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