Cooking Attempt #47: 불고기

불 - fire (bul)
고기 - meat (gogi)

It's beef stirfry! You can order this already cooked, but if the restaurant has those tabletop grills, you can cook it yourself.

I had a huge chunk of frozen sliced beef in the freezer. It must have been over 1kg of meat. I let it thaw completely and patted it with paper towel to soak up the excess blood. I sliced up some zucchini, carrots and onion. The marinade was made with soy sauce, fish sauce, ginger powder, garlic powder, salt, pepper, honey and diced apples. The honey and diced apple are for keeping the meat soft during cooking. I would have used apple juice, if I had some. I mixed everything together and left it to marinate overnight.

That's a lot of meat.

The next day, I heated up a pan with a tiny tiny bit of oil and cooked it in sections. There was just too much to cook all at once.

Now, how to eat bulgogi, or any other type of Korean BBQ you order. You could always eat it with rice, but you'll get sick of it. I should know. At a restaurant, it should always come with some lettuce leaves, maybe raw cloves of garlic and a dish of miso-chili paste. What do you do with those?

Take a piece of lettuce. You should really hold it in your hand, but I couldn't do that and take pictures at the same time. I'm only one person.

You put a decent amount of your food on the lettuce. This is actually a bit much. You'll see why. Think about your mouth size and how much you can fit in there. I could also have had a bit of rice on the lettuce, but didn't have any cooked just then.

Then you have other stuff you can put on top. I personally like a little dollop of miso paste. Other people put the raw garlic or a mixture of green onions soaked in soy sauce. Figure out what you like. There aren't any rules.

Wrap it all up into a tidy ball and shove it into your mouth gracefully. If you've done it right, it should all go at once in your mouth. If it's too big, then things will spill out after your bite it in half. Cover your mouth with the other hand. Believe me when I tell you that you'll look even messier than when you're eating those gigantic rolls of sushi. But that's part of the fun. There are no crazy rules of meal etiquette here. Just keep yourself relatively clean. That's all!

Cooking Attempt #46: 궁중떡볶이

궁중 = Royal Court (goong-joong)
떡 = rice cake (ddeok)
볶이 = stir fry (bok-ee)

This is a dish that was served at court years ago. It's sort of related to this recipe, which was invented in the 1950s and is a favourite snack food especially among students.

It was really easy to make, considering it's supposed to be something that was served to royalty.

First, I took some frozen rice cake (it has to be little cylinders, not balls or slices) and dunked it into boiling water for a few seconds. Then I dunked it in cold water, drained it and tossed it with a bit of sesame oil. This was set aside.

I had some frozen ground beef and frozen veggie mix (Asian mix?) that I wanted to use up. Some kind of thinly sliced beef and julienned vegetables are ideal. The vegetables should be softer ones (you know, not potatoes or something). I started by cooking the beef with salt and pepper in a frying pan, then added the veggie mix. While I had that going, I made the sauce with soy sauce, garlic, pepper, tiny bit of ginger powder, sesame oil and honey. I tossed in the rice cake and sauce at the same time and stirred it around until everything was cooked through.

Before eating, I sprinkled on some roasted sesame seeds. Yum!

Cooking Attempt #45: 김치전 (Kimchi pancakes)

김치 = kimchi
전 = pancake (jeon)

I made this back in October, but just forgot to post it, I suppose. The key to making kimchi pancakes is to have ripe kimchi. Kimchi is very finicky, you see. It's very good when it's first made, then as it ferments, it goes through several stages.

Fresh --> wonky --> ripe --> vinegary --> mature (this is after spending about 2 years in proper storage and as a result, it's very hard to find).

I had some kimchi that was about to go vinegary (a few months after being made, I guess?), so I decided to use it up.

It's really easy. First you squeeze out the kimchi juice (to prevent your batter from becoming too watery and spicy). Then dice up the kimchi into itty bitty pieces. You add flour and water to make it into a runny batter (you know...like pancakes!).



Then you heat a pan with some oil and make a nice little cake. When one side's done, just flip it over once and cook the other side.




I just discovered the "Enhance Color" function in Microsoft Office Picture Manager. It's awesome. Makes the colour of food really pop, don't you think?

Cooking Attempt #44: 호박타락죽 (Buttercup squash milk porridge)

호박 - squash
타락 - old Korean word for milk
죽 - porridge

I saw them make this on an episode of 무한도전, which is a Korean variety show. Apparently they used to serve this at the palace to important foreign guests. It's supposed to be a lightly sweet appetizer.

I've been meaning to make this porridge for a long time, but didn't get around to it until I saw a nice pile of buttercup squash at the grocery store last week.

I set the rice to cook in my rice cooker. After scrubbing the squash clean, I cut it up and scraped out all the seeds.



I cooked them in the microwave for 10 minutes. When you do this, you have to make sure that the squash pieces are placed so that the peels are facing up. This is to prevent water from pooling in the meat portion of the squash. Something about diluting the flavour of the squash. *shrug*

After it's cooked, the peel comes off easily with a fork. You can eat the peels, actually.



I put 2 cups of milk, 3/4 cup of cooked sticky rice, a pinch of salt and the squash pieces into a pot. This should be cooked at medium heat and no higher. You don't want the milk to burn. From this point on, you have to stir constantly to prevent the milk from burning. Gradually, the mixture turns into a sunny yellow. After it was heated enough, I used my hand mixer to make it into a nice thick consistency.



Then I mixed in a tablespoon of honey and poured myself a bowl! I sprinkled on a tiny bit of nori just to give it a visual accent. Mmm~ It was like eating a bowl of sunshine!

Cooking Attempt #43: 칼국수 (Korean noodle soup)

칼 - knife
국수 - noodles

So...knife noodles?

I guess this would be like the Korean version of ramen in Japan? I'm not sure how they make their noodles for ramen, but for 칼국수, you make a dough with flour, water, salt and egg. Then you roll it out and cut it into long thin strips. These are then tossed straight into the pot when the soup portion is ready.

Of course I didn't make the noodles myself. I bought ready made noodles from the Korean market. You have to buy fresh noodles, because dry noodles aren't as yummy.

I made the broth with dry anchovies and dashi (standard broth making ingredients in Korea). Then tossed in potato, onion, mushrooms and green onion. The seasoning was made with chili paste, miso paste, soy sauce, garlic and ginger. You have to make sure that there is a lot of broth for each portion, because the noodles soak up quite a bit of moisture as it cooks. Right before I turned off the heat, I swirled in an egg. Mmmm~~~