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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

Monday, October 30, 2006

(KR #10) Stir-fried Chile Leaves

I came home from work one day last week to see a package in styrofoam and cellophane (the usual way to pack things in the produce section) that said "Chile Pepper Leaves" in Korean. These were dried and looked like dried sage.

I didn't know you could eat the leaves. Then again, why not?

The next day, Eun Jeong soaked the leaves in water. This took around two days, and she changed the water whenever it got dark and cloudy.

To cook, she first made a sauce of pounded garlic, soy sauce, sesame seeds, and sesame oil in a mortar with a pinch of sugar.

She drained the chile leaves and stir-fried them in oil over high heat, adding the sauce last, cooking it through. Garnish with finely chopped green Korean chiles.

The taste was surprising. Eun Jeong didn't expect me to like them, but I was impressed. The garlic makes the dish, and the leaves themselves taste herby -- like lavender and sage. They're even better chilled the next day.

This dish is obviously considered a winter food. I can imagine a harsh winter when the food was running low and someone got the idea to cook the leaves from the dead chile plants in the garden.

So, I guess you can try this at home by taking the leaves off those chile plants in your garden and drying them like herbs.

Labels: Korean Recipe

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Saturday, October 28, 2006

(FFF #22) German Bier und Wurst

I'm always working on solutions for leftover beer. Remember that scene in Father of the Bride when Steve Martin's character states his conspiracy theory that the hot dog makers and the hot dog bun makers got together and planned to make two more hot dog buns per package than hot dogs?

I feel the same way about Korean beer bottlers.

I'm a glutton, and I'm cheap. So I buy my beer in bulk. In Korea, we have what's known as the "pitcher." It's a good mammoth sized plastic bottle of beer. This is a good and convenient thing if you like to enjoy beer out of a glass. Yet each pitcher fills a few glasses and then has a tiny bit left over. By the time I get around to pouring that last bit, the beer has already gone flat.

I used to work for a brew pub, and the head chef there turned me on to the idea of using leftover alcohol in food. This guy was classic, and I wish I kept in touch with him. The job itself was a dream job for a college student. Until the owners installed security cameras, we'd just hang out in the bar after hours and drink the taps dry. These were taps linked directly to the fresh beer vats made by our master brewer. I even pulled a Homer Simpson and drank stout straight from the tap.

Anyway, Brian would hang out with us, and when we'd go out to his place, he'd just throw crap together and make the most wonderful stuff out of nothing -- and leftover beer.

Today, I felt like cooking some of those E-Mart sausages that maryeats and I love so much. I boiled the sausages in the last of a pitcher of old beer with some water to cover the rest. I then sliced the sausages and pan fried them with onions and peppers.

I then put a little of the beer water from boiling the sausage into a bowl and stirred it with some potato starch (you can find this stuff easily in Korea) to make a slurry. The rest of the beer water I poured into the frying pan after the sausage and onions formed a nice crust. Added some salt and pepper.

I turned up the heat and reduced the beer water by half and added the beer water-starch slurry.

Sounds appetizing, huh?

Actually, it makes a great sauce. It's basically an old German Bier und Bratwurst recipe.

I ate it with some kimchi, which always goes well with German food.

Labels: Food for Foreigners

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(FFF #21) Honest to Goodness Popcorn

Stop right there!

Yeah, yeah, I know you can pop popcorn in a microwave. But you know what? Microwave popcorn SUCKS!

Got that?

IT SUCKS!

I have great memories of popcorn, and they were all destroyed by wax coated bags burning under radioactive waves. Go to any office breakroom, and you know the smell -- that nasty burnt rubber smell of blackened popcorn that lingers longer than your tech contract job.

No, let's go back to the old memories. My oldest memory of popcorn was an old '70s contraption that was a hot plate and a yellow plastic dome. My parents were, um, frugal. They made their own popcorn before going to the drive-in movie.

Yeah, I'm talkin' drive-in movies. Even my younger siblings never had the pleasure of watching a movie FROM A CAR!

But, hey, I was two years old, and I couldn't follow the plot to Emmanuel II as well as I can now.

I also remember the popcorn from the old fashioned bedpan style popcorn popper at my grandparents' house. It was a special treat around Christmas time to pop popcorn in a fireplace. It was like we were allowed to do something forbidden. They got angry when I threw newspaper in there to watch it flame up (a nasty habit that developed into an unhealthy pyromania kick in the early teenage years). Yet I was allowed to take down the fireplace barrier and shake a pan on a stick in the fireplace -- and make food!

My dad, at one time, tried his hand at making popcorn on the stovetop by using just a frying pan and oil. The result was the loss of use of his right hand for two months due to burn therapy. Traumatized my little sister, too.

Fortunately, Alton Brown has demonstrated how to do this safely at home on the stovetop. And likely, those of you in Korea already have all the instruments necessary.

It's easy.

If you go to your local corner Ajossi Mart, you may notice a bag of real unadulterated popcorn next to the microwavable bags. This popcorn usually has a picture of Donald Duck™ on the bag.

At home, get a stainless steel bowl. Put in around a tablespoon of oil with a handful of popcorn and some fine salt. Cover the bowl with aluminum foil and punch holes in it.

Then shake it on the stove with tongs over medium heat, and it's magic.

Just as with the microwave stuff, take it off the heat when the pops start slowing down. The batch I made above got a little burnt. Yet unlike the microwave stuff, it still tasted good.

Alton says he's a purist. Just salt.

Me? Hell, you know I ain't a purist. Not only did I put butter in my popcorn, I used ghee (clarified butter) from the Pakistani International Grocery Store in Itaewon.

Oooh... baby...

Labels: Food for Foreigners

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Sunday, October 22, 2006

(WTF #3) Lotteria's Rice-Vegetable Burger

You're not seeing things. This is a real hamburger. It's Lotteria's new promotion.

In a way, it makes sense. Many Koreans I know have trouble going through a meal without rice. And how much rice is in your average burger and fries combo meal?

So why not replace the bun with some pressed sticky rice? Add some vegetables to make it seem healthy, and you have the new Rice-Vegetable Burger.

Lotteria is introducing this concept on two of their burgers, the bulgogi and the kimchi burgers. I stopped by and got the bulgogi one the other day.

I wondered if there was some type of post-modern industrial technique to make the rice stick together like bread. I don't think rice has the powerful glutens bread does.

As I suspected, there was not special magic technique. The rice "bun" was just pressed rice. It promptly disintegrated after my first bite, and Lotteria didn't supply a fork to finish what was quickly becoming bulgogi burger bibimbap.

I've said it before. Korean fast food corporations sometimes hit the mark with their strange ideas. But we have to go through some rice-vegetable burgers along the way.

Labels: WTF

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Tuesday, October 10, 2006

(FFF #20) Fried Chicken MegaSalad (and I Feel Fine)

I got the news about North Korea from the Marmot's Hole very early. Sort of not surprised. A little worried. But before I came to Korea and since then, I have given much thought to the possibility of the impossibility. I've had a good time to think about it, so I'm not shocked completely.

Nonetheless, I decided to make some comfort food. A Fried Chicken Salad.

This came about when I worked as a cook for Yucatan Sam's, a little Tex-Mex place in Fairhope, Alabama, that no longer exists. The owner's wife regularly asked for this fried chicken salad we had on the menu for lunch. I wondered why anyone would eat a salad for a meal. And why would anyone ruin the positive effects of a salad by putting fried chicken in it?

I had gone through and eaten most everything on the menu after a few months. I had even started experimenting with new recipes to add to the menu. So I decided to make the fried chicken salad for myself.

It ended up being one of my favorite things on the menu. And it's something you can make easily in Korea.

WHAT YOU NEED

Lettuce
Grab whatever fresh greens you like from the lettuce counter at the store. Make sure you clean them, though. One of the things I like about Korean grocery stores is how au naturel produce is. Carrots come with mud caked on them, as do ginger roots. They haven't been over processed. They've basically have gone from the dirt to the produce aisle. So wash the lettuce and other veggies you want to add.

Onion
Just a single white onion. I like to shave it thin in my slicer using a fork stuck at the very end to protect my hand from the razor blade.

Fried Chicken
I like to make this when I have leftover fried chicken in the house. Other times, I just buy a bag of frozen chicken nuggets. I fry them in some oil and drain them for the salad. Throw some seasoning on them when they come out of the oil. Whatever you feel like adding (cinnamon not suggested, though).

Croutons
Don't buy the bagged toasted garlic baguettes at the Korean bakery. I made the mistake during Foreigner Chuseok and came out with sugary garlic croutons. Nasty on salad. It's best to make your own.

Cut up some bread you have around the house. A baguette is perfect. Fry the cubes with some butter and chopped garlic until the bread has absorbed it all. Then put it in the toaster oven until they turn out like croutons.

Assembly
Throw everything together in a big bowl and top it off with some cheese, if you have any. I usually use honey mustard as a dressing because that's how we did it at Yucatan's.

So, if it's the end of the world as we know it, I'm just gonna sit down with my Fried Chicken Salad and watch The Colbert Report.

I feel fine.

Labels: Food for Foreigners

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Sunday, October 08, 2006

(Event #5) The Great Food Blog Summit

From left: Shauna, Mary (mary eats), Gdog (The Daily Kimchi), Devante, me, Cat (SeoulLife.net), David, Colin
(Photography by Kevin; courtesy of mary eats)

As far as my intelligence reports, there are currently three Korean food bloggers in Korea. Currently. This was a historic occasion, getting all of us into the same room.

It started, as many of my endeavors, with me being very, very naughty. Colin had been talking about us getting together in Anyang for drinks during Chuseok week. Then Eun Jeong mentioned she was going to her mom's house in Gyeongju for the holiday. Since she was leaving, I thought I'd have a little get together and hope she wouldn't find out. Mary, from mary eats, had suggested we have something like this at some time.

You see, Eun Jeong is not anti-social. She just has been worried about people seeing our apartment while it is still in a semi-moved in state. Until this week, we still had boxes in our living room because we didn't have containers to put everything in. Now we do.

Yet I can't hide anything from Eun Jeong. When she said she may stay here during Chuseok, I told her about the get together. She said it was okay. She was cool with it.

I intentionally did not call this a party because I didn't want the pressure of having a party. It was an informal 'get together.' Nonetheless, I had to get some food. And since it looked like all the Korean food bloggers and Cat from SeoulLife were showing up, I couldn't get away with chips and dried squid. Besides, I had the oven.

On Thursday, Eun Jeong and I put our heads together to figure what we could cook. Just in case I couldn't make enough, I put the call out to everyone to bring drinks and possibly food. I decided to use the duck I had gotten from a new local butcher.

Funny story about the duck. Despite being in Asia, within miles of the home of Beijing Duck, duck meat itself is hard to find in my area. So a new butcher opened that had opening specials for 2,000 won whole chickens and 7,500 whole ducks.

I stopped by there on the way back from work. I asked if he had some duck.

He said he had some chicken and showed me the chicken. I asked if he was out of duck. He said he had some duck and pulled out a cellophane wrapped pack of dissected duckmeat.

I guessed it was better than nothing, so I asked for a chicken and a duck. He took the chicken to his cutting board and readied his knife. I stopped him.

"NO! I don't want it cut up. I want to roast it in my oven."

This seemed to confuse him.

"You don't want it cut up?" [NOTE: I'm loosely transcribing what he said, what I think he said, and what I think his face said] "What kind of person doesn't want his chicken cut up?"

I pointed to the whole chicken and made hand gestures, asking if he had a whole unprocessed duck. He went into the cooler and came out with a beautiful duck.

And then he put it on the chopping block and began to cut it.

ARRGH!!!

He basically stripped the skin and fat off the neck, butterflied it, and removed the giblets (kinda wish he hadn't). I walked up next to him and stopped him before he went any further.

"It's okay. Really, it is. All done. I want to buy it now. How much is it?"

"The duck is 7,500 won."

"Great. I want the chicken too."

"This chicken?"

"Yes."

He took the chicken I stopped him from mutilating before and started hacking at its wings. I stopped him in mid motion before cleaving the breastbone in two.

"Please, I don't want it cut!"

"Not even in half?"

"I want to roast it... um, French style."

"French style?"

He gave a dismissive look.

So I had a duck, and Eun Jeong didn't think she and I alone could eat a whole duck. So that took care of one part of the party.

I also experimented with a bread called Pain a l'Ancienne. It's a fairly new technique from France that uses ice water and refrigeration to help the bread develop flavoring enzymes and bacteria before the yeast wakes up. So this may have been the first time this bread has been made in Korea. I got it from The Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart of Johnson & Wales.

I started it the evening before, and everything went well until the baking. I had to throw out half the bread, and the ones that did survive looked more like bread sticks than loaves. Nonetheless, they tasted fine and had a great crispy texture.

I made a Caesar salad with homemade dressing. It wasn't because I'm Mr. DIY. It was because I couldn't find Caesar dressing at E-Mart.

I threw together a rustic onion tart using some of my leftover frozen croissant dough I had made last month (which had turned out to be much better pie crust dough than croissant dough).

Lastly, I made a big batch of mashed potatoes using Old Bay seasoning, some vinegar, and a whole stick of butter.

Some items that I had planned to make but didn't make it to the table: a balsamic tomato salad, Cock of the Walk style pickled onions, E-Mart variety sausages (I remembered that Mary liked those), and cinnamon rolls (which were proofing and getting bigger all evening).

You know, after the omen of the bread, I was worried that nothing would come out right. So I didn't take any pictures of the food. Mary did, though.

The duck I rubbed with salt, pepper, and Chinese five spice. Slowly roasted it and glazed it a bit with maple-dwinjang sauce.

Oh yeah, two sauces I improvised for the party that surprisingly turned out. Here are the recipes.

Canada Meets Korea Maple-Dwinjang Glaze
This recipe was inspired by something I saw on the internet somewhere.

Ingredients:
1/4 c. Maple Syrup (preferrably the real Canadian stuff)
1/4 c. Dwinjang Paste (the 'stinky miso')
1/4 c. Dark Soy Sauce
1 Small Onion, chopped
1/4 c. Sesame Oil
1/4 c. Rice Vinegar
1 Tbsp. Yuzu Juice (the Japanese citrus fruit similar to limes)
1 Tbsp. Korean Chile Powder (Gochugaru 고추가루)

Boil all the ingredients in a saucepan until it reduces thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Adjust the sweet and sourness with the maple syrup and vinegar.

Bloody Orange Sauce
I didn't have the ingredients that I saw on other sites for a traditional Duck l'Orange sauce, so I experimented with this one.

Ingredients:
1 c. Blood Orange Juice (the red orange juice)
1 Tbsp. Yuzu Juice
1 Tbsp. Fresh Ginger, chopped
1 tsp. Potato Starch (or Corn Starch)
1/4 c. Water

Boil the blood orange juice, yuzu juice, and ginger until it reduces to around half. Dissolve the starch in water and add to the boiling juice. Turn off the heat and let cool a bit to thicken.

The gang started showing up after five. Mary and her husband Kevin, followed by Cat and her husband David. Mary had brought a persimmon cheese tart with fresh nutmeg. David brought some cool wine and a case of high quality import beers (David, did you mean to leave that behind).

Colin showed up with some more booze and some Sun Chips and mandu. We started serving the food, and I realized that I had been so busy planning the cooking part, I hadn't given much thought to the serving part. We luckily had enough plates, but we had to use wooden chopsticks as utensils. All the spoons and tongs were used for serving.

The party picked up from there. I had to have been drunk because I remembered the next day saying things that I knew made me sound stupid.

Colin went to check on a call in the computer room when he said there was a knock on the door. Gdog from The Daily Kimchi arrived with Devante and Shauna (am I spelling your name right) and a bag o' soju.

Turned out Shauna was from Atlanta, as were Cat, David, and myself. How weird is that? Usually when you get a big group of foreigners in Korea, they're all from Vancouver.

We still had some food left, thank goodness, even though it wasn't of feasting proportions.

A bunch of food nerds in the same room. That was amazing. I don't get to talk about food in 'real time' very often. Poor Colin had this lost smile on his face much of the time.

It was a nice quiet get together. Gdog and his posse couldn't stay long. The trip from his area in Mokdong is pretty far to Anyang. Eun Jeong had to make that trek before we moved in together.

Gdog's departure signalled the winding down of the -- okay, it was a party.

As everyone was heading for the door, we remembered that we had forgotten to have Mary's persimmon tart. So shoes were again removed, and we had some tart.

Poor Mary was embarrassed, but the tart was amazing. Fresh nutmeg. Haven't tasted that since I moved to Korea. I had seconds.

SeoulLife and mary eats left after that. Colin and I sat out on the balcony with our beers, talking about life.

Beyond that, I have gotten hooked on making breads this weekend. I finished making the cinnamon rolls yesterday, and they turned out better than expected.

I also had all those E-Mart sausages to eat. But I had no bread. All the bread from the party was consumed. So I made my own hot dog buns, with toasted onions and sesame seeds.

Thanks everyone for showing up! Surely doing this again.

(NOTE: Photos of the food on the table and me with the tart come from mary eats)

Labels: Event

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Wednesday, October 04, 2006

(Event #4) Chuseok Deals!

The biggest holiday in Korea is basically here. Do you have your SPAM™ gift set yet?

No?

Well, here at ZenKimchi Chuseok Central, we have all the latest deals clipped from the newspapers -- just for you!

Take advantage of this now. Since it occurs on the same week as that other holiday we always confuse with other holidays (Independence Day, Constitution Day, Liberation Day, Constipation Day), you get two weekends, plus a Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday off. Yes, you may have to work on Monday and Wednesday, but think of it this way -- if you count the previous Friday, you get THREE FRIDAYS!!

And you know what three Fridays means? No, put down that soju bottle. It's time to shop!

First off, you need some fruit. And see the pretty packaging? That means freshness! Seng, seng!

43,000 won (~$43) for 13 apples is a bargain, especially if you take note of the beautiful packaging! And they're from Korea, so you know they're superior!

Oh, your father does not like fruit? How about this gift set of beef galbi.

At 148,000 won (~$148), it's a steal!

Cutting back on the red meat, you say? Well, you can't go wrong with a gorgeous package of dried fish.

Look how neatly they fit together. And the plastic yellow rope strung around them? That means quality. Just read the hangeul right there. 베스트 Gift. It's the Beh-suh-tuh -- I mean, Best Gift!

Have a friend who loves his Best Gift fish but has undesirable side effects from his pescous intake?

Nothing says, "I love you, but you smell bad," more than a gift set of toothpaste and soap! And remember, if it is packaged symmetrically, it is quality toothpaste and soap. Give your stinky friend this gift with a smile. He will definitely have a Rice Day.

So, you gave your mother a coffee pot and fresh bean coffee for Christmas last year. Has she used it? Yes, she says, but the coffee doesn't taste right.

Of course not! This is Korea. We drink our coffee instant and have been since 1954. Oma is a sophisticated lady, so she needs sophisticated coffee.

Maxim Original and Maxim Mild, for when you want the half-spoonful experience with a spoonful. And the Prima (프리마)? It's white and you put it in your coffee. Tell her that she'll love it. It's in a pretty red box. It's good.

Oh, you forgot to give something to your son's English teacher? Do foreigners celebrate Chuseok?

Of course not! Don't be silly! Only the most civilized of ancient cultures honors their ancestors with breathtaking gift sets of SPAM™.

Nonetheless, foreigners need socks. They're so silly, they think that Chuseok means "Two Socks."

Foreign English teachers. What would we do without them?

Now that it is finished, you can go visit your family for Chuseok.

What? You say that you waited too late to get a bus ticket to Graepupeon?

Console yourself with the Chuseok bachelor's survival kit. A five-pack of ramyeon and a case of Cass™ Beer.

Labels: Event

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