Cycle 17 – Item 250
Post 6,094
12 (Sat) September 2026
MIL’s Birthday Spread
3.0
by me
at home
-Oksu, Seongdong, Seoul, Republic of Korea-
with W and IZ, In-Laws
MIL asks me to cook for her all the time – although her own food is strictly and conservatively Korean, she likes to eat decadent western foods like pizza, pasta, burgers – so I took the opportunity of her birthday to prepare an Italianish spread: caesar salad + clams in wine sauce + pan-seared New York strips steaks + penne with shrimp and asparagus in truffle cream sauce + tagliatelle alla Bolognese.
By this time, making any one of these dishes doesn’t require much conscious thought or effort, certainly no recipe, just muscle memory.
But the challenge, the fun part, is strategizing the sequence of steps across multiple dishes so that everything comes together in the end (see for example 11.152 The Quad). Even something as seemingly simple as steak, implementation occurs in stages: starting the night before, dry-brine the meat and place it in the fridge, so the salt will penetrate deeper into the meat and dry out the surface to achieve a better crust for enhanced taste and texture; the next morning, 2 hours prior to service, take the steak out of the fridge and let it sit on the counter to come up to room temperature, ensuring quick and even cooking; with a cook time of around 10-15 minutes (depending on the size of the cut), plus a rest of 5-10 minutes, start heating the skillet around 30 minutes prior to service – steak is an item that doesn’t have to be served piping hot, so it can be set aside in the final moments while the other dishes are completed and sliced immediately before plating.
Happy Birthday!
(See RESTAURANTS IN KOREA)
(See GLOBAL FOOD GLOSSARY)
(See HANSIK)
(See BOOZE)