A Korean Home Cooking Lesson
Written by Bessie on Saturday, October 24, 2009 in Korea, Republic of
Feelin' excited
My favorite thing about being in Korea is the food. It's healthy, chock full of flavors, and spicy - something I've finally learned to appreciate since travelling.Feelin' excited
I was pretty pumped when a Korean mother and friend of ours, Helen, invited Kyle and I over for lunch & a little cooking lesson. She of course prefaced it all with a humble, something along the lines of "I can't cook everything", but man, she can cook. And it was super adorable, she had it all set up like a cooking show with all the glass bowls with the foods already prepped: the onions finely chopped, garlic minced, and eggs already cracked.
Here are the results, so you can have a visual of the end goal. Super delicious!!!
top left, then around clockwise:
lettuce leaves to wrap pork pieces into; plum sauce pork, fern bracken (yummy soft veggie);
red bean jigae/ soup; boiled egg; two kinds of kimchi; gamjang sauce for the meat
First essential part: broth.
Boil about 2 liters of water the ingredients for 20 minutes, then pull out ingredients for a clear broth.
1. about 20 dried anchovies
2. about 5 dried whole mushrooms
3. tangul (tashima in Korean) - it's sort of a hard, thick seaweed
4. 2 large whole radishes cut into large pieces
With the broth we made two yummy dishes, steamed eggs and a red bean soup.
Steamed Eggs
I've never steamed eggs before, but they make them pretty delicious here. It's basically mix the eggs and ingredients into a bowl & put it into a double boiler or the lovely, Korean steam oven (180'C~ 150'F).
1. diced onion & green onion
2. tea spoon salt
3. 3 eggs
4. soft tofu
5. 1 ladel of broth, or I suppose any liquid.
Red Bean Jigae or Soup
Use the remaing 2 liters of broth for the base of the soup. First use a small, fine strainer and add red bean paste into the broth so that only the flavoring of the beans go into the broth, but none of the bean skins or pieces go into the broth. The broth should stay clean of bean parts. Boil the broth with all the ingredients about 20 minutes.
1. use about 1.5 cups of red bean paste
2. 1 cup cut zuccini
3. firm tofu
3. hot peppers for flavor (and only if you're Kyle, you can eat them)
4. red hot pepper powder to taste
5. about a tablespoon of minced garlic or to taste
additional veggies are optional: onion, shiregi (the boiled green part of radishes), etc)
here the soup is boiling, you can spoon off the red powder bubbles for cosmetic appeal
Plum Sauce Pork
Marinade over night, pork pieces with plum sauce, spices and veggies. Then cook (no oil) in a teflon pan, stirring frequently. Serve with whole pieces of lettuce to wrap the meat into bite sized pieces.
1. large pieces of 3-4 onions
2. 1 tablespoon of minced garlic or to taste
3. plum sauce
4. 1 red spicy pepper to taste
5. tea spoon red pepper powder
6. 1-2 table spoons red pepper paste, for more spicy flavor
marinade after 12-18 hours.
getting my stir on
Sorry for the lack of photos - hopefully we'll do it again sometime and I'll take more, especially one with Helen. If I try these in my own kitchen, maybe I'll take some embarassing photos! :) If I can come back cooking one or two Korean dishes, I'll be so happy.
Thanks for the yummy lunch, Helen!
Comments on "A Korean Home Cooking Lesson"
I hope I can make some of it!! I'll sure try!
WOW... What a great cooking lesson experience to share! So where is the photo of Mom Helen?! Thanks for the recipes! Sorry I missed dinner...............
You would have liked it. I'll b sure to get a picture of her the next time!
Glad that you are experiencing all aspects of Korean culture. What a nice treat to have someone with experience be willing to share their knowledge.
And Koreans don't often invite each other into their homes, so it was a really nice experience all around!
yummy! when you come back to the states, you have to make some for us! Soooo tired of "western" food...
by Kristine at October 26, 2009 09:26 AM