--- title: Momofuku's David Chang: How To Create a New Dish description: David Chang is the chef and founder of the Momofuku restaurant group. His cookbook, Momofuku, came out in 2009. canonical: https://time.com/4243213/momofuku-david-chang-signature-dish/ author: David Chang article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-03-15T11:00:28.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:02:20.615Z og:title: Momofuku’s David Chang: How to Create a New Dish og:description: Use unexpected ingredients og:url: https://time.com/4243213/momofuku-david-chang-signature-dish/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb7e41706f76c3eb5/69888a4da988ca24706b6e83/momfuku-chef-david-chang1-e1457543001169.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4256 og:image:height: 2394 og:image:alt: David Chang's Momofuku and Christina Tosi's Milk Bar open in CityCenter soon og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Momofuku’s David Chang: How to Create a New Dish twitter:description: Use unexpected ingredients twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb7e41706f76c3eb5/69888a4da988ca24706b6e83/momfuku-chef-david-chang1-e1457543001169.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Momofuku’s David Chang: How to Create a New Dish > Sponsored content. 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Worth Your Time is TIME's culture recommendation newsletter, edited by culture editor Eliza Berman. Each week it surfaces the books, shows, films and ideas TIME's editors think are worth your attention, and explains why. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Does TIME have a culture newsletter? Yes. Worth Your Time is TIME's culture newsletter, published weekly. #### Who writes TIME's culture recommendations? Culture editor Eliza Berman writes Worth Your Time, drawing on TIME's critics and culture desk. #### Is Worth Your Time free? Yes. It is a free newsletter available at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-worth-2026q3/newsletters?i=5cdd197c-f364-4bc6-821f-cbfd165e1330&cr=time-nl-worth-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Master Three Southern Barbecue Sauces [Watch (HLS stream): Master Three Southern Barbecue Sauces](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/QXXZCjTh.m3u8) (1:23)  _Published 2016-02-08. No matter how you take your barbecue, any of these three Southern sauces will give your meat just the flavor it needs._ by [David Chang](https://time.com/author/david-chang/) ## David Chang Mar 15, 2016 11:00 AM UTC  David Chang poses at Momofuku in Washington, DC. David Chang poses at Momofuku in Washington, DC. Katherine Frey—The Washington Post/Getty Images by [David Chang](https://time.com/author/david-chang/) ## David Chang Mar 15, 2016 11:00 AM UTC If you see a comedian improvising, they’re good at it because they’ve done it a lot. Even if they’re doing something off the cuff, they’re riffing off of something they’ve done before that they know works. If you do it every day and you’re good at it, you start to know what principles work well to produce good comedy. Food is the same way: It’s about using some method of deduction to figure out what food patterns will overlap and how you might replicate those to create something new. Oftentimes, I think a home cook is going at it aimlessly, based on whatever’s on hand. While that can be fun, a lot of times what you end up making in a situation like that is an experiment—and food shouldn’t be an experiment. Here’s how I recommend going about the process strategically so you end up creating a signature dish people love. **Do your homework**You should do research before you do anything else. I don’t mean to look online. Read cookbooks, and understand the ingredients you’re cooking with beforehand. It’s not fun to do, but that’s the best way to really understand the foods you’re working with from an intellectual point of view so you can make better use of them. **_Read more:_** [_Andrew Zimmern Explains How to Acquire a Taste_](http://motto.time.com/4187760/andrew-zimmern-acquiring-taste/?iid=sr-link1) **Use other cultures as inspiration**You want to use your imagination but have it anchored to culinary tradition and think about how you can evolve that culinary tradition. If you go to Brazil, for example, some of the oldest Koreatowns are in São Paulo. Of course, in Asia you see dumplings. And in Brazil, there’s a dish called a pastel that’s a fried pocket of dough. You can see how it’s not that far-fetched to do some kind of hybrid there. You want to look for those patterns that can help you evolve a dish. _Here are three simple barbecue sauce recipes to use in all types of dishes:_ **Use unexpected ingredients**For Fuku, when we wanted to create our chicken sandwich, we said, “There’s a lot of spicy chicken out there—how can we do ours a little bit different?” One way is with the ingredients you choose. Usually in chicken sandwiches, you see white-meat chicken. Dark meat to me is the most delicious part, so we decided to try to make it work with that. Then we looked at the spice and asked, “Can we do something that’s not cayenne-based?” We ended up using habanero, which has a sweet, fruity aroma. We oftentimes reverse-engineer like that and ask, “How do we get to the same thing by going about the process in a different way?” _David Chang is chef/founder of the Momofuku restaurant group and author of the cookbook_ [Momofuku](http://www.amazon.com/Momofuku-David-Chang/dp/030745195X?tag=timecom-20)_._ ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4243213/momofuku-david-chang-signature-dish/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4243213/momofuku-david-chang-signature-dish/"},"headline":"Momofuku’s David Chang: How to Create a New Dish","datePublished":"2016-03-15T11:00:28.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T08:02:20.615Z","description":"David Chang is chef/founder of the Momofuku restaurant group and author of the cookbook Momofuku.","url":"https://time.com/4243213/momofuku-david-chang-signature-dish/","keywords":["motto","motto instagram"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb7e41706f76c3eb5/69888a4da988ca24706b6e83/momfuku-chef-david-chang1-e1457543001169.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"David Chang","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/david-chang/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb7e41706f76c3eb5/69888a4da988ca24706b6e83/momfuku-chef-david-chang1-e1457543001169.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"David Chang's Momofuku and Christina Tosi's Milk Bar open in CityCenter soon","caption":"David Chang poses at Momofuku in Washington, DC.","creditText":"Katherine Frey—The Washington Post/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/motto/","name":"motto"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4243213/momofuku-david-chang-signature-dish/","name":"Momofuku’s David Chang: How to Create a New Dish"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Master Three Southern Barbecue Sauces","description":"No matter how you take your barbecue, any of these three Southern sauces will give your meat just the flavor it needs.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/QXXZCjTh/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2016-02-08T13:14:29.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/QXXZCjTh.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4243213/momofuku-david-chang-signature-dish/","duration":"PT1M23S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4243213/momofuku-david-chang-signature-dish/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```