A Lunch of Two Cabbages
With a gloriously sunny weekend the sun summons for Yvan to the BBQ (and generally a home-cooked meal outside), we paid visits to two of our local farm shops for meat and seasonal veg. The extremely local veg, asparagus, was so fresh cut that it was oozing liquid from the ends and we happily took 2 bundles – a ‘regular’ and a ‘reject’ bag. As I have mentioned before fresh asparagus has more flavour and we found first hand that after a day of resting they reached their optimal sweetness. The ‘reject’ bag contained thin, more spindly specimens but they were sweet and tender enough to be snacked on raw, which we had to restrain ourselves from eating it all outright to span the weekend.
I lazily made some ‘quick’ style kimchi with some of the cabbage left over from the miso vegetables lunch – it’s great to have fresh vegetables that have a naturally long shelf life. This batch has been tweaked to more closely resemble (what I think is) an authentic Korean recipe though I still fail to actually use the proper chilli. As with a weekend that involves a home-made lime-flavoured mayonnaise (which I have no qualms in using) I knew in advance that the other secondary dish will use this rather than the store bought variety.
Top tier
Top tier contents: coleslaw (cabbage, spring onion, carrot, lime mayonnaise), (extremely briefly) blanched asparagus, herb butter ‘sauce’ seasoned chicken thigh, kimchi.
Bottom tier
Bottom tier contents: rice topped with red capsicum and black sesame (and a light sprinkle of freshly ground salt)
The asparagus doesn’t need much cooking, if at all: I went for the very quick blanched method: briefly pour freshly boiled water on top and leave a minute before draining and rinsing under cold water. Alongside the coleslaw, it was a very refreshing summery taste to counteract the bigger flavours of kimchi and pan-fried chicken. All of the items could be easily done in advance so the only time required would be packing it, and any extra can supply the next day’s lunch.
This contains coleslaw *and* home-made mayo - remember to stick it in the fridge!
