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Cooking for someone is the most immediate emotional transfer I can think of. When you listen to a piece of music or look at a painting, it can touch you on different levels, but the immediacy with which it happens with food is unparalleled. I believe it’s impossible to smell a pot of bolognese bubbling on the stove and feel nothing. The feelings conjured up by something as simple as frying onions with a bay leaf can be absolutely incredible. If a loved one feels joy or sorrow, sadness or contentment, my first response is to cook for them. We cook to celebrate success, just as we do for those grieving a loss or welcoming a new life.
In the face of heartbreak, I do what I’ve always done, that is, I turn to face the oven. And lately, my heart has been broken by what seems like a broken world. As stated in this column, I believe in throwing parties based on imaginary holidays. I also believe that working together with the people you love is especially important. As an immigrant in America, I feel the need to come together with other immigrants to create a space to see and hear each other and process everything that is happening.
And so when preparing for my latest gathering, I wanted to create a dish that felt gentle. There’s a type of cooking that feels powerful and intense, like grilling or searing a large piece of meat over an open fire, and then there’s another type of cooking that feels softer and more soothing, like slowly simmering a stew or braising a piece. delicate fish or by steaming vegetables in a large pot. I longed for something soothing both in the cooking process and in the food itself, so I came up with a dish I call Vegetables in a Blanket.
The recipe is inspired by the Japanese mille-feuille nabe, which is traditionally made with napa cabbage and sliced ​​pork belly cooked in soy sauce and dashi. I made two versions, one with meat and one for my vegetarian friends. In the latter, I decided to add thin but long slices of pumpkin, carrot, eggplant and zucchini. Fortunately, I came across napa cabbage, which has the most beautiful shade of purple, and because of that, the stew was an almost fictional color that impressed both my toddler and my guests. For the version containing meat, I layered very thin slices of pork shoulder among the vegetables. Instead of traditional Japanese spices, I chose chicken with vegetable broth and meat for the vegetable stew.
It is quite simple to make your own version of vegetables in a quilt. Instead of a traditional recipe, it’s best to think about what vegetables you might have on hand (or what you can get this time of year). I recommend adding cabbage as it brings the dish together and ties everything together. Once you’ve got the vegetables, start by cutting them into fairly uniform, long, thin pieces that you layer in a dutch oven (or other large, heavy-bottomed pot): the idea is to create a sort of vegetable spiral. motive. In the middle I put a handful of enoki and chestnut mushrooms. If you use meat, it should also be sliced ​​very thin and layered between the vegetables.
When all the vegetables were covered, I added a little salt and then poured the hot stock halfway down the pot, covered and simmered until everything was cooked, which took about 30 minutes. I put both versions in the food pot where they were cooked. The vegetables steamed and formed a tasty soup around them, which we ate with rice.
I consider this loose recipe to have a high production value, as they say. It takes a bit of effort, but the end result is as visually impressive as it is delicious. We enjoyed the stews with a couple of bottles of slightly chilled white burgundy, which were rich and creamy and rounded off an evening of reflection, comfort and tranquility. Overnight, I felt like the heat from the stove I had turned on was channeled through me, through the dish, and onto my friends. And that’s the magic of cooking for the people you love.
@lailacooks
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