An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace

by Tamar Adler

The only requisite ingredient for your own version is a bowl of any shape or color of hot rice. Serve one thing that’s warm: each bowl can get a newly fried egg on it, or hot stir-fried spinach or scallions, or vegetable leftovers, like sautéed kale or roasted squash. If it’s a leftover vegetable, chop it, warm it in a pan with a bit of broth or water, then mix it with a drizzle of vinegar and a handful of toasted sesame seeds, or peanuts, and top the rice with it or serve it in a bowl alongside. Serve a little bowl of something cool and raw: thinly sliced radishes, chopped cucumbers drizzled with vinegar, thick slices of avocado, chunks of tomato, fresh herbs. Serve one vibrant, intense-flavored thing: spicy pickled chiles, a homemade salsa of scallions, herbs, and vinegar, Korean kimchee, Indian pickled mango. I like a little can of sardines, too. If you don’t, try leftover beef, chicken, or pork, cut into cubes and panfried. Or softly scramble eggs and add a handful of roughly chopped ripe tomato, salt, and a handful of fresh cilantro at the very end, and serve it on hot rice. I existed on solely this and sautéed eggplant for a month in China. The first I ate because it is humble but exquisite. The second is because eggplant is one of the few words I can pronounce perfectly in tonal Mandarin.