nakji

Well, I don't like it raw. But ddalk galbi is just wrong without it, IMO. I love the way it goes all limp when it cooks down. If I made a serious attempt to keep eating it, no doubt I'd come to like it. Uuuh - pajori is the shredded spring onion with chili? I'm indifferent on it, I think. It's nice to have, but I can enjoy my ssam in its absence. Garlic and sesame oil are key. Everything else, including ssamjang, is window dressing for me. Oh boy, I think we need a ssam topic.

Bruce, I've been eyeing this recipe for a while. My husband came home with a big bag of carrots this weekend, so I think I'll put that one into the rotation. It looks like it'll be a yummy addition to my Thursday bento, if any survives dinner. My husband begged for cooking relief last night, and it was payday, so I felt I had to oblige him. We went to an izakaya and had a good laugh about what a crappy month it had been. I'm cooking tonight, and I'm going to tackle fish, specifically, Filetti di Pesce al Vino Rosso on p. 171. I say tackle not to be punny, but because fish has always made me feel a little guilty.This is mainly because when I was younger, the fish stocks off the Grand Bank in Newfoundland collapsed, and the news was filled with stories of lives ruined, people out of work, and the borderline extinction of a species. So when I think of fish, I always have a niggling worry in the back of my mind about whether I'm doing the right thing by eating it. [Also, my husband professes to dislike seafood, but in the past his dislikes have mainly been a product of poor cooking during his childhood. Since Japan is rather known for having some good quality fish, living here is the perfect time to change that. He has eaten grilled sanma with salt happily, and has even managed to choke down some (extremely good quality) tai sashimi. (On my birthday, when he made an effort to enjoy sushi). He likes o-toro and will suffer through maguro. Under no circumstances will he eat either salmon or shellfish.] I'm of the firm belief, though, as you know, that if you throw enough butter and/or carbs at something, most people will like it. This recipe calls for dredging the fish in flour and then sauteing it in butter, so I think I have my bases covered. It calls for the further happy step of dousing the whole lot in booze, and finishing with a reduced sauce, which should get him into trying it at the very least. If not - well, I'll have lots of carrots on the side, and there'll be more for me. Marcella seems very anti-fennel with regards to sausage. I'm not against fennel myself, in fact, I enjoy it in sausages, but she says it's inauthentic. Are you pro-fennel, or against?

I'll clarify: For beef, I only put garlic, meat and ssamjang in my ssam. If I'm having samgyeopsal, or other fatty pork, then I add mussam - but I never put rice in my ssam. Too bulky for me. During a meal, after I have a lovely lettuce ssam, I then might take a mussam and wrap some rice in it and eat it that way. Strange, I know, but I'm not Korean, so I had no one to show me how to do it properly. I'll come right out now and say I don't enjoy kket nip (perilla leaf) ssam. I don't like them raw. Sheena: You are a wimp for mixing your soju! Shame! But soju cocktails are very trendy, right? In Japan they mix it with oolong tea. We also used to mix it with Sac Sac or Jeju kyul juice. Thanks for the help, when I get the use of my arm back, I'll definitely be making this.

It sometimes comes green with added wasabi powder, or it's sometimes pink. I'm not sure if the pink is flavoured with anything - but it sure is pretty wrapped around rice.

Here's one I made with shiitake and carrots. It holds nicely to take for lunch the next day. Room temperature okowa is so much nicer than regular rice, and it's even better with the seasonings. Try as I might, though, I can't keep it from burning on the bottom every time.

I am ashamed to say I've never made stock. I'd post a picture of the size of my freezer as justification, but it would only depress all of us. I like water just fine. When I cook Japanese food, I just use instant dashi powder. For European cooking, if I feel it really needs it, I'll add a scoop of "chicken" powder, an absolute integral ingredient in Northern Vietnamese cooking. I suspect it's mostly msg. But water is definitely under-rated as an ingredient. You won't be disappointed, and please report back on what kind of sausages you use. Thanks for the kind wishes!

The circular "pancakes" are actually thin slices of pickled mu (or daikon, if you prefer), which go exceptionally well inside a ssam. They are hands down my favourite pickle. I like to wrap them around balls of rice and eat them straight up. The yellow stuff - I'm not sure, but isn't it square yellow radish pickle?

Do you have access to persimmons? I always think of those as a fall fruit. The orange colour would provide a nice contrast if you julienned apples and persimmons and tossed them together. Drizzle with honey or maple syrup?

100 yen for a bowl of pho? Now that's a real good price! How many dishes did you try, and which was your favourite? Hey, is that your son?

How quickly my memory fades....good thing I'm going back for a refresher next month! Thanks to you, I won't make a fool of myself trying to order it now.

I'm a big fan of Harumi's somen salad with tuna. Boil then cool one bunch of somen noodles. Add thinly sliced onion, cucumber, ground pepper and mayonnaise to taste, along with one small thin of tuna, drained. It's a great side-dish, or packed lunch.

Does she salt it when she adds the gochugaru, or after? And does she add any vinegar to the seasoning? O-ship o-ship is fifty-fifty, right? In a restaurant you can order soju cut with baeksaeju 50/50 - and they always serve that in a brass pot, which is why I asked.

Soy sauce and mayonnaise. (on cabbage, preferably) Mayonnaise and ponzu soy sauce. Sour cream and sweet chili sauce on potato wedges. Gochujang mixed with deonjang/miso for ssamjang.

Well, I made it hot, but no reason you couldn't eat it cold. The only reason I'd want it hot is to melt the butter. I'd nuke your kabocha to warm it up, then stir in the seasonings. Then you can eat it right away, or not. I usually end up serving my vegetable side dishes at room temp anyway, because I make them before getting to the main dish, and then they sit on the table until we're ready to eat. Enjoy!

Isn't it fall? Curried salad sound fabulous, I'll try that!

Oh how elegant, you put your soju in a kettle! Did you do o-ship o-ship? Bossam is amaaazing. My Korean friend Mrs. Im used to make the best bossam. Does your mum care to share her method for marinated radish? I love that stuff.

My husband loves them a lot, too! In fact, when he sees this, he'll probably start agitating for them to be put back into rotation. They're perfect comfort food for cold weather. How are rissoles typically served? I might stitch it into a sampler for my kitchen - I'll hang it over my spice rack! Bruce, I just remembered that I have some zucchini kicking around that could benefit from Marcella's attention. I'll give that one a whirl sometime this week.

Thanks for all the kind wishes, all! I'm on the mend, tho typing and cooking are still both a pain for me. This reminds me, Bruce, that often, there is as much uniting food and cooking around the world as there is separating it. Well, there are certainly enough schoolgirls in uniforms running around with deadly weapons to qualify. And I am sick of being attacked by ninjas on my way to the train each morning. But seriously, my Marcella book, which was pristine despite having been purchased used, was christened last night when my husband dumped a half a glass of red wine on it. So it's getting broken in appropriately. You've got to go get your own. Yes, with that dish especially - God is in the details, if you will. I'm sure your sons will find this a rewarding recipe to make. Cheap, too, which is always a bonus when feeding teenage boys. As for this week... I gave my arm a rest, and let my husband do all the work. We tackled one of her veal recipes: Polpettine di Vitello con Panna Rosa, p. 217 Not terribly pretty, but delicious. Marcella writes, "...It is a dish originally prepared for children, but there must be something of the child in grown-up palates, for I have found it equally appealing to adults." I chose this recipe because it reminded me of another popular dish in Japan: hambaagu. Essentially a patty of meat served with a soy-sauce glaze, or similar, and a favourite of kids across Japan. You can find hambaagu at the 7/11, in the local Dennys, or countless other "family" restaurants. If you've never tried this dish, I urge you strongly to try Hiroyuki's nikomi hambaagu, which is an excellent use of ketchup. I haven't seen veal for sale in Japan, so instead I used the ground pork-beef mix common in Japanese supermarkets. Instead of soy or ketchup in the sauce as is the case in Japan, we used cream and canned plum tomatoes. This dish is minimally seasoned, calling for chopped garlic and parsley in the meat, and no additional bells or whistles in the sauce. Looking back over my previously completed recipes in this topic, I've done quite a few tomato-based dishes, but the subtle differences in seasoning each has prevented them from feeling repetitive. Restraint is rewarded with flavour. Stepping back, this is the lesson I've learned so far. (And is echoed in what I've learned about Japanese cooking!) One of the things I love about eGullet is that though many of you following learned these lessons years ago, you're still willing to follow along and help others discover the same things. Cheers!

It looks lovely, Ce'nedra. What recipes are going in?

Have you made one yourself? I would, but most of my mother's recipes come from clipped-out Canadian Living mags. What I really need to get a hold of are my grandmother's recipes. Of course, since she was usually cooking for 10 or more people, they all start with, " Take a 5 kg bag of flour..."

Samgyupsal in curry??? Genius! Sorry, I binned my mul kimchi, with sadness.

Sugo Fresco di Pomodoro, p. 122 Marcella: "Here is a recipe as sweet as it is short." There was a moment, on Sunday, as I was tumbling head over heels down a trail outside of Hakone, where I finally understood all the posts over on the You know you're an eGullet member... topic. When I heard my right arm crack, my first thought was, "Not my knife hand!" As the leaves settled around, and the silence of the forest was broken only by the frantic puffs of my husband running back up the trail after me, I stared up at the sky and wondered how I was going to cook dinner. Two days and some extremely expensive hospital visits later, I'm laid up at home, facing the considerable annoyance of having a lot of time on my hands, a fridge full of vegetables waiting to be chopped, and a useless right hand. And straightened fiscal circumstances. Finally, I'm part of the zeitgeist. But there are worse things in life than being shut up in an apartment with a new Jenny Cruisie novel and a can of tomatoes in the cupboard. My husband, genius that he is, came home with a can of tomatoes, saying, "I noticed we were out. You said we should always have a can of tomatoes around." And I complain he never listens to me. Right, so trauma aside, I knew I couldn't miss my date with Marcella. Priscilla, I don't have my own copy of her biography, so I can't say for sure, but she seems like the kind of lady who wouldn't let something as silly as a broken arm stop her from cooking. I have to honour that. So I dug out the can of tomatoes, thinking that I wouldn't have too much trouble opening it with its ring-pull top. Let me tell you, the word I shouted when the ring popped off without budging the top was enough to make the petty yakuza who live next door blanch. Twenty minutes later I had it off with the can opener, and had the aching arm to prove it. What Would Marcella Do? I cast my eye around the kitchen until it found my husband's bottle of Ezra Brooks Kentucky Straight Bourbon, and I knew She was sending me a message. Fortified, I addressed the issue of the garlic. Was it in Goodfellas the scene where they're in prison, slicing garlic with a razor blade to get it thin enough? Marcella states the magic of the recipe comes from the thinly sliced garlic melting into the sauce as it simmers. I experimented with using my left hand to chop. Slicing the garlic as thinly as possible with a non-dominant hand is the sort of risky task that requires calming music - in this case, only the Cowboy Junkies would do - "Sun Comes Up, It's Tuesday Morning" seemed the most appropriate. The Timmins' elegy to failed relationships and waking up to find you're out of milk for the tea suited my mood perfectly. When the garlic was done, after another ten minutes, I added the 1/3 cup of Olive Oil OMFG is She serious, and does She know there's a recession on? and simmered away. When they were pale gold - and I watched them like a hawk, I have a bad history of burning garlic - I slopped in my cursed tomatoes, put on "Horse in the Country", and waited for my husband to get home so I could put on the pasta. When the door clicked open, I dumped into the water a half pack of De Cecco spaghettini and thanked Marcella for recipes so easy they could be done one-handed. My husband requested his favourite Junkies number, "Anniversary Song", feigned shock and unfeigned relief that I was cooking. Sometimes, you're so blue that the only thing that can make you better is a big bowl of pasta with red sauce and Margot Timmins on the stereo. Actually, a large pans of brownies for dessert would have helped a lot, but I can't expect miracles. Guess it's tea and toast for breakfast again maybe I'll add a little T.V. too No milk! God, how I hate that - Cowboy Junkies

Fascinating pictures, Peter! My mum's family always pronounced it 'brew-is', with two syllables, but they're from 'up Labrador way'. As for hardtack, wouldn't Purity biscuitsbe a good substitute? If the Newfie shop is still open on North street, you might be able to source them there. eta: link

I usually use momen tofu when I'm frying, and the weight of the panel keeps everything in place. But I got my tsukemono ki at the 100 yen shop! It's quite small, maybe 500 ml - it holds one block of tofu nicely, as it's rectangular.

I use mine to drain tofu before I fry it. I'm not sure how it's supposed to work exactly, but I just tip the water out the top as I go. I usually put whatever I want in when I first go into the kitchen, and then as I work on other projects, I just tip the water out. If the pressure's strong enough, there shouldn't be much danger of it leaking back in. I've left stuff in for several hours without any problems.