Perilla Recipe Experiment

For my 3'x3.5' plot (in a previous post I might have said it's less than 3 sq feet but I measured it today - I'm not so good with eyeballing measurements) I have an abundance of perilla.  When I started planting my mother brought over the cutest little seedlings and we kind of ignored the fact they'd grow to be about 4' tall and they really should be given 8" to 10" from each other.  I later gave some to a friend in Brooklyn with ample garden space, and some more to another friend in Jersey City also with a garden that gets plenty of sun.

Perilla leaves, depending on the variety, can get to be about the size of a medium sized hand.  Mine aren't there yet but I've been getting a lot of recipe ideas from creative food blogs and I came up with something I thought would be easy to make using ingredients I already have.

Here's the filling:

Stuffing each leaf:

Break two large eggs into bowl and season with salt and pepper:

Heat up a little oil in a skillet and dip each stuffed leaf into the egg before laying out in pan.  Here they are sizzling away, my kitchen smelling delicious:

Finished:

The result was golden half moons of deliciousness.  Use more soy sauce than you think to get perfectly seasoned meat.  Try to resist eating them right out of the pan, otherwise you might get squirted.

There are variations of this recipe I want to try next week when more leaves will be ready for picking.  Try replacing the beef for pork or chicken, and adding Thai curry spices and nam pla to the meat.  I'm also experimenting with home-infused perilla soju.

Five Weeks Later

These pictures were taken two weeks ago when we had a super hot weekend. I don't like hot weather and I usually cheer on clouds and rain when they're in the forecast, but like a baby (sort of), my little plot has changed me (sort of).

Anyone who knows me, not even well, knows that I love cloudy weather. I just don't like bright sunlight shining down on me causing me to squint, even through dark glasses. I especially don't like bright sunlight shining down on me when it's particularly hot. I can't understand how people like it, unless they enjoy turning their skin into brown leather. A few years ago, I even developed a bizarre sun allergy that creates horrible blotchy little red bumps that itch like crazy if I've been in the sun for more than five minutes.

But now that I have my little plot, I don't hate bright sun so much, because I want it to shine down on my seedlings and help them grow. These pictures were taken after I'd come home from a sailing lesson that hot weekend (another long story, but in a nutshell I'm trying to be more outdoorsy - it was uncomfortable as hell baking in the sun on that sailboat) and I was surprised to see everyone doing so well, especially the lettuce. So although I cursed the hot sun that burned my shoulders through my dark navy shirt (!) I also thanked it for helping my little ones grow.

The lettuce in particular were looking quite healthy:

Next to them are two strawberry plants. (I had some room after I'd given some perilla away.) When my mother brought them to me, they had tiny berries. Then the evil squirrels got to them and won't give a chance for more to grow. I have to get some sort of sticks and bit of wire mesh for protection.

The perilla grew nicely as well. Since my first planting in late March, I gave away six of them to my friend Christine who's got a lot more sun in her back yard. I'm curious to see how they do compared to mine.

And the eggplant are also nice and tall.

I didn't take any pictures this weekend while I was helping with the compost bins but I did notice that my cilantro and basil are doing quite well too. I was worried about the basil because he's not getting as much sun as he should, but the leaves are coming in nicely, if not as nice as the organic raised bed plot next to me. Even the sad little rosemary seedling I bought has grown noticeably.

Incidentally, I received an email from the person in charge of the gardening club saying that some of us had ignored the original plans, not making enough of a walkway between plots. I was careful to leave some room, but probably not enough so I'm going to have to replant this week. I don't like digging these guys up too much - that may stress out the roots but it has to be done so I'll take more pictures and post them here so you can see their progress.