Samgyeopsal is a Korean pork dish that is grilled at the table and served with samjang (a fermented chili and soybean sauce), a dish of salt and pepper, lettuce and a variety of side dishes. Here's Nate grilling his pork. You can see the fast moving hand of the very attentive server. "Yum," says Nate! He might also be saying, "it's time to put the camera away."
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Our time is Korea is quickly coming to an end, so I've decided to highlight Korean food for the next two months. Korean food has grown on me, very slowly. Most recently, I like the cold noodle dishes--amazingly refreshing on hot summer days. And gochujang, the spicy red pepper paste found in most everything, can become addictive! On a recent hike with staff from my school, we stopped for Makkguksu at one of the many outdoor restaurants. Buckwheat is grown in and around Chuncheon and Makkguksu is one of the regional specialities made with buckwheat noodles. In Makkguksu, the noodles are served cold with an icy broth, vegetables, kim (seaweed), sesame and gochujang. Almost all Korean meals come with side dishes called banchan. Here we have a gelatinous acorn jell (the brown part--called dottori). It's mixed with vegetables (truth plant), kim, sesame and gochujang. We also had a potato pancake with vegetables and soy dipping sauce. To the left is a version of kimchi made with greens. Any number of vegetables can be kimchified, but the most popular version of kimchi is made with cabbage. This is my favourite little student, William. He is the son of the administrator and accompanied the staff on our hike. In this picture, he is taking pictures of me with his phone using a program that hideously warps my face. It's quite funny! Other hikers enjoying everything under the sun... including a milky white rice wine called makkeoli. Sun + mountain + rice wine...not sure that the result of this equation is always positive.
Along the path to the Buddhist temple at Chompyeonsa, there are many small vending stalls proffering every Korean delicacy under the sun--including, yes, tree roots! You don't eat them whole or in a stir fry. They are brewed into a tree tea of sorts. You can see the bottles of liquid in the right of the picture!
Toaster-oven sweet potato (Gogoma in Korean) cake baked in the trusty toaster oven served with a dry, salted cashew caramel and some white chocolate mousse. There is no recipe. This one just evolved.
Nate and I have taken to watching Australian Master Chef every night while we eat dinner. This recipe was stolen from the Kylie Kwong, a guest chef on that show! It combines soft and succulent eggplant with a spicy, sweet and salty chili sauce, fresh cilantro, spring onions and is topped with roasted salt and pepper! The first step is to slice your eggplant (2 regular or four Japanese). Make sure the pieces are a similar size. Then, salt the eggplant and leave for half and hour. Salting removes the bitter tanic juices and some of the water from the eggplant. After the salt has done its work, rinse the eggplant and pat it dry--making sure to press out as much water as possible. While your eggplant is resting, make the chili sauce. It calls for 10 cloves of garlic and six minced red chilis (these chilis are more sweet than spicy)!!! Saute the minced chili, garlic and a nice knob of minced ginger in a pan with about 6 Tbs. of peanut oil (if you don't have peanut oil, you can use vegetable oil with a couple of dashes of sesame oil). Cook the mixture on low until it is jammy in consistency. Remove from the heat and add 2 teaspoons of soy sauce or tamari. Next, cook your eggplant in a fry pan with a few Tbs. of piping hot peanut oil (or veg with sesame). You want it to brown off and cook through. I made the unfortunate mistake of consulting the Master Chef program while my eggplant was cooking--beware it burns quite quickly! Dice about five spring onions and a bunch of cilantro (stems and leaves). Add the chili sauce to the cooked eggplant and remove the mixture from the heat. Toss the eggplant and chili sauce mixture with the green onions and the cilantro. Sprinkle with a little roasted salt and pepper. See below for roasting instructions. Roast salt and (Schechuan) peppercorns by agitating in a pan over medium heat until the peppercorns burst. It is ready when the salt turns ashen in colour. Then use a mortar and pestle to grind the mixture to a fine powder.
One of my upper level students has been showing an interest in the nuances of English intonation. There are a few phrases he thinks are particularly funny sounding--among them, "food you eat" is hilarious... I'm feeling too lazy to write any recipes down right now, so instead, here are some photos of "the food you eat" in Korea... Dolsot bibimbap is in the earthenware bowl (dolsot refers to the bowl), and to the right is a roll of kimbap (a little like sushi but with no vinegar in the rice. Kimbap contains interesting fillings--like sweet, pickled daikon, canned tuna and ham!). Banchan is the word for the many side dishes that come with most meals. The obligatory kimchi is in the small dish in the upper right. Gochujang is the red pepper paste in the lower left hand corner. Interesting fact: Gochu (the pointy red pepper from which gochujang is made) refers to the pepper and to a certain part of the male anatomy:) Fondue? Yes! There is a little cafe in Chuncheon called Fondue. They make cakes, coffee and platters of goodies to dip in fondue! Some really stunning coffee at "It's Coffee."
I really love this dish from Charlie Trotter's Vegetables Cookbook. It contains simple ingredients, but they come together beautifully in a magically caramelly, crunchy, appley plate of goodness. Baking it in the toaster oven is a little bit tricky. The crust was baked blind for a short while before adding the filling because the heat in the toaster oven primarily comes from the roof, and I didn't want a big glug of soggy pastry underneath the apples. The recipe calls for walnuts, but I had hazelnuts (you could use any nut--except peanuts--but walnuts or pecans are the nicest). For the red wine sauce, use a cup of anything you would drink--this recipe is a good excuse to buy yourself a nice bottle! My only caution is: you must pretend ignorance about the number of calories and the grams of fat per serving (it's a once a year indulgence!). Here's the recipe: Warm Apple Tartlet with Red Wine-Caramel Sauce. Top Tips 1. Don't kneed the pastry too much, but give it a good once over on a floured surface to make sure all the ingredients have come together. Refrigerate for 20 minutes before rolling. 2. Don't roll the pastry too thick. If it's too thick, it won't bake and will become a soggy mess under the apples. 3. Cut your apples in nice wedges (unless you are using a toaster oven!!! --I sliced them thinly so they would bake through). 4. Don't fuss with the caramel. Don't turn the heat up too high or the caramel with burn. Heat sugar gradually to the melting point, then add butter. Don't worry if you get a few lumps, these will dissolve when you de-glaze the pan with red wine. The sauce adds a nice zing and balances the dish with a little acidity and punch.
My latest adventures with food have revolved around our toaster oven. It's a really good little oven and can reach temperatures above 350 degrees. So far, it has produced toaster oven brownies, flourless chocolate cake, blueberry crisp and apple crisp. But the best part about exploring baking with the toaster oven was the discovery of some online resources... It's Lunar New Year here (Seollal), so I figure I can restart my resolutions today. Did you hear about the study that indicates that people who share their resolutions or goals are less likely to achieve them? Apparently, the social affirmation we receive from sharing our goals gives our brains a feel good buzz and then we are not as motivated to achieve our goals. People who keep their goals private don't receive this same emotional high and are more motivated to work toward completing their goals. That said, I really do want people to visit this blog, so in the interests of keeping your attention: I resolve to update this blog more frequently this year! Here are a few pictures of the food I had intended to write about:) Cranberry sauce from our Christmas on a Hotplate meal. No fresh cranberries were to be found, so this sauce was made with crasins, mandarins, pomegranate arils and toasted almonds. Christmas on a hotplate was a challenging little feat. We served dinner for nine. Our Korean guests were very gracious and oooed and awwed over the food. We served mashed potatoes, chicken, gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce and four kinds of salad. Appetizers were hot spinach dip, bread, smoked oysters, olives and deviled eggs (my co-conspirator was from Tennessee where deviled eggs are traditional Thanksgiving fare). Needless to say, with only two burners, there was a lot of juggling. First we cooked the stuffing on the stove top then transferred it to the toaster oven. Then we cooked the chicken and wrapped it in tin foil and warmed it on top of the hot toaster oven. Then we took the stuffing out of the toaster oven, piled it on top of the chicken (on top of the toaster oven) and heated the spinach dip for an appetizer. Then the chicken and stuffing went back in the toaster over. Then we cooked the mashed potatoes and gravy. It was a bit of a miracle that everything was served hot and that the toaster oven survived. The long march to the hotplate. We may have over done it on the potatoes. We didn't ever boil that bowlful. An interesting stuffing-making method: onions, celery, herbs, butter, French bread and chicken broth sauteed in the frying pan and then rolled in a tinfoil log for baking in the toaster oven:) I tried to make one batch of the stuffing with sausage...unfortunately, almost all sausage in Korea is what we might call hot dog. So one batch of stuffing contained a very fine dice of hot dog--I don't recommend it. We didn't have enough table space, so we all sat on the floor. Thankfully, this is the traditional seating arrangement here! I really like the communal feeling of eating this way. For dessert, cream puffs and homemade truffles.
On Christmas Eve, Nate decided to make fondue. It was a fabulous idea--what a cozy way to spend Christmas Eve! Now finding cheese in Korea is difficult. Let me re-phrase that, finding good cheese is difficult, and if you want good cheese, you must be willing to pay for it. It's about 10,000 won, a little over $10 Cnd, for a very small stick. A few stores sell imported goods, and Nate found some Swiss cheese, Australian feta, French wine, French bread and vegetables. I recently purchased two Korean earthenware pots for our Christmas on a Hotplate dinner (more on that to come). Nate balanced them on the metal potholders from our stove and lit tea lights underneath them--he had a vision! We made two mixtures of melted cheese. One was Emmenthal with Feta, rosemary, garlic, white wine and lemon juice. The other was just Emmenthal, garlic, wine and lemon juice. It was a lot of cheese. You can't begin to count the calories in a meal like this--it sucks all the pleasure out of it. We ate some salad to balance things out a little. Nate remembered that when he was in Switzerland, his Swiss homestay made fondue on Christmas Eve, so this might just be our new Korean-Swiss tradition. It' cozy. It's communal. It's delicious. And it leaves lots of left overs to be parlayed into an omelet on Christmas Day--which also happens to be a Christmas tradition.
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Kate and a Hotplate
My culinary conundrums cooking for one year with a hotplate, a toaster oven and the ingredients of Korea. Archives
August 2011
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