Spicy daikon-oroshi salad

1. Grate daikon (mooli) and heap up on a small platter.
2. For the dressing: mix dry chilli flakes,  garlic powder, fish sauce, soya sauce,  Chunking vinegar, chopped scallions, and toasted sesame oil.
3. Tip the dressing on the daikon heap. Serve.

Three continents in a pan: stir-fried spinach with chorizo and onions

Considering what I stash in my cupboards, it's no wonder most of my cooking is some kind of fusion. Whether 'improving' French stews with Thai fish sauce or spiking hommous with dried lime powder, the Post-Modern culinary pastiche is the order of the day.

Today's lunch was whipped up at the epistemic crossroads of Thai, Spanish and West African cuisines: the classic Thai phat phak fai daeng was made with Asturian chorizo as well as African spinach, onions and Scottish bonnet peppers, proving a very happy marriage.

1. Slowly saute a lot of crushed garlic with a tad of finely chopped Scottish bonnet pepper.
   
2. Add sliced chorizo and fry on a medium fir until it makes the oil red.
   
3. Add some chopped tomatoes and red African onions, fry until the onions are soft.
   
4. Add a lot of chopped African spinach (it's more robust and sweeter than the regular one) and fold into the mixture. Fry until the spinach retain just a bit of crunch.
   
5. Season with Thai fish sauce.
   
   
6. Serve with steamed rice.

Vietnamese beef and lemon grass soup: Canh Thịt Bò Xáo Sả

ietnamese cuisine is pure poetry in the pot. Their soups alone are celebrations of agriculture, flavours and wholesomeness. Don't believe me? Try this recipe: beef and lemon grass soup (Canh Thịt Bò Xáo Sả).

1. Finely slice some lean organic outdoor-bred beef and marinate in fish sauce, brown cane sugar and black pepper.
2. Sweat some chopped shallots in vegetable oil.
3. Add some pressed garlic, one crushed and chopped stalk of lemon grass and the meat. Gently sautee until the meat is cooked.
4. Add water and bring to a simmer.
5. Add some bean sprouts (and some noodle, if so desired). Simmer until ready to eat.
6. Serve with a sprinkle of chopped green coriander.

Samphire (also okra, fern and bamboo shoots) kimchi

he only reason why Koreans do not make kimchi out of  samphire is because samphire only grows in North-Western Europe. Should it favour East Asia too, I have no doubt it would have long been part of the gorgeous sanchae or sansai, wild vegetables commonly used to make pickles in Korea and Japan.

Last month I decided to correct this Mother Nature's oversight and made kimchi out of Norfolk samphire. Fresh, crunchy and naturally briny, it is perfectly complemented by ginger and pepper. Just follow your regular kimchi recipe, but use samphire instead of cabbage or daikon. Depending on how much you make, the amount of  ingredients will vary, so I will rather give proportions than exact quantities. You should make enough kimchi base paste to smother the main ingredient comfortably.

 Kimchi base ingredients:

1. equal quantities of minced garlic, fish sauce and minced onion.  
2. double quantities of rice porridge and gochugaru (hot pepper flakes, can be substituted with gochujang)
3. quarter quantity of minced ginger. 

Procedure:

1. Rinse samphire well and remove the woody parts. Cut into equal pieces.
2. Mix the kimchi base ingredients. Fold the samphire into the mixture.
3. Cover with a lid and leave to ferment at a room temperature for 24 hours. When bubbles start showing, the process has kicked off. Move to a cold place, ideally a few degrees above zero degree centigrade. A few days is normally enough to complete fermentation: keep checking until you are satisfied with the taste.

P.S. I also use bamboo shoots, okra, string beans, turnip, daikon (mooli) and fiddlehead fern (warabi or gosari) for my kimchi preserves. Bean sprouts are rather delicate in texture so they can be simply mixed with the excess of juice from already made kimchi and left overnight in the fridge. Kimchi out of bean sprouts and samphire do not hold long, so finish yours within a week or so.

Japanese nabe hotpot: perfect winter food

hat can be better on a nippy winter evening than a hotpot steaming with the heart-warming aromas of  seafood, mushrooms and green vegetables. There is no recipe, really. You just get together with your friends or family and put all and sundry ingredients in a pot of boiling water, dunk them in a sauce of your choice and wash down with beer or sake.

Well, it's not really that random. First of all, you put a piece of kombu in the water to make aromatic broth. Then put ingredients starting from tougher to cook ones in approximately this order. First in go shiitake, carrots, daikon and bigger pieces of fish. I use chopped salmon heads, the abundant cartilege makes for a fantabulous depth of the soup's flavour. I am not a big fan of fish balls unless they are home-made. Next go green vegetables (hakusai/pakchoi, Savoy cabbage, Chinese broccoli, kailan), oyster mushrooms, shrimp, mussels, crab meat, squid, clams. Last follow the gentlest ones that only need to be warmed up: shimeji, konnyaku, bean sprouts, kikurage.

My favourite dip is mix of miso paste and mirin - Japanese style. Also great is mix of chili sauce, fish sauce, lime juice and pressed garlic - Thai style. Korean dip is gochujang, ground toasted sesame, pressed garlic and ground ginger. Vietnamese dip is lime juice, ground ginger, nuoc mam, chopped chillies and pal sugar. Chinese dip is soya sauce, Chinkiang vinegar, sesame oil and a sprikle of hot red pepper.

Once the last bits are fished out and devoured with thanks, beat an egg into the remaining broth and add harusame.  

 

Yukhoe - Korean steak tartare (육회)

ho would think that eating chopped raw beef mixed with raw egg yolk on a bed of sliced pears would make for a great culinary experience? Well it did! It comes flavoured in that characteristically subtle Korean way, just underlining the natural goodness of the ingredients. I figured that it must be just sesame oil with a wee sprinkle of toasted white sesame. So, that's pretty much the recipe! Mas-issge deu seyo, enjoy your food!

how to cook black rice recipe

Khao Sarn Thai restaurant@Brixton, London (review)

This year was the year of Brixton's avalanche-like gentrification. The ruNice restaurants and even a barber shop for white peeps have sprouted all over like mushrooms after rain. I reckon we have a few years to relish the bliss of the BoBo (bourgeois-bohemien) limbo before the 'yuppie suits' cotton on this and make this a new Chelsea, Clapham. The once grimy and forlorn Brixton Market is now teeming with 20 and 30-somethings hanging out in organic bakeries, ethnic restaurants and sunlit terraces.

One of such cool hangouts is Khao Sarn. Having lived 6 years in Bangkok, I'm very wary of Thai restaurants outside Thailand. Now this one I can recommend. If this was French outfit, it would be a brasserie: it churns out classic (some may say "same ole") Thai dishes consistent quality at reasonable prices.

We had a correctly cooked and served, with lime and green onions, phad Thai (somewhat on the smallish side) and the Isarn staple: grilled chicken leg with sticky rice and somtam (papaya salad).

Hare & Tortoise@Bloomsbury, London (review)

his month my stereotypes have taken a nice battering. Another blow was was delivered just yesterday to my prejudice against chain restaurants, particularly peddling the so-called "pan-Asian cuisine" (although the toe-twirlingly atrocious N1 Kitchin@King's Cross may be the actual reason why king is cross!). It is hard enough to quality-control a decent Thai or Japanese menu, with all the fresh ingredients and tricky cooking timings. Juggling the gastronomy of the entire Pacific Rim on your kitchen counter is a super-human task. And to do it persuasively across a range of branches? Hmm, I doubt that really seriously.

I would have never made it to Hare & Tortoise but for my fellow anthropologist Patrizia. I would hardly trust anyone to drag me to a "cheap Asian resto for some nice grub" but her. She's extremely fastidious about food and that is just one small dot of the vast common ground that we share.

The place is immensely popular: it took us half an hour of queuing to finally plop around our table and get down to ordering. We shared a salmon box (sushi/sashimi set, £9.50): very fresh neta (fish toppings), expertly prepared rice with just the right degree of sourishness and chewiness and impeccable presentation featuring faux lacquerware and a shiso leaf.

My Singaporean curry laksa (£6.75) was a sumptuous bowl so huge it never seemed to end. It instantly transported me into the sultry streets of the self-proclaimed culinary capital of Asia, infused with aromas of freshly cooked food. Nice touches included delicately sliced chicken breast, cooked-just-right shrimp and squid, slices of toasted garlic and a lingering kaffir lime leaf. Apprently cooked from scratch, with no typical silly substitutes for true South-East Asian ingredients, it made for a deeply satisfying dinner.

Pro's: Highly consistent quality and authenticity.
Con's: Queues and noise around lunch and dinner time, the price of popularity. Cramped seating.
In a nutshell: Great value for your money with no quality compromise.

Hare & Tortoise
11-13 The Brunswick
London WC1N 1AF

Sen Viet Vietnamese restaurant London review

en Viet - a Vietnamese restaurant in London's King's Cross area is by far the best value place to gorge on Vietnamese poetry in food. My peeps from the Japanese Anthropology department hipped me to it and I trust those folks' taste buds (almost) like mine!

Between the three of us we had (it actually looked much more appetizing than Sarah's mobile could capture!):

• Caramel Pork Spring Rolls - a delicious variety of lovely textures wrapped in rice paper;
• Beef Rolls on Garlic Cloves: paper thin sheets of most tender and juicy beef wrapped around garlic cloves and grilled, served on a bed of salad with a zingy dressing;
• Catfish Stew - turned out the piece de resistance of our dinner, full of black pepper, ginger and chilli flavours, it stole the show from the rest of the dishes, which is itself was quite a feat;
• Duck Curry - unctuous and perfectly balanced to complement duck's gamey flavour, the only other good way to cook duck apart from Peking duck (kao ya)
• Rice - the plain steamed variety, as good as you expect it to be;
• Vermicelli - plain rice noodles to soak up all the nice juices;
• Baguette - very good for that purpose too, although I had crunchier and fluffier in France.

That set us back mere 31 pounds + tip -- very well deserved as the service is on par with Cathay Pacific's business class. The place has just opened since a month or so ago, it's squeaky clean, nicely appointed in your classic London hip urban style, although the exterior does not give that away at all. They also have a 10% student discount - no need to show an ID, just mere saying "SOAS" does the trick.

Sen Viet Vietnamese Restaurant
119 King's Cross Road, London
WC1X 9NH

Heron Thai restaurant London review

I am very rarely impressed with Thai restaurants abroad. Most of them are run by people who got into cooking simply because they could not find any other job. They are also often guilty of watering down tastes to suit the local palate. And some use pre-packaged sauces to cut down the operational costs. Boo! Boo! Boo!

That said, there are lucky exceptions. I saw an advert for this place in London's Thai-language newspaper. It is normally a sure-fire sign of authentic fare.

My gut was right. North-Eastern sausages (krok Lao) were perfectly done: crunchy on the outside, juicy and spicy inside. The sticky rice was expertly cooked. And the yam (a kind of spicy escoveche) of raw crab was nothing short of revelation. I have never had anything like that even when I lived in Thailand.

It was hard to do it all justice though, as the waiters refused to turn down the blaring karaoke, despite there was no other clients in the restaurant. Cheesy tunes were echoing unobstructedly in the empty room full of garishly bright plastic tables and chairs, bouncing off the walls into our poor ears. Very soon our throats got sore from trying to outshout the electrically amplified voices of Thai pop stars and we just kept drinking water that was pushed on us at a pound a bottle against our will.

Pro's: Fantastically tasty food.
Con's: Obnoxiously noisy. Horrible interior. Rude sour service. Pricey.
In a nutshell: Thai food connoisseur's paradise if you know how to switch all your other sense but the taste.

Moo guk: Korean radish soup recipe (무우국)

White and juicy daikon radish gently boiled into a still crunchy softness - that is the highlight of moo-guk (무우국) the Korean radish soup. Don't even get started on phallic connotations: in soup, daikon ends up chopped to bite-size chunks!

1. Cut 50 g of lean beef or chicken into thin stripes.
2. Marinate them in a 1 tsp of sesame oil and some freshly ground black pepper.
   
3. Peel half a daikon (aka, mooli or Chinese white radish) and cut into bite-size chunks.
4. Stir-fry the beef in a well heated pot, then add the daikon and stri-fry a couple more minutes.
5. Add 3 cups of water - and, if you so wish, a handful of pre-washed bean sprouts and /or half a chopped leek - and bring to a boil.
6. Reduce the fire and allow to simmer for 5-6 minutes.
7. Serve with a wee drizzle of sesame oil and a sprinkle of freshly ground black pepper.

Serve as a starter or an accompaniment to a Korean main dish such as jaeyuk bokkeum (spicy pork stew).

Jeyuk bokkeum: improved recipe

While my jaeyuk bokkeum (재육볶음) recipe is apparently a big hit at Barclay Russia's Moscow HQ, I have kept working on it and developed an improved version of this classic Korean dish, which I call "dry" jeyuk bokkeum.

The difference with the "wet" jeyuk bokkeum is that here the meat and veg get grilled and eaten with a gochujang dip instead of getting stewed with gochujang, in which process both kind of lose their most interesting flavours.

To avoid that, I divided the process in two parts: grilling and making the dip.

Grilling:

1. For the marinade, mix 2 tablespoonfuls of mirin, one tablespoonful of soya sauce, one tbsp rice wine, wee glug of sesame oil, white and black sesame seeds, half a teaspoonful each, a few drops of liquid smoke.
   
2. Marinate 200g thin stripes of best beef for about 20 minutes. Better get the stripes from a good butcher or a very good Asian supermarket.
   
3. Cut 8 pre-soaked (better overnight) shiitake mushrooms into thin stripes.
4. Do the same with carrots.
5. Grill the meat and veg on a ribbed skillet or whatever grilling equipment you have.
   

Now for the dip. I am very proud of it. I invented it myself, it is a deeper, richer and more intense version of the classic liquid gochujang they carry in Korean restaurants. For the dip you will need to mix in a bowl:

• a few generous spoonfuls of gochujang;
  
• a few cloves of garlic, crushed;
• 2 inches of fresh ginger, peeled and finely grated;
• a tablespoonful of finely toasted white sesame seeds (easy on this one as it tastes bitter in big doses);
• a tee-wee glug of fish sauce;
• when necessary, some water to achieve the desired consistency.

Serve the meat and veg on separate plates, the dip on the side, a big bowl of freshly steamed rice (here's how to cook rice to perfection) and a platter of Little Gem lettuce leaves or, alternatively, cut Cos (Romaine) lettuce to appropriate size. Wrap a few slices of meat and veg in in a leaf, dunk into the dip and chase with a mouthful of rice. The ultimate winter heart-warmer.

Miyeok guk: Korean seaweed soup recipe (미역국)

iyeok guk (미역국), Korean seaweed soup, is packed with essential nutrients that are hardly ever present in your daily 5. That is why in Korea it is given to pregnant women and students about to sit for an exam.

Like all Korean recipes it is straightforward, simple and yields amazing results. The beef stock lends the seaweed a depth of flavour, while the aromas of garlic and sesame oil make the melody of this soup a fully harmonised one.

1. Soak 2 tbsp of dried seaweed (miyeok in Korean or wakame in Japanese) in plenty of cold water. I also use kombu/dasima but that is optional
   
2. In the meantime cut 50 g lean beef into thin strips and marinade them in 1 tbsp of sesame oil and a modicum of freshly ground black pepper.
   
3. Heat a wok and quickly stir-fry the beef.
   
4. When the beef is nicely browned, reduce the fire and add the seaweed. Make sure to wring it out as dry as possible. Stir-fry very briefly.
   
5. Add 3 cups of water and bring to a simmer.
6. Add 3-5 cloves of garlic, sliced, and soya sauce to taste.
7. Simmer until the garlic is soft.
8. Serve with a sprinkle of freshly ground black pepper , a drizzle of sesame oil and a pinch of finely sliced scallions.
   

Kongnamul guk: veg soups can be fab too! (콩나물국)

his is a surprisingly simple and flavourful soup. Kongnamul guk (콩나물국) is made from truly basic ingredients and takes just a few minutes to cook, yielding a remarkable combination of healthiness and taste.

1. Bring to a boil 3 cups of water.
2. Add 2 generous handfuls of bean sprouts, pre-washed, and 2 tablespoonfuls of fish sauce.
3. Let simmer for 4-5 minutes.
4. Add 1 chopped spring onion, one finely sliced de-seeded chili pepper and 3 finely sliced garlic cloves.
5. Let simmer for another couple of minutes.
6. Season with sesame oil and freshly ground black pepper.
7. Serve!
   

Dakdoritang: chicken stew for wintry days (닭도리탕)

hen the city is snowed in and the frost bites your cheeks, you learn to appreciate the warmth of your home and the satiating qualities of your food with all your physical being. Nothing like hearty spicy stews on a cold December day.

Tonight I cooked dakdoritang (닭도리탕), a Korean chicken casserole. Because it sounds too Japanese, there is a movement in Korea towards renaming the dish dak-bokkeum (닭볶음). A good example of how even gastronomy can be politicised.

As a rose by any name is still a rose, let's get on with the recipe:

1. Peel 3 large potatoes and cut them in bite-size cubes. Leave them to dry in a sieve: that will help them keep shape when cooked, without disintegrating into mash.
2. Do the same with 1 large carrot and 2 large onions.
3. Mix 3 crushed cloves of garlic, a dab of fish (or soya) sauce, 1 tbsp of finely grated ginger and 2 tbsp of gochujang to make marinade.
   
4. Chop 2 organic free-range (they do taste better!) chicken legs or breasts into bite-size chunks and fold into the marinade. Leave for 15-20 minutes.
5. In the meantime, fry the vegetables in a cast-iron pot until half-ready. Remove and set aside.
6. Fry chicken until golden brown.
7. Put the veg back into the pot and add 3 cups of mushroom stock or water. Simmer for 20 minutes on a low fire, gently stirring once in a while.
   
8. Add salt or fish sauce to taste.
9. Turn off the fire and wait until the bubbling stops.
   
10. Blend in 2 tbsp of gochujang and 2 tbsp of finely grated ginger into the stew. Let stay on the stove for 10-15 minutes (although, ideally, overnight to let the flavours to mingle well!).
11. Serve on whole lettuce leaves with a sprinkle of chopped scallions and freshly cooked rice.
    

Tea leaf eggs, pig's blood cake and candied apple on a stick! - Taiwanese Food Fête, London 2010 - 第十四屆臺灣迎新小吃節 (英國倫敦)

can't remember much what I ate in Taiwan, it was such a long time ago. I remember stinky tofu (臭豆腐， chou doufu) we bought somewhere in the mountains. It was delightfully flavourful, nothing stinky at all. I also remember the spicy steamboat (火鍋, huǒ guō ) we had in Taoyuan. Precious little, in other words. So it was about time I had refreshed my memories, when this Taiwanese Food Fête cropped up in my scheduler.

A long journey to W2, so away from my hunting grounds. I don't even know what the area is called. Somewhere-in-the-West. The top floor of a council-run community centre looks like a big student canteen, only today there's no bangers and mash on the menu. Instead, I am starting with "tea leaf eggs" (茶葉蛋, cha ye tan): eggs boiled with tea leaves, aniseed, cinnamon, fennel seeds, cloves and Szechuan peppercorns. Sound better than your scrambled eggs? It tastes better too!

It's about 12PM now, just the right time for some gyoza or jiao-zi as they are properly called in Chinese. See, normally it's a lunch kind of food, part of the dim sum family. This particular kind is called 煎餃, jian jiao, stuffed with dog's meat. Not! Just yanking your chain. It's just your common-or-garden fried dumplings with chicken and veg.

You-fan (油飯 ), "oil rice" is a Taiwanese specialty. It is steamed glutinous rice with mushrooms and chicken, flavoured with five-spice and soya soy sauce.

Pig's blood cake (豬血糕, zhu xie gao) sounds gorier than it actually is. From a distance, it resembles a chocolate ice cream on a stick. The main ingredient is glutinous rice, which helps keep its shape. It is coated with crushed peanuts and chopped coriander leaves immediately before consumption.

Candied fruit （拔丝水果， basi shuiguo) is a traditional Chinese treat sold from street stalls. A pretty healthy snack, unless you are one of the white-sugar-hating brigade.

Now, 'tis time to retreat to my den and digest all these Taiwanese goodness before my kundalini-yoga class starts.

Gaeng som cha om kai: something hot in a cold country (แกงส้มชะอมชุบไข่ทอด)

rarely cook the same dish two times back to back. With all the diversity available to us these days, it would be a shame to get stuck in a culinary rut. Moreover, my penchant for dietary diversity is in line with the little theory that I have recently developed. See, most of us eat the same stuff , week in, week out. It will be mostly what we like, what we know how to cook, or what is available in our local supermarket.

That kind of skewed pattern of food intake deprives our bodies of a multitude of nutrients. Your body, like a house, needs constant maintenance and you need as many various amino acids, polysaccharides and enzymes as possible to make sure that you keep the temple of your soul in the best possible condition.

This week the sunny and crispy cold weather in London has put me in the mood for some spicy food. The contrast between the chilly air outside and the warm, fuzzy glow of chilli peppers and ginger inside is one of the greatest carnal pleasures. I decided to whip up some gaeng som (แกงส้ม, alternative spellings: kang som, kaeng som, gang som) - spicy-and-sour Thai soup normally served with an acacia omelette. I cooked it on Sunday, to give my cold limbs a perk after a nice afternoon hang-out in Regent's Park, and then once again on Wednesday for a dear guest.

Here, in one serving, I had a most cosmopolitan congregation: mussels from New Zealand, rice from India, shrimp from Greenland, eggs from Britain, fish sauce and tamarind from Thailand, tomatoes from Italy and onions from Egypt. To paraphrase Confucius: "有菜自远方来，不亦乐乎?" ("When food comes from afar, is that not delightful?")

So here is the recipe:

Kai cha om (ไข่ทอดชะอม) (acacia omelette)

1. Take 100 g fresh cha-om (see the picture below) and pinch off the soft leaf parts and the most tender twigs. Discard the branches and stems. Watch out for the thorns!
   
2. Tear cha-om in two half-inch pieces and fold 4 fresh free-range eggs and a dab of fish sauce.
   
3. Heat a skillet, cover the bottom with a bit of vegetable oil and, when the oil is hot, tip the egg and cha-om mix.
   
4. When the omelette is ready on one side, flip it over and wait until the other side gets nicely golden brown.
   
5. When ready, remove from the fire and cut into inch-by-inch squares.

Gaeng som (แกงส้ม):

1. Peel one medium red onion, half a head of garlic, one-inch piece of ginger. Mince it all with 3-4 prik kee noo peppers in a mortar, and mix with juice of one lime, half a glass of tamarind juice, a tablespoonful of kapi (shrimp paste, crucial for the right flavour!) and a nice glug of fish sauce.
   
2. Marinate whatever you are planning to put in the soup - shrimp, shellfish or fish - for at least half an hour.
   
3. Bring 2 glasses of water to a boil, add a handful of haricot beans and a few garden eggs cut in quarters.
   
4. Add the marinating mixture (1) to the soup, simmer gently for a couple of minutes, then add a can of chopped tomatoes and the fish/shellfish.
   
5. Gently simmer for a few more minutes.

Serve gaeng som in a bowl topped with a pieces of omelette and freshly steamed rice on side.

Now for the soundtrack: Something Hot In A Cold Country by Echobelly

Puttanesca africana: global fusion cuisine

uite unbeknownst to me, my cooking patterns have evolved to embrace a most spectacular variety of world cuisines - all too oft mixed in a single dish. I realised that when fixing my spaghetti lunch today. As I sautéed garlic and onions in olive oil for puttanesca, I added Thai anchovies and, in lieu of old boring salt, Vietnamese fish sauce - it gives food a more pronounced, deeper flavour. Then I mixed in a pinch of finely chopped Nigerian peppers, which made me think of an Italian puttana feeling sore after a night of heavy African sailor loving: when used in moderation, the peppers leave exactly that pleasantly burning sensation in your bodily orifices as a lot of sexual rubbing does. They also give that drool-invoking savoury flavour so prized in Africa and the Caribbean.

Freshly picked basil leaves and a few shavings of hard cheese felt just right with this intense salty-spicy sauce.

The recipe:

1. Peel and finely chop three red onions and half a head of garlic.
2. Heat a frying pan well, pour a generous glug of olive oil and grind some black pepper into it.
3. When the pepper starts giving out a flavor, add first the garlic and then 10-12 dried Thai anchovies. When both golden brown, add the onions, sauté until all golden brown, then add a pinch of finely chopped Nigerian peppers and fish sauce to taste.
4. Tip a tin of chopped tomatoes and half a cup of red wine and mix well.
5. Allow to simmer on a very low fire for 10-15 minutes.
6. Serve with fresh herbs - parsley, sage, thyme or basil - and a few shavings of mature cheese.

Kuki wakame (茎わかめ): Japanese seaweed stems

h Christmas! The time to wash down lovely oven-dehydrated turkey and vein-clogging trifle with copious amounts of hangover-sure punch. Last year, however, I escaped the joys of London's festive season to eat raw fish on a hotel rooftop. As the tropical night's tightening embrace was squeezing more and more sweat out of my body, kuki wakame (茎わかめ) was what I had swapped the obligatory fart-inducing Brussels sprouts for.

Nominated as among world's 100 most invasive species, wakame kelp has stems whose lovely texture is simultaneously crunchy and jelly-like, described in Japanese as kori-kori. When used as food, they are called kuki wakame and have a nice flavour of seawind. Wind, however, is where all parallels with Brussels sprouts stop.

This Japanese-style aemono salad requires minimum cooking: the accent is on harmonising (aeru) the ingredients. So, here goes the recipe:

TBC