nakji

I made some granola this week, using Alton Brown's recipe as a base. I left out the coconut, because I couldn't find any, and replaced it instead with ground walnuts and crushed banana chips, for a banana-bread style flavour. Now once I start making my own yogurt, I'll have some decent breakfast food stocked up. But I've noticed a lot of other recipes on-line require wheat germ or milk powder - what do these ingredients add to the end product? Are they binding agents, or do they add flavour?

Red-handled kitchen scissors are standard equipment in most Korean kitchens, and they're used for cutting bulgogi or galbi as it cooks, cutting naengmyeon or japchae noodles into edible portions, divvying up heads of standard kimchi into chopstickable pieces or nori into similar. They're now standard equipment in my kitchen, and any kitchen I work in, as I always bring a set to family members. I also use them for cutting quesadillas, but almost never use them for chicken (I use my cleaver) or herbs (a knife).

What about active cooking time? For example, if you're making an omelette, or pasta, you're right there at the stove the whole time. So it's a full thirty minutes of work. But let's say you're making stew - well, it might be about 15 minutes of actual prep time, but another two or three hours of cooking time where the cook is not actively engaged. Does that count?

Me, too! I cannot have an opened jar of Nutella in the house and not wake up to eat a spoonful, or two... It's a shame really. They have made their product so good that I do not buy it because I can't afford the calories. Rhonda I have only ever bought one bottle of this, but had to give it up immediately after. I left the bottle in the fridge, and then practically ate the whole bottle in one sitting by carving hunks of it off while sitting in front of the TV, slouching towards diabetes.

I have some young, thin bamboo shoots that I'd like to incorporate into a Thai curry. It seems the consensus here is that they don't need to be blanched, just peeled to prep them. How much peel should I think about taking off? The ones I have are about an inch in diameter, no more.

Is it possible to work those kinds of dishes into your evening menus, so that you can set aside a small portion to go into lunch the next day? It doesn't have to be the mainstay of the bento, but it can help you round out the empty space. When I moved to Japan, virtually all of my bentos were constructed around leftovers, to help save money. Granted, my husband was better at sucking up the odd crappy lunch more than a pre-schooler would be, no matter what I said to him at the time.

Your case does differ from standard bento, then, in that it gets refrigerated and served cold. I'm not a big fan of cold rice, but sushi rice does seem to hold up better. It's the nori that becomes quite unpleasant after prolonged exposure to rice. In Japan and Korea, onigiri are often sold in cunningly-designed wrappers that keep the nori off the rice until you pull a tab to unwrap it after purchase. How about things that are traditionally bit more risky in a traditional bento - like potato salad or coleslaw? Vietnamese "summer rolls"? (is that what you call them? The ones that aren't fried) Heavily seasoned vegetables, like ones sauteed in sesame oil, soy and mirin taste nice at room temperature or cold.

When you start making bentos, it can seem daunting to keep coming up with fresh ideas to fill the bento. Helen has a great list of pointers here, which I must quote for you here, they were so useful for me: Especially useful is thinking about how you can re-purpose dinner for the next day's lunch. Fried rice with a bit of egg, chopped carrot, and frozen peas, packed with a spoon for easy eating, is a great way to reuse rice and bits of vegetables. I used to keep a small freezer container full of vegetable ends for just this purpose. Egg dishes like tamago-yaki seem appropriate as well. You can vary them by adding things like chopped mushrooms, leeks, sundried tomatoes...whatever PJ likes. Would korroke suit the school's dietary needs? Little fried cakes of potato mixed with curry, or bean would be great to make up in a big batch, and leave in the freezer, to help you round out the lunches. I've also use bean dip made with cannelini beans simmered in tomatoes and olive oil to stuff pita for quick vegetarian sandwiches.

I'm confused the more I read the reactions about the demise of Gourmet. I don't read American food periodicals regularly due to cost and availability, so I don't have my own opinion on what the magazine is today, but I'm seeing two general kinds of reaction emerge: Ruth Reichl saved/modernized Gourmet and Ruth Reichl ruined Gourmet. It seems the audience for the magazine was divided over what they expected the magazine to deliver. If the magazine used to be less ad-driven, but is now, in its ad-heavier version, being shuttered due to decreasing ad revenue, we can only wonder if it was ever profitable. I guess advertisers saw that their market for Viking ranges and Italy wine tours (or similar) shrinking, and reacted accordingly. I wonder if anyone with older, pre-Reichl copies, could tell us the type of ads the magazine used to run in comparison to recent issues. Has there been a dramatic change?

I picked up a more traditional Oolong in Shanghai over the weekend - not a Tie Guan Yin, but a more traditional darker-style. A good all-round tea for serving with meals, I think.

Matcha springs to mind almost immediately, of course. Okinawans also enjoy bitter melon scrambled with ham and egg - or is it spam?

Oh the Sainsbury cookbooks. My aunt used to bring over the in-store magazines for me when she'd come to visit my Mum. I used to dance around her suitcase waiting for them to be pulled out, along with a small bag of Thornton's fudge or chocolate eggs, depending on the time of year. Then I'd spend the next week or so, slowly melting each piece of candy in my mouth while turning the pages, sounding out exotic ingredients like "parma ham" and "punnets of raspberries" and "elderberry cordial" in my head. There was an issue with a recipe for a cheese croquette made out of a whole camembert, and a chocolate cake make by smushing a whole tray of Belgian chocolates into a frosting for a chocolate layer cake that I remember to this day. I wish I could get my hands on them now. As for Canadian books - it's been a while since I looked at Canadian cookbooks, but I recall the the fine editors at Canadian Living publish a range of workable, basic cookbooks for the home cook. My mother tried a recipe a month from their magazines, and while the recipes worked, I can't remember any of them being standouts, flavour-wise. Then there is the low-fat, cutesy Looneyspoons and its successors, which I've never been able to get over the recipe names and ingredient substitutions long enough to cook from. I understand they're quite popular, though, and made the writers very wealthy women. The only Canadian cookbook I've purchased is Vij's Elegant & Inspired Indian Cuisine (Douglas & McIntyre), which I bought after trying their amazing tamarind-marinated chicken recipe from the foodtv.ca site. It's not there anymore, but the recipe for beef short ribs in cinnamon and red wine is.

I wonder what will happen to the name? It's hard to imagine a magazine with this much name-recognition and history vanishing completely. I haven't bought either Gourmet of Bon Appetit in over a year - was there a definable editorial viewpoint that differed between the two?

Very cute! How was it received by PJ? I like the peas, corn, and tomatoes on the pasta - they add some colour. How does PJ generally feel about raw or crisp vegetables? Lightly steamed broccoli florets or carrot sticks with a squeezy of ranch dressing are great ways to add colour and fill any empty spaces in the box.

I have a Japanese porcelain ginger grater, which I picked up at the 100-yen store. You grate the ginger on the nubbly bits on top, and the juice pools along the side, which you can then pour off. I probably use about a half teaspoon to flavour my cucumbers. I imagine ginger juice procured by other means would work as well, though.

I brewed up a genmaicha that I just received from a friend in Japan. An excellent toasted cup, I used boiled spring water from the kettle, as opposed to my lower-temp water from the machine, and infused for about thirty seconds. A lot of toasted flavour, which is what I like, and not a lot of tea flavour. The second infusion had a much more of the "green" taste, and a milder rice punch.

Cucumbers, sliced, tossed and left to sit in a teaspoon of salt and a tablespoon of sugar for fifteen minutes. I pour the liquid off, and then dress them at the last minute with a bit of ginger juice and a splash of rice vinegar. This is the salad I put on the table most nights.

Sorry, i should add that mul yut is very pale - almost clear in colour. Light corn syrup would be a good substitute.

I choose the Revised Romanization of Korean! I'm pretty sure the malt syrup is made from barley, but it doesn't look anything near as dark as brewers malt.

Mul yut is a light-coloured syrup, isn't it? To this day, I'm not sure what exactly it's made from, but I have successfully substituted corn syrup into recipes calling for it. It doesn't contribute much in flavour, just liquid stickiness. You could use honey, but the flavour is more pronounced, and corn syrup is cheaper, I suppose.

A bag of genmaicha just flew in from Japan along with a friend of mine. I forgot to ask the provenance, but from the package, it looks like the tea is from Mie and Nara prefectures, while the rice is from Hokkaido. I normally like genmaicha for breakfast, as it reminds me of the years I spent drinking Korean nok-cha during my early morning classes there. Tonight I needed a mild pick-me-up after dinner. It's perfectly toasty.

Nuts! I've already pitched the bones! Well, the stock did provide an excellent soup base, and I'll know next time. I was expecting a more yellow colour to my stock, and it was quite light. What uses do you put your second-run stock to?

Thanks! Those tones will help my communication efforts. Most of the tea shops on my road sell bulk tea available by weight - the one I visited had five or six bulk oolongs, plus a variety of other greens and floral teas. I'm looking forward to experimenting.

I've seen this oil for sale in the supermarket. It's quite expensive - at least as much as the imported olive oils. I read about it in Fuschia Dunlop's Revolutionary Cuisine, but haven't seen any mention of it elsewhere. Does anybody use this oil, and how do you use it? Is it mainly used for health reasons, or has it got a distinct flavour?

Excellent. Is it possible to ask you to supply me the tones for those names, since I'll have to ask for them orally? I'm not sure my local tea shop speaks enough English to ask specific questions, but I'll give it a go. And for the record, freshly roasting houjicha is one of my top-ten favourite smells in Japan! I'm living in Suzhou, with fairly regular access to Shanghai. I'm going to assume the availability of fine tea is quite good where I am, since I'm in a fairly rich province. More of a problem in Suzhou will be my ability to communicate what I'm looking for. My husband, who speaks more Chinese than I do, was in charge of the buying yesterday and almost bought me a whole jin of the TGY! When I gasped, he said he didn't think 500g of tea was that much. It's nice to know I can ask for a taste - that really is the best way to know for sure.