Kimchi!

If you need to extend the life of cabbage, this is a great option. However, we simply needed to have some kimchi re-enter our life and this includes nothing salvaged, except perhaps an onion.

For me, it was relatively important to prepare some kimchi in November, as November/the fall is generally the time when all the old women come out from the woodwork gathered around piles and piles of cabbage and working together to make sure the Korean staple is ready for the long winter ahead.

A few other notable mentions about my kimchi making day: It was the Korean "holiday" of Peppero Day (11-11) AND I had the great joy of being assisted by a sweet Korean family that is here on behalf of the man of the household serving an exchange as a visiting professor, making my first kimchi experience feel that much more authentic and valuable.

Now, on to Kimchi making...

There are essentially three parts to preparing Kimchi: Soaking, Making the Red Pepper Paste and Assembly. I will give you a rough sketch of each one of these parts followed by a link to a very detailed explanation of each step just in case you are in need of more photos and great explanation. 

Part 1~SOAKING:

Kimchi making will undoubtedly be a two day process, starting with this first step which is, in essence, preparing the cabbage by soaking it in salt water.

You will need:

• Two Heads of Napa/Chinese Cabbage
• 3 cups Coarse Sea Salt, preferably from Korea -- no joke
• 30 cups of Water

What you will do:

• Remove the outer 2-3 leaves from each cabbage, but don't discard!
• Cut a 2" slit in the stem of each cabbage, carefully split heads of cabbage in half (easier than it sounds, I promise)
• Salt each leaf of the cabbage, making sure to get plenty of salt on the thick, white parts and extra careful not to tear the leaves or disassemble the cabbage half.
• In a deep, large container (such as the kitchen sink), dissolve 3 cups of Salt in 30 cups of Water.
• Place each cabbage half, face-up into the water and cover with the reserved cabbage leaves.
• Cover with plastic and use rocks, tin cans or a heavy lid to press the cabbage halves down into the water.
• Soak for 8 hours. Flip and soak another 4 hours.
• Check for bend-ability in the cabbage stems, when they are supple it's time to rinse (3 times), halve again (so you end up with 8 quarters of a whole cabbage) and drain (at least two hours, during which you should prepare the next step).

For greater details on soaking, check out this thorough post at Beyond Kimchee (my favorite Korean food blog!)

Part 2~MAKING THE RED PEPPER PASTE:

You will need:

• A few handfuls of dried sea creatures (or one handful if you can't find multiple sea creatures or don't like sea creature flavored items - but one handful is a good idea)
• 3 cups of Water
• 2 Tbsp. Sweet, Glutenous Rice Flour
• 1 Lg. Korean Radish, julienne into 1/8" matchsticks
• 2 bunches of Green Onion
• 4 cups of Korean Red Chili Flakes
• 1/2 large Onion, roughly diced
• 10 cloves Garlic
• 2" piece of Ginger, roughly diced
• 4 (or 2) Tbsp. Anchovy Sauce
• 4 (or 2) Tbsp. Shrimp Sauce/Salted Shrimp
• 1 1/2 Tbsp. Sugar
• 2 Tbsp. toasted Sesame Seeds

What you will do:

• Make a rice glue by boiling your handful of dried sea creatures in 3 cups of water, simmer for 10 minutes, remove from heat and let set, as is for 20 minutes. Strain off sea creatures and discard sea creatures, reserving 2 cups. Bring 1 1/2 cups of stock to boil while continuously whisking in the 2 Tbsp. of Glutenous Rice Flour until the mixture is bubbly and has thickened. Save the plain 1/2 cup stock for later.
• In a blender or food processor, puree 1/2 large Onion, 10 cloves of Garlic, 2" piece of Ginger and reserved 1/2 cup Stock until smooth.
• Pour 4 cups of Korean Red Chili Flakes into a large mixing bowl, add the onion mixture and cooled rice glue, anchovy sauce, salted shrimps, sugar and sesame seeds, mix.
• Add the sliced Radish and diced Green Onions and let set for 30 minutes so the radish can extract some moisture and the mixture will be come more smooth and spreadable.
• Taste test the sauce with a piece of cabbage to evaluate saltiness and flavor, adjust with additional fish sauce or stock for spread-ability as deemed necessary, then move on to assembly.

For greater details and more pictorial assistance, check out Cabbage Kimchee: Part Two from, yet again, Beyond Kimchee. 

Part 3~ASSEMBLY:

You will need:

• Rubber Gloves
• A Cookie Tray or Large, shallow dish
• Airtight containers for storage

 What you will do:

• Gently handle each cabbage quarter and use your gloved hands to spread red chili paste between each and every leaf. Roll up the quarter, place in an airtight container. Let the kimchi sit out on the counter 2-3 days for fermentation and moisture extraction before relocating it to the refridgerator.
• Our Korean assistants explained that the outer leaves can be used to cover a bit of the kimchi, but that it is also generally spread with red pepper paste and then cut up and eaten that day as fresh kimchi with rice, which, by the way, is delicious!

For more details on this final part of preparing your kimchi, head over to Beyond Kimchee one more time!

In our house, we really love this fermented vegetable and have been beyond satisfied with the results of this recipe and process, slightly time consuming, but if you love fermentation, spicy foods, or kimchi itself, it's well worth it!

Kimchi Pancakes

As a born and bred American, I generally associate pancakes with Saturday and Sunday mornings, topped with syrup, fruit and whipped cream.

But traveling and aging have introduced me to the joy which is savory pancakes, while I still prefer the sweet syrupy kind for breakfast, these Kimchi Pancakes as well as Spring Onion Pancakes are a delicious and light way to enjoy an evening meal.

As always, for Korean recipes, I use what I know from eating out in Korea and refer to Maangchi to fill in the holes. You can check out her original recipe and YouTube Video here.

Or, you can keep reading and follow my lead ^^

Ingredients/Directions:

In a bowl, mix together, 1 cup chopped Kimchi, 3 Tbsp. Kimchi Juice, 2 Tbsp, chopped Onion, shake of Salt, Sprinkle of Sugar, 1/2 cup Flour and 1/4 cup Water. Heat a non-stick skillet and 2 tbsp. oil to med-high heat. Pour kimchi batter into to hot skillet, spread evenly and thin, cook for 1-2 minutes until bottom is golden brown and crispy, flip and repeat. Serve by cutting into bite size pieces or simply give the eaters their own chopsticks and a bowl of Makgeoli (Korean rice wine) and let them go at both at their own pace.

Perfect on a rainy day ^^

Sweet Pork Fried Rice

Fried rice is an easy go-to dish, especially with some pulled pork, rice pilaf and rosted veggies waiting patiently in the freezer to be used. My day of cooking back in September is still serving us in May - I could be embarassed by this, but I will choose to be proud that food stays in our freezer for ridiculous amounts of time ^^

In the Korean grocery store it is a simple task to find 'bulgogi marinade' a kind of sweet sauce for one of my personal favorite Korean meats. Therefore, with marinade in hand and a thawed baggie of pork, rice (plus an additional cup left over from a previous meal) and roasted peppers and onions, I went to work re-heating and preparing, topping the whole thing off with some monteray jack cheese and a fried egg!

Seaweed Dinner Wraps

The meal and the chef that inspired me ^^

In Korea, it is not highly uncommon to enjoy a variety of vegetables, a meat and some lettuce to wrap everything up in. Many of the man and my favorite meals involve just that, wrapping meat in lettuce. Recently, a friend of ours invited us over for dinner and had a sort of mini-buffet of deliciously marinaded meat, a variety of vegetables, rice and seaweed and lettuce for creating wraps. Needless to say, it was absolutely delicious and inspiring! You can definitely go about this type of meal anyway you wish, our friend included Muenster cheese with her wraps which was fantastic! Ours were a bit more simple just because...it's what I had time for. This particular dinner I cooked up some thinly sliced pork (dae-pae samgyupsal - similar to bacon but uncured), mixed in some bulgogi marinade and a sliced onion for the meat dish. For the vegetables I served up thinly sliced carrots and cucumbers as well as a beautiful mix of sprouts I got at our little grocery store. Throw in some rice and have some lettuce or seasoned seaweed ready to go and you're all set for a most delicious and enjoyable dinner!

Tuna and Dill Kimbap

Sometimes, nothing comes together more quickly and easily in my Korean kitchen than a few rolls of Kimbap. This new Kimbap in a Pinch variation is one of my new favorites.

Ingredients/Directions:

Into about a cup of cooked rice mix a large handful of chopped dill, a tablespoon or two of Mustard, 1/4-1/3 cup Plain Yogurt, a couple squirts of Mayonnaise and a tin of Tuna. Split this mixture evenly on 2-4 sheets of seaweed, roll, slice, enjoy!

(All measurements are approximations as I generally just eyeball this type of recipe, if you decide to measure it out exactly, please leave a comment with either your post of the recipe or your measurements!)

Omelet Kimbap

Days of deskwarming in a Korean public school generally leave the foreign English teacher with a few lunch time options:

1. Order in with other teacher's/vice principal...if you can find them.
2. Leave for an hour and find a Kim-bap restaurant or other solo-dining option.
3. Pack your own lunch.

Option 1 and 2 can be great for a couple days or so but quickly begin to drain the wallet, and when you realize one day, while your waiting for some sweet Korean lady to hand over your Kimbap, that you could have made your own with ingredients in your house, you suddenly lean toward option 3.

So, remembering my success with Kimbap in a pinch, I threw some rice in the rice cooker before hopping in the shower.  When the rice was cooked I added directly to the rice cooker container some mayonaise, sesame oil, salt and pepper and mixed it all up.  Set out a sheet of seaweed, spread on some rice and then whisk up an egg and pour it into a lightly greased fry pan.  Next lay the egg out on the rice sprinkle on some cheese and green onions, rolled the sucker up, made a few slices and lunch was ready for the day!

Ddeokguk - Korean Rice Cake Soup

You can have a new year in Korea without having a bowl full of Ddoek-guk.  And when we opted to host a Redneck Life game night on the 2nd of January our friend Aaron and a Korean friend decided it was good and appropriate to bring us a bag of ddeok-guk-ddeok (the rice cake noodles specific to this soup - pictured top left and top center). So I did a bit of research and whipped up an incredibly large pot of ddeok-guk one week after the new year!

The original recipe calls for boiling beef in the first step but since I still have an abundance of freezer goods including shredded pork, I went that route.

Ingredients/Directions:

In a large pot bring to boil 1/2 onion, 3 scallions and 8 smashed garlic cloves with 10 cups water (or mix of water and choice of broth).  Reduce heat and simmer (1 hour if you added beef, 20-30 minutes if you're using freezer pork).  Meanwhile, soak ddeok, Korean rice cake, in a bowl of cold water about 20-30 minutes.  Mix 1/2 lb. cooked meat with 2 minced cloves of garlic, a touch of sesame oil, salt and pepper (can be used as topping or thrown into broth after the next step). Strain onion, scallions and garlic from broth pot. Drain ddeok of cold water. Add deok and meat to the boiling broth, let boil for 8-10 minutes until ddeok is soft and chewy. Whisk 2-3 eggs, drizzle into soup, let set about one minute before stirring. Serve soup with crushed seaweed on top and welcome in the New Year!

Kimchi Jigae

Mike really loves Kimchi -- I can take it or leave it, often I choose to leave it.

But I do love when Kimchi is used IN things and is served hot - such as kimchi fried rice, kimchi dumplings and kimchi stew (aka-Kimchi Jigae).

We were recently gifted fresh and fermented kimchi...a lot of it.  So, fully aware that we won't live in Korea forever, but I will miss certain foods, I set out to finding the perfect kimchi jigae recipe and I definitely found one - the secret is in the 'sauce' pictured bottom right hand corner.

Ingredients/Directions (kind of rough as stew recipes generally imply I don't measure anything...):

In a large stockpot or dutch oven heat some oil and saute an onion or half an onion depending on your taste preferences etc. Once the onions are translucent, shove them to the edge of the pot and dump in about a cup of chopped fermendted kimchi (more or less depending on your preferences again) and heat through. 

Now, at this point you can add meat (or you could do that first, honestly, we don't use a lot of meat so I don't know how that process should go) but we've added any of the following veggies: mushrooms, carrots, potatoes, bean sprouts, fresh cabbage and/or baby bok choy. With carrots and potatoes they'll need some time to boil in a bit of the broth or water so that they are edible, so if that's part of your veggie repertoire, they go in first. Mushrooms can be sauted with the onions if you disire, cabbage and bean spouts can go in after kimchi and I've always thrown the baby bok choy in for the last minute or so of cooking. 

Once you've figured out the order of veggies add broth or water, perhaps 4 cups, but once again it's completely your preference.  Boil the stew for about 10 minutes or so while you prepare the special sauce. Sauce consists of Korean chili powder (I imagine most Asian markets would have this, or you could use an Asian chili powder as a substitute), Korean chili paste (go-juchang), Soy Sauce and Minced Garlic.  I've done 2 tsp Powder, 1 tsp. Chili Paste, 2 tsp Soy Sauce and 2-3 cloves garlic...but it's spicy so think about who's eating the dish and move forward from that point.

Stir in the sauce, throw in some tofu or baby bok choy if you wish. Serve alongside or over rice and enjoy a taste of Korea!

Dressed Up Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup

One of my greatest cooking joys is taking something, whether leftovers, something bland, something too scantly portioned for the dining party, etc. and make it better, more filling, more exciting...so, with a single can of Campbell's Chicken Noodle soup in the cupboard and two hungr bellies, I set to work.

Saute onion, jalapeno and garlic in a touch of olive oil.

Add one can of prepared chicken noodle soup plus one cup of additional chicken broth or other liquid.

Bring to boil.

Whisk four eggs and a splash of water, salt and pepper together in a small bowl.

Reduce water to frisky simmer (ha!)

Slowly pour in egg. Restrain yourself from stirring.

Wait for cooked egg bits to begin rising to the surface of the water. Stir. Ensure all the egg is cooked...i.e. wait a minute.

Scoop into bowls and be fed.

Kimbap in a Pinch

Kimbap is Korea's version of a sushi roll...but not really because Korea is not Japan and sushi is Japanese. So kimbap is a Korean snack/quick dish of rice and things wrapped in seaweed. Typical Korean Kimbap includes ham, egg, pickled radish and other non-Japanese style additions. It's cheap and perfect for so many situations.

Once, in desperate need of a quick dinner, a Korean friend recommended a twist on traditional kimbap...I'm calling it Kimbap in a Pinch.

Like all foods I truly, truly love, this can be adjusted and played with to create some great fusion style eats....here's the basic and a couple of variations I've had some success with ^.^

Prepare rice. White rice. (One cup of un-prepared rice will be enough for about 4 rolls once it's been properly prepared).

Mix in mayonnaise, a touch of sesame oil, drained tuna fish, a veggie of choice (I used bell peppers), and some sesame seeds.

Spread onto a sheet of seaweed ('kim' in Korea, 'nori' elsewhere).

Roll, cut, eat.

Variations~Mix-In:

• Mayonnaise, chopped tomato, chopped bacon, salt and pepper (B.S.T. - Bacon, seaweed and tomato) Quite amazing, trust me.
• Pesto and chopped tomato -- received the most raves at a recent gathering
• Mayonnaise or a touch of salsa/hot sauce, black beans, corn and tomatoes -- haven't tried this, could be a total fail.
• Hard-boiled and chopped egg, mayonnaise, salt and pepper (think egg salad in a sheet of seaweed) -- also, haven't tried but definitely think there's potential!
• Whatever you can think of! Kimbap is the new sandwich my friends, go out, experiment and have a grand ole time.

Jap-chae: Korean Stir-fried Noodles and Veggies

All you really need to know about Korean cooking can be learned from one woman...that is Maangchi. She is my number one go-to regarding Korean foods since she is a) Korean, b) quarky and c) speaks English. Additionally, she not only posts recipes for dishes with lots of pictures, but almost always includes a video, which is just nice...perhaps someday I'll go live on YouTube with my cooking skills! (HA!)

One of my all-time-favorite Korean dishes is Japchae. The dish is made with sweet potato (also called starch or glass noodles), a ton of veggies and a simple sauce of soy sauce and sesame seeds.

There's a ton of veggies in this dish and the meat called for can easily be substituted or simply left out for a more vegetarian friendly option.

I realize the polite thing to do would be to re-iterate the recipe here, but I really, REALLY want you to meet Maangchi, because she's a blast, so here's the japchae recipe and a bit of Maangchi herself!