Cold night, warm nabe

Last night was one of those chilly, wet November nights that required chill-chasing, warm foods.

We had ours in the form of kimchee nabe and zousui. Nabe (nah-bay) is Japanese for cooking pot. But it also means a soup or stew cooked tableside. Not only is the food delicious, but the heat of the portable gas burner is cozy, too.

Our kimchee nabe had spicy Korean kimchee, slices of pork, carrot & onion plus shiitake and enoki mushrooms and plenty of hakusai (Chinese cabbage). When the hakusai turns translucent, it's ready to eat. We spooned the broth and bits into our little serving bowls, using our chopsticks to eat the meat and veg and slurping the broth directly from the bowl. taking more as we ate.

After we'd finished all of the morsels, we made zousui (zoe-swee), a rice porridge, with the remainder of the broth, plus some bean sprouts, greens and rice. It cooked for about 7 minutes until the rice had absorbed most of the broth, then we turned off the heat and added whisked egg to firm up the porridge. The rice is hot enough to cook the egg and even though I don't like eggs, I have to admit zousui's not the same without them.

By the time we finished our meal, we were toasty and content. Made it hard to do work after dinner and I didn't even attempt to fold the laundry. I really ought to go do that now.