade in a blender or food processor and puree.

Rub the marinade all over the steak and marinate the meat in the refrigerator, covered, for at least an hour and up to 2 days.

When you’re ready to grill, heat the grill to medium heat, brush with oil, and cook the steak for 10 minutes, until it’s nice and charred on the outside and medium on the inside.

Rest the meat for 5 to 10 minutes; then eat. YUM