Category: Korean

E and Buddha = Besties

Well, we’re home (more or less). E came down with a cold the last few days we were in Korea and while he was super good on the flight home he threw up when we landed and hasn’t been feeling well since. Last night was rough because in addition having trouble sleeping due to jet lag and being sick there was a crazy loud rainstorm that kept E (and us) up for half the night.

And then this morning E threw up a few more times and I woke up having caught E’s cold. So yeah, we’re home but not quite up to speed yet.

But…um…PICTURES! There are numerous Buddhist temples around Pusan and we managed to cram in visits to four of them while we were there. These are from our visit to Beomeosa.

There was a festival going on while we were there and the courtyard was full of people praying with the monks and writing down the scripture. The monks would chant a syllable, bow, and then write it down and the worshipers would follow along with every step.

E decided to get in on the chanting/bowing action. He was actually following along and saying the chant which was pretty cute. A bunch of Korean tourists took his picture.

E’s favorite part of every temple visit was seeing Buddha. He loved peeking inside the temple at the statues.

E and Dylan befriended a puppy.

Some of the many statues.

Wandering the grounds.

I really enjoyed visiting the temples. They each had a different feel to them: some were bustling, some were serene but all of them were gorgeous.

Weekend Fun

On Saturday we decided on the spur of the moment to check out the Salt Lake Farmers Market. It was noon by the time we got there but we had just enough time to let E watch a clown tie balloon animals and grab some lunch. When it was his turn E got a balloon lion but when presented with said lion he promptly decided he was afraid of it and refused to hold it. I think he was afraid it was going to pop. We grabbed some really tasty kebabs for lunch, pushed E on the swings for a while and then headed home. It was really fun but next time I’d like to go a bit earlier in the day. It was brutally hot and delicate flower E broke out in heat rash.

That night N and I went to check out a new Korean restaurant in the Fort Union Area called It’s Tofu. While the name seems a little unfortunate it’s a nice Korean place, especially for the uninitiated. It’s decorated nicely and along with the normal menu they give you an album of with pictures of every dish in it. So if you haven’t had Korean before but want to try it it’s a good place to go.

My tofu soup with side dishes and rice

I’m a sucker for homemade tofu so I decided to try their Soon Dubu soup. It was pretty good but a little less spicy than I expected. We also got a kimchi jun (pancake appetizer) which was really tasty.

It’s kind of far from our house so I don’t know how often we’ll go back but of all the Korean restaurants around here it’s the place where I’d take friends unfamiliar with Korean food.

After dinner we headed to Wise Guys comedy club to catch the set of a family friend, Jenna Jones. Jenna was really funny and Keith Stubbs the headliner was good too. I would have enjoyed it more if we hadn’t been sitting by some frat-boy type who insisted on loudly bagging on the comedians in an attempt to impress his date. Bleh. Such are the risks at a comedy club I guess.

Overall, it was a great weekend.

The Problem of Lunch

I never know what to eat for lunch. For the years when I was working full time I usually ate lunch out with my office friends. But now I struggle with at putting together something together for myself. I know I should make him a better variety of meals but E mostly eats sandwiches, chicken nuggets, or rice and meatballs and fruit.

This is probably my favorite lunch ever: rice, kimchi, SPAM, and kim (dried seaweed) but even it gets old after a while.

So instead I often skip lunch and then end up snacking throughout the afternoon. I’d like to get to a point where I’m making decent lunches that both E and myself will like but that means no dairy/no eggs and dealing with the whims of a two year-old.

How about you–have any ideas for decent quick lunches?

Korean Home Cooking

This week I wanted to make something out of one of the Korean cookbooks I have that I’ve never used. I can’t remember where I got Korean Home Cooking from but I think I might have picked it up at a Korean store. It was originally published in Singapore and has a different feel to it than other Korean cookbooks books aimed at American cooks.

In some ways it seems a lot more authentic than other Korean books I’ve seen. It goes beyond bulgogi (barbecued beef) and covers a lot of dishes I haven’t seen in other cookbooks. It even has a section on making your own sauces and pastes like Duenjang (soybean paste) which is pretty hard core (and something my mom actually does).

I chose to make japchae, a noodle dish, because I’ve eaten it many times over the years and thought I’d be able to judge how good the recipe was. Having said that, it’s never been one of my favorite Korean dishes.

I love spicy food and while there are plenty of spicy Korean dishes japchae is pretty mild. It’s also very time-consuming. When I told my mom I was planning on cooking japchae for a weeknight dinner her immediate response was “Why? That’s a lot of work!” She was right, of course. Now I know why we only had japchae on special occasions like Thanksgiving (along with mashed potatoes and stuffing with kimchi–yum!)

The Verdict
4 out of 5 stars. While Korean Home Cooking is not the most accessible Korean cookbook out there it is one of the most authentic and versatile and contains recipes that I haven’t seen anywhere else. The japchae I made tasted spot-on. If you’re serious about learning how to cook Korean food it’s worth tracking down a copy.

Japchae from Korean Home Cooking
(Hint: chop and slice everything before you begin cooking. I, um, didn’t and it slowed everything down. I also didn’t have any beef on hand so I used chicken thighs and it turned out fine.)

Ingredients

  • 4 dried Chinese mushrooms, soaked for about 30 minutes in several changes of water
  • 4 oz beef tenderloin, cut into thin strips about 1 1/2 inches long
  • vegetable oil for frying
  • 4 oz spinach
  • 4 oz carrot, peeled, cut into thin 1 1/2 strips
  • 1 egg, separated
  • salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 1 small yellow onion
  • 2 oz dangmyeon (sweet potato starch noodles)
  • 1 teaspoon pine nuts, for garnish
  • pan-toasted, ground sesame seeds

Beef and Mushroom Marinade

  • 2 Tablespoons light soy sauce
  • 1 Tablespoon sugar
  • 4 teaspoons finely chopped scallions
  • 2 teaspoons crushed garlic
  • 2 teaspoons sesame oil

Spinach marinade

  • 2 teaspoons finely chopped scallions
  • 1 teaspoon crushed garlic
  • 2 teaspoons sesame oil
  • 2 teaspoons pan-toasted, ground sesame seeds
  • freshly ground black pepper to taste

For Noodle Seasoning

  • 1 Tablespoon Korean soy sauce
  • 1 Tablespoon sugar
  • 1 Tablespoon sesame oil

Directions
Squeeze excess water from mushrooms, then remove and discard stems. Cut caps into thin slices
Combine Beef and Mushroom marinade in a glass bowl and add beef and mushrooms and marinate for about 20 minutes.

Heat 1 Tablespoon oil in a frying pan. Add beef and mushroom slices and stir-fry until well cooked, 3-4 minutes. Remove from pan and set aside on paper towels.

Wash spinach, the remove and discard roots, reserving leaves and stems. Immerse reserved spinach briefly in rapidly boiling salted water. Quickly remove from water and drain. Squeeze out excess water.

Combine spinach marinade ingredients in a bowl and add spinach and set aside.

Clean frying pan and add a bit of oil. Add carrot and stir-fry. In another frying pan, fry egg white and yolk to make egg gidan (?–basically a very thin omelet). Remove from pan and cut into thin slices. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Peel onion, cut in half vertically, and thinly slice. Heat 1 teaspoon oil in a pan and fry onion slices, adding salt and pepper to taste.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil, add noodles, and cook until soft, about 5 minutes. Remove from water and rinse in several changes of cold water until water is clear. Drain and cut noodles to make them easier to eat.

Combine noodle seasoning in a large mixing bowel. Add noodles and mix well to coat. Add beef and mushrooms, spinach, carrots, and onions and mix well. Serve sprinkled with pine nutes and ground sesame seeds, and topped with egg gidan.

(Serves 4 or 5.)

Bee-Bim Bop!

Before we put E to bed we read to him at night. He picks out a book and then sidles up to where I’m sitting, clutching it to his chest, and ask “Up, please!” Sitting in the rocking chair with him on my lap and his head resting against my cheek reading books is one of the highlights of my day.

Bee-Bim Bop! by Newbery-award winner Linda Sue Park is one of E’s current favorite. It is a great little picture book. The story follows a little girl and her mother as they bustle about preparing a Korean dish, bibimbap, for dinner.

The rhymes are pretty catchy; enough so that E can easily follow along. And the illustrations are cute. And there’s even a recipe for bibimbap in the back of the book. (I haven’t tried it out yet, though. When I make it I use my family’s recipe.)

It’s a great book to read with little kids, especially if they’re interested in different types of food or have Korean heritage.

Family History

The weekend was kind of a mixed bag. Saturday was great: N and I took E to a dim sum restaurant we had heard about and it was really good. I love dim sum! While we were there two grandmas sitting next to us who made a point of complimenting us on how well E was behaving and how cute he was. We assured them that it was entirely the luck of the draw (as it usually is with two year-olds; sometimes E can really be a monster at restaurants) but it still felt nice to have strangers go out of their way to compliment E. Then the grandmas asked us about dim sum and how ordering it worked and we explained it to them and then basked in a parents-of-a-perfect-child/cosmopolitan-foodie glow which lasted all of about one minute until E started yelping and I couldn’t bring myself to order the chicken feet even though I was kind of curious. But then that evening we went to visit some good friends and stayed until entirely too late talking and laughing and watching our sons play together.

Sunday was okay except that I woke up feeling under the weather AND we totally spaced the time change so we showed up for church an hour late. (I know, I know–we felt like morons.)

At chuch N and I are attending a Sunday School class on family history. My church is very big on family history because our doctrine teaches that family members can be sealed together for eternity though covenants we make with God inside temples. So the church is working on an online database system that helps people find their ancestors.

Participating in this Sunday School class has sparked an interest in family history in me. When I was at my parents’ house I took the opportunity to scan some old photos. Are these great?

My mom with my grandmother.

My grandmother (Halmoni) at her house in Korea.
My aunt and her husband on their wedding day.

I really enjoy looking at old pictures. My mom has all our family pictures in a cardboard box but I would love to get them all scanned and put together in a book.

Have you seen these?

These photos by photographer Kim Kyung Soon for the October 2007 issue of Korean Vogue have been popping up on several blogs lately (found via Design Mom.) I think they’re great.

The models are dressed in hanbok, traditional Korean dresses. I have a few pictures of me in hanbok (that sadly don’t look anything like this). But if I can find them I’ll scan and post them sometime.

Usually hanbok are more brightly colored (older women wear more muted colors) but I love the soft colors and stillness of these photos. Looking at them makes my eyes happy.

I found some large images of these over at Simple Blueprint

The other thing floating around the ol’ internets I wanted to share was this video by OK Go. I know a lot of you have probably already seen it but I’m posting it just in case you haven’t and because it’s a happy Friday-type-of-thing.

Have a great weekend!

Oh, the food, the glorious food! (part 1)

N and I like Korean food and usually eat it at least once every couple weeks or so. We would eat it more often but I only know how to make a handful of dishes. But I have ambitions of becoming better at cooking Korean food, especially because most dishes don’t contain things that E is allergic too.

Anyway, any visit to my parents’ house is guaranteed to feature some delicious Korean food since my mom is a great cook and we also usually grab a bite to eat in Koreatown at least once or twice.

(I can’t remember the Korean name): Buckwheat noodles in fish broth topped with egg, sesame spinach, dried seaweed, and kimchi.

Ojinguh: squid served with spicy dipping sauce (not pictured).
This is one of my favorite Korean snacks and has been since I was a kid.
(Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it!)

Ddukbokki: spicy pressed rice cakes with fish cakes
And the spread at the Korean BBQ place Honey Pig in Tacoma.
(I really like this place. It’s the only BBQ place I’ve been to that serves you rounds of pickled daikon and chewy wonton wrappers to wrap your meat up in. The crunchy+chewy texture is delicious and addictive–yum!)

*Sigh*…looking at these pictures is really not helping with my Korean-food withdrawal.