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Nigel Slater

Nigel Slater Quotes

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“Minutes later she returns from the open kitchen at the end of the restaurant with two brown plates of steamed jjin mandu on a paper napkin, the fat pockets of dough stuffed to bursting with shrimp and chives, and a plate of untidy crisp pork dumplings that I would be happy to live on for the rest of my life. There is a tiny plastic dish of soy and another of orange kimchi and a deep black bowl of soup with shredded omelette and spring onions floating to the surface. I pour the sticky soy into a little white dipping dish and add a few drops of the dark vinegar. My dumplings, doughy, spicy, scorching-hot and as comforting as an old teddy bear, are gone in a heartbeat.”

“Oden is many things: a stew of fishcakes and radish, boiled eggs and root vegetables or bits of meat that need a long, slow cooking. Winter food that is both cheap and nourishing, though little more. But to me, right now, it is the most comforting thing that has ever passed my lips.”

“Japanese water is soft and its low mineral composition is better for making soup. Miso soup sets me up for the day as surely as a bowl of porridge, though I have been known to take both. In Kanagawa or Kyoto, Okinawa or Sapporo, that soup may be made with dashi-- a delicate broth of smoked dried fish and seaweed-- and miso, a light (shiro) or red (aka) paste of fermented soybeans. Shiro miso has the color of thick heather honey or fudge, is lightly salty and makes for easy drinking. Aka miso is red-brown, more savory and umami-rich than the white, and makes, to my mind at least, a more soulful, almost melancholy broth. Sometimes there are shreds of seaweed or a few tiny clams waiting at the bottom of your bowl, like treasure. Soup-- clear, aromatic and lightly salty-- is a gentle way to begin the day. I am lulled, sip by slow sip, back into the rhythm of life. I start my day in good heart.”