1+1=2

One Pan; One Pot; Two bowls, that is.

Form may ever follow function, but in learning to deal with my Asian kitchen, I have had to follow form. Instead of having a kitchen that responds to the culture I'm cooking from; four burners - one each for the three sides; one for gravy, and an oven to roast the meat; I have two gas rings. This kitchen says: "What more could you need? Everything you'd ever need to cook can be accomplished with these two rings! Ornament is crime!" Thus: a fundamental re-evaluation of how to "cook". In Canada, I was happy to bung a couple of chicken breasts and potatoes in the oven, and wander away for forty minutes to do something else. Maybe open a bagged salad towards the last five minutes of cooking and put a couple of bottles of dressing on the table and call it dinner. Oh, heady days.

Vietnamese Chicken Salad

I can go on record saying I never at this during the year and a half I lived in Vietnam. I saw it on menus; but it was always the Vietnamese equivalent of mei you. I found the recipe for it in one of those strange, author-less cookbooks that live in metal carels. Whenever I bring it to a picnic or barbecue, I always get asked for the recipe. So here it is, with my revisions:

The Dining Perils of Busan and Seoul

Despite having lived in South Korea for almost four years, we never managed to make the trip to Busan. We finally rectified that omission last weekend, when we went to visit our friends Dan and Annaliese, who now live and work there.

Greens Three Ways

It ain't easy eating greens: they're incredibly good for you, but a pain to deal with in Asia - they don't come pre-trimmed or bagged usually, so you have to devote some time and attention for success with them that most people begrudge. They're like the zen meditation of vegetables: a lot of effort for small but worthy reward. So, if they do come home in your shopping bag, you're probably already tired just thinking about dealing with them. Making them flexible makes them less likely to end up as a pile of green goo in the bottom of your crisper.

Banh Mi Burger

There are days when the air is too clean; the traffic too orderly; and the beer too cold; on those days, I miss Hanoi. I'm perverse like that. I want hard baguettes, hard looks, and a hard time to truly enjoy myself.

One of the highlights of living there was the incredible street food. I could go on and on about the meat-smoke fogs at lunch that marked off the city's finest bun cha vendors, or the ladies who half-trotted through the city with ad hoc kitchens slung over their shoulders; pot-and-stove in one basket and ingredients in the other, balanced on a pole.

Galbi Salad

I don't like my salads complicated with layers of chopped vegetables - isn't washing the lettuce hassle enough in itself? Especially in Asia, where lettuce never comes in those cool pre-washed bags that cushion the outer rim of most North American produce sections. So when I meet a salad that is wholly satisfying using only lettuce, I pay attention and take notes. Invariably, it comes down to having really super excellent dressing, which I humbly submit that this salad does.

A steak and salad Korean-style is thin shards of well-marbled beef grilled on a table-top charcoal pit and a side of red-fringed lettuce tossed with a sweet-spicy dressing. I first tried this "galbi salad" at Songnae station, outside of Seoul, South Korea. Aside from the absolutely legendary chicken-on-a-stick vendors there, there was also a strip of galbi (Korean barbecue) restaurants with pleasant outdoor-seating areas in the summer where we sometimes met our friends. One of our favourite places served this salad, along with really perfectly round white button mushrooms, which our friend Corey insisted grilling hole-side-up, a sliver of garlic lodged in the hole to infuse the liquor that it gave up as it grilled. I could never get enough of what we dubbed "galbi salad", and the lady of the house returned to our table with bowl after bowl of it. I didn't think it would be too difficult to reproduce, and I think this is a fairly faithful representation.

Whenever I make this salad, people invariably ask for the recipe. I'll be honest - I make it slightly differently each time. The dressing is balanced with sesame oil, chili, vinegar and sugar. In Korea, The lettuce is served with shreds of negi (Japanese leek), but I prefer the softer taste of cilantro leaves, a refinement I made in China. You can choose to use either, but I wouldn't use both. Or leave it out. I like the dressing on the tart side, to counteract the richness of barbecues meat; you may choose to increase the oil and reduce the vinegar.

You'll need:

Salad

One large or two small heads of red leaf lettuce, washed, dried and torn into bite-sized pieces
One Japanese leek thinly sliced in strips or one handful of cilantro, washed and torn


Dressing



3 tbsp. of sesame oil
2 tbsp. of rice vinegar
2 tbsp. toasted white sesame seeds
1 tbsp. soy sauce
2 Tsp. white sugar
1 1/2 tsp. gochu garu

Equipment

A salad bowl of some description
a salad spinner or something to dry the lettuce with
Tongs

Wash and dry the lettuce and onions or cilantro. (If you think your leek is too strong, try soaking the shreds in cold water for about ten minutes, then draining them.) Toss them together in your salad bowl, then shake up your dressing in a small shaker - I have a sexy erlenmeyer-flask-inspired one from Muji, but you can just use an old clean jam-jar or similar. Pour the dressing over the salad and toss it together with tongs; this is arbitrary dressing. That's it. You're done. The only annoying bit is the lettuce.

Serve this on the side of grilled meat of your choice and some steamed rice. I recommend pork belly, pork chops, or steak.

East Eats West - Double Dips

Baba Ghanoush and Better-than-jarred Salsa

It's Friday. Are you having people over on the weekend?

Living in Asia also means I eat out a lot. It's (usually) cheap, the beer's (usually) cold, and when friends live in scattered areas, like when I lived in Incheon and Shonan, it's just more convenient to meet in one central location. Going to someone's house for a party is common in Canada because not only do we have the space for it, it's also a lot cheaper to buy a case of beer or a couple of bottles of wine and stay at home. Price is not as much of a consideration in Asia; rather, space is.