nakji

How would I go about making a nabe with a sesame broth? I am thinking of adding sesame oil and ground sesame seeds to a basic dashi-mirin-soy stock. Has anyone ever made a nabe like this before? How did you go about it?

My husband got me a copy of Cooking Mama for DS in the hope that I'd get off the computer from time to time and play with that instead. Since it basically simulates work I have to do anyway, without the byproduct of edible food at the end, I don't find it very interesting. I like the part where you have to scale a fish, though, it makes a very satisfying noise.

pho belly- the state you reach when you've drunk up too much yummy broth from your noodles, and find it difficult to walk due to sloshing in your stomach. Can also be caused by ramen or kalguksu.

Please PM me the details. This week: mushrooms. There are lots of varieties of mushrooms available in Japan, and Fall is the season to eat them. I haven't broken down yet and bought the 2000 yen-for-one matsutakes in the supermarket - although don't think I haven't been tempted. Last weekend my husband and I were in Ofuna market at our favourite produce shop, and they had several kinds of mushrooms for cheap, so we loaded up. This produce shop is incredible. Literally 100 m from a luxury department store selling 10,000 yen melons, and individual limes wrapped in protective foam blankets, this shops sells Aomori apples four for 300 yen, bags of lemons for 100 yen – and my favourite – 1 kg of Chinese garlic for 100 yen. Unbelievable! My husband usually goes every Saturday on his lunchbreak, buys whatever is on sale, and texts me the “market report” as I’m at work, so that I may torture my co-workers. They don’t live anywhere near Ofuna, and are stuck shopping at the luxury department stores near their own home stations. This week, there were lots of mushrooms, so we got a pack of shiitakes, and two packs of eringi mushrooms. They always delight me, as the first part of the katakana in their name has the same spelling as my name in Japanese. These are the sort of things you take pleasure in when you’re functionally illiterate most of the time. I had no idea what I was going to do with them at the time, but Marcella never disappoints. Penne col Sugo di Funghi Coltivati, p. 132 Finally, finally I begin to really taste the insaporire, thanks to the pungent kick of the anchovy. Marcella writes, “The expression insaporire comes up in Italian oral or written recipes dealing usually with vegetables that are tossed with sautéed onion or garlic or both during the first cooking stage.” (p. 16) Now, if I learn nothing else from this book, this skill alone will have been worth it. A vegetable that has been properly treated stands up against any fine meat or cheese or piece of bread, as far as I’m concerned, and what better way to treat a vegetable than to bathe it in hot olive oil aromatic with sweet onions and spicy garlic? [On the weekend, I made a trip to the nearest Costco to load up on bulk olive oil – not the Kirkland, but an Italian brand. I hope I’ll stop choking when recipes call of olive oil in cup, rather than spoon measures.] From the recipe on page 132: “The mushrooms undergo two cooking stages: the first one draws away and evaporates their bland, taste-diluting liquid; the second concentrates their flavour together with that of wine, anchovies, tomatoes, and parsley.” After supervising sous-chef Peter’s prep work, (Erin: “Cut the onions in a small dice.” Peter [proudly] “I know what that means now!”) I took over the actual cooking. What do y’all use as cooking wine? I’m working on a bottle of something cheap and Chilean purchased from the convenience store . The two steps seemed to take forever, since I was starving, but once again, Marcella can’t be faulted. Despite using yet another can of tomatoes, this sauce was completely distinct from sauces that have gone before. The anchovy paste, garlic, and wine worked together to lend the mushrooms a meaty, earthy taste, and it reminded me of something I had tasted somewhere else before – but couldn’t put my finger on. What was it? I skipped the parsley, as ever, but am beginning to think I might invest in a plant. Another hit, anyway. Christmas is coming, and Santa might bring me another Marcella book. Any suggestions? Something with fewer veal recipes?

I have never lived in a country where wine has been "cheap". I'm used to paying around $20 US for what I'd consider a nice wine. I'd fear for my health if I lived anywhere it was cheaper than that! Especially if those two months I spent in Australia are any measure. Out of morbid curiosity, what does a bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau go for on average in France?

I bought a bottle for the first time ever this year. I'd seen the hype in previous years, but there's something about buying wine in a convenience store that I can't get over. I don't know why, since I do practically everything else in my life in one. But quite frankly, those Georges DeBoeuf labels look downright cheap and tacky to me. This year, I have a wine shop that I visit regularly. I don't know much about wine, but I'm trying to learn, so my husband and I try to go every week and follow the owner's recommendations. When I went in over the weekend, the owner had six bottles open for tasting, so I tried a couple. The first, at the lowest end of the price scale (around 2500 yen) tasted like straight-up grape juice. Definitely not worth it. The second, which the owner recommended and priced at 2800 yen, was lovely - kind of peppery and astringent, if you'll pardon my descriptors. The last one, the most expensive I tried at 3500 yen, tasted like cherries. I liked it, but it seemed a bit one-note, so I got the peppery one - it was Domaine de Buis-Rond.

Now that....sounds like an apple recipe I can get behind, like. Excellent, excellent. Question: Graham Marsala - do you mean garam masala? Not some sort of Marsala wine? Now, somethings I don't have access to - the potatoes will have to be May Queens, and the brown sugar is a little different in these parts. Oooh, what do you think about substituting Daikon for the potato? Hmm. (And I agree with you about the dice on those apples, but I have a broken arm, and my husband is doing all the knifework around here, and he tells me I have to be patient.)

I just bought a rather large chunk of old cheddar that I'll be feeding off for the next few weeks. My favourite thing to eat with cheese is a bit of pickle. I normally make some quick pickled onions like these. But I'm in the mood for something a bit different - in the vein of Branston pickle, but perhaps not as complicated to make. My parameters: I have a small kitchen, with no canning equipment or storage. I need a quick pickle, in a small batch - something that'll yield about 2 litres (I can give some away). Daikon, Japanese turnips, cauliflower, leeks, carrots are all in season here. Any suggestions?

Wow, I guess I get in the mood for baked beans once a year around this time. Actually I've been craving beans for a while. Usually I'm happy with canned beans, but all the shops in my area have been stocking tomato baked beans, which I don't like. I don't expect maple baked beans, like you can get in Canada, but would the odd can of molasses baked beans kill anyone? Anyway - end run around the problem - I'll make them from scratch. Which is how I learned to cook anyway, since it was the loss of my favourite prepared foods when I moved to Asia that forced me to start making thing the better way. I got some gorgeous pinto beans at a local market while I was at work, and when I brought them back into the office, my British co-worker had some sniffy words to say about molasses baked beans, claiming they were inferior British tomahto-based beans. How did that schism happen, anyway? I assume it had something to do with the greater availability of molasses in North America. I don't have an oven, or even a dutch oven, so I googled stovetop methods and found this one. Worked great to cook the beans, but the sauce directions were too weak by my standards, so I doubled quantities. I didn't have any ketchup, either, so I substituted tonkatsu sauce goosed with tomato paste and some Vietnamese chili sauce. I did not soak.

I got these the other week as well. I think citrus and chocolate flavours go together well, so I enjoyed them. Why do they only ever come in minis, though? Last Fall, I seem to remember lots of different kinds of full-sized kitkats. This Fall: nothing. Maybe it's my 7-11.

ohmygodohmygodohmygod Kimchi and bread, together at last. Imagine the pork belly sandwiches that could be made with this. Can someone post a picture of this? Pretty please?

This is something that's been bugging me for a while: when you buy plastic packs of sushi at the supermarket, they give you little packs of soy sauce, right? If I take it home, of course I put it in a little dish for dipping. But more often, I'm taking the pack back to my office for lunch. How am I supposed to apply the soy sauce? The package has no convenient well to empty it into, so I mostly just try to sprinkle it delicately and evenly over the pieces. Is there a better way?

Oh, that sounds great - I've never thought of mixing apples and oranges. How much orange juice did you add? I had a couple of apples accumulate on my counter this week, which I received as gifts. I normally dislike apples, and I especially dislike the varieties grown in Japan, as they're too sweet for my taste. I like a tart apple. My husband was making noises about throwing them out, but I hate waste more than I hate apples. Sure enough, I log in, and what's on the forums but a topic on apple sauce. D'uh, of course. Sean Dirty, I took your challenge and made your applesauce because I was intrigued by the use of wine for simmering. I thought it might cut the sweetness, and it really did. I used a touch of honey instead of maple syrup, and peppercorns instead of nutmeg, since I didn't have any on hand. The dice on the apple isn't as pretty as I'd like since my husband did it for me, but otherwise I was really happy with it. Not like babyfood at all. We had it with pork loin for dinner, and with oatmeal for breakfast. There's still some left, which I might pair with some old cheddar for pre-dinner snacks tonight. Do you have any ideas for an apple chutney?

Risotto con la Verza e il Parmigiana, p. 161 Finally, I got around to making this recipe with rice. In the spirit of using what's around me, I used 1 cup of regular koshihikari rice, and 1/2 cup of mochi rice. I've never actually eaten arborio rice, and when I make risotto from Mark Bittman's recipe, I never think twice about using the Japanese rice I have on hand. This time, I felt a slight twinge, but I soldiered on. Now that it's winter, I always have chinese cabbage on hand for making nabe, so that substituted for the savoy cabbage. I followed her instructions to the letter, however, on cooking it to "a rich nut brown". What is it about the marriage of bacon fat and cabbage that adds up to more than the sum of its parts? Making this reminded me of making one of my favourite Korean home cooking dishes, kimchi bokkumbap, where you fry kimchi and some fatty pork - Spam is popular, but I like to use thin strips of pork belly. It took forever to make, but came out satisfactorily creamy, I think, despite not having any cream. I think the addition of mochi rice was a brainwave, really. We devoured it while watching Jamie Oliver's Ministry of Food, episode two. I love eating and watching TV about food at the same time. Do I get a certificate I can put on my fridge? And that's what I'm afraid of!! See, that's the sort of thing I always remember about my travels. And I can smell Siberia now that you've shared that - isn't there something intriguing about a delicious and a harsh smell mixing? I feel like I'm there with you. And since I'm Canadian, I know exactly the feeling of hot air escaping out a cold window - and who can forget the smell of diesel? Oooh, she got me with bad karma for making all those substitutions. [clenches good fist, shakes it at the sky]

I'm glad you enjoyed it! I always use the cheapest block parmesan from Seijo Ishii for mine. I like it as a foil for spicy foods, or other highly flavoured dishes. I'd like to translate the flavours into a soup, but I think they'd need a spike of acid - maybe apple or yuzu. What do you think?

Blue Pumpkin wasn't worth writing home about, just some wizened muffins and dry cookies for the people who travel to SEA and want to eat Western food. The ice cream was good in the heat, though. Happy Herbs pizza - it won't be the best pizza you've ever eaten, put don't plan any ambitious projects for the next day, if you know what I mean. Whatever you do, don't get "extra happy". I liked Dead Fish tower, but I thought the focus there was Thai - I could be remembering wrong.

Great. I know the water gets turned over every day, but it's nice to know it stays fresh during the day. I don't know what brand the maker is, I've never looked that closely at it. It's usually kept at 90 degrees Celsius in my office, and I usually brew loose leaf green tea with it. I use the first pulse of water to heat the pot - a Japaneses pot which is much smaller than a Western pot. I used to think I hated tea, until I moved to Asia. Then I realized I disliked most bagged "orange pekoe" teas - the kind my parents drank. What's Russian tea?

Dong Incheon station, in Incheon South Korea, used to have this amazing potato sandwich vendor. Three slices of lightly toasted white bread, with one layer filled with cooked ham, and the next layer filled with warm potato salad spiked with more shards of ham. The whole this was then fried in a little margarine. That and a Vegemil would cure what ails you.

I have been to the Yokohama ramen museum. Not only does it feature no less than eight regional styles of ramen for your sampling pleasure, the whole place is a mocked-up Showa era streetscape, where you can visit a candy shop, watch busker routines, or take goofy pictures of yourself in front of old movie posters. Serious fun, and delicious ramen. My favourites were the tonkotsu ramen with roasted garlic chips, from Kumamoto, and the miso ramen from Sapporo. Yokohama Ramen Museum blog post.

If you have an Asian grocery anywhere nearby, Korean yujacha is essentially a marmalade made of citron, meant to have boiling water poured over and drunk as tea. But I've used it for cooking successfully, most notably for a mashed sweet potato glaze at Thanksgiving. If you got your hands on some, it should be relatively inexpensive - and you could just rinse the jam part off.

I don't own my own teapot at home, but I've been meaning to get one. The one I use at work has a strainer that fits in the top. I like this design, because if I'm using tea leaves, it works, but if I want to use a bag, it also works - I just leave the strainer out. After I make my first infusion, I leave the strainer to the side on a saucer, then pop it back in later for a second or third infusion. My office has a thermal pot that boils the water and then holds it at that temperature. I can't help thinking the water must get stale, staying like that all day. Is this a rational fear?

If I can be honest, I think there's too much going on with it. Your balls are beautiful so I would have used them alone. No leaves or cage effect. If you had a lot of balls in various sizes, you could group them in the middle, like a group of Christmas tree bulbs. It might be hard to cut into that way, however. Maybe with the pomegranate gelee underneath as a glaze to increase stick power? The flavours sound lovely, though.

I don't know about Japan either - all of the pajori I've ever eaten was in Korea, and I wasn't too fussed on it there. I avoid eating Korean food in Japan, since it pains me to pay for tiny little plates of kimchi. I like to cook kimchi along the bottom of the samgyeopsal plate in the pork fat that runs down, then wrap it around the pork and eat it like that. Does that count as ssam?

I routinely ignore her measures with regards to pasta. I follow the recipe for sauce, but then just use as much pasta as the two of us can eat. The ratio of sauce to pasta is usually to our liking this way. Interesting note about the sausages in Italy. Did you see them featured on a lot of menus? “Flavour perceived is impossible to draw a picture of or measure out. It is an emotion stirred up by the memory and the senses.” -Marcella Hazan, p.175 “Marcella’s Italian Kitchen” It’s funny you should mention enjoyment versus authenticity, because this week that's what I ended up thinking about a lot. One of the most exciting things for me to learn about a country is its smell on the streets at dinner time. Hong Kong smells like roasted pork, unsurprisingly. Hanoi smelt like star anise at night, when the pots of pho stock got boiling, and the steam was carried down the alleys between bursts of motorcycle exhaust. Korea smelt of pork fat dripping onto charcoal – a smell up there with babies and bacon as far as I’m concerned. Japan at lunchtime smells like curry powder and frying pork. Nothing is as intimate, though, as the smell of your house when you’re coming up on it after a long day at work, and you smell dinner cooking. Living overseas like I have for the past few years, nothing ever I have ever smelt on the street has remotely reminded me of coming home in Canada. The last year in Japan, I’ve given up trying to cook the dishes of my childhood, and embraced a new style of cooking, not based on butter or potatoes, but one based on ingredients like soy, mirin,and dashi . The smell of meat cooking in this trio has become for me, one of homecoming. The other night, I was walking home from the train, as I often do, amongst the frantically texting hordes of salarymen doing the same thing, and I was struck by this very same smell. I inhaled and immediately thought, “oooh – dinner.” And then realized I was nowhere near my own apartment. And then I realized that my apartment smelled like other people’s homes in Japan. I was struck by two things after this realization: First, I was now ready to get serious about cooking fish. You can’t live in Japan and ignore fish. Second: I have no idea what Italy smells like. How can I worry about whether my dishes are hewing true to Marcella’s, when I have no idea what the real thing tastes like? Or smells like? And I understand her struggle in writing this book. How can you translate the flavour and taste of something out of its context? Is it possible to do so? What is lost in translation? Something Torakris mentioned in her brilliant eGCI lesson on Japanese cooking was that the most difficult thing to emulate in some dishes was “mother’s taste” – the taste of how your mother cooked something. It intimidates many people, especially when faced with making classic home-cooking dishes like nikkujyaga. She felt freer than the average person in preparing this dish, because she had no mental image of how it should taste, as her own mother had never prepared it. So I’m going to give up on worrying about fennel in my sausage and incursions of mitsuba into parsley territory. I will cook what I can and enjoy it on its own merits. Now for the fish: When you take language lessons as a beginner, you’re generally taught how to introduce yourself and basics like asking for directions and how to tell time. Also – how to describe your work, hobbies, and families. What they don’t get to until much later is the sort of information you actually will need to discuss – such as, “I hurt my arm while hiking, is it possible to get an x-ray?” and “I need two fillets of a firm, white-fleshed fish – how about this stuff?” Nor are you able to understand when people come back with things like, “You have a 30 degree fracture of your radial neck and will require surgery.” or “Lady, that is this shop’s finest sashimi-grade sea bream .” But that’s okay, because even in a country like Japan, body language is often enough to let you know a situation is about to get really expensive. My local fishmonger wasn’t completely able to hide his surprise when I walked in today, but he was gracious nevertheless when I indicated I needed some fish for frying, and wondered if maybe the lovely white fillet in the case was suitable? Oh, it’s for sashimi? It’s 700 yen for 100 g? Hmm. Looking around the shop at all of the beautiful whole fish, I mentally kicked myself for not looking up the verb “filet” before leaving home. While I was casting about for something to add to the exchange (Japan is a great place for long silences – people actually seem comforted by them), he plucked a whole red snapper from his case, brandished his knife, and inquired if I wanted “filet.” Why, as a matter of fact, sir, you read my mind. He had it broken down and bagged in under a minute, and pressed the bones and head bagged separately onto me as well. He suggested cooking them with a little water for soup, and when I asked whether or not I should add a little miso to it, he had a look in his eye such that I thought he was going to follow me home and show me how to do it proper like. They’re still in my fridge, as yet unpurposed. Suggestions? This week's recipe, as I mentioned, is Filetti di Pesce al Vino Rosso on p. 171. Pretty fillets, pre-saucing: In the spirit of not worrying too much about authenticity, I ditched the idea of using celery, which is on the very short list of foods that I abhor. I have a huge bunch of Japanese leeks from the local garden patch, so I used that instead. I foolishly thought I could do the chopping myself, but after getting the carrots done for the scapece, my shoulder ached too much, so I delegated that to my husband. After twenty excruciating minutes of watching him cube carrots, I thought I was going to scream. The rest of the recipe came together in minutes once all the prep was done, however. Waaaaayyy too much sauce - or too little fish? But it was nicely soaked up with some bread and plain baked potatoes on the side. I think the carrots were great, but perhaps too tangy to serve along fish with red wine? Next time I'll pair them with something milder, I think.

I've heard that in Korea, the food is best in the far North (not sure about that these days) and the far South. Jeolla provinces are supposed to be especially good, while Pyongyang is famous for its noodles. Certain cities are famous for particular dishes. For example: Chuncheon for ddalk galbi, Jeonju for Jeonju style bibimbap, Busan for raw fish, Andong for soju and jim ddalk, Suwon for galbi...