【Evening Drinks in Autumn】Enjoying drinks on the balcony with KALDI's Korean ingredients

You can create a proper evening drink just by increasing the number of dishes without making elaborate meals. Using three ingredients from KALDI (fried chicken, chijimi, and choregi salad), I reevaluated how to spend weekday nights through evening drinks on the balcony.

What should I do to enjoy an evening drink on a long autumn night?

Each day, the nights are getting earlier, and the time spent at home is increasing. Even if I don't have the energy to make elaborate dishes, I want to spend an evening where I can satisfy my desire of "I want to enjoy my evening drink today." With that feeling in mind, I took a chair out onto the balcony, a can of beer in one hand, and sat down in front of a table with three dishes laid out. I haven’t made any special preparations, but could this turn into a slightly more considerate night than usual?

Three dishes realized with KALDI constraints

After a tiring day at work, eating out feels bland, and just having one dish at home can also lack flavor. On such a night of tiredness, I decided to try the option of "increasing the variety of dishes at home." Even on days when I lack the stamina for complicated cooking, I believe that the satisfaction of the dining table can change depending on the combinations.

Until now, on such evenings, I would typically buy an extra side dish, but that doesn't quite fulfill the satisfaction of an evening drink. Even though I understand that increasing the number of dishes enhances satisfaction, on a weekday night, there isn’t much spare energy to act on that.

So, I stopped by the nearby KALDI and chose three types of ingredients that seemed easy to prepare. Fried chicken using just chicken thigh, pancakes made by dissolving flour in water, and a salad that just requires mixing. Each step is simple, but with three dishes lined up, the overall appearance of the table seems completely different.

The time spent shopping was no different from usual, and yet the variety on the dining table definitely increased. At this point, I felt a sense of “I think I can make it today.”

KALDI's fried chicken, chijimi, and salad

Mobbang Authentic Korean Crunchy Chicken Powder

Product name / Mobbang Authentic Korean Crunchy Chicken Powder (Fried Chicken Flour) 170g
Price / 235 yen
Contents / 170g
Ingredients / Wheat flour, starch, seasoning (wheat flour, starch, salt, corn grits, others), rice flour, corn grits, peanut powder, salt / Stabilizer (modified starch), seasoning (amino acids, etc.), pH regulator, sodium pyrophosphate, spice extract, paprika color (contains wheat and peanuts)

First, starting with the fried chicken. After seasoning the chicken thighs with salt and pepper, I coated them with a mixture of water and powder, and simply fried them in oil at 180°C for 5 minutes.

I served them at the table without any sauce, just as they were fried. The frying time was exactly 5 minutes as indicated. No special tricks were used.

So easy that it doesn't need any explanation. Even so, the crunchy texture of the coating is well-presented, and because it is simple, the flavor of the chicken thigh itself comes through clearly.

Potato pancake flour

Product name / Potato pancake flour
Price / 375 yen
Content / 200g (for 4 servings)
Ingredients / Potato starch, potato powder, wheat flour, salt (contains some wheat)

Making the pancake requires nothing more than adding water to the flour, spreading it thinly in the frying pan, and cooking it, making it even more of a food that doesn't need further explanation. It was a surprising harvest that I could focus so much on the heat that the crispy outside and the chewy inside had a distinct texture difference.

I only reduced the heat once during cooking to prevent it from burning, and aside from that, I didn't particularly intervene. It really is just cooking, so the only thing I need to think about is the precision of the finished product.

Salad's Umami Sauce

Product Name / Salad's Umami Sauce 290ml
Price / 483 yen
Content / 290ml
Product Size / 180×65 (bottom diameter) mm

Choregi salad is simply torn lettuce, cucumber, and seaweed mixed with dressing. This dish adds a refreshing touch to the table, which tends to lean towards fried and starchy foods. Looking back at the steps for each of the three dishes, all can be completed with simple actions of "cutting, frying, grilling, and mixing," making it feasible even on a weekday night.

Enjoying a drink on the balcony, KALDI's three dishes change the weekday evening dining experience

Setting the three dishes on the balcony and savoring the first sip of beer. Without doing anything special, there was a sense of fulfillment that "I had a proper drink tonight." Just by increasing the number of dishes, I've honestly discovered how much the impression of a night of similar fatigue can change this way.

Spending a few minutes in the autumn night breeze was more relaxing than days when I spent time cooking, and it turned into a time that felt effortless yet not lacking. Snacking on chicken, nibbling on chijimi, and resetting with salad in between. Just that repetition allowed me to linger over drinks longer than usual, I think the variety of dishes had an effect on that. I realized that even if I stop being elaborate, I can still create a “proper night” depending on how I combine things.

You can create a proper night without being elaborate

On days when I'm tired, I tend to compromise with just one dish. However, the option to increase the number of dishes can be incorporated more casually than I thought. The process itself of “frying, grilling, or mixing” is all simple and can be handled effortlessly on a weekday night. The next time I feel, “I don’t have the energy to cook today,” it might be a good idea to line up a few easy dishes instead of one elaborate one.

Interview & text / SYURI

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