Rice,김 & 김치

Lots of people are familiar with the use of toasted seaweed sheets in Japanese cuisine (in which it's called nori), but it's also a popular food, prepared slightly differently, in Korea, where it's called gheem (aka gim, kim).

The Korean style preparation is rubbed with toasted sesame oil, lightly sprinkled with salt, then toasted until it's crisp and nutty.

It's actually become so popular in certain parts of the States that you can buy it at Trader Joe's, Costco, and a number of other mainstream food sources now.

One of the most popular ways to eat it is as a wrap for steamed rice and any number of other fillings and condiments.

Today, it's just rice and kimchi, which is probably my favorite way to eat it because it reminds me of my childhood.

And now it'll remind my kids of their childhood, too. ^^

shinae

P.S. Seaweed is also generally high in Vitamin C, iron and potassium! :)

Just Ramen & Kimchi

Sometimes, there is nothing so delicious as a piping hot bowl of really good instant ramen sprinkled with nothing but green onions and freshly cracked black pepper with a side of kimchi that's just begun to ripen.

Luckily, when you work at home, you can indulge in that kind of thing for lunch.

Sapporo Ichiban Original is my favorite ramen from a packet, and you may not know this, but it matters if your instant ramen is fresh. If you buy your ramen from a place that doesn't sell much of it, and the oil on the noodles has gone rancid, it can really spoil the flavor. It won't taste awful, and it probably won't make you sick, but it'll taste off and wrong - kinda like roasted peanuts that have been sitting in the pantry a little too long.

I've put one jar of the kimchi I made on Saturday in the fridge to keep it at this stage of ripeness. The other jar will be left in the garage to ripen another 2 or 3 days so it'll be nice and sour for the Monsters who prefer it that way.

And now off to drink lots of lemon water to flush some of this salt from my system. >.<

shinae

Choh Gochoojahng (aka Cho Gochujang)

Before I get into choh gochoojahng, I just want to say it never ceases to surprise me how many hits I get from people looking for "how to cook sand fleas."

And if cooking sand fleas isn't exactly something I want to be known for, I am super tickled to know how many accidental readers out there share my culinary curiosity and sense of adventure.

That said, Little Asian Mama and Medium Asian Papa are visiting this weekend, and they always come bearing something delicious to eat. Tonight, it's hweh (aka hwae), or Korean style sashimi - specifically mirugai (geoduck) and halibut (gwahng uh in Korean) tonight.

If the Japanese enjoy their sashimi with shoyu and or wasabi, Koreans dip our fish in something called choh gochoojahng. Literally vinegar (choh) red chili pepper paste (gochoojahng), this dipping sauce is hot, sweet, tangy and savory from the gochoojahng, sugar, vinegar and garlic, respectively.

This is also the sauce you get when you order hweh dup bahp (Korean style chirashizushi), and it's delicious for dipping raw cucumber, lettuce leaves, and mild chili peppers as well.

CHOH GOCHOOJAHNG (aka cho gochujang) 

- 1/4 cup gochoojahng

- 2 Tablespoons water

- 1 to 1.5 Tablespoons sugar, depending on how sweet you like your food

- 1.5  to 2 Tablespoons white vinegar

- 1/2 Tablespoon soy sauce

- 1 teaspoon finely minced garlic (1 small clove)

Just put all the ingredients in a bowl and slowly stir or whisk to thoroughly mix and incorporate all the ingredients.

You want to go slow because the gochoojahng is really pasty at first and if you try to stir or whisk too quickly, you'll end up sloshing and spilling all the other liquid before the gochoojahng starts to thin out.

Now off to make a little ssahmjahng (seasoned fermented soybean paste) and prep all the greens for the rest of dinner. Another distinguishing feature of Korean hweh is that we often wrap our fish with things like lettuce, perilla and other tender leafy greens, a thin slice of garlic, and a dab of the sauce.

Healthful and so delicious. Next time you've got raw fish on the brain, you might want to go Korean style. :)

shinae

Kohng Goohksoo (aka Kongguksu) with Soba

If you've ever been to Korea in the summer, you know the heat and humidity are oppressive. And one of the ways to combat that heat and humidity is to cool yourself from the inside with food.

You might already be familiar with a cold buckwheat noodle dish called naengmyun which is often served with crushed ice in the clear beef broth to cool and refresh. A lesser known but equally refreshing summer cool-down meal is kohng goohksoo, literally soybean (milk) noodles.

A simple dish composed of nothing but lightly salted fresh pressed soybean milk, sohmyun noodles (thin white noodles), julienned cucumber, toasted sesame seeds, and a little bit of chopped green onion. Just reading the ingredient list you can tell it's simple, light, nutty, toasty and refreshing.

And because it's so simple and mild, you have to have a bowl of perfectly ripened kimchi on the side to provide a little of that salty/spicy/crunchy/tangy contrast with every bite.

A chopsticksful of noodles, followed by a piece of kimchi, followed by a big swig of that cool soybean milk right from the bowl... MMMMM & AAAAAH. :)

I didn't have Korean sohmyun noodles on hand today so I used my Japanese soba, and I have to say the nuttiness of the buckwheat only added to the dish. I might never go back to sohmyun for this dish again. 

Full album HERE.

shinae

P.S. +Gomo cHowDivine Thanks for putting the craving and post idea in my head! :) Her healthy, delicious  and elegant blog HERE.

Soaked Soybeans & Memories of 할머니...

I'd had these dry soybeans, or 콩 (pronounced KOHNG) in Korean, for over a year when I was taking inventory of my pantry last night and unearthed them.

So I decided I'd make some soymilk with them and make 콩비지찌개 (KOHNGbiji JJIgeh), a stew made with the solids, from the byproduct, which requires soaking/reconstituting, as with any dish made with dry beans.

And when I gave them a stir just now to remove the outer casings and smelled that distinctly green and nutty smell of dry soybeans soaking, I was immediately taken back to being in elementary school and helping my paternal grandmother (할머니 - pronounced HAHLmuhnee) pick the dud beans out of the batch so she could sprout the rest in cheesecloths in an old, broken washing machine to grow soybean sprouts (콩나물 - KOHNGnahmool).

My father's mother, probably from some combination of talent and poverty, had the greenest thumb I've ever known. She could grow anything, and she would collect rainwater in trash cans to water her plants and wash her hair because she thought it was best. (Let's just say I did not inherit her green thumb, but I think I did inherit my sense of frugality from her.)

할머니 passed away years ago at the ripe old age of something that was really close to a hundred, and I don't have that many fond memories of her to be honest - probably some combination of my feisty personality and what seemed to me her preference for the male children in the family (not uncommon for women of her culture and time) - but that's one of them. And we should all take all the fond memories we can get, I think. :)

shinae

Kimchi Fried Rice As Legacy...

Though my mom did most of the cooking when we were kids, every once in a while, my dad would take to the kitchen to make one of his three signature dishes which were:

1) kimchi jjigae, 

2) kimchi fried rice, and 

3) kahlbi. 

Well, one of those plus a huge mess.

Of the three, I think his kimchi fried rice was my favorite. Maybe it's because I remember sitting at the bahpsahng with nothing but a huge wokful of fried rice and as many spoons as there were people eating, and just digging in until we were all stuffed. Definitely because it was just so frickin tasty - the simple deliciousness of pork belly or bacon, and sauteed and slightly caramelized ripe kimchi, all tossed with yesterday's rice and a little bit of sugar, soy sauce and gohchoojahng to make it even spicier.

At a very old 73 years, my dad can't cook anymore. At least not without making an even bigger mess because of his failing eyesight and compromised motor skills, or making my mom worry that he'll burn the house down from his creeping senility. Years of hard living have taken a toll on his body and mind.

It's in these moments when I realize that I probably won't have him around for much longer - at least not in any lucid state - that I realize how recipes connect us and how some day, likely sooner than I'll be ready for it, kimchi fried rice will mean even more to me, so much more, than it does today.

I think I'll make a wokful of this stuff for my dad the next time we go up to see him and see if he can't remember how he used to load up his version with too much pork belly, too much bacon, maybe a little too much sugar for anyone's good, and a fat pat of butter to make up for all those meals of his impoverished childhood that weren't nearly so delicious and indulgent.

KIMCHI FRIED RICE
Serves 4

As with most fried rice recipes, stale rice works best. So the next time you have Chinese, Thai, Korean or Japanese takeout, you might want to save your leftover steamed rice to make this dish later in the week. Also, while some people like to make their kimchi fried rice with fresh kimchi, I personally like it much, MUCH, better with the ripe, sour stuff.

Start out on the lower end of the measurements and taste and adjust seasoning as you go.

- 5 or 6 cups steamed white rice (preferably a little stale)
- 2 cups chopped kimchi (in 1/2-inch strips)
- 4 to 6 strips of bacon cut in 1/2-inch strips (though if you don't have bacon around, or if you're a vegetarian, this stuff is still pretty yummy without it)
- 3 Tablespoons neutral oil (not EVOO)
- 1 to 1.5 Tablespoons gohchoojahng (though if you can't or don't care to eat spicy stuff, you can start with 1 Tablespoon of soy sauce instead and add more to taste)
- 1 to 2 teaspoons sugar (to taste)
- 1 Tablespoon toasted sesame oil to finish
- 1 green onion, chopped, for garnish

1) In a large wok or skillet, heat the oil over medium high heat. Put the bacon in and render it until it looks like this:

2) Add in the kimchi and sugar and stir/sautee for a minute or two.

3) Then add in the gohchoojahng and saute for another minute or so. Check the seasoning and adjust if needed. Maybe a pinch more sugar, maybe the rest of that gohchoojahng. Remember, however salty or spicy it is at this point will be diluted a bit by all that rice. But don't go overboard with the seasoning just yet. You can always add more stuff later, but you can't take it away.

4) Add the rice and, using your spoon or spatula, make chopping motions into the rice to break it up as completely as you can so it'll get evenly seasoned.

5) If the rice is beginning to stick to your pan, turn the heat down to medium low at this point and taste one last time to adjust seasoning if necessary. Remember to cool it down to room temp by blowing on it before tasting. You can't taste the level of seasoning as accurately when the food is hot, and you might think it less salty, sweet or spicy than it really is. Adjust one last time if needed, adding a pinch more sugar if you like things on the slightly sweeter side, or a dash of soy sauce if you like it a little saltier.

6) And finally, add the toasted sesame oil, and toss in thoroughly to season the rice evenly.

If you like little crunchy bits in your fried rice, now is the time to let it sit undisturbed for another 3 or 4 minutes on the medium-low flame and let the rice on the outside toast up a bit.

Serve sprinkled with chopped green onions, and maybe even a fried egg on top if you're up for it.

Enjoy. Heartily.

I always do. :)

shinae

P.S. Thanks, Brandi, for inspiring me to write this post. I needed it.

100 DOLLARS A WEEK - Day 19...

As you may know by now, I spend a lot of time on facebook and chowhound. Despite what some people might think about participating in internet communities of any sort, these communities are very much like life. If anything, by the power of the internet, they bring you a bigger, more evenly distributed, and broadly representative slice of life than you might get by just interacting within your immediate physical community.

Also despite what some people might think, I don't do it because I'm bored and/or have nothing better or more meaningful to do with my life. I do it because I take away so much more good from it than I put into it (though I do try to make positive contributions in both places).

From learning about foods I've never heard of before, to getting really thoughtful recommendations on restaurants, to having my thought provoked by political or philosophical postings, to learning about how to make a better fried chicken, to hearing music I never would have heard, to being inspired to make fresh pasta with my family, to being able to air out grievances and relieve a little stress, to honing my writing and reasoning skills, to having the kinds of civil and thoughtful (and maybe even controversial) discussions that we often shy away from in *real life*, and best of all...

...to making friends...

and learning about them - what they like to read, what they like to listen to, who they admire, what fuels their dreams, what they believe in, what matters to them - and giving and getting support and encouragement, and sharing words, art, thoughts, laughter, and virtual meals and drinks with them, and being HUMAN together,

I benefit so very much.

And rather than take away from my ability to relate to people in person, it has broadened my empathy for the people I meet by any means. It has helped me to better understand the complexity of the human condition and to realize that underneath a single aspect of appearance, or the espousal of a certain value, or a preference for a certain kind of food or music that might be at odds with my own, there lies common ground. Usually lots more of it than I might have assumed.

I hope each and every one of my friends whom I've met in this way knows how you've brightened and enriched my life and that I consider you no less a gift than if you had done so in the flesh.

Thank you.  :)

BREAKFAST

For me and the Man, tacos filled with fried egg, fresh avocado, tomato, green onions and cilantro, topped with a little queso fresco and dressed with a squeeze of lime and a dash of Tapatio.

As the Boy wants nothing to do with things wrapped in corn tortillas, he opted for yogurt with a little sugar and vanilla.

LUNCH

For the Man, leftover pernil, rice and platanos, topped with a Fuji apple.

For me and Joe, a fried rice made with some more of the pernil and its sauce, and some veg odds and ends.

DINNER

Sahngchoo ssahm (Korean lettuce wraps) filled with some rice, the pork that I shaved off the pernil before I marinated it, and some seasoned dwenjahng. On the side, two kinds of bahnchahn - cucumber and sprouts - and a kimchi and bean sprout soup.

I'm so pissed I could spit as I'm typing this because even though I *published* my completed post, blogger failed to save all the text I typed into the meals portion of this post including the breakdown. Grrrrrrrrrrrrr... >|

So until I come back in a less *choke the bitch that is blogger* state of mind to break it all down for you again, let's just say that everything cost $12.00, because it did.

Saturday:  $5.40

Sunday:  $16.00

Monday:  $12.40

Tuesday: $12.60

Wednesday:  $12.00

$59.00 spent with 2 days left to go. Due to my <ahem> *hormones*, there's probably about 3 or 4 bucks worth of latenight snacks that have gone unaccounted because I was too lazy to come back and add to the posts, so we'll say we're actually at $63.00 with two days left.

Time to go clean crap again. Small spaces get so messy so quickly.

shinae

Separating Siblings & Stir-Frying Kimchi...

They say familiarity breeds contempt, and to some extent, I'm inclined to agree. Social animals though we are, too much of anything makes us at best less appreciative of it, at worst utterly contemptuous of it. So although it seems counterintuitive, sometimes a little distance is the best thing two people can share.

And when those two people are pre-teen siblings who have to look at one another's annoying mugs every single day while their little crank-making hormones are raging, it behooves those charged with their care to give them a break from one another lest someone should lose a Bieber-cut covered eye...

So while we have a couple of weeks of summer left, we have sent the boychild and girlchild off to their separate corners for a few days. The girlchild is with her dad so she can attend her Tae Kwon Do classes  - the kind where she's guaranteed a black belt within three short years as long as her dad keeps paying a hundred fifty bucks every month and seventy five bucks every six weeks for belt testing if by *testing* you mean *everybody passes as long as their parents pay* - and the boychild is hanging with me and The Man so he can do Chopped baskets and go for bike rides to the beach.

A little tequila plum-flavored juice to
celebrate the quiet in the house...

This kind of time apart is good for me, too. It doesn't happen as often as it probably should, but when it does, it gives me a chance to relate with my kids one-on-one without them feeling like they're competing for my attention and without me going batshit from hearing "Mommy!", "Mama!", "Mommy!", "Mama!" in rapidfire succession, one in each ear from the boychild and girlchild respectively.

We're scheduled to get the girlchild back tomorrow, at which point I am certain her brother will hold her to the promise she made to play an hour straight of Beyblade with him upon her return. So to commemorate our last night (this week) of alone time with him, he got to choose dinner at the beach, and the dinner he requested was kimchi bokkeum (stir-fry).

We packed up our dinners along with some fun juice <*WINK* *WINK*> in to-go containers and headed out for a couple of really lovely hours at an uncrowded beach. Which did make me feel like an Asian Ina Garten if I do say so myself, only without all her money.

Oh, and I also didn't visit any fabulous gay friends on my shopping errands in my 10 year old notBMW, either. (Not that my gay friends aren't fabyoolusssss...).

KIMCHI BOKKEUM (GIHMchee BOHKgeum)
Serves 3 to 4 with steamed rice

As with any good stir fry, almost uncomfortably high heat and small quantities cooked quickly produce the best results.

- 1 pound pork shoulder or belly meat, sliced into roughly 1/4" thick, 1" x 2" pieces
- 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

- 2 cups ripe kimchi with the excess liquid squeezed out (reserve 1 Tablespoon of the liquid for seasoning) By *ripe*, I mean at least as sour as a kosher dill.
- 1 cup sliced onion (about 1/2 medium)
- 3 green onions, sliced into 2 inch segments

- 1 Tablespoon gochoojahng
- 1 Tablespoon soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon minced garlic (about 1 small clove)
- 2 teaspoons to 1 Tablespoon sugar (depending on how sweet you like your food)
- 1 Tablespoon kimchi liquid

- 3 to 4 Tablespoons neutral oil
- 1/2 Tablespoon butter (optional)

- steamed rice

1) Season the pork with the salt. I purposely add only a little salt to the meat because the kimchi is pretty darned salty, as we all know.

2) In a large wok or skillet, heat about 2 teaspoonfuls of oil over medium high to high heat and wait until it's so hot that it starts to smoke. If you look closely, you can somewhat sorta see that the oil's so hot it's rippling.

 

3) Stir fry the meat in two equal batches, adding oil to the second batch, until the meat is cooked through and browned on both sides. Because these slices of pork are a little big for regular stir fry, you may want to let them sit on the cooking surface for a minute or so to give them a nice sear before you start stirring.

Set aside the cooked pork.

4) Now add 2 Tablespoons of oil to the wok or skillet and let it heat up again before adding the onions, green onions and kimchi.

Keep the heat on high as you stir fry these components until the onions start to become translucent.

5) Once the onions are translucent, remove the wok from the heat and make a well in the center where you'll add 1 Tablespoon of oil and, if you like, a half Tablespoon of butter (this is one of my dad's tricks that he picked up during the Korean War when he was lucky enough to get US government surplus rations of butter).

Put all the seasoning components into the well and return the wok to the heat.

Stir to incorporate all the seasoning ingredients and wait until you see the gochoojahng bubbling a bit - this is when the sugars start to caramelize. That caramelization that happens when enough sugar hits enough hot oil is one of the reasons that guai lo Chinese takeout tastes so good.

6) When the seasoning sauce has been bubbling for 20 to 30 seconds, stir in the veg and then the cooked pork along with whatever juices come with it.

Give it a few good stirs to make sure all the flavors are evenly distributed, and there ya have it - kimchi bokkeum.

Serve it over or with steamed rice and finish if you'd like with a little drizzle of toasted sesame oil. (I left it out because the boychild hasn't yet acquired a taste for it.)

Or pack it in to-go containers along with a little fun juice and head for the beach with a takeout meal so differently delicious not even Ina knows how to make it (I'm guessing). ;)

I'm not sure that Jeffrey would *LOVE* this...

He might *LOVE* this, though...

And who wouldn't *LOVE* this???

We shall see tomorrow if a little absence and kimchi make the heart grow fonder...

shinae

Spicy Chicken Boolgohgi Kebabs For Beer Making Folk...

The Man used to work for a certain well known once-rogue craft brewery, and he still loves to brew beer at home regularly. So yesterday was a brew day for him, and now we've got two big jugs of Belgian Pale Ale bubbling and fermenting in our living room (it was a veritable Fermentation Fest up in here this weekend).

impromptu brewers' dinner

Because brewing a crapton of beer is an all-day and usually outdoor affair, it can easily turn into a little bit of a shindig. And when you've got friends coming over to help you lift big, heavy, lobsterpot-like mash tuns and boil kettles, you certainly can't let them go hungry.

But it's also one of those somewhat regular and casual things that isn't quite like a party for which you plan menus and such. So you dig deep into the fridge and pantry to see what odds and ends you can feed a few hungry guys who are drinkin' beer while makin' beer and their significant others who come bearing potlucky type things later in the afternoon. And you try to space them far enough apart so no one thinks about how the food you're serving them doesn't match because you assume everyone gives as big a crap about the food you're serving as you do.

Let's see... There were corn tortillas and blended pico de gallo fixins, so fresh chips (fried in oil with a little dab of bacon grease) and salsa were put out.

And when the chips ran out there were figs, a small chunk of the Man's homecured brown sugar bacon from last week, a little baby chunk of Parmiggiano and some honey, hence Figs Two Ways:

And then for dinner, since you bought a tray of chicken thighs earlier in the day during your weekly grocery run so they're the only unfrozen protein in the fridge other than the catfish you also bought (the pork bones were placed in the freezer), you make spicy dahk (chicken) boolgohgi aka boolgogi aka bulgogi kebabs because no one doesn't love the flavor of boolgohgi and because kebabs seem to magically make more food out of less meat.

That, some perennially crowd-pleasing crunchy soy slaw augmented with some fish kebabs fashioned from the cod and veg provided by one (pescavegetarian) guest, some pork chops provided by another, a 12-pack of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and some other beer odds and ends and !Voila!

Impromptu Brewers' Dinner.

Dahk (chicken) boolgohgi (BOOHLgohgee) is usually made spicy whereas the beef kind isn't. But the base of the marinade is quite similar. I like to use thigh meat because the texture, flavor and fat content holds up better to the marinade than breast meat. This recipe is specifically for kebabs, but you could certainly use whole pieces of boneless thigh meat or even the entire thigh if you like, and cooking times will differ.

Generally speaking, I'm not a big advocate of overnight marinating. There are very few proteins that won't cure (essentially turn into ham is the way I like to think of it) under the saltiness of most marinades if left to sit in them overnight. The marinating point of diminishing returns is even earlier on meat that's cut kebab-size (1" to 1.5" cubes). Ideally, I would let this marinate for 45 minutes to an hour, and no more than two hours.

SPICY KOREAN CHICKEN BOOLGOHGI KEBABS
Makes about 12 kebabs
Serves 4-ish

- 12 to 15 bamboo skewers soaked in water for at least an hour before they go on the grill

- 2 to 2.5 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs cut into roughly 1.5-inch *cubes* (to the extent that you can cut chicken thigh meat into cubes, which is to say not really)

If you can't find the boneless, skinless meat, just get a roughly 3.5 pound tray of chicken thighs, remove the skin and trim the meat off as close to the bone as possible. I did, and made my weekly chicken stock from the scraps (only I left a little extra meat around the bone to feed Honeydew).

- 2 Tablespoons minced garlic (about 3 cloves)
- 1 teaspoon minced fresh ginger root (or you could use about 1/4 teaspoon dry ginger powder)
- 1 green onion, finely chopped
- 1/8 cup sugar
- 1/8 cup gochoojahng (Korean red chili paste) aka gochujang (you can substitute with sriracha - not quite the same, but you'll get a tasty result)
- 1/8 cup low sodium soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1.5 Tablespoons neutral oil (like vegetable, canola, grapeseed)

- 1 large onion, cut into 1" pieces for skewering and tossed with 2 teaspoonfuls of oil

1) In a large mixing bowl, mix together all the ingredients except the onion, making sure to incorporate all of them thoroughly.

2) Cover the bowl and set in the fridge to marinate (about 1 hour ideally, and not more than 2). Remember to take the meat out of the fridge about 30 minutes before you're ready to grill.

If you're using a charcoal grill, start your coals about 20 to 25 minutes before you want to grill. You want a gentle, medium low heat over which to cook these kebabs.

If gas, just pre-heat your grill to medium low 5 to 7 minutes before cooking.

3) Skewer your kebabs so they look like this:

6 single layers of onion with 5 roughly 1" layers of chicken skewered between them. As you've probably discovered by now, it's a little challenging to get 1" cubes of meat from chicken thighs, but you generally want a 1" thickness of meat between veg, so you might have to add odd pieces of chicken to the bigger ones to achieve this thickness.

I used only onions primarily because I think it tastes simple and delicious this way. I don't think other traditional kebab vegetables go as well with this recipe. Plus there was soy slaw on the side, which complemented the kebabs quite nicely.

Everyone seems to *LOVE* this slaw.

4) Over a medium low grill, cook the kebabs  about 15 minutes, covered, turning them every 5 minutes.

They should look like this close up:

A little spicy, slightly sweet yet savory and super tasty with some plain steamed rice (I still can't seem to keep most white folk from dousing their steamed rice with soy sauce. :/) and a bite of that slaw.

This marinade, by the way, also works for dwaeji boolgohgi, which is spicy Korean style pork BBQ, and is especially delicious when made with thinly sliced pork belly. I often leave the ginger out when I make that, though.

A spicy/salty/sweet combo that's always a huge hit, and too easy not to try, really. :)

shinae

P.S. Here's the chicken stock:

Before china cap but after I removed the
meaty bones for Honeydew...

after china cap :)