• Music: Wilco - Heavy Metal Drummer

Same Same But Different

I wanted to post about our sea-filled Sunday, but I have to make some room on my laptop hard drive before I can play with photos. Instead, have a post about something else. How about food?  You good with that? OK.

I've been wanting to make this delicious-sounding recipe for "Chilli Chicken" khiemtran posted about a while back.  However, I could never conspire to have all the ingredients on hand at the right time. The other day, after having chicken three days in a row, I thought, "To heck with it, I'll make Chilli Chicken with pork instead."

Only I didn't have dried chilies. No problem; I had fresh ones. I didn't have soy sauce, neither light nor dark. No sweat. I had miso. I just mixed that with a bit of water.  No Shaoxing wine to be had either. No worries. A splash of Genmai Su did the trick. And I didn't really know how much sichuan peppers to throw in there, so I guestimated based on khiemtran's photo. 

Thank goodness, I remembered to drizzle on some sesame oil just before serving. Otherwise, the dish might have been too far from the original. ;)  Despite all the changes, it was verrrrrrry tasty. J was relieved, though, when I told him he could stop eating the chilies. "You could have told me that earlier," he said, dabbing sweat from his forehead. >:}

In other spicy news, I made another batch of kimchi based on barry_king's recipe, linked to by asakiyume.  It isn't fermented yet, but I had a bit that wouldn't fit into the jar and decided to eat it today. 

S asked for a bite, and I told her it was spicy. She insisted she wanted some (she regularly tastes my "spicier*" food, like the Chilli Chicken Pork above), so I dipped the very edge of the spoon into the juice and let her lick it, thinking that would be enough to suit her.

"'picy," she said. "More!"

"More?"

"More 'picy."  She grabbed the spoon with a bit of cabbage on it and shoved it in her mouth.  "Mmmmmm. More!"

"More kimchi?"

She dropped the spoon, snagged the almost-empty bowl of kimchi from me, tipped it to her lips, and slugged down the rest of the juice...then used her finger to scoop the remanents into her mouth.  "Mmmmmm, kiiiiiiimchi!"

Needless to say, the jar I made is not going to last long...

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* She's always eaten the same things we eat, but if we are eating something spicy, I make sure hers isn't as piquant as ours, and I'm using "piquant" in the true French sense of "stinging/hot."