hello hi everyone!Today we’ll finally be answering the age old question of “what kind of astronaut food do you eat with chopsticks?” with some inspiration from Daniel Dae Kim’s astronaut meal in “Stowaway,” which looks to be a Korean banchan dish called gamja jorim.

Now, for those not familiar, “banchan” broadly refers to the dozen or so side dishes that you get with your meal when you eat at korean BBQ restaurants. It can include a wide variety of dishes including things like kimchi, daikon, japchae glass noodles, bean sprouts, mung beans, and more, and in fact if you find yourself at a REALLY good korean BBQ spot, often times these “banchan” side dishes can end up being the highlight of the meal. One of my personal favorite banchan dishes is gamja jorim, which is a potato that is seared and then braised in a sweet and savory honey glaze. It’s high in protein and nutrition, it’s reasonably pantry stable (in an astronaut bag at least), athe stream herend most importantly, it’s cooked in a braise, so it would reheat well. So just making a small leap here, I’m gonna guess this is what he was eating. Hope you try it.

Bookmark the recipe here, bookmark the stream here, and pick up the ingredients below if you want to follow along and cook dinner with me.

INGREDIENTS

• 4 cloves garlic

• 1 inch (about 1 tbsp) ginger

• 8-10 Yukon Gold potatoes

• sesame seeds

• peanut oil

• 1/2 cup water

INGREDIENTS (sauce)

• 4 tbsp soy sauce

• 1 tbsp sesame oil

• 1 tbsp dark soy sauce

• 1 tbsp black vinegar

• 1 tbsp dry sake

• 1 tbsp fish sauce

INGREDIENTS (glaze)

• 2 tbsp honey

• 2 tbsp maple syrup