This page is outdated. You are being sent to the CURRENT ZenKimchi Korean Food Journal. Please be patient.

Firefox works best here.

I love food. During my time in Korea, I have been collecting recipes and anecdotes about Korean food. I also have been working on survival techniques for westerners living in Korea.

In this journal are recipes for cooking Korean food in Korea or abroad and recipes for recreating western food with Korean ingredients.

But mostly, it's about enjoying life.

SUBJECT KEY
Christmas Chronicles - Trying to celebrate Christmas in Korea
Drink - Imbibe me
Event - Special events involving special Korean foods
FFF (Food for Foreigners) - Recipes for foreigners living in Korea
FP (Food Porn) - Pictures for stimulation
Fusion - A mixture -- or clash -- of cultures
Junk - Junk food
KFC (Korean Food Concept) - A blog entry explaining a type of Korean food
Kimchi - Something about kimchi
KR (Korean Recipe) - A recipe for Korean food, duh!
Miscellaneous - Stuff, stuff, and stuff
News - Korean food in the news
Out There - What others are saying
Rest (Restaurant) - An entry about a restaurant in Korea
Street Food - An entry about a street food concept or adventure
Tip - A survival tip for living or visiting Korea
Video - A summary of a video on the site
WTF - A feature on anything unusual that has to be investigated further

Sunday, February 26, 2006

(KR #5) ChangGukJang - Ultimate Stinky Ass Soup

One of my favorite aspects of Korean cuisine is the stinky soybean pastes and soups, including Daenjang Jjigae, Ssamjang, and ChangGukJang. I had been wanting to figure out how to make this at home for a long time. I recently purchased some Korean cookbooks and thought I'd take the task of making a stinky soup. Besides, I finally had made my dashi.

Earlier in the week at the store, I had found this package of extra stinky soybean paste in what looked like a yogurt container. The cashier laughed when she rang it up and showed it to her fellow cashier, saying what I'm sure was, "Look what this crazy foreigner is buying."

This is a blurry picture of what the inside looks like.

Since I finally was going to make this soup, I made it special by cooking it directly in the bowl -- another cool whacky Korean idea. I put some dashi in the bowl and set it on medium flame.

I then added some chopped onions.

When it started to boil, I added some kimchi.

Then maybe three tablespoons of ChangGukJang paste. If you can't find this stinky stuff, I'm sure you can do the same thing with Korean soybean paste (Daenjang) or even miso paste. Yet miso is too bland, in my opinion.

After smoothly boiling it for a while, I finished it off with some mushrooms, chopped green onion, and tofu. You can add salt to taste, but the ChangGukJang paste and kimchi add a lot of salt to the soup already.

I carefully placed the boiling soup bowl on my commemorative "Dokdo is Ours" towel on a tray. This soup/stew is so strong, you need a bowl of rice to balance it. It's funny because it has no meat in it (unless you count the anchovy essence in the dashi) yet it tastes like a meaty soup, like a chili or cheese soup. I am far from being a vegetarian, yet it feels wholesome to not need a greasy slab of flesh with every meal.

ADDENDUM: I told my girlfriend about my soup. She suggested to also add a dab of gochujang (red pepper paste), and throw in some thinly sliced hot peppers and garlic at the end.

Labels: Korean Recipe

...................................................

(KR #4) Dashi - Basic Kelp Stock

Many times I have asked my girlfriend how to make a certain Korean food. Most of the time she replied, "First you need dashi."

"Dashi?"

"It's seaweed with water and..."

"A soup stock?"

"I guess."

So that's why she has kept large leaves of seaweed and dried anchovies in my freezer for the past year.

I consulted with her and the internet on how to make this stock. I knew it would be a weekend project. It turns out that dashi is a Japanese word for kelp stock. I don't know if there's a Korean word for it, but the Korean on the seaweed package said "dashi."

I experimented by taking the advice from others and adding traditional Western touches to see what would turn out.

1. I toasted some dried anchovies and large kelp slowly in a pan. This large kelp I have seen at Asian markets back in the U.S., along with dried anchovies. I hear dried sardines also can work.

2. I then added water and some coarsely chopped onions and garlic. Now this is where it strays from Western stock-making techniques (real chefs, correct me on this). Don't boil the stock. Boiling turns the kelp into slime. It has to heat slowly. So I waited.

And waited.

I was dreading a nasty fishy smell to take over the apartment, so I vented. Instead the stock made the apartment smell like the beach. The wait wasn't so bad because it was also its own potpourri.

3. The protein from the anchovies and kelp made foam on top, so I skimmed it off.

4. When the kelp started to float to the surface, it was time to take it out.

5. I then strained the stock.

6. And I really overdid it. I have way too much, I think. I froze some in containers and made ice cubes out of the rest.

Labels: Korean Recipe

...................................................

Saturday, February 25, 2006

(Out There #1) The Black Table's Take on Kalbi in New York

I was looking around for something I forget about when I came across this blog entry about Korean BBQ in NYC. Looking at the pictures and reading the descriptions, it's amazing how Korean food is non-negotiable when moving to other countries (unlike Chinese food). The only differences I saw was that beef was more common, because of price and tastes, I assume. And coarse salt was a condiment, which I only see for samgyeopsal in Korea.

Really, this article describes the primitive emotions in eating Korean BBQ. Another thing that pleased me was that the author was introduced to Korean food through Japanese friends, "who spoke of Korean barbecue with a kind of animal yearning, as thought it wasn't simply food to be eaten, but a condition one must aspire to, a gift to be coveted, then ravished."

My impression of the tense historical relationship between Japan and Korea was that the Japanese looked on Koreans with disdain as backward country folk with no redeeming qualities. There's even a graphic novel that's currently popular in Japan that racially degrades Koreans and Japanese.

WAY OFF TOPIC
Honestly, I think that's why I prefer Korean food over Japanese food (even though I really like Japanese food). Koreans' history of dealing with poverty and famine has created a unique rustic and honest cuisine that is very different from Japanese cuisine. It's like comparing Parisian cuisine to the staples of Provence. I prefer the peasant food of Provence.

That aside, this article captures the spirit of Korean BBQ in America and gives me comfort in the thought that my fellow countrymen can embrace kimchi and the art and danger of grilling food at your table.

MUK JA! A CHON-NOM'S GUIDE TO KOREAN BARBECUE

Labels: Out There

...................................................

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

(Fusion #1) Krispy Kreme -- How Sweet It Is

This is when I get the nastiest and most un-PC about Koreans' approach to food. It's when they mimic Western food for the Korean palate. Everything -- everything -- is sweetened.

At any bakery in Korea, the only non-sweet bread is the stale baguette in the corner. Even the garlic bread is sweetened. Almost all pizzas are served with sweet corn or sweet potatoes along with a side of sweet pickles. The sweet pickles come with almost every sit down Western meal, whether it be Outback, TGI Friday's, or a local fancy steakhouse. Sandwiches have to have some sweet fruit sauce, honey mustard, and sometimes -- gasp -- strawberries. All mustard is honey mustard. Sweet ketchup is considered an elegant exotic sauce, which is thrown on the oddest things. Steaks come smothered in a sweet brown sauce, as do hot dogs. Even the scant Mexican food I find tastes like a cup of sugar was thrown in the sauce.

Dunkin' Donuts is one of the most successful foreign fast food chains in Korea. On casual glance, it looks far more successful than McDonald's. Yet when I first came to Korea, I saw there were no Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

If you didn't know already, Krispy Kremes are light airy and extremely sweet doughnuts. The company was born in the South 1937 and pretty much stayed there until the late 1990s. It started expanding and went public. It was the darling of Wall Street for a while.

When I lived in Rochester, New York, a Krispy Kreme opened near my house, and cars were wrapped two-fold around the drive-thru for two weeks and was the talk of the office.

Actually, Krispy Kremes are a bit too sweet for my taste. I didn't like them as a kid. When I discovered that I could order a fresh hot doughnut whenever the "Hot Doughnuts Now" sign was turned on, I gained a new appreciation for them. Krispy Kremes don't age gracefully. They are best hot and fresh off the conveyor belt. After half a day, they start getting gooey and sticky. By two days, they're practically inedible.

Realizing Koreans' penchant for sweetened Western food, I consistently said, "The first ajossi to open a Krispy Kreme in Korea is going to be a very rich man."

My prophecy is coming true.

Not only one but six stores have opened thus far. Eun Jeong and I were in the vicinity of the Sinchon store in Lotte Department store. I think it's the flagship outlet. I thought I'd go grab some doughnuts for nostalgia's sake.

Eun Jeong laughed when I said I could smell them from the other side of the department store. When we got there, we saw this.

Eun Jeong, who works as a tour guide in Seoul, said that it has been like this every day she has seen it. This line was pretty far outside the store. I changed my mind about getting a doughnut. Yet Eun Jeong wanted a coffee and stood in line. Yeah, we could have gone for coffee somewhere else, but we had made the journey this far, she didn't want to give up.

So we waited.

And waited.

And we got a guy to take our picture while in line.

The line, despite being long, went through quickly. It passes in front of the doughnut making machinery, giving some entertainment. Near the front of the line, a girl was handing out free samples of hot doughnuts.

We got a dozen doughnuts and some coffees. Eun Jeong could eat only one. I only two. I packed the rest in a zip top bag and took them to work. The Canadians I work with had never tried them before and were hooked, as were the Koreans.

It was one of the few times I was right about something. Krispy Kreme in Korea is making someone very rich.

Labels: Fusion

...................................................

Saturday, February 18, 2006

(FFF #11) Mandu Chips

I don't know about you, but one of the things I like about Chinese food in America is the crispy thingies they tend to serve, usually with hot and sour soup. Really, they're just deep fried egg roll wrapper strips.

But, damn, they're tasty.

Chinese food in Korea doesn't come with these, unless, perhaps, you go to a restaurant with an American-Chinese theme. These do exist in Korea and are pretty good.

According to my Korean girlfriend, Koreans don't like fried spring rolls like we do in America.

"Too greasy."

Yet anyone who has experienced Korea knows the wonderful dumpling known as mandu, the potsticker with the unfortunate porn-sounding name (think about it -- and try not to think about it).

Usually mandu is served steamed or pan fried. Sometimes I can get it deep fried, usually with Chinese food.

Really, mandu should take up its own separate entry, particularly the glorious kimchi mandu.

Even though spring roll wrappers are hard to find, mandu wrappers are everywhere.

This little snack is great because it's cheap and easy to make. It takes no time at all. First, I open a package of mandu wrappers and cut them in halves or in strips.

I then heat some oil in a wok to medium or medium high. When deep frying, only fill the wok half full or a little less than half full. It also is good to have a fry screen to place over the wok to avoid oil splattering all over the place. The fry screens are cheap and can be found most anywhere.

Place each piece of mandu wrapper individually in the oil and fry until they get poofy. It takes almost no time at all. When they start turning color, take them out of the wok and have them drain in something like a collander. They brown even more as they sit.

Now, Emeril will tell you to immediately salt the strips. I say wait a bit until all the batches are done. The salt accumulates and can ruin everything.

I just store the chips in a large zip top bag after they're cooled and snack on them with a beer while reading other food blog sites. Or I do the ultimate blasphemy and crumble them over my kimchi jjigae.

Labels: Food for Foreigners

...................................................

Sunday, February 12, 2006

(FFF #10) Creole Oyster Stew

We are heading to the end of oyster season. Oysters are one of my favorite foods in the world. My family is from Mobile, Alabama, on the northern Gulf coast, near New Orleans, Pensacola, and Biloxi. I had my first raw oyster at the age of four during a Christmas family reunion. Oysters hold a special prominence in my family. I remember when we had annual family reunions that it was a rite of passage, a sort of fraternal hierarchy, over who would shuck the oysters for the family reunion.

I later learned this art professionally when I became a cook/barback/waiter/bouncer at a redneck oyster house in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, during my college years. One of my main duties was to shuck and prepare oysters for raw oysters in the half shell platters. Oysters are some of the riskiest foods you can eat raw, and we had a method of inspecting each oyster before serving it to a patron -- we smelled them.

Yes, that was what we were told to do.

After shucking each oyster, I held it to my nose. If it didn't smell like raw sewage, I let it go onto the platter. Only once or twice did I come across a questionable one.

One of my uncles has eaten a bad oyster. He told me it was something he wouldn't forget. I, luckily, have been, uh, lucky.

Oysters are such a glorious food. Read Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential about his first encounter with a fresh oyster plucked out of the water when he was a child, the forbidden sensuality of the experience, to connect with the glories of slurping a raw oyster, with the love of food itself, that infects gastronomic sensualists like Tony, me, and very likely yourself.

I grew up around oysters. I thought I knew them pretty well. Then I tried them in Korea.

It is blasphemous, but Korean oysters are much better than the ones from home. They are smaller, but they are brinier, saltier, than the ones from Apalacicola. This is a curse and a blessing -- mostly a blessing.

They are great as a side dish with Korean food and are purely sinful when included in kimchi.

The downside is when I try to cook them with traditional Creole recipes from my boyhood. Up until now, all of my oyster dishes have come out too salty to handle. Oh, how I wish there was a traditional Mobile Bay oyster bar in Korea.

The other great thing about oysters in Korea is that they're cheap and plentiful, especially in the winter months. Before the oyster season went out, I wanted to have another go at making one of my all-time favorites, oyster stew.

Oyster stew is simple. It's essentially a cream soup with oysters in it. Yet there are some subtleties.

In Korea, oysters are sold in plastic "chubs" (industry term, I think), or cylindrical plastic bags. The water that the oysters are packed in is called the "liquor."

In my latest recipe, I opened one chub of oysters and had them sitting in a bowl with their liquor. I melted a stick of butter (yes, a whole stick), and slowly softened a finely diced onion with four crushed cloves of garlic.

When they were softened, I added some black pepper and around a tablespoon of flour. This created a roux to thicken the stew.

When it was all mixed together, I threw in maybe half to three quarters a quart of milk into the mix and turned up the heat to medium high. Stirring constantly, I let the cream soup mixture heat up to a mild boil.

Turning down the heat, I used a slotted spoon to remove the oysters from their liquor and added them to the soup.

I then added the liquor, a little at a time to add saltiness. I tasted it each time I added, to make sure it didn't get too salty. If you add all the liquor, and it's not salty enough, of course, add some salt. Next came some chopped green onions.

I then topped it off with some optional hot sauce and a little cajun seasoning and let it simmer a bit longer.

That was it. And for the first time, it turned out perfectly. I only wish I had gotten a baguette to go with it.

Oh, and if you want to make a fancier oyster bisque, throw it in the blender.

Labels: Food for Foreigners

...................................................

(KFC #8) Kalbi Jjim -- Oh Little Ribs, How Did I Get Along Without You?

I had never ordered Kalbi Jjim before. I guess because it tends to be served at kalbi places. And when we eat at kalbi places, we choose to eat the kind fired over charcoal.

But I had to try this one, simply because it was one of the obvious main Korean dishes that I hadn't had.

I convinced Eun Jeong, who was more in the mood for seafood stew, to humor me and go out for kalbi jjim at Nolboo, a chain of Korean kalbi houses.

I am so glad I tried this, and I am craving more. It's ribs, not the butterflied rib meat served for charcoal kalbi. It's ribs on the bone. They're smothered in gochujang, vegetables, and seasoning and served steaming hot.

Unlike the other kalbi, there's no assembly. Just dig in with your hands and eat. It's a very simple looking dish.

The taste is a little smoky and very saucy. This is the closest I've gotten to BBQ from back home in Korea. As soon as I can get a recipe, I'm posting it.

And Eun Jeong agreed that it was better than seafood stew.

Labels: Korean Food Concept

...................................................

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Chakraa Valentine's Promotion -- Don't Worry About Dress

A while back, September 2004, I went with a few people to an Indian restaurant in Itaewon named Chakraa. They had a good buffet deal going, and the food was better than the Indian restaurants I knew in Jacksonville, Florida, and Atlanta. So I added myself to their email list. Every now and then, they email these promotions that have some strange catch to them. Check this one out:

"Best Couple will be presented with Indian clothes."

Honestly, that's one of those strange promotions that would attract freaks like me. But "Best Couple" at what, do they mean?

Labels: Miscellaneous

...................................................

Monday, February 06, 2006

(FFF #9) Sloppy Gooey Hot Tuna Melt

One of the hardest parts about cooking for yourself is deciding what to cook. I don't know about you, but my biggest obstacle is that I'm always trying to think of something complex with multiple courses. I ignore the simple pleasures.

Like a good, cozy tuna melt sandwich.

Yet this is Korea. How can I make it unique?

Canned tuna is popular in Korea. People buy gift sets of canned tuna to give during holidays. Canners respond to the popularity and competition by making new flavors of tuna. One that I have grown fond of is a hot pepper tuna. And this is what I use in my tuna salad.

So, here is where my constantly developing tuna salad recipe currently stands. I combine two cans of hot pepper tuna with, half a finely diced onion, finely diced sweet pickles, a few finely diced olives, some lemon juice, and enough mayonnaise to hold it all together. I then chill it in the fridge to let the flavors come together.

I like my grilled sandwiches to be toasted on the inside and outside, so there's a strategy to this that I learned when I cooked at a place that specialized in double-decker grilled cheese sandwiches. First, have some slices of cheese on the ready. Processed is fine. I have been using that coveted cheddar and sharp cheddar I recently found at E-Mart. Also have four pats of butter ready to go, along with two slices of bread.

I heat up the skillet on medium heat and put a pat of butter on bread slice #1. I place #1 butter side down and move it around to evenly melt the butter around the bread. While it's grilling, I put a pat of butter on the exposed side of #1. When the bottom is toasty, I flip it over and quickly add slice #2, butter side down. On the toasted upper side of #1, I place the cheese and tuna mixture on top to start heating and melting.

Here's the part that requires skill. When #2 is toasted on one side, I place the toasted side on top of the tuna and cheese with the untoasted side exposed. I now have a sandwich that is 3/4 toasted. I place the final pat of butter on the untoasted side and carefully flip it over.

When the whole sandwich is toasted, I place it on a cutting board and cut it diagonally. This sandwich goes great with any kind of soup -- especially a Korean soup.

Labels: Food for Foreigners

...................................................

ZenKimchi Exclusive!

The ZenKimchi 식 Ruffians is a group dedicated to finding the sublime meal in Korea. "식" (Sik) is the Korean word for "cuisine." "Ruffians" is the term used for fans and followers of Anthony Bourdain's philosophy of experiencing the most a culture has to offer through its food.
Sign up now to join us on the next outing.
Note: Most all events right now will be in the Seoul area.

UPCOMING EVENTS
Sign up to get invites to new events
2/24 Joe's Birthday at Hooters
--PAST EVENTS--
Hockey and Dong Dong Ju
Foreigner Chuseok
Sh-wing in July