Kimchi

OK so kimchi. I've tasted a spoonful of batch 2 and it's sufficiently good to begin blogging about. *thumbs in suspenders*

Anyhow, despite six years or so in co-op grocery stores, the shameful truth is that this recipe is s̶t̶o̶l̶e̶n̶ adapted from the the New York Times a few months back.

So here's what I got out of it.

1) Sweat the cabbage in brine (while weighing it down and keeping it underwater)

I've used a big plastic bowl with an upside-down plate, and both Napa and Savoy cabbages. Napa are easier to get into the sort of mouth-sized ribbons you may want. I'm reasonably retentive about keeping knives, bowls, cutting boards, my hands, etc. clean, or as retentive as you can be in a kitchen that might make a safety inspector chuckle once or twice. No untoward molds yet!

2) 24 (batch 1) to 36 (batch 2) hours later, scoop it out of the brine (saving the brine), spice it, and pack jars of it along with whatever the hell ingredients and seasonings you want, covering it with the aforementioned brine. Surfaces exposed to air are not your friend.

I put fish sauce in the first one (and no chili powder or paste), so the resulting product was a bright ginger-yellow, somewhat over-garlicked, and unsuitable for vegetarians. Also, I can't get little carrot sticks to come out to save my life. I've still blown through four bottles in two weeks.

For the second batch I knuckled under and bought some gochujang. The color's more on point. You're supposed to use powder which has no extra salt, what with all the salt you're supposed to use in step 1. Hmm. I fudged the salt down a bit on the sweating step and it doesn't seem too bad, a little under-spicy if anything. Shouldn't have cut out the soy sauce too.

Batch 2 has shallots (I'm done with scallions, just done), daikon, and pineapple. I went real easy on the pineapple (I was warned against using too much as it breaks down proteins) and it's a good thing, since it adds a definite sweetish tang which it might be easy to over-do. This stuff is tasty.



The NYT says to start refrigerating it like three days afterwards, but I've got one more jar of batch 1 still sitting in the garage; it's been, what, almost two weeks now. You'll know it's working when the veggies start to levitate in the container; the bit of space at the top of the jar has given me no problems with spoilage but has taught me to keep them on a paper towel. I like mine seriously tangy and with as much bubbles as soda, but I gather I'm a bit strange in that regard. Also I drink the juice. Mmmm.

Below, a blurry picture of the bacon-kimchi sandwich I ate while preparing this post! It was a jocular idea but worked so well I'm going to do it again tomorrow.

Crème de Menthe Bars, What Not To Do When Making

Now that I've apparently mastered my father's molasses spice cookie recipe, it's time to turn to that other family holiday stalwart, these bad boys.

I'd never really creamed butter by hand (had to do that for the bottom two layers), not had I made my own frosting. (<---lots of fun, though I think I have a headache from coming down from the sugar rush I got when I was sampling it.)

Things to do next time: wait for cake layer to cool more, to preserve frosting integrity.

Make more of the top layer, and wait longer to apply it.

Actually, that's about it (unless the cake/frosting is too granular from not enough processing, which I don't know yet.) The



We'll see what else I did wrong (not creaming the butter enough for the mint frosting? Might that be a little coarse?) later.

I know my onions.

The first grocery store I ever worked at my father, ever the wag, called "Grand Onion" for "Grand Union," and he wasn't far off.

Like every other (well, each of the other two) food items, the English was cheerfully stolen from Middle French. Ah, the Norman invasion. Anglo-French (and Mod. French) oignon gives us our word, and comes from the Latin unio(n). Yes, it means "union, single thing," a reference to that big unified bulb.

Bah: unlike with quince (I hope) the allium spices have already been covered better in more excruciating detail than I ever would have bothered with. With quotes from Homer, and the Greek borrowings into South Slavic, and the connections between Latin cepa and many of the European words for "onion" [and English "chive"!], proceeding on to other pages on leeks and garlic (Old English gār.lēac "spear.leek") and cloves and going on into the cloves the spice and it's all just wonderful.

So wonderful I have nothing else to add and throw up my hands at my own modest efforts. I hope, at any rate, that the link provides as much fascinating clicking for anyone else as it provided me. Quick, I better distract everyone with a pre-prepared piece of Čapek.

Toponyms in Produce; Part 2 of a Series.

Having hitherto discussed the etymological hyperspace of the quince to a somewhat alarming degree, I thought I'd move on to a slightly smaller morsel:




The shallot. (image cheerfully stolen from Wikipedia)

I've been cooking with these (oh, man, sautéed in butter with just about anything, going to be roasting some on Monday) and have enjoyed expanding my spectrum of allium tastes. (now if I could only see the benefits of leeks except for dissolved in soup). But I'm already digressing. I'd been made dimly aware that the word for shallot (and scallion) had been traceable to the name of a Palestinian seaport, Ascalon (modern Ashkelon).

It was only after the quince intruded into my thoughts that I realized that this had to be analogous to quince.

quince : Cydonian (apple) :: shallot : Ascalonian (?).

I assumed it would be 'onion,' A bit further research confirms this: Latin ascalonia (caepa) 'Ascalon (onion), late Latin escalonia. Early/Middle French escaloigne-->eschalotte-->échalotte, English 'shallot'.

I've yet to use them in salad dressing, but I hear that's a reasonable idea as well. What I'll likely try: chopped shallot, olive oil, vinegar, sugar, salt, pepper, maybe a little mustard. I suspect I'll report back on the success or failure of this absurdly simple salad dressing when I'm back to discuss the proliferation of Lat. caepa/cepa "onion" throughout the languages of Europe. (French and English excepting.)