Ep. 329 #iobevoacasa - LOCKDOWN SERIES | Jeannie Cho Lee MW and JC Viens

I really love your kitchen, Ginny. This is fantastic. My dream. Oh, okay. Here's my three ovens. Welcome to the Italian wine podcast lockdown series. Every Monday will be connecting with Italian wine people. Join us to find out what they're doing and drinking today. Hello, Jeanie. Good to see you. Hi, Tracy. Good to see you. It's quite interesting to be in this, so called lockdown series. When in Hong Kong, a lockdown is a little bit, a little bit more, I should say flexible as it is in, in Italy. But anyway, most people are staying at home. I I'm sure you spent a great deal much more time at home than, than you have in the past, you know, come. So I've been cooking a lot of food, every day is sort of a new recipe. But the one that I wanted to show and share today is something really simple and something that I think anyone can do. And, you know, lots of people love eggs. They love eggs, poached, fried, scrambled, you know, but the way that we have it, you know, the Korean way of having eggs is a kind of a special steamed egg in a clay pot. So right behind me, you'll see an event. I have been boiling for about thirty minutes special Korean base stock. Yeah. So let me let me just share with you, the very basic ingredients. Okay? It's very simple. The main ingredient is egg and to give it the fluffiness and the lightness, you need the the broth or the dashi. And if you don't have Japanese or Korean, dashi and you can't make it, then just use chicken stock or vegetable stock. It's equally good. It gives that savory umami contrast. And because you have eggs in it as well and it steamed, it really accentuates that mommy taste and gives out a gives gives a lot of ice for me, a kind of comfort, comforting feeling that goes straight to my stomach. So it's eggs, dashi, that's the main. Then the third is actually the way you salt it. So if you don't have, fish sauce, you can easily use salt. There's a lot of white wines from Italy that I think would go really well, with this dish. However, the one thing you have to remember, like, all Korean and Chinese food? Sure. We don't eat just this dish by itself. So I prepared a little meal tray for you to get an idea of how we would eat this dish because it's considered one of the side dishes. So if this was my main source of protein, I would, have this for lunch or breakfast because it's a very light dish and with rice and some vegetables. Right? Oh, so you you don't have you don't have wine with lunch, urging. Of course. Well, I'm cooking, and, I'm having a vette, San Leonardo, seven o'clock. So Oh, fantastic. Yeah. Maybe I'm having a kind of Costco, cubi Prestige. Here it is. I opened it, just before I started. So let me put this on this side. Okay. So now, what we want to do is, we have I have six eggs, and the proportion really varies. You can make four eggs. You can make six. You can make eight. And it's it's really up to you in how many people. I normally do we have six people in my family. I have four daughters. So I usually proportion kind of one egg per person. One egg per person. Yeah. And when you do six eggs, normally, I'm included already, but the bra is usually between one to one and a half cups. Oh, and the only thing I can do is fluff these eggs, and heat them, you know, until they're the consistency I on. Now, the difference between, and I brought this strainer here, because, chawanmushi, the Japanese version of a steamed egg is usually an aramekin, and it's steamed. And if I run the egg through the strainer, then the texture of the egg becomes really fine. But the Korean version is actually a little bit rougher because we stir and as we will as we will see, the texture is a little bit richer and and bigger. Now if you want also a a runnier, more soupy type of steamed egg, then you can add more broth. It's really up to you. So I'm gonna bake this very well. And saltiness also depends on you. I really love your kitchen, Jeanie. This is fantastic. My dream. Oh, okay. Here's my three ovens right here. Wow. I love it. Wonderful. Actually, Okay, JC. You're gonna laugh, but I have two kitchens. I have another kitchen on your back, which is for walk frying and, kind of smelly Korean food. So this is usually, like, when when you have friends over. Okay. So so this is why you don't mind to stay at home a little bit during the lockdown. It allows you to explore your creative side and, go absolutely crazy in the kitchen. I love it. I really love it. Okay. Now we have, fish sauce. Again, like I said, you can use salt. You can use soy sauce. You can use salted fermented, ah, shrimp. So depending on how salty you like it, I usually put four six a's. I put, One and a half to two tablespoons. So it's you see how it's not quite full. That's one. And, two, just, but not quite two, not to make it too I usually use, this to make soup for six people, Korean soup, like, tofu soup. I would make, soybean soup piece stew, and we have it in this pot, we bring it to the table and then we serve it in, soup bowls. So you just stir. So the time now, I can see is, it takes about seven minutes. And ten minutes. Yeah. And the only reason I'm not putting the lid on yet is because I just wanna make sure that it doesn't nothing sticks once it starts boiling a little bit more, and you can see that the egg is kind of getting into a thicker consistency, then I'm gonna be ready to put the lid on because this has a steam effect. Now if you don't have this what if you don't have this pot, then the question is what do you do? So you'd use what the French called the Van Marie or the hot water, method where you put the ramekins or a, some sort of, you know, heated hot into, water so that it's actually bathing in water. Or you completed in your steamer, but the idea is that, what you really wanna do is that last, three minutes, you want it to steam and kind of fluff up. So it's a beautiful golden color right now. And I'm just letting it stir. So it will be cooking for about I've been stirring for about a minute or two. So once I put the top on, I'm gonna do another three, four minutes, and You'll see how, this pot does its magic. Wonderful. Wonderful. And that's it. Oh, do you want to take a peek? Okay. So this is a little too runny. And, if you look, you can see that it started to cook all around. Now, oh, what I'm gonna do is just see. Yep. So all around it is still starting to to cook. So I think I'm gonna give it another two more minutes. So, perhaps, you know, when I was in the lifter, coming to, to my flat now, I spoke with someone in the in the lifter, and people said, I cannot wait to go back to work in my office. Because when I work at home, I cannot concentrate at all. And so I'm curious. You must do a quite a bit of work from home yourself. So how do you concentrate when you work from home? Well, I guess I'm used to it because, in fact, my daytime job is usually being a mother, and everything else. And so, I'm used to doing work, as my family will tell you on the airplane, on trains, you know, in a taxi, wherever I can find the time because time was so precious. So, I never had a real issue wherever I was working. I mean, I could be, you know, anywhere, and that's why I was able to also work from, airplanes and and travel as much as I did because I could still write. I could still, you know, contribute articles and, and what's your secret? What's your secret to be effective in this, context? Be very busy and have lots of children because they will they will force you to be a good time management person from the very beginning because If you have four small kids, when they were young, my kids were, four children under the age of four years old. So if I didn't manage my time, there's nothing I could get done. In fact, when you You did your, research project. It was a thesis in those days when you did the master of wine, you you already had the the four children. No? Yes. Yes. And so this must have been very intense moment, being able to complete the thesis and take care of these, four children, ma'am. Yeah. Well, for me, the thesis was the easy part because I liked writing, as you know, Right? Yes. This is mostly about research and writing. So that was, I thought, pretty easy. It was the studying, and the heading to learn about winemaking, Viticulture, all the full things and all the tasting components of it. That was, quite challenging. And I think that took a lot of time. So I had no social life. Outside of family, I just didn't see anybody. Probably for four years. Four to five years. So studying for the master of wine is a kind of a lockdown practice if you will. Yeah. It is, but I was working as well. So my day job was writing articles, teaching. I had, at that time, I was running the fine wine school, Yes. Which I then merged with Barry Brothers. And so I had a school. I was writing at that time. I think about four or five different wine columns. It was really crazy. And working on my book. And then also then at night, would study, for the master one. So the so so your secret to keep focus is to be busy because you have no choice and you have to focus. And so Yeah. And so you really use your time really well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Oh, just seek? Fantastic. Oh, okay. I'm gonna give it a few more minutes because I think, I want it to be I want it to be a little runny and soft because it's steamed. But at the same time, I don't want it to be too soupy. It depends on how you enjoy it because it's can you think about it? It's steam day with broth, and a and a lot of umami flavor going on. Wonderful. Yeah. No. For me, umami flavor, I really, really believe, a fantastic fun Chacotta with, fifty, seventy months on the lease, even some bottle aging would be really fantastic with such a dish. You know? That's good. Great. I'll be right back. Oh, I hope you have a funchal card then. Three ovens, wonderful wine cellar, and Bella Vista. What's a quote? I think you're absolutely right. It could go very well, you know, and, it would be wonderful, but I have to show you the whole plate of how we would eat this dish. Right? Because we wouldn't just be eating this. This would be, like I said, this size with six eggs would be for six people. Yes. Of course. I'm gonna show you how we were traditionally ethics. So first, let's take a look. Oh, would you see that steam? Wonderful. Wonderful. And what we do is add Spring your hands. Our new hands on top. Well, I'm gonna bring one tray of a typical Korean, plate if I were having this thick and typically, like I said, something like this without any wider fish means that, it is going to be, a lighter meal. So in Korea, you might have actually this whole plate, for breakfast. And the only thing I'm missing here is a little little bit of soup. So I just wanna thank everyone in Italy, for making great wine because, you can pair it with Korean food, with Chinese, with a lot of different Asian museums, and don't be afraid to experiment. Thank you, Ginny. It was fantastic. Thank you so much. Good chatting. See you next Monday for another virtual wine journey Italian wine podcast lockdown series.