Anna N

Believe it or not I made an attempt at this. I installed a Japanese keyboard on my iPhone. It was far more painful than my last two root canals so I gave it up.

So I am back to report that with a savoy cabbage, at least the one that I had this morning, there is no reason to use water. By just cutting through the centre vein at the stalk end of the cabbage the leaves almost fell off on their own. If you do need to encourage a leaf to peel off you do have to trace the tip of the leaf back to the stalk to make sure you are attempting to remove the leaf that you have loosened from the stalk. Never found cabbage rolls this easy to make in my life. But then I’ve never used savoy cabbage before. Was I just lucky?

Indeed you are probably right (I said thickener but I meant the same thing). But it’s still a bit odd and I didn’t realize that until I was questioned about it. I have sent off a request to the blogger to explain it but I do believe she’s travelling in Vietnam at the moment so I may have a while to wait. There is no filler in these cabbage rolls such as rice which seems to be pretty common otherwise.

Search me. It is only a tablespoon to 400 g meat so I’m going to assume a thickening agent? Edited to add: I just rechecked the recipe to make sure that I had not misunderstood the use of the corn starch in the feeling rather than in the sauce. I was correct it is part of this filling. It is from a site where the blogger is very responsive so I will ask.

Japanese-style cabbage rolls. Really not too different from any other cabbage roll. The Japanese have adapted many western dishes to their own liking. The filling for these is not much more than pork and beef, salt and pepper, and egg and some corn starch. The cooking liquid/sauce is very mildly flavoured chicken stock. They are cut to make it easier to use chopsticks. The recipe that I followed called for nutmeg as a seasoning but I omitted it. It just felt too, too western. 😂😂

Not that a ribeye roast is all that likely in the near future but I would still love to know how many kg it weighed.

Pickled cabbage, leftover roast pork, beef tataki, red wine and sweet potatoes. A fridge cleaning exercise.

Rice bowl with seasoned vegetables and egg.

So I open to a page randomly. It happens to be page 222. There are two recipes on this page: Rolled Egg Omelet and Egg Threads. I know these as: Tamagoyaki and Kinshi Tamago. At no time does she call them by this English rendition of their Japanese name. But this is the name that you can look them up as in most books and certainly on the Internet. (Translation was probably a poor choice of words on my part.) Edited to add: “Transliteration” would have made my complaint clearer. The same.

On this occasion I only wanted to test the theory. The cabbage was used for a quick pickle. But I will be making the cabbage rolls as per the recipe I linked to a soon as I can get the necessary other ingredients. I have made traditional European type cabbage rolls filled with beef and/or pork and I have made Japanese style filled with ground chicken.

And I had a quick read through the comments and was taken by the one that suggested rinsing the pasta first to reduce the foam.

I can barely contain my excitement about this next tip that I am going to share. It will be of interest to those who like to make cabbage rolls. There is an easier way to get those leaves to separate! I just did it and it works. It requires patience, gentleness and running water. Think in terms of peeling hard boiled eggs under the tap. You will have to wade your way down to the appropriate section in this recipe link. Here. Although the instructions here suggest that you aim the water stream at the stem end of the leaves, I found it went faster if I attempted to aim the stream at any part of the leaf that was showing a willingness to separate. It does require patience but I found it so much better than dealing with hot water or hot cabbage leaves. After you separate the leaves you still need to blanch them and soften them before you can roll them. My suspicion is that a savoy cabbage would work even easier with this method. But it’s just a suspicion. I have savoy cabbage on my next grocery list.

I have broad shoulders. Everybody blames me for everything. But I would like your take on the book. I was somewhat disappointed and then I tried to be a little bit more open-minded and now I’m not sure where I stand on it. One of the most annoying things I found was that she does not use English translation of the recipe titles. I like to look up recipes and see how other people do them or write them or illustrate them. Without that English translation…

This might interest you although I am not giving it any experiential kudos. I haven’t cooked a lot of pasta any way for a while but if I were to do so I think I would start at that link.

Breakfast sandwich: Ham, scallion omelette, and nori. I need a much finer nib on my ketchup bottle.

@liuzhou Please, please reassure me that the reunion took place in the restaurant. Surely nobody would attempt that at home! It all looks so delicious.

Thank you. The recipe does look delicious. But the thing I noticed most about it was the notation that much of it could be made ahead of time. Not sure what it is with me these days but I do like to get well ahead of my shortened battery life. 😂

I actually love Congee. I’m not knocking it but anytime I have had it in a restaurant or have made it, it has been quite bland. Not tasteless by any means but not aggressively flavoured.

“The world's largest fish market, which has been in operation for 83 years, is being moved as part of the redevelopment for the 2020 Olympic Games. The famed tuna auctions are a popular tourist attraction in the Japanese capital.” Here.

No worries. I find your style boosts my confidence and my willingness to step out of my comfort zone.

😂”Don't let inflexible ideas of authenticity get in the way of deliciousness.” Nick Kindelsperger (Chicago Tribune). I just couldn’t resist. Nice tamagoyaki!

Wow. I’ve always understood congee to be a deliberately bland food meant to comfort and/or cure those feeling somewhat under the weather. I thought it was a food suitable for the very young and very old and for those just looking for comfort. I stand corrected.

This is close to my memory of a curry my dad made.

I am reminded of a quote but I cannot find whom to credit: ”Steak so rare a good vet could bring back to life.” And my late husband’s description of how his beef should be cooked. Again I cannot find the source: ”Wipe its ass and hooves and run it through the kitchen.”

Beef short ribs, onion salsa and sweet potatoes baked with miso and maple syrup.