Chef Danny Bowien Sizzles With Mission Chinese Food

Danny Bowien cooks with a cacophony of flavors at the Lower East Side's new Mission Chinese Food.

There, fresh tofu cannibalizes itself in a soymilk bath ($5.50). Chicken wings and fried tripe cower under a thatch of dried red chiles ($10).

At home, though, Bowien hits the brakes. We looked into his fridge to discover what home cooking means for the chef who's running New York's white-hot restaurant of the moment.

Click through our slideshow for a tour of the chef's essential ingredients and tools, from Three Crabs fish sauce and Keens steak sauce to a red Craftsman rolling workbench.

We even snagged the recipe for one of Bowien's favorite day-off dishes: saemgyetang, aka poached chicken stuffed with ginseng, quinoa, jujube dates and chestnuts. The recipe comes from Bowien's wife, Youngmi Mayer, who cooks the soothing chicken regularly (see the recipe here).

A couple of bites of the demure bird had us understanding why Bowien says he can easily consume the entire chicken over the course of single day.

Mission Chinese Food, 154 Orchard St. (at Rivington St.); missionchinesefood.com