Coco: Phaidon's Culinary Trip Around the World

by Celia Sin-Tien Cheng
February 19, 2010

Coco: 10 World-Leading Masters Choose 100 Contemporary Chefs
440 pages
Phaidon 2009
$49.95

Phaidon’s latest culinary book, Coco, is a veritable travel guide for foodies. A compilation of 10 master chefs’ top-10 lists of contemporary culinary masters around the world, this guide will take you from Spain and Tokyo to Athens, Georgia.

Coco, the inspiration for the book’s title, was a dish at El Bulli that an editor at Phaidon loved.

Food and travel are my favorite things, so I was already sold on the book, and then I was even more excited to see three selections from my hometown, Taipei: Tung-Yuan Lin of GaBee, Yosuke Suga of L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon, and Yue-Jiau Zhuang of C’est Bon. Both GaBee and C’est Bon were selected by one of my favorite master chefs, Jacky Yu.

At C’est Bon, the organic vegetables and rice are grown on site, and the purest of local ingredients are sourced for the Taiwanese-based cuisine. Below is the recipe for Zhuang’s innovative variation on the classic Chinese meatball known as lion’s head.

PICKLED CABBAGE LION’S HEAD
Serves 7

For the lion’s head
600 g pork sirloin and 300 g unrendered lard, or 900 g pork belly
140 ml pork stock
20 ml green papaya juice
2 tsp salt
1 tsp white pepper powder
15 g ground ginger
20 g scallions (spring onions), finely chopped
1 tsp sesame oil

1. Rinse the meat and pat dry.
2. Dice the lard and sirloin into cubes the size of pomegranate seeds. If using belly, dice slightly less finely. Mix together.
3. In a large mixing bowl, add
   the stock and papaya juice. Beat the meat mixture while slowly adding it to the juice. Make sure the meat mixture has absorbed the liquid.
4. Add the salt, white pepper powder, and ground ginger to the bowl and mix.
5. Add the finely chopped scallion and sesame oil, stir together, then make approximately 7 meatballs from the mixture.
6. In a pot, heat the water to 175°F (80°C), add the meatballs, and turn off the heat. Cover and let rest for 20 minutes.
7. Steam the meatballs on low heat for 5 hours to complete the lion’s head.

For the soup base
14 leaves fresh Chinese cabbage • 20 g salt • 1.4 liters pork stock • 1 (500-g) pack Xinzhu rice noodles • 7 green tea leaves, for garnish

1. For the soup base, clean and pat dry the fresh cabbage slices and cut each slice into 2 long pieces. Rub with salt and allow it to sit overnight at room temperature to pickle.
2. Combine the pork stock with the pickled cabbage and steam over medium heat for 20 minutes to make the pickled cabbage soup base.
3. Soak the rice noodles in water until ready for use.
4. Remove the pickled cabbage from the soup base and cut into shreds. Place some of the cabbage shreds on the bottom of a serving bowl, followed by a layer of rice noodles. Place the lion’s head over the rice noodles and surround it with 2 layers of pickled cabbage.
5. Pour in the soup base and steam over medium heat for 15 minutes. Garnish with a green tea leaf on top.