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Cooking for someone is the most immediate transfer of emotion I can think of. When you listen to a piece of music or look at a painting, it can affect you on different levels, but the immediacy with which it happens with food is unmatched. I think it’s impossible to smell a pot of bolognese bubbling on the stove and not feel anything. The emotions aroused by something as simple as a sautéed onion with a bay leaf can be quite extraordinary. If a loved one is experiencing joy, sadness, grief or satisfaction, my first reaction is to cook for them. We cook to celebrate success, just as we do for those grieving loss or welcoming new life.
Faced with grief, I do what I’ve always done, which is turn to my stove. And lately my heart is breaking because of what seems like a broken world. As this column chronicles, I believe in celebrations based on imaginary holidays. I also believe that it is especially imperative to get together with the people you love. As an immigrant to America, I feel the need to come together with other immigrants to create a space to see and hear each other, and understand everything that is going on.
And so, while cooking for my last meeting, I wanted to create a sweet dish. There is a type of cooking that feels powerful and intense, like grilling or frying a large hunk of meat over an open fire, and then there is another type of cooking that is more gentle and calming, like slowly braising a stew, poaching a piece of meat. a delicate fish or steam a large pot of vegetables. I was craving something calming, both in the cooking process and in the dish itself, so I came up with a dish I call Vegetables in a Blanket.
The recipe is inspired by Japanese nabe mille-feuille, traditionally made with napa cabbage and slices of pork belly cooked in soy sauce and dashi. I made two versions, one with meat and the other for my vegetarian friends. For the latter, I decided to add thin but long slices of squash, carrot, eggplant and zucchini. I was lucky enough to come across napa cabbage, which has the most beautiful purple tone and therefore gave the stew an almost fake color that impressed my toddler and my guests. For the version containing meat, I placed very thinly sliced pieces of pork shoulder among the vegetables. Instead of traditional Japanese flavorings, I opted for vegetable broth for the vegetarian pot and chicken for the meat one.
It’s pretty simple to make your own version of Veggies in a Blanket. Instead of a conventional recipe, it’s best to think about what vegetables you have on hand (or what you can get at this time of year). I recommend including cabbage, as it bulks up the dish and binds everything together. Once you have the vegetables, you start by cutting them into long, thin pieces, fairly uniform, which you spread in a casserole dish (or another large, thick-bottomed pot): the idea is to create a sort of vegetable spiral . pattern. In the middle, I placed a handful of enoki and chestnut mushrooms. If using meat, it should also be sliced very thinly and layered between the vegetable pieces.
Once all the vegetables were covered, I added a little salt then poured the hot stock halfway up the dish, covered and simmered gently until everything was cooked, which took about 30 minutes. I served both versions of the dish in the pot in which they were cooked. The vegetables steamed and created a tasty soup around them, which we had with rice.
I consider this free recipe to have high production value, as they say. It requires minimal effort, but the end result is as visually impressive as it is delicious. We enjoyed the stews accompanied by a few bottles of slightly chilled, rich and creamy white Burgundy, and rounded off an evening of contemplation, comfort and calm. During the night, it felt like the heat from the stove I had turned to was channeled through me, through the dish, and onto my friends. And that’s the magic of cooking for the people you love.
