|
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.
|
Friday, December 29, 2006
(FFF #24) French Onion Soup
Man, I have missed French onion soup. Major comfort food. This was part of my Christmas menu this year. What had stopped me from making it earlier was my boneheaded francophiliac puritanism. I felt that you needed brown beef stock and sherry to make it properly. You're not going to find brown beef stock in Korea easily for two reasons.
- Beef bones are very expensive, as they are used to make the extremely popular SeollongTang and GalbiTang, soups that require white beef stock. Demand far outstrips supply in this department (Hmm... business idea... nope--Korean government wants no beef with bones imported from America).
- Even when people shell out the money on expensive beef bones, they likely don't have ovens to brown the bones in.
Besides chicken stock, which does work, you can get packages of powdered white beef bullion, or Sogogi Dashida (소고기 다시다). It works just as well. Anyway, the browning of the onions gives the soup its color anyway.
So let's get started.
I boiled a small sauce pan of water and add three little packs of Sogogi Dashida. Turned off the heat.
I sliced up a buttload of onions. It's hard to overdo this one, as they reduce a lot. Then comes the butter.
A whole stick? Hell, yeah.
Slowly melted it and slowly cooked the onions. Slowly. Gently.
When they were soft and a little brownish, I added the beef stock I had made in the sauce pan. Now for the fortification.
No sherry, but what is sherry anyway? It's a fortified wine.
What's a fortified wine? Really, it's a regular wine with sweet crap thrown in it.
So why not use a cheap sweet Italian wine--the kind Eun Jeong likes so much?
Hey, it worked. Threw around half a cup in there. Maybe more. Definitely not less.
I let it cook a bit and cut up some cheese. I also made some croutons by toasting some bread I had made.
A Korean soup crock made the perfect vessel for this. I set the croutons on the soup and covered it with cheese (an optional step). I covered it to let the cheese melt.
Nice addition to Christmas dinner.
Labels: Christmas Chronicles, Food for Foreigners
...................................................
(WTF #6) The Other Two Ice Creams -- Cafe Au Lait and Waffle House
Rounding out my 50% ice cream festival are two products that aren't as strange as they are decadent and noteworthy.
The first is an ice cream called Cafe Au Lait. It takes coffee ice cream to a new level.
Looks simple enough, but take a bite.
Smooth coffee ice cream inside--what's this--a coffee flavored shell. Holy coffee overload, Batman! Lucky I had this one for breakfast.
The other one is notable because its name makes me pine for home a little. It's an ice cream called Waffle House. Of course, the picture of the Waffle House on the package looks like no Waffle House I've ever been to.
Simple ice cream sandwich with a soft waffle on the outside.
A side view to match the top view for any of you wishing to make this into a 3-D model.
The waffle had some flavor, and the vanilla ice cream was standard. A little strawberry filling gave it that extra kick. Woulda been cool if they had maple syrup and butter inside.
Too late. I'm gonna patent that idea.
Labels: WTF
...................................................
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
(WTF #5) Corn Ice Cream
Continuing my fun with 50% off ice cream, the second interesting item I found was corn ice cream.
Did they really mean corn? Corn corn?
Reading the label, I'd say, "Yes."
Well, the sweet potato ice cream wasn't so bad. I'll give this one a try.
Just like the sweet potato ice cream, the corn ice cream came encased in an edible styrofoam mold. It bore a striking resemblance to its namesake. There's no mistaking here. We're gonna be eatin' some corn. I wonder what's inside.
Looks like a vanilla-type ice cream with a thin spraying of chocolate coating, I assume to help glue it to the corn mold. That doesn't look as appetizing. Put the mold back on.
Mmm... creamy corny goodness. The corn flavor here is subtle. It's mostly a generic vanilla ice cream with a hint of a--hmm--popcorn flavor. It's like a popcorn jellybean.
So now we have two surprisingly good ice creams. Maybe that's an indicator that all these freaky concoctions are very good.
I'd agree if I hadn't had the misfortune to try a tomato popsicle last year. I tried to like it, especially since the person who gave it to me was enjoying hers so much. But after three tries, I put it down.
"I'm really sorry. With each bite I hate this more and more."
Labels: WTF
...................................................
Friday, December 15, 2006
Racist Korean TV Clip
This is way off the topic of food, but this incident makes me want to throw up. There is so much that I love about Korean culture, and stuff like this just makes me furious and feel more like an outsider. The black woman being mocked here speaks fluent Korean, has lived in Korea for over ten years, and is Seoul's first foreign civil servant. If even she gets treated like she's some foreign ape, then there's no hope for the rest of us--or Korean society itself.Here's the post from the ZenKimchi video blog:
Does this disgust you? Sign the petition.
This has really disgusted me.
There's this new silly show on Korean TV that poses as a cultural exploration of Korean and foreign women. In reality, it's just another bad cheesy stunt show that the usual bits of making foreigners look like clowns in order to instill Korean pride. As an added bonus, it has Korean men flirting with foreign women. If it was a show of Korean women flirting with foreign men, I doubt it would receive a kind reception here.
Now get this. One of the women who agreed to do this show was Leslie Benfield, an African-American woman who has the distinction of being the first foreign public servant in Korea (she supervises documents written in English for the City of Seoul). She was chosen for this job for her fluency in Korean.
Anyway, she was on this show singing a karaoke duet with a Korean woman. At the end of the song, Korean comedian Cheong Myeong-hun got in front of the cameras with an afro wig and mocked her by chanting lines from an infamous Korean blackface routine.
I first heard about this through Michael Hurt, who runs Scribblings of the Metropolitician (one of my favorite blogs, BTW). He detailed other past incidents of the Korean media using blackface, savage images of dark-skinned people, and general unchecked racist attitudes. I have witnessed this myself since my first day in Korea, walking past a video store with this sign.
Since then, I have come across other images that just make my jaw drop, including this project from an arts and crafts company who sells to Korean schools.
And this depiction of an "Indian" in an English phonics book taught in Korean schools.
This is not limited to "Indians" or Africans. Any race that is not Korean gets its own racially ignorant depiction. Chinese restaurants regularly feature buck-toothed "coolies." Europeans are portrayed as hairy clowns with big noses. Korean media and advertisers are equal opportunity racists.
Some may find these depictions innocent mistakes that don't affect anything. These people have also never read any studies on how visual and aural media powerfully influence young minds.
Other teachers and I have had to calm students down and scold them when they have started dancing around classrooms like apes, shouting, "Africa man, Africa man," whenever they saw a picture of a black person. And this comment from a student still puzzles me.
This recent blackface stunt has been the catalyst that has accumulated all these incidents and pushed them over the boiling point, uniting foreigners and Koreans to say, "This is enough." The Korean media has to mature and stop hiding behind the mask of innocent ignorance. Korea is a world economic and political leader, and its media is portraying it as a xenophonic ignorant redneck backwater--and thusly encouraging such attitudes. This is one of those times when being silent on this subject shows support for such behavior. The Metropolitician has an online petition that has already been signed by a lot of people, including important foreign figures in Korea. The Korean site Daum has an equivalent petition.
...................................................
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
(WTF #4) Sweet Potato Ice Cream
Winter's here, and you know what that means?
50% off ice cream!
At my local K-Mart (the small Korean grocery store, not the Rosie O'Donnel chain) I saw the 50% off ice cream sign over the two freezers almost overflowing with mysterious ice cream bars. I had seen flavors in there in the past that had made me do a double take. This could be my chance to try them. Besides, Eun Jeong had asked me to pick her up a red bean ice cream bar on my way home from work.
I had to fight through a small crowd of sucrose-starved teens (albeit budget-conscious sucrose-starved teens) just to get a look. It took a while to find the red bean ice creams because they just weren't blaring "red bean ice cream" on their packages. I did eventually find them, but I picked up a few strange hitchhikers along the way.
Meet Mr. Sweet Potato (Korean name, Mr. Goguma 고구마 손생님).
He comes out of the wrapper in a shell that I assume is intended to be crunchy. Yeah, right.
Yet Mr. Goguma's makers went all out and tried to make him in the shape of a sweet potato. At least, I hope that's what the shape is.
Eun Jeong broke him open so we could share. It looked like vanilla ice cream with a little chocolate coating. We both had a bite.
There were no chunks of sweet potato, but there was a definite hint of sweet potato flavor in there. And it wasn't a bad flavor. On closer inspection (the second bite), the flavor was quite pleasant. It was like a roasted sweet potato or sweet potato mixed with toasted marshmallow.
Mr. Sweet Potato Ice Cream, you surprised me. Now, if Eun Jeong can put up with all the other weird ice cream I bought.
Really, sweetie, it was 50% off.
Labels: WTF
...................................................
Monday, December 11, 2006
(Out There #6) Boston Globe Bulgogi Recipe
Another sign that Korean food may be the next Asian food trend in America. A bulgogi recipe from chef Kim Joon Hak showed up in the Boston Globe.Slashfood also did a bit about the Korea Times article on Korean royal court cuisine.
Labels: Out There
...................................................
Sunday, December 10, 2006
(Event #7) Korean Wedding Food
As mentioned on the other blog, Eun Jeong went to her friend's wedding yesterday. She was designated as the official wedding bouquet catcher. I couldn't make it to the wedding, but I begged her to take the camera with her and at least get some pics of the food.
She returned with some good photos of the wedding and the food. Even though she said the food wasn't good at this particular wedding, the dishes served were typical for modern Korean weddings.
I myself have been to a couple of weddings here, and I think the best thing about them is the food--unlike you like the gaudy Las Vegas style of the modernized weddings here (the traditional weddings are much cooler events).
At the top is bulgogi. There's usually a main meat dish. Well, westerners would call it a main meat dish.
To Koreans, rice and soup are the main dishes. The soup is guksu, similar to Eun Jeong's special Janchi Guksu. Being a catered event, the noodles were too soggy in this one.
The big main soup here is a large bowl of Galbi Tang (don't pronounce it like the space age orange beverage). It's a simple soup of beef ribs in beef stock with some scant noodles and sliced green onions. I actually had that for lunch Friday. It's great for winter time. In this case, it was too bland, and the meat was too tough.
What else can we unwrap here? Just like westernized Korean weddings, I think Korean wedding caterers miss the point. You know, even if the food isn't fresh, at least take the plastic wrap off before the guests arrive.
Some fruit. That's good. And some Twigim--deep fried stuff. In this case, it was cold and soggy. At the top is my favorite Korean wedding food, Yuk Hui. It's Korean Steak Tartare. In fact, it kicks the French version's butt. Raw sliced tender beef mixed with Korean pear, sesame oil, and garlic. I went to a wedding a year ago and luckily sat at the Western table. Since most of them were picky eaters, I got loaded down with this delicate and so sinful treat. At this wedding, though, Eun Jeong said it wasn't fresh--a common theme with the foods from this caterer.
Lastly, it looks like we have some seafood snacks, in this case, shrimp and steamed squid, the prerequisite kimchi, and a scary looking salad.
Generally, though, I like the food at Korean weddings. If you get invited to one, try to avoid laughing during the ceremony and really enjoy the great hospitality and food.
Labels: Event
...................................................
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
(Kimchi #4) ZenKimchi Signature Kimchi (Baechu Kimchi 배추 김치)
Yeah, I'm getting cocky now.
I made kimchi last month, and it was good. We used it up within a few weeks. I wanted to make more. But this time, I wanted to really make kimchi. At the Kimchi Festival, they had done most of the work. All we did was rub the yangyam paste in between the leaves.
I have tasted enough kimchi over the years to know what I like. I wanted to make my first ZenKimchi Signature Kimchi.
I mentioned this to Eun Jeong.
"I think I'll make kimchi this Saturday."
"No, it's too much work."
"I did it at the Kimchi Festival."
"But you didn't make the yangyam. That's a lot of work. Lots of chopping."
"I know how to chop."
Last weekend, Eun Jeong gave in. She had returned from her mother's house in Gyeongju and saw that I was already screwing things up. We went to the store together to start getting ingredients, mainly the cabbage and salt.
Coarse ground mineral salt, if you're curious.
I was a bit too ambitious. They had individual cabbages, but they were already trimmed. I thought you needed untrimmed cabbage so you could use the outer leaves to cover the kimchi. I found out that's only if you're going to put it in an earthenware jar and maybe bury it underground. And the only untrimmed cabbage on sale was in three packs.
"Well, if this turns out, I'll make more. And I can use one of the cabbages to make my grandmother's Pigs in a Blanket (Hungarian Cabbage Rolls), which freeze well."
Eun Jeong sighed.
She laid out some newspaper, took one of the cabbages, and lopped off the base.
 |  |
I should also remind you that this is a food journal. This is not somewhere to go for tried and true tested recipes. My Korean Kitchen is the best place to go for recipes. I just record stuff I did, and you can take away from it what you find useful.
As she cut up a cabbage, I filled a plastic tub full of cold water. I had thoroughly washed and disinfected this tub, by the way.
"Joe, what are you doing?"
"I'm making a brine. I'm mixing salt with water like it says in the book."
My overconfidence in kimchi making partly stemmed from my possession of a book called Good Morning, Kimchi!
by Prof. Sook-ja Yoon. She said to soak the cabbage in a 15% salt solution for six to eight hours.
Eun Jeong was on and off the phone with her mother for advice. Her mother said we should salt the cabbage itself with no water. So we did that.
We went out to do some shopping and returned a few hours later.
The salt had leeched some water out but not much. She talked to her mother again. Her mother clarified that we needed to put the salt in between each leaf.
Eun Jeong did that, but she said it would still take a long time for the cabbage to become appropriately wilted. We agreed to go with the brine.
So I put the salted cabbages in the tub and filled it with cold water. Eun Jeong later quartered the cabbages to speed up the process. It was 9 P.M. before was started actually putting together the kimchi itself.
Now, I wanted to make a kimchi with the flavors that I wanted. I know what you're thinking. What's the big deal about kimchi?
I can't expect you to understand unless you've had really good kimchi. All the kimchi I've had in America is horrible. It's sour cabbage. The kimchi I've had in Korea is complex with many layers of flavors, like a fine wine.
The kimchi I like has a healthy ocean flavor. It's bright. It has a slight fruitiness with an undercurrent of ginger. And I like it hot.
So, you could almost say this is my mise en place.
I've read in many places, including Good Morning, Kimchi!, that you can make kimchi out of almost anything, as long as the main ingredient is brined properly. The only exception I've heard of is potatoes. And green beans have to be blanched first.
Yet, I've also figured out with cabbage kimchi there are specific categories of components.
The Cabbage
Just to review, it needs to be salted either directly or in a brine to make it flexible and to create an environment hostile to hostile microbes. Thoroughly rinse it and drain it before stuffing.
The Veggies
You could say this is the mirepoix of the kimchi. The main ingredients are garlic (one head), ginger (I did a lot), daikon radish, and green onions. You can also add carrots, watercress, spinach (what I did), leeks, eggplant, apples, or Korean pears (another addition of mine). All the veggies should be cut into matchstick sized strips or minced. Like I said, I wanted a fruity ginger flavor, so I put in extra ginger and a Korean pear. If you've never had a Korean pear, also known as Asian pear, you are missing out on a sublime fruit.
The Paste
Generally, two parts gochugaru (Korean chile powder) to one part anchovy juice. Anchovy juice goes by many names, fish sauce, nuoc mam, nam plah... it's a liquid left over from salting and fermenting little fishies. I know it sounds disgusting, and the smell from the bottle will kill your dog. Yet in the right applications, it brings the fresh flavor of the sea to your table. Just be careful with it. I also stress that there aren't many substitutions for gochugaru. The closest thing I can think of is real Hungarian paprika. Both have a strong sweet flavor. Gochugaru is a lot hotter. Yet in making a kimchi paste, the coarser grind of gochugaru makes it spongy and super absorbent. So basically, for this one head of cabbage, I used two cups of gochugaru with one cup of anchovy juice in a bowl, covering with a plate--that stuff reeks!
The Chot
The protein in the kimchi--almost always something from the sea. In my kimchi, I put in two healthy tablespoons of fermented baby shrimp, washed, and some fresh oysters. The oysters make the kimchi taste bright and fresh.
Seasonings
I didn't use many seasonings in the yangyam. When mixing everything together, I tasted it regularly (have a beer handy when tasting--it's hot). I did adjust the flavor a bit by adding some sugar and a tiny bit of fine salt.
Wearing a plastic glove, I thoroughly mixed everything.
I then took each piece of cabbage, rinsed and drained. Starting with the core pieces, I slathered the sauce in between each leaf. I have no pictures of this because both hands were covered in yangyam slop, and Eun Jeong had long since gone to bed. But you can see pictures of that when I made kimchi during the Kimchi Festival.
When each quarter was busting through with stuffing, I rolled it in a ball and put it in a large zipper bag.
The moment of truth occurred the next day at dinner. Eun Jeong nervously tried my kimchi.
The Verdict: Good.
On the plus side, I achieved the balance of flavors I was shooting for. It still was a bit salty, but that has since subsided over the past few days.
On the down side, I should have let the cabbage wilt more and drain more. I also ran short on yangyam paste when making it. So I can easily fix that next time.
But aren't you supposed to let kimchi ferment first?
Well, have you ever had a fresh pickle? Good, huh. Kimchi ferments well, yes, but it is also good fresh. And with the oysters in it--I'm not going to take any chances and let it go for more than a month or so.
...................................................
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
(Finds #1) Tortillas
(Click the above image for a large map.)
Gdog at The Daily Kimchi brought up something that I had been meaning to do for a while.Where can you find certain items?
Eventually, I'd like to make a rolling database to help people find products in Korea. In the meantime, let's do this.
I'll start a thread on a certain item, and if you know where to find it, tell how in the Comments section. This way, if someone needs to find something, she could just look in the (very well programmed and organized) Archives section to find information.
Please use the following format, filling in as much information as you know:
City>>Subway Line>>Subway Station>>Place
For example, here are some places I know where to find tortillas, other than making your own:
Seoul>>Line 3>>Yangjae>>Costco
Seoul>>Line 6>>Itaewon>>International Grocery Store (Near the mosque, next to What The Book)
Seoul>>Line 6>>Hangangjin>>Hannam Market (Exit 2, over the pedestrian walkway, right at the end of the walkway and down the mountain, on the left down a flight of stairs)
Labels: Finds
...................................................
| 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. |
|
|
Subscribe to the ZK Food Journal
Food Links
- FatMan Seoul
- Queenstown (American baked goods delivered in Korea)
- Korea Infogate
- Life in Korea
- Seoul Searching Restaurants in Seoul
- Korean Food Translations
- Kimchi - Korean Food Research Institute
- Julia's Cook Korean Site
- Zagalchi Fish Market (Busan)
- Korean Traditional Kimchi (Korea Agro-Fisheries Trade Corp.)
- Anthony Bourdain
- Easily Pleased
- Jen Japan
- Evil Jungle Prince
- Book of Rai Forum
- Mary Eats
- The Daily Kimchi
- Kitchen Wench
- My Korean Kitchen
- Make My Sushi
- Chocopie
- Grilled_Aubergine
- Rachel Lynn Seoul
Korea Links
- ZenKimchi main page
- GalbiJim - The Wiki for Korea
- Weigook Saram
- Skindleshank's Cafe
- King Baeksu's Bug Crib
- Learn Korean Online
- USFK Forums
- USFK Classifieds
- SeoulLife.net
- Red Pages
- The Marmot's Hole
- Lost Nomad
- Scribblings of the Metropolitician
Previous Posts
- New Food Journal COMING SOON
- (Out There #7) Chocopie, Grilled_Aubergine, and Ra...
- (KFC #20) 15 Strangest Foods I've Tried Thus Far
- (Event #8) Joe's Birthday at Hooters
- (Porn #2) Kimbap
- ZenKimchi Mentioned in The New York Times
- (Video #5) SeoulGlow Explores Ddeokbokki
- I Like Hot Food, But...
- (KFC #19) Korean Fried Chicken
- (Street Food #3) Kebabs in Itaewon
Archives
Archive by SubjectArchive by Month
