Korean Cabbage Soup

What culinary experience week would be complete without a nice soup? I stuck with a vegetable that I've always loved and am quite familiar with - cabbage! But not just any cabbage, no a beautiful napa cabbage! 
Unfortunately I didn't think to take any pictures of this pretty cabbage but I did get a few snaps of the soy bean paste that added a hearty slow cooked taste to the soup in literally seconds.

Baechu Gook

As you can see it looks like a gummy paste and comes in an adorable little storage container. On the front is a small picture of the soy bean paste bricks traditionally hung up and allowed to dry and ferment over the course of months. I don't think this particular paste has had that kind of love and affection bestowed upon it but it will do just nicely for this recipe. 


If I had it to do all over again, I would've been a bit less liberal with the beef stock powder. It's potent stuff! Just a tiny bit goes a long way so make sure you don't add more than the recipe calls for. 


Unfortunately, the beautiful napa cabbage that I spoke so highly of before cooking turned into a soggy looking mess after it cooked. My way of solving that problem was to take an immersion blender to it and blend the life out of it. Having done away with all the chewing that may have been involved had I not blended it to death, it went down rather easily and quickly and it was gone within two days. I call that success! 

Korean Fried Chicken

                                                                                                                                                  

Korean Fried Chicken

Cool Spicy Korean Cucumber Salad-Oi Muchim

We're a few weeks out from Korean week but we've neglected our posts and are now hastily trying to make amends for our slothful ways. Luckily for our loyal readers, all two of you, and especially for us, we've not stopped cooking and eating.

Above are the lovely ingredients we used to make the savory batter for our Korean Fried Chicken. We chose to go with wings because they're easy to cook, they're fun to eat and they're easy on the budget. What could be better! Also using the wok to fry the wings made everything, including clean up, run much more smoothly.

The Korean chili paste added that perfect extra kick that took something as simple as fried chicken from ho hum to yum yum. Usually I stay as far away from spicy food as possible, but this was delicious and not over the top. This chili paste will definitely show up in dishes well after Korean week is over. You can see the tiny bits of minced garlic and ginger that went into the sauce. It was well worth the effort and we made quick work of tucking in.

As a nice side dish we quickly made up some Korean cucumber salad. My folks provided the fresh cucumber from their back garden and I swear there's nothing more refreshing in the summer time than a cool cuke. Although I think this dish would've turned out better if I'd used thin little slices of English cucumber, we found it was the perfect accompaniment to the fried wings all the same. All in all we were quiet pleased with how it all turned out. 

잘 먹었습니다

 Bom Apetite!

H-Mart and Kimchi

Imagine our delight when we came across H-Mart, a chain of Korean grocery stores. In fact we were so delighted that it served as part of the impetus for starting our weekly forays into international cuisine. We managed to pick up some really interesting stuff including Korean chili paste, soybean paste, powdered beef broth and most importantly kimchi! Because everything was so reasonably priced, it was hard to resist picking up a few kitchen essentials as well. We were on the look out for a rolling pin and pestle and mortar and came across some we just couldn't leave behind. 

Luckily for us H-Mart isn't strictly Korean and stocks loads of Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese and even Mexican ingredients. With the store only a few blocks away, we're sure to become regulars there in no time!

Kimchi is the quintessential Korean dish and as such, it would be sacrilege to miss out on it this week. For those who like me have never had kimchi, it consists of spiced Napa cabbage seasoned with fish sauce and fermented for 3 days. As a girl who can eat her way through a pig from snout to tail, my first taste still required a bit of courage. However I'm glad I finally mustered up the cajones to step up to the plate and try a bite. I was pleasantly surprised. My better half was miles ahead of me as always and dove in as soon as the lid was taken off. Dave loved kimchi from the first bite and I'm sure it'll be a prominent feature in posts in the very near future. I can't wait! 

Pancake Tuesday...with a twist!

Korean Pancake - Pa Jeonpa 

This is the first in a series of weekly country specific recipes. We are spending the first week solely cooking recipes from Korea. We've never cooked Korean before.

This recipe differs from the original in the link in several ways. The vegetables and shrimp were sautéed in a wok, and seasoned with salt and pepper, before they were added to the pancake batter. Some of the carrot was julienned rather than just grated to keep some crunch. 

This recipe looked quick and easy to throw together with odds and ends from the fridge. This turned out to be the case. It was as simple as mixing flour and water and adding the vegetables for a nice savory pancake. The pancake was surprisingly filling and I found that I could just about eat one as a meal!