**For the beef, buy the type that’s sliced for hotpot, sukiyaki or shabu shabu. It’s hard for a home cook to slice the beef that thin.

**For quick Japanese cucumber pickles With certain pickles (kimchi, for instance), you sprinkle the vegetable with salt, let the ingredients stand for several hours, so the salt draws out the moisture, then rinse off the excess salt. With this pickle, you add precisely the right amount of salt, then press the ingredients, to squeeze out the juices. I was never sure what “precisely the right amount” was until I found the formula on The Japanese Kitchen blog (thejapanesekitchen.com): it says to weigh the vegetable, then multiply the weight by 0.035 – that’s the amount of salt you need.

The pickle will be ready to eat in about 30 minutes, but it keeps in the fridge for about a week.

3 or 4 slender Japanese, Korean or Chinese cucumbers Fine sea salt A piece of kombu that’s about 3.5cm x 1.5cm

Put the kombu in a shallow bowl and add just enough warm water to cover it. Leave for 10 minutes or until pliable, then cut it into fine shreds with kitchen scissors.

Trim off and discard the ends of the cucumbers, then slice them about 8mm thick. Weigh the cucumbers on a digital scale, multiply the weight by 0.035 then add the correct amount of salt. Thoroughly combine the cucumber, salt and kombu. Put the ingredients in a bowl, top with another, slightly smaller, bowl and add a weight (such as a can of tomatoes) to press the second bowl down gently. Leave for 30 minutes before using. Any pickle that isn’t consumed immediately can be stored in a container in the fridge.