Korean cooking from the beginning

For now I will start preparing recipes from my three favorite Korean cookbooks. I will be comparing and contrasting them as I expand my knowledge of Korean food. I will do my best to pass along what I’ve learned and the little tips that I already know. What I won’t be doing is giving you the entire recipes verbatim from the books. You should buy these cookbooks. The authors went to an incredible amount of work to get published these books and we should support them by purchasing the fruits of their very hard labor. I own at least three copies of each. If I have a recipe that is original to me, I will include it in its entirety.

The following books will be my reference materials along with quite a few other cookbooks and Korean food and culture books. These three are very worthy purchases:

http://www.amazon.com/Korean-Mothers-Cooking-Notes/dp/8973002996

http://www.amazon.com/Growing-up-Korean-Kitchen-Cookbook/dp/1580082815

http://www.amazon.com/Eating-Korean-Barbecue-Kimchi-Recipes/dp/0764540785/

I’m not recommending Amazon as the source of the books but it’s a good starting place to learn about them. Here is another link to A Korean Mother’s Cooking Notes http://www.hanbooks.com/kormotcookno.html with more information.

The next post will be about Korean style rice.

Gamjajeon Korean Potato Pancakes Part 2

I tried again today but used the small holes on the box grater to get away from the "hash brown" look. I also used Yukon Gold instead of Russets. It produced a lot more water which I soaked up with paper towels. The result looked more like a true pancake but they didn't seem to taste as good as the Russet batch. Next time I'll try Russets finely grated. And I'll use my food processor. The box grater and I didn't get along today.

Gamjajeon 감자전 Korean Potato Pancake

I thought I should add something since Young K recommended to the cooking group to check it out.

I made Gangwondo style gamjajeon this afternoon as a snack for my parents and students. I've looked at this recipe for a couple of years and thought about making it but never did until two weeks ago when I felt a burst of ambition and whipped up a batch.

The recipe I use is adapted from Hi Soo Shin Hepinstall's "Growing up in a Korean Kitchen". Egg and cornstarch are mixed together and then chopped peppers, mushrooms, green onions and garlic are added.

Potatoes are quickly grated and mixed in. I use a box grater and if you cut the potatoes in half lengthwise is works well.

The batter is dropped into the pan and cooked for about 4 minutes per side. I prepared a vinegar soy sauce for dipping.

The first time I prepared this the boys complained about there not being enough heat. This time I used 4 peppers. My mouth is still tingling a little. Maybe I'll try three next time.

The only complaint was that I should have doubled the recipe.

Japchae 잡채

Here's a picture of the Korean noodle dish Japchae. I made this for a Korean Language Meetup in Seattle. It's considered one of the best Korean dishes to take to a potluck dinner. It can be served at room temperature and keeps well. This version of Japchae contains flank steak, noodles, 3 kinds of mushrooms, onion, carrot, cucumber and bellflower root. It sounds simple but it's fairly labor intensive. All the ingredients are prepared separately and then tossed together at the end. I've made it several times and it's only become a little easier to prepare. I use a mandoline slicer to get the long strips of carrot and cucumber.

Shredded Radish Salad 무생채

Mu saengchae is one of my favorite side dishes. I always eat way more than I should and it's easy to make. This picture doesn't convey how spicy this version is. I used plenty of fine red pepper powder along with sugar, Korean brown rice vinegar and salt. I used two large radishes and I think the three of us will have it gone in another day. I use a Japanese mandoline to cut the radish. It makes it easy and looks good too. The recipe doesn't call for any garnishing but it looks naked without at least a sprinkling of sesame seeds for chopped green onion.

Pre-Cut Kimchi 막김치

Considering the cost of kimchi at Paldo, I've started investing the time to make our own kimchi. I made a couple of gallons of cubed radish kimchi a couple of weeks ago and Monday I made just as much cabbage kimchi.

I hadn't made kimchi in about a year so I was a little worried but the recipes I started with were apparently good. The students have eaten about 20% of the cabbage kimchi in two days with a lot of discussion between them about how good it is. At this rate there may not be any left for kimchi jjigae.

My parents picked up 6 heads of cabbage and 2 radishes (about $12) on their way over from Prosser and I already had everything else so it worked out well. I put in the usual cabbage, radish, green onion, garlic, ginger, fish sauce, red pepper and sugar. The only thing different from a lot of recipes was I used fresh shrimp (or thawed Costco shrimp in this case) instead of the salted shrimp I've used in the past. It was important to me to use Costco shrimp because it's not soaked in chemicals like a lot of other seafood.

Jeotgal 젓갈 Part 2

Seeing and eating the jeotgal reminded me of a great experience when I was in Seoul last November. Professor C and I went to Noryangjin Seafood Market노량진수산시장 to see the sights and eat some fish. The professor escorted me around while I took tons of pictures and then we got down to the business of seafood. We stopped at a live fish monger and picked out a couple of strange looking fish. They were sent to a restaurant in another part of the market to be cooked for us later. We also stopped and bought several varieties of jeotgal. I was overwhelmed by the display and the quantity. Some of the small shrimp vats were as big as barrels. My favorite from that day was the oyster jeotgal. My mouth waters just thinking about it. I was planning on bringing some back to Mount Vernon but decided that customs might have a problem with raw seafood. We ate the jeotgal little by little over the rest of my stay.