Mizutaki and Other Oriental Dishes
In the last column, we were still making decisions about meals to serve during the holidays. Our children arrived for a visit the day after Christmas and we wanted to have something for dinner that would be both unusual and entertaining. Mizutaki is a great dish for a small group of people who are willing to eat dinner over a period of time. The dish is cooked by one person and then served, a little at a time, to the entire group. One nice thing about Mizutaki is that the both the cook and the participants have some decision about the actual ingredients. We prefer to have a wide range of ingredients and then allow people to choose which of the cooked items they will be served. Since the cooking process is lengthy, we chose to serve the Oriental-style ribs as a side dish for snacking during the meal. The meal was a big success but we would suggest preparing it without the two diversionary trips that occurred at our house. The first, for stitches following a cut finger during the rib preparation was a little more serious than the emergency trip to the grocery store for the green onions which had been forgotten. (The person chosen for the green onion "run" didn't realize how popular they would be when cooked this way and returned with only one bunch. We recommend that you purchase several bunches.) This deficiency, however, certainly gave the onion lovers at the table something to search for in each batch of Mizutaki! As a side note, the use of chopsticks is highly recommended with this meal.
