While I would describe myself as an adventurous eater, I also have to admit that my palate has some definite blind spots. Basically, there are a few tastes that I've never experienced, simply because they've never crossed my plate. This year, my wife and I joined a CSA, which means that we are now trying to figure out what to do with a wide variety of exciting and unfamiliar vegetables. A couple of weeks ago, we got our first napa cabbage. I'm sure that I've eaten napa before, but I've never really prepared it, and I wanted to do something beyond the obvious. After a little searching, my wife and I came up with a recipe that used napa cabbage as a salad base for filet mignons cooked with shiitakes and mizuna, but the idea of spending $40 on ingredients to make a dish in which napa was an afterthought struck us as a little silly. One night, however, I was making bulgoki and looking for a vegetable accompaniment. As I am not a huge fan of kimchi, and we wanted something on the cool side, I decided to mix up a napa salad. After looking over a few Asian slaw recipes and thinking about how I was going to taste-match with the bulgoki, I put this together. It's tasty, light, colorful, and easy to make. Best of all, it makes a great side for bulgoki!
Now if I can only figure out what to do with all the kale that I got from the CSA...
Napa Salad
1 medium-sized head napa cabbage, cleaned and thinly sliced
2 red bell peppers, cored, cleaned, and julienned
2 Bosc pears, peeled, cored, cleaned and julienned
1/4 cup chopped cilantro (optional)
3 tablespoons rice vinegar
Juice of 3 limes
2 tablespoons grated fresh ginger
2 tablespoons sesame oil
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
salt to taste
Mix vinegar, lime juice, ginger, sesame oil, sugar, and salt together in a cup or bowl. Combine remaining ingredients and toss with vinegar lime dressing. Serve immediately.


From carpentry to chocolate
The two most popular cuts of beef for Korean barbecue are cross-cut shortribs (galbee) and thinly-sliced ribeye (bulgogi). However, marinating a whole side of beef, or in this case, a flank steak ,in the same seasonings, grilling, then slicing the grilled steak after cooking is a good way to enjoy Korean barbecue as well. Most Koreans wrap up a slice of beef with a little spoonful of rice and some red pepper sauce in a lettuce leaf, but I usually leave the rice out and double up on the hot sauce.






