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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.
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Monday, February 05, 2007
I Like Hot Food, But...
Koreans pride themselves on eating some pretty spicy food. Even though not all of it is as spicy as what I'm used to, coming from near the New Orleans area and the home of Tabasco, some of it can really smoke my ears.
I get asked by Koreans regularly, "Can you eat that? Isn't it too spicy for you?"
We need to remember that chili peppers come from the New World. That's my turf.
Nonetheless, even though I have been known to enjoy eating a straight raw habanero every now and then, I ain't squeezin' no habanero juice in my eye like this guy from Mexico City.!
Labels: Miscellaneous
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Sunday, January 28, 2007
My Marrakesh -- VOTE NOW
(Maryam, the glamorous proprieter of My Marrakesh)
The 2007 Blog Award nominations are up. Despite lots of underhanded ballot box stuffing, none of the two ZenKimchi blogs got nominated. Yet ZenKimchi friend My Marrakesh got nominated for "best african or middle eastern weblog" (they hate capitalization there, I guess).
Maryeats first introduced me to Maryam's great blog detailing how an American family (hers, of course) picks up and moves to Morocco, building their own house on an old olive grove. It is a great source for Moroccan style and inspiration. Maryam writes with a fresh eye, and her pictures will push your video card to the limit with all their rich colors.
Voting for the Bloggies is easy. You don't have to vote for each category. I sure didn't. You just select the nominess you like, fill in an authorization code and email address, and answer the email verification.
Labels: Miscellaneous
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Sunday, November 19, 2006
Baby Monkfish--HELP!!
I explored the Anyang Central Market today. Had lots of fun. I wish my brother was here to explore it with me. He'd go nuts.I made a few good finds, including some great smoked pigs' feet (jokbal 족발) and a great deal on tangerines.
But I found these guys on the left at a few seafood stalls. They look like monkfish but smaller than the usual kind I see.
They were split open spread eagle so buyers could see the livers and the roe sacks.
I've had monkfish before, and it's great. I know it's a great delicacy in New York restaurants. I've heard people say that its liver is considered the "foie gras of the sea."I asked the vendor how much it was.
"Three for 5,ooo won."
I couldn't resist that. Three of these little buggers for $5?
I was about to ask her how to cook them when I remembered, even though I can ask in Korean how to cook them, I likely won't understand the answer.
So now I'm asking YOU.
Give me some ideas on how to cook these little monkfish. What can I do with the livers and roe?
Labels: Miscellaneous
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Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Improved Korean Fun Store
NOTE: MS Internet Explorer users click here if you can't see the Flash movie above
I have been putting a lot into work into consolidating and improving the ZenKimchi Korean Fun Store. So far, I'm including merchandise through Cafe Press and modifiable merchandise through Zazzle.
This includes T-shirts of any style, golf shirts, caps, BBQ aprons, beer coasters, beer steins, coffee mugs, magnets, stickers, and even teddy bears.
One of the most popular items is the "Dog Meat" dog T-shirt.
Other popular items include the Kimchi Chick hat
And the "Maekju hana juseyo" ("Give me a beer") shirts.
In fact, I've discounted the basic value T-shirt from $12.99 to $10.99.
The ZenKimchi sites are my passion, and they're fun to work on. Yet they also cost a lot of time and money. It would be nice to see a little extra pocket change come from all this work.
And besides, look at the stuff. It looks cool!
Labels: Miscellaneous
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Saturday, August 12, 2006
Durian!
After dinner in Ilsan last Saturday, we had the dessert with the infamous fruit that had been thawing all day in Brant's window. He had found it at Carrefour and had excitedly been telling me about it for a while.
We had to eat it outside because Brant didn't want the smell in his apartment. We found a table outside a convenient store. Brant and I got the biggest knife he had and some spoons. I didn't know how to open it, so I just carved – carved – into it and pried it open.
The insides were creamy and custardy with pits that looked like avocado pits.
I had my first bite of durian.
I had been wanting to try this for years. I had heard horror stories of how the smell and taste were pungent, strong, sickening – it's banned in public spaces in Singapore.
Image from Wikipedia, taken by Steve Bennett
The way Tony Bourdain described it was sort of like stinky cheese, like kissing your dead grandmother. Others have described it as cream cheese, onion sauce, sherry wine. More graphic descriptions compare it to "eating vanilla custard in a latrine" or "pig shit, turpentine, and onions, garnished with a gym sock," sewage, stale vomit, skunk spray, and used surgical swabs (Wikipedia). The variety of descriptions comes from the fruit itself having different odors based on where it's from and its level of ripeness.
I personally was prepared for anything – except the sweetness of it. That's what was unsettling for me. Stinky is good. It's good for cheese. It's good for dwinjang. Add sweet to the mix, and it's freaking disturbing.
Everyone had a different idea of what it tasted like. I wish I could remember everyone's description. My best comparison was how a banana daiquiri tastes after you vomit it.
The cool thing for me was that Eun Jeong was gung ho about trying it. She was actually excited. I didn't know she was the adventuresome type for food. But she said it was fruit. Fruit's not scary. She had to see what the big deal was about. "Besides," she said, "My friends say it has a lot of protein."So she enjoyed big gloppy spoonfuls of fruit protein.
We wanted more, so I cut it into quarters, which reveals more pockets of custardy nastiness.
This made Brant very happy.
He was in a state of ecstasy or revulsion.
Even his fiancee Terra had a good time with it.
I had to stop after a while because if its richness and, yeah, it was starting to make me sick. Eun Jeong said she was glad to try it but didn't want to try it again.
That was last week.
Today, she said, "I forgot what it tasted like now.
"Do you want to try it again?"
"Yeah, sure."
WARNING: Brant has promised to bring a durian to the next ZenKimchi 식 Ruffians outing.
Labels: Miscellaneous
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Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Dog Day Postponed Due to Injury
Yeong-jun, the party master known to ZenKimchi fans especially in the Sh-wing video, has gotten himself into some trouble. He was out this weekend and was crossing the street when he got hit by a motorbike.The current prognosis is that he'll be in the hospital for a while with a messed up foot, broken leg, and small (we hope) head injury.
Be it so, Yeong-jun is the master of ceremonies for our dog meat excursion. I think it would be best to postpone it until he recovers.
Labels: Miscellaneous
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Saturday, July 08, 2006
Join Us for Some Food -- and Mischief
Trying something new here. We're starting a bit of a food group called ZenKimchi 식 Ruffians. It's a play on the work "sik" in Korean, which means "cuisine" but also sounds like "chic" or "sick." "Ruffians" is the term used for fans of Anthony Bourdain and his eat-life-to-the-fullest philosophy.
If you live in Seoul or will be in Seoul at some time, please sign up for this group. It's safe. Your information will not be shared with evil spammers. What I do is just insert your information into the ZenKimchi eVite account. When an event is coming, you'll receive an eVite. From there, you can RSVP and get details on when and where things will take place.
There's no club fee or anything like that. We just get together and split the bill.
Our initial event will be a small get together at Sh-wing for some chicken wings and beer. Our first big event will be Dog Day. Our friend Young Joon is an expert on dog meat (I call it "dork," like pork but with dog). He will set us up with a good dog restaurant with some famous Bosintang (dog soup) and steamed dog meat. It's the same stuff pictured on the top banner of the web site. Tentatively, it will be the first Saturday in August, which coincides with many English teachers' vacations. Don't know if that's a good or bad thing. But it will be a hot, hot day.
A good day for some dork soup.
Labels: Miscellaneous
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Sunday, June 25, 2006
New Digs. New Oven.
I haven't posted in a while because I've been in the middle of a major move. I've finished my contract and have started a new job. I'm still trying to get my last pay check and severance from my old boss (she somehow thinks such things are optional for her to do). I have moved to a nice new apartment pretty high in the sky. You can see the picks on the main site.
I'm so happy that after over two years I finally have an oven. We bought it ourselves at a great discount. I didn't realize before how much western food depends on the use of ovens. I was so excited when I first got it that I immediately made a roasted rosemary chicken (pictured top) and rosemary roasted potatoes and onions.
The oven comes with a broiler above the oven rather than below, like I'm used to seeing. It is marketed to Koreans as a fish grill.
Eun Jeong really likes that feature. She has grilled a fish in there already. I didn't try it because she ate all of it. I only saw a few bones as evidence.
It is safe to say that ovens are a new concept in Korean cuisine. It's very alien. Remember when woks were first being introduced in the '70s and '80s? I remember when we got our first wok, it came with a cookbook. The manufacturers rightly assumed that Americans who bought the wok wouldn't know what to do with it once they got it. Looking back, I can remember the recipes being very Americanized concepts of Asian foods.
The same is true with this oven. It also came with a cookbook.
I looked at it with curiosity and horror. It was basically your average Korean dishes but -- done in an OVEN! Very similar to old microwave oven cookbooks. Let's have a look.
First there are directions on how to measure...
and how to stir.
What about the recipes?
Japchae -- famous Korean garlicky stir-fried noodle dish. Now more oveney!
Tofu cooks well in the oven, I think.
As does mandu dumplings. But hold on here...
SALAD in the oven? The only time I've heard of salad in the oven was when my dad had one too many cocktails at a dinner party he was hosting.
Yeah, you could do kalbi jjim in the oven. That's one of the few Korean recipes that makes some sense in an oven.
What the freak is this? Meatloaf California Rolls? I'm there, dude!
Ooh, oven baked rice. If you have enough money to buy an oven in Korea, you obviously don't have any money left to buy a rice cooker.
And it seems we have an anomoly. A traditional Western roasted chicken. Looks good, though. But not Korean enough. We need more traditional Korean stuff to toss in our oven.
That's more like it. Traditional rice punch -- done in the oven.
Labels: Miscellaneous
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Saturday, June 03, 2006
A Loss
I am pretty slow in getting information, but I have just found out that one of the pioneers of Korea blogging, Shawn Matthews, died this week. He was known to many as the founder of Korea Life Blog. When he moved to China, he switched the name to China Life Blog.His work was something many of us bloggers aspired to. He seemed to be doing well and had published a book about his life in Korea, Island of Fantasy.
His friend, Jake, a very strong friend who has had to put up with a lot, details what happend on his site.
Labels: Miscellaneous
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Monday, April 24, 2006
Sushi Santa and the Outhouse
Just some pictures I took that don't fit in any category except that they're funny and that they relate to food. First is Sushi Santa. In his off time, Santa likes to stand outside of sushi restaurants and advertise what's on the menu.
And another example of unfortunate word combinations. Mmm... outhouse sushi. The Japanese delicacy finds its way to Korean shores.
Labels: Miscellaneous
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Thursday, April 20, 2006
NEWS: ZenKimchi - Paid Food Writer
Just a note that I'm getting paid (a little) to contribute food columns to K-Scene, the English language city magazine for Seoul. I'm technically a paid food writer!My first two-page feature is in the current issue out around town, mostly in Itaewon, Gangnam/Apgujeong, and Hongdae. It's a rewrite of three previous posts on the site, grilled intestines, gogi buffet, and grilled shellfish.
I'm putting the finishing touches on my next article on how to cook Mexican food in Korea. Cinco de Mayo and Children's Day coincide, and I prefer to celebrate the former.
Again, I have a pile of posts in the works. I'm posting them as soon as I get time. Some day I may be able to be like Chez Pim and make this my full-time job. Yeah, right. :)
Labels: Miscellaneous
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Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Dang it! Missed Anthony Bourdain!
I heard that Anthony Bourdain, my hero, was planning to shoot an episode of "No Reservations" (Travel Channel) in Korea. He just posted that he has just returned from Korea. And I didn't get to meet him.
So sad.
But here is what he wrote:
Okay, proud Koreans: I just got back from shooting an episode there. I had a fantastic time, developed a deep and abiding love for kimchee, Korean street food and your kooky-krazy party-all-the-time attitude. It was--however, truly dismaying to find out that just about ANY 98 pound Korean girl can drink me under the table. That soju packs a punch!
And next year's "clip show" of outttakes will have some priceless moments: The entire crew--swacked on soju and beer, singing "Anarchy In The UK" in a karaoke room. I will, of course, make sure that my own atonal contributions will be skillfully edited out.
Labels: Miscellaneous
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Wednesday, March 22, 2006
NEW: Google Earth Bookmarks
I've become about as obsessed with Google Earth as many folks. On a few weekends and in my spare time, I have been plotting out many major points of interest in Seoul, including dramatic angles and such. I've also been gradually mapping out the entire Seoul subway (one of the largest in the world) using maps I have on hand. You can even "ride" the subway routes.
I've plotted the restaurants mentioned here, and I plan to plot others as soon as I post something about them.
If you have Google Earth, download the bookmarks from the link on the top of the site, and check frequently for updates.
Labels: Miscellaneous
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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
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Thursday, January 26, 2006
What the Doctor Ordered: A Taste of Chinese Medicine
I haven't been writing because I haven't been eating much. I got a type of stomach flu last week that I haven't had for over ten years. I'll spare you the gory details beyond stating how thankful I am for the design of Korean bathrooms where cleaning them involves merely hosing them down with the shower head.
There is something about living in a foreign land that makes a person more susceptible to illness. My girlfriend said she got sick a lot when she lived in Canada. And I've gotten sick more and more often in Korea, as have other foreigners.
Whenever I'm sick, my girlfriend usually goes to the local pharmacist and tells him my symptoms. She then returns with a combination of modern and traditional Chinese medicine. I myself, having taken a pharmacology course or two in college, am a bit skeptical of Chinese medicine. My feeling is that if it's just folklore and hasn't been tested using the scientific method, it's no different from Western traditional medicine, which involved bleeding people and drinking Coca Cola (which was first introduced as a medicine).Chinese medicine in Korea is concocted in different ways. It usually involves a granular powder around the texture of coffee grounds, black pellets which look like rabbit droppings, and the famous black juice.
The powder and black pellets are easy to take. It's the black juice that can be tough to get down, especially if you're having trouble even keeping down apple juice.
Nonetheless, in my opinion, it tastes better than the liquid medicines doctors prescribe in America. This black juice I had last week was more palatable than the ones before. It had the usual taste of earthy ginseng mixed with ashtray (I wonder if that's the mythical stag horn I'm tasting). Yet it was countered by an aromatic cinnamon kick. And it actually settled my stomach.
I don't argue with my girlfriend as much about Chinese medicine as I used to. I'll take it whenever I'm sick. She's starting to accept the aspirin I give her when she gets headaches. I'm still skeptical about its effects. Yet whenever I am running a fever, it tends to break only a few hours after chasing the granules and rabbit pellets with the black juice.
Labels: Miscellaneous
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Monday, December 12, 2005
Christmas Chronicles: Egg Nog
I'm one of those people who really loves egg nog. Back home, I would buy cartons and cartons of the stuff when it was in season. I once had homemade egg nog, and I didn't like it. I missed having egg nog last year, so this year I thought I'd figure out a good way to make it myself with what's available in Korea.Luckily, Alton Brown's Good Eats recently had an episode all about egg nog. He had a raw version and a partially cooked version. I would prefer the raw version, but it required either having an electric mixer or a whisk with biceps of steel.
The most difficult part of this recipe is getting your hands on nutmeg. You can make it without nutmeg, but any egg nog afficiando will tell you that it's the main flavoring that separates nog from melted ice cream.
And that's basically what egg nog is: an ice cream base. And an ice cream base is a custard.
I myself have a stash of nutmeg I got sent in a care package from home. Nutmeg may also be found in a large grocery store (I have seen it at E-Mart), Hannam and the other Itaewon international markets, and the import food stalls at Namdaemun.
The partially cooked version is not (as of this moment) on their web site. So I'll transpose how I did it based on Alton's recipe.
In a pot, I put a pint (half a quart carton) of milk and half a teaspoon or so of nutmeg to boil. Alton's version also used heavy cream. Heavy cream is close to impossible to find here. Besides, Alton complained that the cooked version was very thick. So why have the heavy cream if it's too thick?
While it was heating, I separated four eggs into separate bowls, being careful that no bits of yellow got into the whites. Alton showed an easy way to do it using a slotted spoon.
To the yolks, I added 1/3 cup of sugar, or enough sugar to fill a Korean tea cup. With a whisk, I briskly stirred the sugar and yolk mixture. It helps to put the bowl over the heating milk to dissolve the sugar. I beat the yolks until they reached ribbon stage, where a string of yolk formed when lifting the whisk. It sort of looked like vanilla pudding.
Do not turn your back on the milk, or it will boil over.
As soon as the milk boils, I turned off the heat. If you immediately mixed the cold yolk mixture with the hot milk, you'd end up with scrambled eggs in milk. I added a ladle full of milk to the eggs and stirred to temper the eggs. After three or four ladles, I stirred the egg mixture into the milk.
While the milk was cooking, I washed the whisk and proceeded to whip the egg whites until they formed stiff peaks, like a merengue. After I added some beef to my arms from whipping, I stirred this into the milk mixture, put it in a pitcher, and chilled it.
Alton's recipe calls for putting 1/3 cup of bourbon into the whole thing. I prefer to mix the alcohol by each glass. You can use many kinds of alcohol. Bourbon is the traditional American booze. But it also tastes good with dark rum, brandy, and any kind of whiskey. Right now, I'm using some cheap scotch, and it works well.
Labels: Christmas Chronicles, Miscellaneous
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Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Upcoming Kimchi
Just taking a small break.There are some entries I'm wanting to do and other things that are down the line. I thought I'd make some comments about what's coming (so I'd be obliged to come through with them) and answer some questions that I've gotten.
Kimchi
Kimchi is, well, the Big Kimchi, of Korean food. I have grown to love kimchi. I would even say that I'm a connoisseur of it, where I can taste subtle differences in aging and techniques. I also have my own preferences.
We are in Kimjeong, the kimchi making season. I was hoping to come up with something, but this whole thing has become a rush. And I don't want to make a big entry about making kimchi while I'm still so ignorant of the whole process. I have a connection that will hook me up with learning how to make it. But until then, kimchi is just too large a subject to tackle for a waygook like me at this moment. It's like jumping into France and instantly pretending to be a cheese expert. I know I love it. More on it later.
Dwinjeong
It's spelled many ways: Daenjong, Dwenjeong, Dwaenjang. It's a fermented soybean paste. I call it the stinky miso. I used to, um, well, I didn't hate it. But when my girlfriend said she was in the mood to eat it, I said I was in the mood to eat something else.
Now I'm obsessed with it. I can't get enough. I want to do a big ass tribute to the stinky miso. That will be coming soon. Very soon.
Reference Database
I only use Blogger for the Food Journal out of convenience. The rest of the web site I program myself (with help from Macromedia Dreamweaver), including the main ZenKimchi blog. I'm planning to create a database to continue work others have been doing to both have a guide to translate Korean foods and ingredients and to make it easier for people to find and cook foods in Korea. That's a big project, and I would love some help on that. Not on the programming side but with gathering information about what is good in your neck of the woods and places where to score hard to find items (other than the obvious Costco and Itaewon import markets). For example, there are two Chinese groceries off of Beongchon station, west of Sadang on the Green Line, where you can find cilantro and whole seed cumin. Stuff like that.
The Name
Since 1994, my name on the internet has been Zenpickle. So many people know me as "Zen," that my third born child's legal name is Zen.
Really.
So when I moved to Korea, it was logical to shift the name to ZenKimchi. There really is no deeper meaning than that.
The Picture
The little zoom out flash movie on the navigation bar (look at the top of the page) is kaegogi -- dog soup and steamed dog meat -- from a meal in August 2004. More pics are in the pics section (go figure).
Why?
Of course, I love food. I have also been a fan of the FatMan Seoul blog. It is highly entertaining, and I doubt I could ever match his writing style. I wish I got to meet him. But he has left Korea, and he no longer publishes this particular blog. I want to see if I can continue the work he has already started.
Links
Yeah, there are some adverts on the site. I've noticed the Google ones have become more relevant. But the ad for the T-shirts is for stuff that I've personally made, and the money from T-shirt sales directly pays for the site. The producer is based in the U.S. I'm looking for a T-shirt printer in Korea to make some for the local waygook population. T-shirt sales, so far, have been good, but they can get better.
Also, there are some great bloggers and references in the links section on the right column.
Labels: Miscellaneous
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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. |
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