On Demand Gochujang

Previously, on tastingmenu.wordpress.com – * https://tastingmenu.wordpress.com/2017/04/24/nobu-toro-rossa-sauce/* https://tastingmenu.wordpress.com/2020/12/05/reproducing-michibas-korean-style-monkfish-stew-pot/* https://tastingmenu.wordpress.com/2021/05/15/a-dinner-idea-inspired-by-lamb-ribchops-morimoto-doha/* https://tastingmenu.wordpress.com/2024/03/09/on-chili-garlic-sauce/ In the continuing quest to replace my chili products, I now needed to find a way to make gochujang paste with my recently acquired package of Lakehouse Farms Gochugaru. I suppose I was in the same situation Matsuhisa-sama was in when he first went to Peru […]

A breakfast sandwich

Previously, on tastingmenu.wordpress.com – * https://tastingmenu.wordpress.com/2024/03/17/nobu-creamy-spicy-scallops-dynamite/ A long time ago when I was working in Manhattan, I used to grab a ‘Manhattan’ bagel breakfast sandwich at a deli sitting on W32nd St/Broadway…….fast forward years into the future….Recently, the weather was rather rainy here and I didn’t feel like going outside to grab some breakfast. Fortunately […]

On Chili Garlic Sauce

Previously, on tastingmenu.wordpress.com –* https://tastingmenu.wordpress.com/2020/04/24/nobu-steamed-bass-with-vegetables-and-spicy-garlic-sauce/ Recently my wife alerted me to some issues with chili peppers from Asia. Essentially, we ended up dumping all of our Korean chili flakes (gojugaru) and chili paste (gojujang). Moreover, she was extremely suspicious and also wanted to dump our jar of Lee Kum Kee chili garlic sauce which I’d […]

Ingredient Alert: Dark Chocolate

I have been very fortunate to have had the circle of friends which I’ve had over the years. One of them introduced the Lake Champlain chocolates to me about 2 years after the company was founded in Burlington, VT. Since then, this maker has been my preferred source for chocolate. Yes, I have used other […]

“The Yolks On Me”

Lately, I’ve been making a study of 2 disparate recipes – Chef Thomas Keller’s Bouchon recipe for creme anglaise and Chef Yoshihiro Murata’s Kikunoi recipe for Kamo Nabe (duck hotpot). The point of all this being was to understand how far down I could scale/microbatch the recipe. In the case of the creme anglaise, I […]

Anchovy With Peanuts, Formosa Restaurant, Taipei

After the 2023 omakase meals I had prepared, I was thinking to holidays 2024. It occurred to me to try another recipe from Chef Che-wen Wang’s The Heavenly Gift Of Chinese Culinary Art – Fukien Cuisine with an eye to sakizuke or hassun courses. This time I wanted to try making the Anchovy (‘Whitebait”) with Peanuts. The ingredient […]

Sobacha

Aside from drinking standard teas, I recently returned to drinking barley (bori-cha/mugi-char) tea to which I’d been introduced years ago at Korean restaurants. I was recently reading through my copy of World Of Nobu when I happened to come across a sobacha dessert with the following commentary from Nobu pastry chef Michele Goldsmith: Sobacha [buckwheat tea] […]