Kimchi Quesadillas Recipe from 'Milk Bar Life'
Photo: Gabriele Stabile and Mark Ibold
From Yahoo Food’s Cookbook of the Week: Milk Bar Life by Christina Tosi
Kimchi Quesadillas
Makes 4 quesadillas
Helen Jo, one of the very first Milk Bar employees, made this dish for family meal on the regs. It now ranks as the official Milk Bar throwback family meal of choice. Did we invent the kimchi quesadilla?
Probably not; I think that was most likely our boy Roy Choi, of Kogi fame. Start to finish, this snack takes about 15 minutes to throw together and the results are surprisingly good. I had my doubts the first time Helen made this, but after one bite, I floated away in kimchi quesadilla bliss and I haven’t looked back since.
4 tablespoons (½ stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
8 (6-inch) corn tortillas
1 cup kimchi (store-bought or homemade)
2 cups shredded or crumbled cheese*
? teaspoon black pepper
Heat the oven to 350°F.
Spread ½ tablespoon of the butter over each of 4 tortillas. Spread ¼ cup of the kimchi on top of each. Make it rain with ½ cup of the cheese and then a dusting of black pepper over each. Spread another ½ tablespoon butter on another 4 tortillas and place one on each stack, butter side down.
Put the quesadillas on a parchment-lined baking sheet, put another piece of parchment on top of the quesadillas, and top with another baking sheet. The weight and heat of the top pan in the oven ensures that the quesadillas fuse together in the baking process, and both sides are toasted in the process, no flip needed.
Bake for 7 minutes, or until the cheese has oozed out and caramelized the perimeters of the quesadillas. Remove the quesadillas from the oven and let them cool for a few minutes before devouring them. Slice if you like; we don’t have time for that nonsense.
* I like blue cheese for its extra zing and funk, but cheddar will do fine, too.
More ways to use kimchi:
Put it in your grilled cheese sandwich
