Cookbook Survivor: Ivan Orkin and Chris Ying, The Gaijin Cookbook
Saturday's Child Works Hard for a Living
This is another new cookbook, this time a gift from my family, so it’s safe from my wrath in this first encounter.
I think it’s likely safe for good in that respect: I really love a lot of the recipes in the book and I love the mood of the book overall. It’s got a very distinctive perspective. Orkin taught English in Japan after graduating from college, became fluent in Japanese, trained as a chef and eventually returned to open a ramen restaurant in Tokyo and then subsequently opened branches of it in New York. (I think there’s still one branch of the place, Ivan Ramen, open in New York, but I’m not sure if it survived the pandemic.)
The book smoothly integrates stories of his family and the meals they like and of his experiences living in Japan—he and his Japanese partner and their children have adapted a few American preparations to Japanese tastes and he’s developed his own family versions of many Japanese classics which he shares in this book. Just about everything in it is appealing and fairly easy to make, especially by comparison to some of the more demanding Japanese cookbooks I have.
I had a very limited exposure to Japanese food up until about ten years ago. I knew sushi and liked it very much, and like a lot of Americans, I’d had some other basics—teriyaki, tempura, and so on. I had the great fortune to be invited to give a paper at a conference in Western Japan with the organizers paying my way there (something that’s never happened to me otherwise) and that left me some time to explore Tokyo and Kyoto on my own, as well as have a number of meals with my gracious hosts.
I have to confess that up to that point, Japan had not really been high on my list of places I wanted to go. After this trip, it remains very high on the list of places I would very much love to return to: every minute I spent there was a delight. Perhaps the best part of it was the food. I had only one not-so-great meal there, in an expensive hotel restaurant; everything else was stunning and profoundly varied. I saw very clearly something Sorkin talks about in the book, which is the seasonality of the food, but also the pleasurable (and simple) range of textures, tastes and looks in a given meal. My good friends who happened to be visiting home at the time took me to a fantastically innovative small restaurant where we drank rather a lot of shochu; I wandered into a lovely little izakaya on my own as well as a great ramen chain. My hosts set up a hotpot dinner for us and several other fantastic many-course meals. In Kyoto, exhausted by a ridiculously sweaty day where I walked about an eight-mile loop of various temples, I had an astonishingly beautiful and simple bowl of udon in broth that I can still taste if I think about it and then a very contemporary multi-course meal that was essentially a cheaper but still elegant version of kaiseki right near the lovely little hotel I was staying in.
So when I came home, I went on a mad tear for months buying up Japanese cookbooks, trying to recreate some of what I’d had as well as exploring new dishes. I think it was around that time that I also got a hold of David Chang’s Momofuku cookbook, which quickly became my all-time favorite book to work from. I haven’t done as much along these lines lately, so I’m glad to work my way back to it through Orkin’s recipes and maybe reopen some of the books I haven’t used as much lately.
Tonight I’m keeping it simple (and using up what I’ve got in the fridge)—I’m going to make some pork cutlets with a ginger sauce (shogayaki). I thought about making tonkatsu (breaded pork cutlets), which I like, but I’m not in the mood for the heavier taste, plus I like tonkatsu with a hot curry sauce on the side and I’d have to get that recipe from somewhere else. I’m also going to try a really cool idea he has for little “pizzas” made on gyoza wrappers with shredded mozzarella, pickled sushi ginger, mayo and katsuobushi (the smoked tuna flakes you use to make dashi broth). I’ll also probably make something with cabbage and greens that I need to use up—make a quick salt pickle, or put them in a miso broth.
Might I add, I am recently well nourished watching and miming the series Midnight Diner. Thanks for this commentary, Tim.
Loved Ivan Ramen. Gretchen and I ate there on the eve of Covid-19. We were already cautious about distancing. The food was wonderful.