Korean Cooking: Class Five

Recently, our small, point and shoot died. So I only took one photo with my phone. Not very representative of the meal -- apologies.

This past Friday we went to the fifth and final cooking class. We prepared an outstanding dish of Pork Ribs (돼지 갈비 찜) and Egg Roll/Omelet (달걀말이). We were also given our first printed version of the recipe therefore this may turn out to be the most detailed Cooking Class post I've yet provided ^^

On the other hand, Mike and I split responsibility on these two dishes and I only mastered the Egg Dish (because I am a Master of Eggs).

Pork Dish Ingredients:

150 grams Rib Pork
1/2 sm. Carrot
1/2 sm. Potato
1/4 sm. Onion
1/2 Red Chili

(For Sauce)
2 Tbsp. Soy Sauce
1 tsp. Sugar
1 tsp. Cooking Wine
Pepper
Sesame Seeds
Sesame Oil
2 Tbsp. Onion, diced
1 clove Garlic, minced
Seasoning Salt

Directions:

Rinse of pork ribs in cold water, cut into bite size pieces then boil for a few minutes. Chop the carrot, potato and onion. Dice the red chili. Strain pork ribs use sauce pan to saute chili pepper before adding boiled pork ribs and half of the sauce plus one cup of water. Add carrot and potato, bring broth to boil then reduce heat and decrese liquid by about half. Add onion, the rest of the sauce and return to boil. Finally, add some sesame oil and return to boiling. Stir occassionally. Enjoy with rice.

Egg Dish Ingredients:

2 eggs
1/2 Carrot, diced
Sm. Green Onin, diced
Onion, diced
Sprinkle of Sugar
Salt to Taste
Cooking Wine/Liquor
Oil for frying

Directions:

Boil together 2 spoons of broth, sugar, salt and 2 spoons of liquor. Remove from heat. Mix two eggs with wisk or fork, add broth mixture. Add carrot and onions. Sufficiently oil a small pan to begin frying the egg. You will essentially attempt now to make an omelet but rather than folded, it needs to be rolled. Koreans manage this with a spoon and set of chopsticks ... here's the basic concept, pour a thin layer of egg into the hot pan, when egg is mostly set begin rolling from the edge toward the center. The side of the pan which is now exposed is ready for more oil (if necessary) and more egg mixture until all the egg has been cooked and rolled. (I'll try to video it sometime - because it's kind of a fun trick to learn). Cut into bite-size pieces and enjoy with a bowl of Makoli -- Korean Rice Wine (the white, creamy and more delicous one!). DELICOUS!!!

Korean Cooking: Class Four

This will likely be my shortest post regarding the cooking class.  This was, I hate to admit, my least favorite dish we've made thus far. Another hangover soup and fried anchovies...

The fried anchovies were simple but not friendly toward my tastebuds.  Take some dry little anchovies, rinse them off (if you're lucky you'll see a little bitty squid!). Heat some olive oil in a frying pan add to the anchovies a sauce of: 2 Tbsp. Soy Sauce, 1 Tbsp. Spoon full of Sugar, 1 Tbsp. Corn Syrup, 1 Tbsp. Cooking Wine, minced Garlic and Black Pepper to taste. Saute for a few minutes, throw in a few chili peppers continue sauteing until peppers are crisp but tender. Enjoy the meal that stares back!

If you prefer not to see the eyes of what you're consuming, you can try out this bean sprout/hangover soup.

Ingredients:

Dried Pollock ~ 1/4 cup

Bean Sprouts ~ 1/4 cup

1 Clove Garlic, minced

Chili Pepper, to taste

1 Red Chili Pepper, bias cut

1 Green Onion, bias cut

Anchovy Stock or Chicken Stock ~ 3 cups

1 Egg - whisked

Directions:

Wash Pollock. Fry pollock in pan with a little sesame oil, soy sauce and black pepper to rid the fish of fishiness. In 3 cups of boiling stock add bean sprouts, cook 5 minutes to reduce smell ^^. Add onion, chilis, and garlic. Simmer 3-4 minutes reduce heat. Gradually pour in whisked egg but DON'T stir until egg has set, remove from heat and kiss your hangover goodbye!

Korean Cooking: Class Three

Our second Korean cooking class covered the preperation of one of our absolute favorite dishes: man-du -- Korean dumplings. Man-du comes in a variety of forms; steamed, in soup, fried, filled with meat and veggies or kimchi.

For mandu - you'll need a little magic. Only because they're tricky to close and I can't accurately tell you how to make the dough or where to purchase it - however, I assume something like wonton skins would work.

To make the filling finely chop:
Chunk of Pork (1/8 cup) -- loin or chop
Tofu (1/4 cup) -- after squeezing out the moisture using cheesecloth and your hand
Small portion of Leek or Scallions
Clove of Garlic
Kimchi (2 Tbsp.) -- liquid squeezed out

(Measurements given are HUGE approximations and would only allow for about 6-8 dumplings.)

Place a tsp. or two into the center of the dough circle bring edges of dough together using a light touch of water if needed to assisst the coming together of the dough -- this is where the magic comes in. It's a learned art, this folding of Mandu and at this point - I have no tips for the perfect folding technique...sorry.

Using a steamer, steam the dumplings for 8 - 10 minutes, enjoy dipped in soy sauce. Your tastebuds will love you for it!

The second dish we made was 'goong joong tak pok ki' -- Mike describes the dish as a Korean twist on stir-fry. We were informed that this dish is finding increasing popularity among the younger generations of Koreans - so, here are the rough directions for a 'trendy' Korean dish.

In a skillet, fry up some thinly sliced beef (perferably marinated in soy and sesame oil). Add thinly sliced carrots, onion, green pepper and cabbage. Too the skillet add a dressing of soy sauce, oyster sauce and sesame oil (for our small skillet we used probably 2tsp of the first two ingredients and 1 of the oil). Then add to the pan a small bit of water and heat the dish until much of the water has evaporated. Now, for those of you in America, I hope you have a glorious Asian market or some connection because the rice cake noodle may be hard to duplicate -- anyway, find yourself some rice cake noodles, cut into thirds coat with a little sesame oil and soy sauce and add toward the final minutes of meal preperation. Enjoy with mandu and a few good friends, you can't go wrong!

Korean Cooking: Class Two

We signed up for a Korean Cooking class. We signed up late though. So we missed the first class. If I would have made it to the first class, I would have known that I should bring a notebook and pen to write down the recipe so I wouldn't feel so helpless when it came time to cook. Regardless, I have a memory like an elephant and was surrounded by notebook toting (?) cooks - so our dishes were successful!

The menu for the event was: Fried Tofu and 'Hangover' Soup (aka Bean Sprout Soup)

Since I did not have a notebook, nor did I have to measure out my own ingredients, I can only give a rough estimate as to how these dishes would be re-created, but that's more or less how I record all my recipes these days, so nothing new there.

For Bean Sprout soup you need:

1 Large Handful of Bean Sprouts
4-5 Clams
3 cups Anchovy 'paste'/water with 1-2 dried anchovies disolved
About 1/4 cup diced scallions
2 cloves of Garlic, minced
A dash of salt

To prepare: Rinse off the bean sprouts, throw into a pot. Add anchovy paste/water, salt and clams. Boil for about 8 minutes [we were also warned not to open the lid because it would smell bad]. Check dish, if clams have opened you're well on your way to a complete pot of 'Hangover Soup'! Add the scallions and salt to taste! Enjoy after a night of heavy drinking!



For the fried tofu you will need:
1 package of Tofu
1 cup (or less) Anchovy paste/water
2 Tbsp. Chili Powder [unless you have a week tongue or gut]
2 Peppers (one red, one green) diced
1 Tbsp. Soy Sauce (I think)
1 Tsp. Sugar...maybe a Tbsp.

Begin by boiling the tofu in water. Remove block of tofu from water then slice. In skillet, heat anchovy paste, chili powder, soy sauce, sugar and peppers until HOT! Add slices of tofu, cook on each side until 'fried' -- brown. Remove from pan, serve with rice and hangover soup - you have yourself an official Korean meal!