This past week, I had the opportunity to spend a week with an old friend of mine from undergrad. Not only did we have a fun time talking about our then-lives as undergrad ling majors and our now-lives as Ph.D. students, we also had great conversations about food and cooking, which we have both grown to love. On one of the evenings, we decided to make a Japanese-Korean fusion meal because 1) those two cuisines go so well together and 2) I wanted her to teach me to make Japanese food, which I have only experienced by eating, not cooking.
So Eriko and I came up with a little menu for the evening. I would make Korean bulgogi and my favorite egg banchan, the Egg Roll-ups. Eriko would make some vegetable dishes to go with my protein overload by contributing kyuuri no sunomono, which is a vinegar-soaked cucumber dish, and ohitashi, a boiled spinach dish.
I will have formal recipes up for the latter two recipes soon, but for now, since this is part of a story, you just enjoy the pretty pictures. Here's my lovely host, working on some detailed cucumber slicing.
My egg rollups...
Made in a rectangular frying pan!!! Oh my gosh, this just blew my mind.
It was really neat to cook with someone from a similar but different culture. I was cooking the bulgogi, and I was like, "Do you have cooking chopsticks?" and Eriko understood immediately and offered me some extra-long, sturdy chopsticks that Asians use specifically for cooking. This is not something that most American families would have.
I also liked the understood concept that there was to be rice with the meal. And the use of fish as a main flavoring agent. And the presence of seaweed. Yum!
Some differences? I think that Japanese portion sizes were more reasonable (Korean meals often produce food babies...) and everything was petite and cute. The Japanese chopsticks we used were pointed at the ends, unlike Korean ones that are slim but unpointed.
But there is a definite mutual love for vinegar! Here are the cucumbers soaking in a vinegar brine.
Here's Eriko wringing out the spinach.
These eventually became "blocks" of spinach, over which was drizzled a delicious sauce made of fish broth, soy sauce, and vinegar.
In the end, we had ourselves a huge feast!
Delicious! I would totally repeat this meal again. Like, right now. Thanks, Eriko, for introducing me to some healthy Japanese dishes!
Have a great Sunday!
That was so much fun (and so yummy)!!! I like your observations about the chopsticks. :)
ReplyDeleteI also just read the Engrish post for the first time. It's really amazing how many similar stories we have. I didn't know "spatula" until I moved in to a house in A2 with my college friends! They all marveled at how I didn't know the word "spatula," and how I didn't know which things were called "pots" and which things were calls "pans." I'd start cooking and ask "silly" things like, "so this cutlery (to cut vegetables) is called a 'knife,' just like the silverware?" Or, "what do you call the big spoon-like thing that you serve soups into the bowls?" (A ladle, of course...)
It was really great having you here! :)
neat story, Sunny! It looks like you have 4 places set - who else was lucky enough to enjoy the meal?
ReplyDeleteThanks, Jim! Eriko lives with her sister and sister's boyfriend, so they joined us for the meal. I love cooking for people! :)
ReplyDelete