Korean Cucumber Salad (O-ee Muchim 오이 무침)

Hello!

January is almost over, but before it ends I wanted to share a recipe I tried a few weeks ago that reminded me a lot of the cucumber salad served at a Korean BBQ restaurant back home. This recipe is called "Oh-ee moochim", oh-ee means cucumber and moochim is a kind of Korean salad (there's many types of moochim dishes). There's many variations of this recipe, but this one comes out of the same cookbook I mentioned in my last post. The dish comes together pretty fast and it will last up to about 5-7 days in the fridge and goes great with grilled meats and other rice dishes.

Korean Cucumber Salad (O-ee Muchim 오이 무침)
Ingredients
2 cucumbers
1/2 onion
4-6 green onions (depending on size)
very small handful of carrots
2/3 TBS Red pepper flakes
1 TBS minced garlic
1 TBS soy sauce
1 1/2 TBS sugar
1 TBS salt
4 TBS white vinegar
1 TBS sesame oil
1 tsp sesame seeds

Directions
1. Slice the cucumbers in half lengthways, and then in half once more to create 4 long strips out of each cucumber. (Note: you can also slice the cucumbers into thin 1/8in discs and skip the next step.)
2. Cut the cucumbers into 4-5 cm pieces.
3. Slice the carrots into matchsticks 4-5 cms long; cut the onion into thin slices; cut the green onions into 4-5 cm long pieces.
4. Put the cucumber, carrots, onions, and green onions together in a mixing bowl.
5. Add red pepper flakes, minced garlic, soy sauce, sugar, and salt to the mixture.
6. Add in the vinegar slowly, to taste (be careful not to add so much vinegar that it's too sour for you).
7. Continue to mix all veggies and marinade together.
8. Add in the sesame seeds and sesame oil and mix together one last time.

That's it!

Hope you enjoy!
-ChefK

Kimchi Jjigae with Pork

Happy New Year !

I've been cooking some since the new year but I've been looking for the right one to share with you and I think I've found a worthy one.

Today's recipe is actually not from a blog, but is a recipe featured in Baek Jong Won's recipe book. Baek's easy and delicious recipes have earned him a large following in Korea these days, and so I picked it up during my trip to Korea a few months back.

The recipe I will translate and share with you today is Kimchi Jjigae with pork. This is a Kimchi stew that can be whipped up in 30 minutes start to finish and has a nice depth of flavor. The key to this dish is to use aged kimchi that's been hanging out in your fridge for a while and has started to get nice and sour.

Kimchi Jjigae with Pork (돼지고기 김치찌개)
Ingredients
Aged Kimchi - 1 cup (if not already cut, cut it into larger bite size pieces, and save any "kimchi juice" that is with it)
Pork - 1/2 lb (pork neck or belly is recommended, but in my case I used a boneless porkchop that had some marbling)
Tofu - 1/3 of a package (recipe uses firm tofu, I love soft tofu and used that instead)
1/2 yellow onion
2 green onions
1/3 of a long green pepper
1 1/2 cups of water (if you are making rice, save the water from when you wash the rice and use this)
1 TBS minced garlic
2 TBS red pepper flakes
2 TBS soup soy sauce (see explanation below)
1 TBS salted shrimp (see explanation below)

Directions
1. Cut your pork into bite sized cubes (roughly 1 cm on all edges).
2. Rinse tofu and slice it into 1 cm thick slices that are 3 cm by 4 cm in length/width. (Again, I used soft tofu, so I skipped this step.)
3. Cut your onion into thin (1/2 cm) half moons, and then slice the green onions and long hot green pepper into small discs roughly 1/2 cm wide. 
4. Put your pot on the stove at medium to medium high heat and put in your kimchi (plus some kimchi juice), pork, onions, green onions, green pepper and firm tofu (if you used it).
5. Add in the water.
6. Add the garlic, red pepper flakes, soup soy sauce, and salted shrimp and let the stew come to a boil. Once it's boiling, make sure the heat is at medium and then let everything cook 10 minutes more until the pork is done. If you used soft tofu, I added it about 5 minutes into the boiling and carefully stirred it in to prevent it from fully breaking apart.

Once it looks right to you (add more water if needed- it all depends how much liquid your ingredients had in them, turn off the head and serve with a bowl of rice!

This was my dinner last night and lunch today, and it was delicious both times!

Explanations:

There are 2 ingredients in this dish that a bit more unique than the others. The first is soup soy sauce (gook gan jang, 국간장) which is saltier than regular soy sauce and also a little lighter in color, and as a result is used in flavoring primarily soups. The brand I use (for no particular reason) is Sempio Soy Sauce for Soup but there are many brands to choose from, available in any Asian store carrying Korean ingredients. If you don't have it on hand, you can use regular soy sauce, and then add extra salt to the dish (rather than adding more soy sauce).




The second unique ingredient is Korean Fermented Salted Shrimp (saewoo-jut, 새우젓). These are tiny shrimp that are salted and added to many dishes (including kimchi itself) to add saltiness and umami-flavor. It should be in the refrigerated section of your Korean store. If you can't get your hands on some, fish sauce or extra salt can be used instead.




Enjoy!
-ChefK

Japchae - Sweet potato noodles with veggies and beef

Hello again....after 2+ years away!

After my last post I got lazy for a while and then Naver Kitchen, the source for my recipes, was discontinued in December 2013 so I used that as an excuse to not continue with the blog, though I did continue to use Naver blogs as a primary source for my recipes... I've come across a few good ones lately so I figured I'd share them with you all :)

The recipe below I tried out as part of my Christmas day Korean feast (this will be a multi-part series) and it was delicious! I've tried making japchae before and always felt like the noodles didn't absorb much flavor, or the mixings all ended up at the bottom of the bowl so it wasn't a high priority to make again. However, when made well, I knew it was a crowd-pleaser so I figured I'd give it another shot.

I used the recipe featured on the blog below and added and removed veggies based on my personal taste. The items on the blog that I did not use will be marked with a (B), and the things that were not on the blog but that I did use will be marked with a (K). Feel free to add both, neither, or add your own favorite veggies!

Korean Sweet Potato Noodles with Veggies and Beef (잡채) serves 4-5 with some leftovers

Ingredients
Main Ingredients

Sweet Potato Noodles ("Dangmyun", 당면)- 250 g
Beef Tenderloin - 1/2 lb, cut into small, thin, matchstick-size strips about 2in long (I used a filet mignon)
1 Shiitake mushroom (B)
1/4 of a carrot (about 1/2 cup)
2 Korean Oyster mushrooms (saesongi mushroom) (B)
1 bunch of Korean chives (buchu 부추); you can substitute green onions if needed
1 lg onion
1 yellow bell pepper (K- blog calls out only for 1/2 pepper)
1 red bell pepper (K)
2 cups fresh spinach (K)

Beef Marinade
1 TBS Soy Sauce
1 TBS minced garlic
1 TBS sesame oil
1 TBS Mirim (or soju or other white cooking wine)
Dash of black pepper

Sweet Potato Noodle Sauce
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup corn syrup (I know this is a lot...I started with 1/4 cup and kept adding til it tasted right, which ended up being almost the full 1/2 cup the blog called for)
2 TBS vegetable oil (the blog calls for 5 TBS)
1/2 TBS minced garlic

Vegetable Mix Sauce
3 TBS sesame oil
2 TBS sesame seeds 


Directions
1. Slice all veggies (except spinach) into uniform matchstick size strips.
2. Boil a pot of slightly salted water and dump in spinach and korean chives, boil for ~10 secs, and then drain and rinse with cool water.
3. Slice the beef into matchstick-size bites and mix with the marinade and place in fridge (this can be done in advance).
4. Heat 2 TBS vegetable oil over medium heat and add the matchstick veggies, gently stirfrying until the vegetables are tender.
5. Put the stir-fried veggies and blanched spinach/chives into a mixing bowl, add the Vegetable Mix Sauce, and stir to combine.
6. In the same pan you used in step 4, gently cook the marinated beef over med-low to medium heat and then add the meat to the bowl of vegetables. 
7. Boil a large pot of water and prepare sweet potato noodles according to directions on packaging (the blog says to boil for 11 minutes, the noodles I bought said 5-6 mins and that seemed to be plenty). Once noodles are cooked, drain in a colander and thoroughly rinse under cool water. **I used scissors to cut the noodles 3-4 times so that they were easier to eat later on**
8. Mix together the Sweet Potato Noodle Sauce in a pan/pot over medium-high heat and stir in the noodles. Continue stirring over med-high heat for 5 minutes, then lower the head to med-low and continue to stir for 3 minutes. When this is done, the sauce should be almost fully absorbed/evaporated- you may need to lengthen or shorten the cooking time to achieve this.
9. Now, mix the veggies/meat into the noodles and mix well to combine. Place in serving dish and sprinkle with sesame seeds, and now its ready to eat! :)


Link to original blog post (with pictures): http://m.blog.naver.com/tokkiaka/220563822316 

Enjoy!
-ChefK

Spicy Pork Bulgogi

Hello again,

Korean food is known for being spicy, and while there are plenty of non-spicy dishes out there, spicy food is my absolute favorite. The dish for today is one that I've eaten plenty of times, but the one below is the closest I've come to recreating a dish made by a friend's mom many years ago.

The dish is called Pork Bulgogi, "Dwaeji Bulgogi" in Korean, and is one of my favorite go-to dishes when I don't know what else to cook. It's a fairly straightforward spicy-sweet marinade, mixed into thinly sliced pork, and slowly cooked over med-low heat. I've made it for coworkers, family members, and friend and have yet to find someone who didn't like it (assuming of course that they don't mind a little spicy-sweet heat). 

Enough talk, let's get cooking.

Ingredients:

Stirfry

1.5 pounds of pork (the recipe calls out for pork shoulder, but since it's hard to find a small piece of pork shoulder, I often use a boneless pork rib with a little bit of fat on it)

1 onion cut into 1/4 inch thick slices

1 large zucchini cut into half-moon shapes 1/4 inch thick (optional)
3-4 green onions cut into 4 inch sections

1 TBS cooking oil 

1 TBS minced garlic (optional)

1 TBS minced ginger (optional)

Marinade

4 TBS Korean red pepper paste (gochujang)

2 TBS soy sauce (try to avoid the less salt versions as the flavor is not as good)

2 TBS sugar

1.5 TBS corn syrup (or oligodang 올리고당 if you have it)

1 TBS Asian cooking wine (chungju, mirin, soju all work)

2 TBS minced garlic
1 TBS minced ginger

1-2 tsp sesame oil

dash of black pepper

2 TBS chili flakes 

Edible Garnishes 

2-3 cloves thinly sliced garlic

1 long red pepper sliced into 1/4 inch thick slices

1 long green pepper sliced into 1/4 inch thick slices 

1 head red leaf lettuce washed and drained 

Directions

1. If your grocery store won't cut the meat into 1/8 inch slices for you (mine won't), then place meat into freezer for about 45 minutes until it gets firm, but not frozen. Remove and slice into very thin strips (1/8 in thickness or less- the goal is for it to be thin and bite size). Place in large bowl.

2. Prepare marinade by mixing all ingredients together, leaving the chili flakes for last. You may decide to add more or less depending on your spice tolerance, keeping mind that it won't seem as spicy once cooked with the pork. Once the marinade is well mixed, add to pork and refrigerate (at least 30 minutes but I've done it up to 24 hours).

3. When it's time to cook, pour cooking oil into the pan over medium heat. I use the low and slow method keeping the heat low enough that it takes about 20-30 minutes to fully cook everything. Add in the marinated pork, sliced zucchini, and onions, and cover the pan, stirring occasionally for the first 10-15 minutes.  

4. Once the veggies are soft, remove the cover and continue to slowly cook until the meat is done. Add in the green onions about 3 minutes before everything is done and stir them in well.

5. Transfer meat to serving dish and serve with a bowl of rice. The edible garnishments can be used to make lettuce wraps (place piece of lettuce in hand, put pork, rice, garlic, and peppers on top, then wrap and eat. 

If you're not fond of fresh garlic, you can also roast/caramelize them a bit to sweeten them.

Please check out siamsun44's version of the recipe here (complete with step by step pictures): 

http://siamsun44.blog.me/60169793584

Enjoy!

First post

Hello world, 

This blog is an attempt to share recipes found on various Korea websites (but mostly Naver Blogs) with an English speaking audience. I am an avid eater who also loves to cook and I've always had an interest in Korean culture, which has naturally led to an interest in Korean cooking. When looking for new recipes, there are some great English blogs out there with wonderful recipes, but sometimes they just don't have quite what I'm working for, and so that's when I turn to Naver blogs for some help....and now I'm hoping to share them with you! 

I will always include links to the original recipe, which should include the pictures that match with my directions. 

Please let me know if you have any specific requests and I'd be happy to oblige!

Happy eating!!