nakji

I've seen it on the table in rural Northern Vietnam, used along with chili sauce to dose bowls of pho to one's liking. I've also dipped boiled eggs and raw cucumbers in a mix of msg, salt, and pepper on motorcycle trips there.

I always keep a small bag on hand for enhancing soups, spaghetti bog sauce, stew, etc. I add it at the end of cooking, along with salt or sugar to adjust the seasoning. Doesn't it add a bit of gloss, as well - or is that just me? I may have told this story elsewhere on eG., but when I first moved to Korea, the teacher I was replacing was showing me how to make some basic Korean dishes. We were making kimchi jigae, and we got to the end, where it was boiling furiously, and he pulled a small bag out of the cupboard, and said "At the end, you put in a big spoon of this powder," and I said, "You mean a big spoon of MSG?" and he looked at it with horror and dropped it on the counter - "MSG?????" This was also the same guy who took me to the market and held up a persimmon and said triumphantly, "What do you think this is?" I, of course, said, "It's a persimmon." And he was shocked - "You don't think it's a tomato?" he asked, severely disappointed. "Did you think it was a tomato?" I asked, and he deflated and said, "I made a pot of chili with them the first week I was here!"

I've really enjoyed reading this blog, and hearing all of your ideas about healthy eating. Miz Ducky, I especially enjoy your love of asian dishes. I was hoping to see some bun bo hue in your blog, but the Vietnamese feast was an acceptable substitute One thing I've really been struck by, coming home to Canada for the first time in three years, is how much North American cooking these days seems to rely on pre-packaged foods. Having lived in Vietnam and Korea, where a lot of the convenience foods I grew up on were unavailable, I started making things from scratch, and incorporating more fresh vegetables into my diet. Now I can't even look at the frozen veg here! While I've always struggled with my weight, this year, I've vowed to focus on cooking real food using mostly vegetables. Since I live in Tokyo, I walk everywhere, so that takes care of exercise - and learning to make traditional Japanese bentos for lunch means I can eat healthy, portion-controlled lunches while saving money. I hope I'm as successful with my lifestyle changes as you have been. Keep up the good work, and keep that lizard brain down! I look forward to following your progress, especially if you continue with a full-time blog.

This is great information. So would it stand to reason that if I prefer a French roast for my coffee (toasty!), I'd prefer the Belgian style of chocolate? I also couldn't believe how grainy and dusty Hershey's tasted when I popped a bit into my mouth this Christmas. But, as in the case of cakewalk, it still didn't stop me from eating them.

Sorry to hear about your granny, Ce'nedra. Nom Du Du is green papaya salad - at least in the north, it is. No idea what they call it down south. I don't think there's an asian shop in town that has a butcher, I'm afraid. The ones we do have just carry frozen or shelf stable goods. I found a shoulder roast at a smaller supermarket and had them chop it up for me - yay labour saving. The meal came off great, and as soon as my camera and my laptap orbit back into the same location, I'll upload the pics. The lemongrass tea was a hit with the designated drivers and pregnant ladies. I added a bit of lime juice and chopped mint to it as well. It's very refreshing.

It says, "mi ring", which I'd say is close enough.

I love the first simple meal after all the indulgences of the Christmas season. I love feeling hungry again. A simple plate of pasta can remind you that simplicity can be satisfying as well.

I'm visiting Halifax for the holidays. I'm going to try my luck at Pete's Frootique (I feel silly just typing that) as I hear they have a butcher's counter. Hopefully they'll be offering different cuts of meat. I'm cooking a Vietnamese dinner for 14 on the weekend. Menu is: Summer rolls as finger food when people come in, and Lemongrass tea as a beverage. Caramel pork Tofu and tomato Spinach cooked in the style of Morning Glory Eggplants with Honey and Garlic Catfish with Dill Nom Du Du (if I can find the green papaya) Five Spice Chicken Steamed Rice (for me), Pineapple Fried Rice (for everyone else) Ice cream and fruit for dessert, Vietnamese coffees.

Now that I'm back in Canada, finding the right meat to cook Vietnamese dishes for my family has been a real headache for me. All I can find in the supermarket is loin, loin, loin. I want shoulder! I found a pork rib roast, but it was pre-brined, if you can believe that! I need to find a real butcher. Do you have one near you that can get you better meat? It makes a real difference, I can tell you.

This brings to mind the great Simpsons quote, when Marge comes across a spice rack: "Look at this adorable spice rack. Eight spices! Some must be doubles." (emphasis mine)

Gorgeous, Ce'nedra! I love how the duck is looking up at us with accusing eyes from the pot. It seems like he's saying "Don't look at me like this! No!" I see jujubes and chestnuts in your stuffing, but what else went in? This dish reminds me a lot of one I had in Korea on several occasions, but the duck was baked in a clay pot, and served with a mustard-style dipping sauce. I love Cambodian cuisine, and it's not really something that's easy pretty much anywhere I've ever lived. I learned to make amok at a cooking class in Phnom Penh (one I highly recommend, if you're in the neighbourhood!). It's similar to a Thai curry in the use of curry pastes and coconut milk, but the chilis used in the paste are dried. I have the photos from the original course that I could post in another thread, if anyone's interested. They look much better.

I don't have a real recipe - I just watched a Vietnamese friend make it a couple of times. Take some fatty pork, like pork shoulder, and cube. Maybe 200g or so? Enough for two people, anyway. Marinate in a splash of fish sauce and chopped shallots for 30 min or so, with some ground fresh pepper. If you don't like fish sauce, you can use Knorr chicken powder. Take a hot pan and melt two tablespoons of sugar until it turns brown, and begins to bubble. Add a rice bowl of water (carefully). Add the pork, stir, cover, and cook until it reduces, maybe 30 minutes. That's not a great recipe, I'm sorry, but as long as you don't let the sugar burn, and you use a good fatty piece of pork, it turns out.

Yum, lots of holiday food! Boiled ham, roast beef, steak au poivre - every time I look at this thread, I get new ideas. It was a snowy day in Nova Scotia, and I was longing to be back in Southeast Asia. I put together a few dishes from my travels - not a true balanced dinner, but enough to give everyone a taste of what I'm missing. Chili lime salt - a classic Vietnamese table dip. Just the smell brings me back to Hanoi, even though the limes are different here. Kroeung- Cambodian curry paste, for - Amok - a steamed fish curry, meant to be steamed in banana leaves. Try to find those in Halifax in winter. I used parchment paper instead. Finished! Can you see my pen marks on the paper? Caramel pork, my favourite. Mango salad, to my Mum's recipe. Very light, without any oil. Chicken satays. All with a nice German Gewurtztraminer, which went well with the spice, I thought. No Tiger beer to be had. It's no substitute for the beach, though. *sigh

I finally got this book for Christmas, and tried my first recipe today. I made the orange blueberry muffins, and they were well received. I really liked the instruction to rub the sugar with the orange zest, which gave a lovely smell to the muffins. I look forward to tackling more recipes from this book. I'm home for my mum's birthday for the first time in 5 years, so I've asked her to choose a recipe out of the book for her birthday cake.

I got two books I've been waiting for: "Washoku: Art of the Japanese Kitchen" by Elizabeth Andoh, and "Baking - From My Home To Yours" by Dorie Greenspan. Also, a new thermal bento set for hot lunches, and assorted bento accesories, including a veggie punch shaped like a goldfish.

Last month, my husband and I took a weekend trip to Hakone to see the fall colours, and to try to achieve "boiled octopus". We had a great time, and happened across a great tonkatsu place for lunch in Gora. There was a line-up outside, and the small shop held only eight seats around a counter. The cook was wearing a butcher coat, and a sticker on the otherwise discreet facade of the building proclaimed some sort of affiliation with what looked like a pork production board. Through the window, I could see one woman hand slicing cabbage. It seemed like a good sign. We waited 40 minutes (which seems to be something of a rite of passage in the Tokyo area - the longer you wait, the better it must be!) for our turn at the counter. We amused ourselves by watching steam come out of the sewer grates. When our turn came, we went in and took our seats. No one spoke, and I knew I was in the presence of greatness. The pork steaks, taken from the refrigerator, were thick and fresh. The chef took his time with each one as we watched, dipping it in egg, then flour, then panko. The ladies of the shop offered green tea as we waited, along with a tofu dish.... We ordered rosukatsu (what cut is that, anyway?), and were not disappointed. The hirekatsu was out of our price range, at 2,500 yen. The sauce was not your standard Bulldog, but was obviously handmade and sooooo flavourful, I'd love to make it myself. Anyone have their own recipes for homemade tonkatsu sauce?

Oh, wow, I love Dum Aloo, and that looks like a spectacular one. Care to post the recipe specifics? I haven't cooked at home in a week, as it's my last week in Tokyo, and I've been clearing out the apartment, and going to "forget the year" parties. I'll be back home in Nova Scotia tomorrow (!) and near a working oven for the first time in two years, so I'm looking forward to cluttering up this thread again. And baking! Dinner tonight was a few bites in an izakaya, and then clearing out the fridge at home with the last handful of black olives and a wedge of cheese.

For $200, it should do the dishes afterwards, as well! I love minimal-tool cooking. What about something simple, like takikomi-gohan? Asian food is a rich source, since most kitchens in Asia lack an oven, although they do have the luxury of an element of some sort. Or you could do fajitas nicely on a Foreman grill, just marinate and grill the meat, and have toppings on the side - a great idea for a floor party, tequila optional! (if you're on an American campus, and the students are underage).

I can take my plastic trays back to the supermarket. I assume they recycle them. I often keep them for myself, however, and use them as small serving trays or prep trays (after they've been washed, of course!) I find the chicken meatball (tsukune) tray is great for freezing individual bits of squash for my bentos! We went over to a friend's house for a thanksgiving potluck a few weeks back, and he had painstakingly saved and washed his conbini bento trays. At the end of the party, he made take-home bentos for everyone from all the dishes we had brought. Everyone got a little taste! It was great to get home and polish it off the next day.

Hey, good food is good food. I'm not picky! And the chances of me having a nice big dinner with lots of fabulous Vietnamese dishes is much greater than the chances of me getting anywhere near the French Laundry! So call your Mum, and while you're at it - ask her how long she cooks her caramel pork, and whether or not she uses pork shoulder.

Well, the museum was fabulous! We ate our lunches in Inokashira park, which was beautiful. It was a bit like being in a Ghibli movie, actually, as all of the trees had their finest colours on, and soft breezes sent fluttering cascades of golden leaves onto us as we ate. If you know "My Neighbour Totoro" at all, hopefully you'll get what I was trying to do with this photo... My Husband prefers sandwiches, so he got a roast beef Totoro, with pickled eggplant accents. I like the "soot gremlins" as they're properly called in English. These are tuna mayonnaise onigiri - my favourite! These are the first onigiri I have ever made. Next time, more salt. It took about an hour to put these together, mostly because I prepared two separate boxes with different ingredients. It was nice for a special occasion, but you wouldn't catch me making these every day! I only lost one eye in transit, too, which was nice. I mainly credit that to the fact that I'm an adult who pays attention to carrying my bento upright when I'm on the bus/train. I wouldn't expect similar results for a child. Monday's lunch had the egg and chicken crumbles inspired by Torakris's conbini bento. It was delish, but hard to eat with chopsticks. Next time I'll pack my fork. It inspired a gasp of awe from my American co-worker, who was startled to realize that things bought in a conbini can be made at home. Next week, I'll shock him with spaghetti.

Oh yeah, it probably totally is. But unlike a lot of other (noodle) dishes, it was readily available at restaurants in Hanoi. My favourite version, actually, was at Stop Cafe on Bao Khanh....*sigh. So Tender! You could shred the pork with your chopsticks.... mine is always too tough. I guess I need to braise it longer... I call this condition "pho belly", which results from having drunk up too much broth for your belly to handle, so you walk home with it sloshing around from side to side.

Thanks! One of the things I love about Hanoi is that every two hours, there's a whole new set of food to enjoy! But food is really time sensitive, and nothing of note is served between 1-3pm, so I suggest getting up early like the locals do, and catching a nap in the early afternoon. I also strongly recommend a visit to Chim Xao, a restaurant on Ngo Hue (right off Pho Hue, not too far down from Hoan Kiem Lake, on the left), where the whole steamed soy sauce fish and the bo luc lac are great. I recommend chicken street, off of Nguyen Thai Hoc, near Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum. I'm not sure, but I think the street name is Ly Van Phuc - anyway, there's a cloud of chicken grease smoke over it, so you can't miss it. Get the sweet potato, banh my, and chicken thigh. You won't regret it. Please post pics when you come back.

I'm not sure if that Banh Cuon place is still there, but I know banh cuon can be had in Hanoi. There was a small stall selling it across from my house on Phan Phu Tien (near the Temple of Literature). Like most street food in Hanoi, though, it's extremely time-sensitive. They only make it from 6am-9am, then they would switch to prepping for bun cha for lunch 10am -1pm. Some serious Hanoi foodies hang out over here, you can try looking around or posting a question there. Good luck!

I've really had to reduce the amount of food I keep on hand in the past few years. When I was living outside of Seoul, I had a big kitchen, and often kept ingredients for three or four different cuisines on hand at any given time - basmati rice for when we felt like Indian, Korean rice for Korean dinners; various and assorted European and Asian spices, etc. - I'm sure you all know what I mean. When I moved to Hanoi, the options for dried goods shrank incredibly - although I could go to the wet market and pick up any number of fresh and exotic fruits and vegetables, simple things like fresh meat (that I trusted) was a lot harder to find. My solution? Stop cooking, eat on the street like everyone else. If you looked in my fridge in Hanoi, it held Halida beer, limes for G&Ts, and condensed milk for coffee - and it was only in there to keep it away from the ants. Then I moved to Tokyo. Dinner out is $30 a head, unless you're eating fast food, which I try to avoid when at all possible. So it's back to the stove. But - I have two tiny burners and two shelves for storage. My fridge would be a bar fridge in Canada. It required a complete change of thinking. The first week I was here, I was listening to a podcast on the train about housing designers and the emergence of a trend for high square footage living in the US and Canada. One of the designers said something that has stuck with me: "Small fridges make for good neighborhoods". In my case, this is very true. On my way home from the train station every night, I pass three green grocers, a fish shop/take-away sushi, a mini-supermarket, and a bakery. I have switched to planning my meals on Saturday morning, and then picking up the meat and staples I'll need for the week at the supermarket. Then, every night as I come home, I pick up whatever fruit or veg I need to complete the meal. My pantry holds a bottle of mirin, a bottle of soy sauce, a bottle of veg oil, a bottle of olive oil, and a bottle of rice vinegar. I have a small bag of salt, sugar, and flour. I have another small pouch of Korean red pepper flakes, some tubes of tomato paste, instant dashi, and a bottle of good Marsala. I have resisted buying traditional western spices, because without an oven, I'm not baking or roasting. It's been a real learning experience for me, but it's interesting how many great and delicious meals you can make from a few ingredients. It helps if you stick mainly to one cuisine, though, and right now I'm using the opportunity to learn more about Japanese home cooking. That being said, when I'm back in Canada for the holidays, I'll be reveling in my parents' spacious fridge (Look! Three kinds of juice cooling at once!) and baking up a storm. But I guess my point is, you can prepare wonderful meals from a small range of ingredients with a little thought and care.