nakji

I made this bento for my husband's lunch with leftover's from some Korean cooking. Rice and millet blend, bulgogi, and stir-fried zucchini went into a new lock and lock container with segments - this one can be microwaved, unlike our boxes from Japan, which greatly increases the likelihood of my husband eating the rice. I took along some soup and rice in a keep-warm container for myself.

I used a lot of pre-peeled garlic and pre-chopped garlic in Korea, as dishes there tend to call for a lot of garlic, and supermarkets carried a variety of coping mechanisms for this. Actually, the majority of product available in Korea when I lived there was pre-peeled, and it was harder to find the stuff with the peel on. Take from that information what you like. I often used the pre-minced product in a bag, because I found the flavour it gave off to be a stronger, more bitter one than garlic I peeled and minced on my own. I thought this flavour was fairly distinctive in a lot of the jigaes and other dishes I tried there, so I used it to replicate that taste. Now when I want to get that same taste for home cooking, I use my Japanese ginger grater, keep the clove whole and unpeeled, start with the small tip, and grate. The peel protects your fingers and comes off automatically, and provides a nice hump of pureed garlic that you can smear off with your finger.

I'm now the proud owner of some semi-decent teaware. For everyday use, I have a plain white porcelain teapot with plastic infuser from Muji. I also have two Japanese-style teacups for use with meals, also white porcelain from Muji, that I can use with a variety of teas. I've also bought this lovely gaiwan, which is hand-painted bone china, for gong-fu brewing: I did my first gong-fu session with it this past Sunday, and I really enjoyed using it, although I did manage to burn myself with the hot tea on my first attempt at pouring with it.

Maybe he just liked yogurt? Actually, when I lived in Japan, it seemed yogurt-making was quite popular - more so than in any of the other Asian countries I've lived in. You could even buy kefir in the supermarket. My yogurt came out unbelievably good. I used a litre of whole UHT milk. I hated UHT milk growing up, because I always had to drink it when I went up north to visit my grandmother, and they didn't have any fresh products like that. When I tried the President, I didn't mind the taste so much. Maybe I'm just older now. Anyway, I put it into a quart glass jar to set up, and I came out with a jar full of thick, creamy yogurt with a bit of tail on it when you spoon it up. I can taste the UHT a bit, but together with the sour it's giving it a bit of sour cream taste. I love it. I'll admit, I was giddy when I pulled the towel off, and lo, there was a bottle of yogurt.

I have just come back from my local independent bookshop, where I learned Ms. Dunlop had a book signing in March. I can't believe I missed her! She also held a private dinner at a local Sichuan restaurant, for which tickets were available. Nuts! I did manage to snag a copy of her memoir, signed, however. Does this differ much from the beef with cumin? I have some beef strips I could put to use this week. Susan, it's heartening to hear you've used venison with success, that's usually quite lean, isn't it. I'll have to try my luck. I did find a source that sells Korean beef, which is much richer than the Australian product my supermarket carries.

I couldn't wait, and went and bought my own litre of President-label UHT whole milk. I have a few tablespoons of natural joghurt from the foreign goods shop that I'll sacrifice as my starter. McGee suggests two tablespoons per litre is enough, so I'll hope for the best, since plain imported plain yogurt is almost ten dollars for 500 ml.

Nice, very nice. I may have to try this with a cut of pork, since a "well-marbled piece of chuck roast" is also not to be had from my local supermarket. What do you think - pork shoulder? The tangerines are technically my land-lady's but I sure if I ask nicely I can get a bag. Thanks for the tip.

Oh yeah, look at that. Huh. Does your husband like spicy things? Can I recommend a salad dressing? Take rice vinegar and your sesame oil in a 1:2 ratio. Add a tablespoon each toasted sesame seeds and sugar, and a teaspoon of Korean chili powder (gochugaru). Add a dash of good soy sauce. Shake it up, and serve it over a salad of red-leaf lettuce with chopped green onion. This goes really great next to a grilled pork chop and mushrooms.

That's a stroke of genius that I just may copy. As soon as I find some tangerine peel. I know there's got to be some around somewhere, I just don't know where. If the trees in my garden are any indication, though, we're coming into tangerine season, and then I can dry my own, is that correct?

You can make a bibimbap without a stone bowl. The stone bowl kind is called "dolsot bibimbap", but there's another kind, made famous by the city of Jeonju, called (fittingly enough) Jeonju bibimbap. You only need a regular bowl to serve it in. Is the sesame oil 100% pure? Or is it untoasted? I've never seen a light sesame oil before. Is it an Asian or Middle Eastern product?

Out of curiousity, I bought a small bag of what looks like black tea leaves rolled into long cylinders. I should have asked after how to brew it properly, as once I got it home and made some, the black coating lifted off in a mess of black specks and the resulting brew was too foul to contemplate drinking. Any idea what I brought home with me?

Wow! A comprehensive list. I'm steering away from the fish dishes, because I'm not happy with the quality of fish I can get here. But the pork and vegetable dishes are looking good. I think I'll make the Liuyang black bean chicken next. I made the ginger chicken a couple of weeks ago, and forgot to post it here. It was quite delicious, especially with the really fresh, thin-skinned ginger I had available. I used a trick I developed in Japan, which is to serve ginger-y things with a creamy salad, and served steamed broccoli with creamy sesame dressing as a side.

Oh, wow, those peppers look great. There's a wide variety of peppers available in my local market, but I have no idea what they are. The green peppers I used for my this were small and thin-skinned, not bell peppers. I'll try this recipe with some of the red ones available. What else have you made that you liked?

Yes, the recipe Bittman lists is for a quick pickle - not meant to be canned, thus it doesn't have time to develop the pink. Do you pickle thin stems of whole ginger, or do you slice it, gari-style?

Brilliant. It'll be interesting to see if it makes a thinner/thicker-style yogurt or if it makes no difference at all. Or if there's a noticeable flavour.

I keep a bag of veggie ends in the freezer - bits of carrot or red pepper chopped fine, leftover from trimming and cooking other dishes. When I want to make fried rice, I take them out and sprinkle them in the pan from the frozen state. Convenient and frugal.

Ah! So it's okay to use Ultrapasteurized milk for making yogurt? For some reason I thought you had to use fresh milk.

That sounds gorgeous! But googling that name and recipe yielded only sites in Italian. Can you tell me what book the recipe is in? I think that the garnish for the soup is at least as important as the soup itself. Who could imagine a bowl of pho without the plate of greens and sauces that accompany it? Or onion soup without a cheesy crouton?

I love all sorts of grains and bean-type items, and I've never tried to cook with lentils. What's a good dish for a beginner? Soup? The most readily available lentil I have is the red split kind.

Like other posters here, I always follow the recipe through as written the first time I make something, even if I'm doubtful it'll work out. Sometimes I'm surprised; sometimes not. Like the first time I read a Marcella Hazan recipe calling for a half cup of olive oil, and thought, "Oh, wow, that seems like a lot - won't it be too oily?" Hah! My thinking had been ruined by too many "cooking for health" recipes calling for sauteing a whole onion in a half teaspoon of oil in a non-stick pan or some such. And thinking that was the right way.

It seems to cut the oil in a lot of the fried dishes I end up ordering. I'm going to experiment more, and see what goes best with it. I used to agree with you, but when they serve it in china, they use several spoons full of whole dried blossoms. The flavour is delicate, but not pallid or grassy.

What with this discussion on stock over here, and some thoughts of saving on my gas bill by cooking in a pressure cooker, I was wondering if people had more ideas for this pot? I was thinking samgyetang, rice and beans...but what else could I do with one?

I think you'll find most places very welcoming, especially if you've gone to the trouble of trying to bridge the language gap yourself. Don't forget to check out our Tales of trips in Japan topic for ideas. If you have specific places in mind that you'd like to visit, perhaps we can help supply you with requests for restaurants.

I'm trying to get into the habit of serving tea with my evening meal, actually. If I'm serving Japanese food, I'll use some genmaicha, and I have a traditional-style oolong I serve with most Chinese dishes. I'm a little worried about the caffeine content some evenings, so I'd like to get some mugi-cha - is that barley tea? Which I think complements meals nicely. My neighbourhood restaurant serves a chamomile tea in the evenings, with full whole buds - I'd never been a fan of chamomile until I tried that. I also have a few sachets of lemongrass tea I pull out if I've made a Thai or Vietnamese dish. My parents always had tea after a meal when I was growing up, big mugs of builder's tea with evaporated milk. I don't think I could handle that.

Yes, I've seen this done in Korea. In kalguksu restaurants, if you get shabu shabu along with your noodles, after the soup is done and you've eaten all your noodles up, the ladies will take your pot off the burner and make fried rice in it. They take out any extra soup, and beat an egg in a bowl with steamed rice and minced vegetables like carrot and green onion. They then spread this mixture all along the inside of the soup pot, return it to the flame, and let the lot crisp up, soaking up the oil and flavour left over from the soup. They scrape the whole thing around several times on the heat until the egg is set. You get to scrape it off with a spoon. It's excellent, especially with a few drops of the soy/vinegar/wasabi dip leftover from the meat. They do a similar thing when you get ddalk galbi, and make fried rice in the pan leftover from cooking your chicken. Korean fried rice is the only kind of fried rice I've ever craved.