Super Versatile Korean Fruit Salad Dressing

Muchim makes the most of what you have on hand + inflation hedging

Hello there!

My gosh, thank you to all the folks who have pre-ordered Ever-Green Vietnamese. I don’t have exact numbers but do know that the book’s Amazon ranking started in the stratosphere (maybe around 1,000,000) but on October 16, it hovered around 5,500! Sales rankings move up and down but do reflect general interest. Feel free to shop for my books elsewhere, such as Barnes and Noble, Target, and indie-oriented Bookshop.org, where I have an affiliate page. Also check in with cookbook shops, such as Omnivore Books in San Francisco, which already pre-ordered books for me to sign next year. 

Wild Turkey Prices on the Horizon

Looking forward to the holiday cooking prep, you may want to keep track of turkey deals. I’ve now read two stories in national newspapers about higher prices for turkey this year. The reasons are due to a lower supply (farmers cut back during the pandemic), increasing food production prices and avian flu, reports Kim Severson. My family has never been keen on turkey but Kim’s New York Times story was so well written with clever turns of phrases that I gobbled up the article. 

Inflation hedge: Frozen Green Onions

Green onions are a staple vegetable for a lot of East and Southeast Asian cooking, and of late, there’s been a strange price spike in my town. At one of our local independent local markets, a bunch of green onions that used to cost about 80 cents is now well over a dollar and sometimes about $1.49 per bunch. At our farmer’s markets, the price is roughly $2 but the size is double, maybe triple of a regular supermarket bunch of 5 medium green onions. Last week, before leaving on a business trip, I tried to use up as many fresh ingredients in our fridge. 

I impulse bought too much green onion and didn’t have a way to cook it up (they were not bodacious enough for crispy Korean pancakes). My solution: I washed and patted off excess moisture, then I cut them into short lengths to freeze in a zip-top bag. They will not be as good as fresh, but when I get home, they’ll be fine added to dishes like scrambled eggs and fried rice where they’ll get cooked. I’ll use a bit more than usual to compensate for the slightly flat taste. In the past, I would have left the green o’s in the fridge and take a chance on them being ok when I got home. But nowadays, with food prices being what they are, freezing them is a better option. 

No-Cook Korean Salad

Meanwhile, I’ve been playing around with Korean muchim – easygoing well seasoned salads. There’s a versatile dressing from Eric Kim’s bestselling cookbook, Korean American. He uses it to flavor a wide range of fruits – from apples, melon, and pineapples to cucumbers, tomatoes and pepper. In the span of 1 week, I made it twice because the salty, spicy, tangy, rich and garlicky dressing made me ponder the conventional fruit salads. Vietnamese traditions treat unripened fruit, such as green papaya and green mango, as vegetables in savory salads. Eric’s muchim salad recipe can be savory or sweet-savory. 

Because I’ve had Korean food on my mind, so I’m thinking of recipes for treats such as crispy scallion pancakes (pajeon), rich panfried beef and tofu patties (wanjajeon), and refreshingly easy chicken radish pickle. Maybe you'll add Korean dishes to the holiday for pow and wow, seeing as turkeys may not be the star?