Inspired by Vietnamese pho, this soup creates its own broth as meaty short ribs and beef shank simmer with ginger, garlic, chile, and the sweet spice of star anise and cinnamon.
Once a favorite breakfast of the Chinese, this dish might more accurately be called a daikon scramble. But the Chinese words for carrot and daikon are almost the same, and “cake” refers to the way the rice flour binds the ingredients.
Visually, this dish speaks softly, but it combines quite a number of sensations: a buttery fish, sautéed for a crisp skin, and a broth of such depth you’ll never believe it was simmered for just five minutes.
Kimchi’s garlicky heat is tempered with mellow sweet potatoes—a culinary icon in many parts of Asia, as well as in the American South—in this beautiful balancing act.
That distinctive quality of ume-shiso—the tart-and-salty combination of umeboshi (pickled plums) and green shiso, an exuberantly undefinable fresh herb—really enhances the juicy sweetness and char of grilled shrimp and the faintly radishy crunch of daikon.
