Anna N

Dinner yesterday. Pickled cucumbers, simmered kabocha squash, McDonald’s chicken McNuggets, pickled Asian pears and cut up tomatoes and mayonnaise. Warm sake. My memory of the chicken McNuggets was way better than the reality of the chicken McNuggets .

Amazing @gfron1. You have found yourself a treasure.

Looks tasty but I’m struggling to understand the pork. Can you expand a bit on what cut it is and how it is prepared?

Very jealous! Thank you for sharing.

I bow to you on all things Chinese but I need to ask: how many Chinese homes are equipped with a flat top electric or induction range?

I don’t know. Seems to me it’s better than stir frying in Non stick. But to each their own.

Unless it is a non-dairy creamer!

See, and this is purely personal, mulligatawny soup without apple is just another creature altogether. Perhaps because I was young and inexperienced finding apple in soup was so surprising that it became the hallmark for me. The best I ever had was served in a hospital cafeteria believe it or not.

Loved it when I was able to buy hot chestnuts on the street in Toronto. Perhaps you can still do that but I haven’t been on foot in Toronto in many, many years.

Don’t know about Thailand but some of the better Thai restaurants around here offer it. Delicious. Must say that I have never seen skinless duck breasts for sale here. Seems such a shame to me. I mean it’s a shame to find naked ones.

No experience but I do know that Chef Ming Tsai occasionally uses an All Clad stainless steel wok. Quite sure it’s for promotional purposes rather than a really considered choice on his part. I do not have an All Clad one but I do have a stainless steel wok which I use on my induction range and I find it works perfectly well. Given that I have no hope in heck of reaching the kind of temperatures that one is supposed to get in order to properly stirfry it works adequately. Mine was picked up in a thrift store and appears to have been homemade or at least converted from something else.

Rather than take the dinner thread too much off topic I’m just going to give you a link to a very similar recipe. Here.

Tonight’s dinner was a repeat of this But made as it should be with Napa cabbage and thinly sliced pork belly. I was drawn to the dish not only by its name but also by its construction and I thought I would just show you a couple of photographs of the meal prep. The thinly sliced pork is layered between leaves of Napa cabbage. The stacks are then cut into pieces appropriate for the depth of the dish in which you will cook the pork and cabbage. These pieces are then packed fairly tightly, cut sides up, into the cooking dish. The end result is a cabbage and pork rose. Pork and cabbage donabe with a ponzu and shichimi togarashi dipping sauce, salad of grape tomatoes, baby cucumber, kewpie mayonnaise and aornori; mustard pickled cucumber and icy cold sake. And in the Japanese tradition I saved the cooking liquid from the pork dish and it will become part of breakfast tomorrow as I make Japanese porridge.

Next year plan on spoiling yourself silly for Christmas dinner. You are worth it. And the cats will appreciate it. Just don’t invite me because I hate turkey.😂

Continuing to explore and enjoy cookware and tableware left at my house by the jolly fat man in the red suit. Simple Japanese beef and potato stew made in my new donabe. Lots of leftovers which I must stash safely before curling up for a long nap.

Me too. But then I have to tell you how disappointed I was. I did learn something and I’m pleased about that. It’s just that the name seem to promise something so much more than chicken with short pasta😂

Not quite sure how you got this impression but it certainly wasn’t anything that I got. My Darto pans were not seasoned by any stretch of the imagination.

Thanks. Not too bad considering I did them at 5 AM! But don’t be too, too impressed. I did use a vegetable cutter.

CIA breakfast. (Cover it all.). Miso soup and chawanmushi. The chawanmushi remains a work in progress.

More Asian pickled pears which I made yesterday. This time I cut them into much smaller pieces. I think the brine will have a better opportunity to fully season them this way. I also cooked them a little longer so they were not quite as firm as the last batch I made. They will need a few days to age in the refrigerator before I can give them a fair taste test.

There is no other way.

Calamansi.

Re-heated “doggie bag” of Filipino noodles. An excellent way to start the day.

Squid. Calamari. Octopus. Damn. Apparently this was squid not octopus. Regardless, car tires would be easier to chew.

What can I say. I am weak. Oh so weak.