A CULINARY LINGUIST

I'm with Alton

2011-12-17T09:00:00.000-08:00

He wrote this a few months ago but I just discovered it and coincidentally have been discussing this topic briefly with a few people lately, so I thought I'd post it; as with learning languages or anything else (for a case in point, see Picasso's early work), a solid grounding in established techniques and the foundations of your discipline is essential if one wants to succeed in efforts at abstraction and experimentation.

Specifically with regard to molecular gastronomy: I'm all for experimenting with flavors, but at this point, when I'm hungry I would vastly prefer to tuck into something which looks like it's guaranteed to sustain me, as opposed to a few wispy pieces of intriguing but not-immediately-identifiable-as-food emphemera...

Book Titles

2011-12-16T10:00:00.000-08:00

Here's a partial list of the library books I'm currently borrowing:

The Bread Bible
Freedom (Jonathan Franzen's latest novel)
6 Reasons You'll Get the Job
Mastering Knife Skills

...do you see a theme? It's an honest question; I think people that know what I'm interested in will probably be able to identify one instantly.
...

For my friend in Hualien, Taiwan (September 3, 2011)

2011-12-15T22:31:00.003-08:00

On the way back from Qixingtan I was wandering around the open air fruit and veg stands on the outskirts of town, when you tooled up to me on your scooter with your oversized helmet and started engaging me in conversation. If you hadn't led me back into town I might've missed my train. At first I was a bit concerned and on guard because what sort of honest business does a 70something man have approaching a lone 20something female foreigner? But you took me back into town, near the station, and treated me to one of the best meals I had during my two weeks in Taiwan: tender pork intestines, simply boiled young octopus (what we called nakji in Korea), showered with slivers of fresh gingerroot and rings of green onion, and the famous local wontons, trailing skirts of wrapper in the fried garlic-sprinkled broth, and furthermore plump boiled dumplings (shuijiao) with flavorful, bright fillings. It's the kind of food that I love and treasure but that you saw as being "normal"; the highest compliment, if you could call it that, that you gave the place was that it was "reasonably priced." And we shared a large bottle of Taipi and chatted about your work in lumber and your time in Okinawa, our stream of Mandarin patter punctuated occasionally by isolated Japanese words. And I noticed your bracelet before you told me you were benshengren, probably (but still controversially) best translated as 'local Taiwanese,' and wonder whether you could trace your ancestry back to a particular tribe. When it was time for me to get back to the rental office and return my bike before heading south, you paid for our food and got on your scooter and I didn't notice you behind me until I was about to pay for the time I spent with the bike and in you walked and took care of it just like that, the most generous nameless friend I have ever met.

A Quick Update

2011-12-08T18:42:00.001-08:00

Can't believe I haven't blogged since July! Then again I can, because life has been just that full and interesting, to the point where online life has not been prioritized...I feel incredibly grateful that I have been able to travel to so many places over the past few months. I left Seoul in late August, traveled around Taiwan for two weeks on my own in September, then went to Minnesota for a couple weeks followed by a roadtrip through the Southwest back to California, where I've been since mid-October.

We have become a part of an amazing community and I have been spending lots of days having great conversations with vibrant people while starting to craft a life here.

Beef noodle soup in Dulan

There are a lot of other things brewing in my life right now, especially the life-changing career-related journey that I'm on, but I'm not exactly sure how I want to present it here yet, so for now I will leave you with a picture of one of the more delicious things I had the pleasure of consuming in Taiwan (and just trust that I will write again soon...)

Fermentation Adventure, Day 2 Part 1: Saturday, June 18th

2011-07-13T15:23:00.001-07:00

I don't know where the time goes...well, I do know that I struggle with writing sometimes, but I also have been quite busy lately. M. moved back to the U.S. last week and I started teaching an intensive class this week, so between work and life stuff I haven't had time to write...anyway so here's the first part of the second installment of my vendor story; I figured it would be better to just write something than nothing at all...

Saturday's breakfast

Saturday dawned with sunlight streaming in, lighting up the sticky floor in the living room next to where I was crashing. G. woke me up and started making strong coffee his way with instant grounds and milk - (I ended up having 2 or 3 cups that morning). We got going on our respective tasks, me peeling a small mountain of potatoes and him starting to bottle sauces until we realized about halfway into it that he'd mis-set his alarm and we had actually gotten up at 6, two hours before we were supposed to. This proved to be a good thing though because we ended up working up to the minute until 10:30 prepping and packing stuff - I boiled a bunch of quartered potatoes, let them cool and then weighed and packed them into plastic sacks. We loaded up our two ajumma carts with ingredients and cooking supplies - it took a bit of time to get everything strapped down and secured - and set off for the subway.

Fueled by a few cold croquettes eaten with yoghurt cheese, stopping periodically to re-secure the carts, stacked high with old water bottles filled with G's sodas at various points of gassiness, we made it to the subway. The soda bottles, as it turns out, required a bit of minding along the way. They started to bloat up and he told me before we got on the subway that we would need to release the pressure periodically - to prevent the possibility of a big explosion. I just sort of nodded and didn't think about it until we were sitting across from the subway, kind of chatting on and off, and he kind of reached down all of a sudden and twisted the cap and there was this big "pop!" that intruded into the subway car - and I was expecting some kind of chaos but the biggest reaction he got was the ajosshi next to him kind of curiously turning his head and then going back to his dozing. There's no way that would have flown in the States...afterwards, I told G. that he was really lucky we were doing this in Korea - they probably just passed us off as weird foreigners.

Things were going pretty well until we had to transfer lines. We were in a bit of a rush so didn't have time to find the elevator and had to navigate the escalators with our laden carts. The first time, going up, was easy - I just pulled it snug against the stair immediately behind me. It was going down that proved to be the problem. Things were going fine until about halfway down when I started to feel the wok pan handle catch on something and after that it was only a matter of seconds before there was chaos - the cart twisted out of my grasp, bottles started falling off, I lost my balance and went tumbling down the rest of the escalator to the shouts of the ajosshis and ajummas behind me - who were surprisingly civil about it - they just kind of hurried me and my stuff off the escalator to the right and then continued on their way. No one checked on me to see if I was alright but no one cursed me either - a mini miracle. I got away with a few scrapes and bruises on my legs and a tear in my skirt that I only discovered later. The stuff, surprisingly, was unharmed. It could have been much worse, but after that I told G., "no more elevators."

The rest of Day 2 soon I hope...

Fermentation Vendor Adventure, Day 1: Friday, June 17

2011-06-22T06:45:00.011-07:00

You may recall my mention of the first Fermentation Celebration here a while back. True to the name, it's basically a celebration of all things fermented: cheese, beer, kombucha, and of course kimchi and makgeolli, since this is Korea after all. After the first one I mused about how I could get involved, at some point in the distant, unspecified future.

A few weeks ago, my friend G. told me that he had signed up to be a vendor at Fermentation 2 on June 18, and approached me about possibly helping him on the day of the festival: pouring samples of his ginger beer, chatting with customers, et cetera. Since I'd had the privilege of sampling his very tasty beer not too long before during a Sunday hike and wanted to support him, I said sure, thinking I'd just show up the day of, get some free beer at the after party, you know, nothing too demanding. A good way to ease into it and start thinking about getting more involved in the next event.

Little did I know what adventure was in store for me...

About a week before the festival, G. called me up and told me that he'd had some trouble getting his festival stuff worked out – problems with suppliers, et cetera - and wondered if I could help him with Plan B. At this point, he'd decided to go with Plan B and make fermented ketchup. His plan was simple: I could make french fries to go with the ketchup. We'd have to make enough for 300 samples. He'd already ordered 10 kilograms of potatoes, set to arrive later in the week. I said okay, what kind of potatoes did you order? He said the little round ones.

“G., you can't make fries out of new potatoes; they're not starchy enough.” At this point, my cook's brain kicked into high gear. “We could do mini latkes topped with your yoghurt, or...croquettes! Little croquettes!”

G. was wary. “Well, you know, we just need to make sure they don't overshadow the ketchup. I want something complimentary. That's why french fries seemed good. Are you sure that they won't make good fries?”

I told him I would look into it, hung up the phone and went about researching potato types, which confirmed my hunch: new potatoes do not a delicious French fry make. Then I researched other options: Potato chips were too labor intensive, latkes similarly so, and home fries would most likely turn into a visually unappealing brown mush (and would take about 20 minutes per batch). Overall, croquettes seemed like the best option. I thought we could boil and even mash the potatoes ahead of time, bring them to the venue, and roll and fry the croquettes fresh there. Would just need to buy some eggs and breadcrumbs, and maybe a few things for add-ins, like chives (a.k.a. buchu). I had experience from my bento days; I was ready.

Problem was that this hit right during finals week, and though I wasn't teaching, I had a lot of work to do. I told G. I might be able to come up on Friday to his place (way up on Line 1, at least an hour's journey on the subway from my place) to help prep for Saturday's event. Meanwhile I had 46 writing exams and 46 reading exams to grade, plus individual student conferences and other work-related odds and ends. By the time Friday came I hadn't had any time to go shopping for supplies or do anything aside from my initial research. G. suggested that I come up on Friday night so that we could do a test batch of the croquettes and start some prep work. I found a recipe that we could tweak, and after an end of the year pizza party with my students, headed up to his place Friday evening around 7:30.

After getting stuck at a station partway because the train I got on didn't go all the way through to his station, I met up with him shortly after 9. The area around the station was not what I expected. Since it's near an army base (the closest to North Korea, apparently), there are lots of white foreigners around, and the area was hopping with shops and restaurants. We picked up some kimchi wang mandu for my dinner and headed back to G.'s place, where he had abandoned some homemade mayonnaise in the middle of emulsifying.

The next few hours progressed in fits and starts, with me peeling and preparing several pounds of potatoes and starting to despair that I would never make my way through 10 kilos in time, to us going to the Lotte Super to stock up on last minute supplies, stuffing two filled-to-the-brim carts in the trunk of a taxi (much to the driver's amusement) and heading back to G.'s house with Iggy Pop's Lust for Life on the car stereo.

Around 12:30 or 1 in the morning, I finally cranked out a test batch of croquettes, and we had what G. termed a 'tasting.' He, his wife and I tried them with his ketchup (me crossing my fingers that the chives wouldn't be too strong). The tasting was a success – they were tasty and complimented rather than overshadowed the (delicious and distinctive) ketchup - though we agreed that they were a bit heavy. Then we went back and forth about whether to try some kind of fry, but an experiment with one sliced potato proved me right again – new potatoes just don't work for frying. So it was back to croquettes. By 3 a.m. I had decided to make as many mini croquettes as possible and boil the potatoes in the morning. G. said that he'd get me up around 8am. I fell asleep in the living room listening to their rabbits rustling on the porch.

Day 2 soon...

Seoul Cooking: Breakfast Pasta

2011-06-20T06:48:00.000-07:00

I have to give credit to my friend G. for this idea (whom I spent basically 24 hours with this past Friday and Saturday - more later...). He said that his father used to make it for breakfast when he was growing up. It's basically spaghetti with scrambled eggs. I made it for our brunch Sunday morning.

My take on it involved leftover eggplant and cherry tomato pasta sauce topped with curds of softly scrambled eggs and a drizzle of "plain" yogurt (the plain in quotations because this is Korea and so it's on the sweet side of plain). M. scrambled the eggs and they were nice and pillowy.

The Best Mul Naeng Myeon (and it's right in our neighborhood)

2011-06-15T19:26:00.003-07:00

Procrastinating grading exams to post about a newish restaurant discovery right in our neighborhood...

Summer in Seoul means naengmyeon 냉면 - cold noodles. My first actual meal after moving here in late August 2009 was mul naengmyeon 물냉면 - buckwheat noodles in an icy broth (usually with big chunks of ice floating in it). It's a bit vinegary, fairly mild, and I love the accompaniments of sliced bae (a.k.a. Asian pear), slivers of cucumber, and egg. The yolk mixes in the broth and creamifies it; on the whole, a refreshing and delicious light summer meal.

A few weeks ago our friend A. took M. to a naengmyeon place very close to our apartment building, around Daeheung station, and he came home raving about it. So last Friday we went for dinner. The restaurant, called 을밀대 (Eul Mil Dae), is located on a quiet street behind the Mapo Art Center, and advertises Pyeongyang style naengmyeon. It's a very popular place with lines out the door on hot afternoons and Japanese reviews posted on the walls, and has spilled into another smaller space next door. As soon as we sat down we were served a silver teapot filled with warm yuksu (meat broth) which we poured into water cups and drank as a kind of savory aperitif, and a dish of thick pink pickled mu (Korean radish) ribbons, which also came with the noodles.

Decadence in a teapot

Bowl of perfection

A good bowl of mul naengmyeon is all about how the elements work together. The yuksu was rich and meaty, reminiscent of pho broth (but not as herby), which provided a great backbone for the dish. The noodles themselves had a sort of subtle bumpy texture and a slight fishy flavor (which I've found with buckwheat before). The suyuk, or brisket, that came atop was a bit dry but very flavorful. Usually when I get mul naengmyeon there are squeeze bottles of white vinegar and yellow mustard on the table for adding to your broth, but here instead we got a dish of coarse ground mustard that reminded me of the heady horseradishy shoots-up-your-nose Chinese mustard that Grandpa used to serve with his eggrolls at the restaurant.

Verdict: It was the most expensive mul naengmyeon I've ever eaten (at 9,000 won a bowl), but also the most delicious - in a class apart from anything I'd tasted before - and more filling than normal (probably because of the substantial noodles). Wish we'd found the place sooner! It made me want to seek out other mul naengmyeon places in the same category.

Okay, and now for those exams...

Things I'll miss: The chicken truck

2011-06-13T21:08:00.002-07:00


Samgyupsal 10,000 won; Chickens 6,000 won each

These chicken trucks are always a welcome sight on street corners (even though, to be honest, I rarely patronize them). I just enjoy the idea of these portable rotisserie trucks bouncing around the city, and the glowing display of rotating carcasses grounds me where I am.

However, the trucks can be elusive. For our first Thanksgiving here, we had to resort to fried chicken (with homemade gravy) when our plans to procure a few were foiled when we couldn't track down the one that normally parks by our house.

When you do sit down to a meal of one of these, it can be pretty satisfying, and if you pick up some ready made banchan at your local supermarket or whip up your own at home, you can make a meal of it. The chickens are typically stuffed with a tasty mixture of sticky rice, chestnuts, daechu (like red dates), and ginseng; not unlike the samgyetang chickens.

43 Thailand #10: Jok

2011-06-09T18:30:00.002-07:00

fleecy noodle-y delicious

I continue to slowly work my way through 43 travel stories about our time in Thailand and Malaysia this past winter...

The other night, M. and I watched the Cook's Tour episode about Thailand from the second season (the last one before he switched to the Travel channel and started No Reservations). Anthony Bourdain's in Chiang Mai looking for breakfast, and goes to a jok restaurant, calling it "jog." As he tucks in, he muses about what it's made out of - I think he guessed farina? - and narrates his discovery of a "foreign" breakfast that ends up being delicious.

It struck me as funny that something so foreign to him would be so familiar to me when visiting Thailand. I grew up eating the stuff - the Chinese version - my favorite was with hundred year old eggs. Living in Korea I've tried the sweet versions, like pumpkin, that I had never had before (jook was always savory growing up). For me, encountering jok in Thailand was like how finding McDonald's in Asia is for many Americans - something reliable and familiar.

On my first trip there I had a version with organ meats. The version pictured, which we had with A. in Chiang Mai, is pretty classic Thai in my experience: fleecy fairly thin rice porridge with a lightly poached egg, still runny, some green onions and - my favorite part - steamed pork meatballs. It also comes with little crisp-fried rice noodles sprinkled on top, and you can add fish sauce or chiles if you like.

Transitions

2011-06-08T17:38:00.002-07:00

I typically don't write about anything other than food and cooking and language-related stuff on this blog, so this is a bit of a departure for me.

Since March, I've been teaching three classes of the first semester of academic reading and writing, 46 students in total. In addition, I was also taking Korean language classes in the evening until a couple weeks ago. It's been a really busy semester, full of ups and downs, but I'm definitely going to miss my students.

One of the best ways I've gotten to know them over the course of this semester is through reading their journals. Every week, they were required to freewrite for 30 minutes (though I don't think very many of them followed the time guideline...) about what was going on in their life, on any topic. Through this assignment I got tips on restaurants and places to hang out and got to know more about student life - like what really happens on an M.T. (membership training). Most importantly, it gave them a chance to practice freely expressing themselves in English. It's my first time trying this and I've been pleased with the results; plus the students have given me some positive feedback.

As the semester wound down and their assignments and exam preparation started piling up, I made the journals optional. The dwindling pile is a reminder of what I'm going to miss about teaching and living here.

Which brings me to the big change that's happening at the end of this summer for me (next month for M.) - after nearly two years here, we're moving back to the U.S. - and I'm going to start telling my students today.

Reflecting on this has got me thinking about how little of our life here has ended up on this blog. In particular, I was going through my blog posts this morning, trying to organize them, and was struck by the lack of restaurant reviews. Eating in restaurants has been one of the most enjoyable parts of living here. There's also much less about Korean food on here than I would like. So I guess this post is a bit of a public commitment to blogging more this summer, in a last-ditch effort to record all the things I've enjoyed about living here. Plus there's my 43 travel stories to catch up on...

On the subject of another transition, we put up some maesil ju (매실주) -plum wine- the other day. Big displays of bottles of soju, alcohol, sugar, and green plums are a ubiquitous presence at E-Mart and other grocery stores around this time of year, when spring is thickening into summer. A few days ago I saw the plums while shopping and decided on impulse to go for it, since it'll be our last chance to do it in Korea in the foreseeable future. It was pretty easy - just weigh, clean, de-stem, and dry the plums, then layer in a sterilized jar and first add the sugar and then the soju, basically how you would make an infusion, like limoncello. It should be ready to sample in about a month (right around the time M. will be leaving Korea), though you can leave it for a year or more.

As it turns out, we had a lot of plums leftover after that first batch, so we put up another smaller one a few days later and used the rest to make some tart plum jam, which turned out
really well: just plums, boiled with water and sugar and some ginger root sliced into small matchsticks until it reduced to the consistency of apple butter.

Wellbeing Mushroom Bibimbap

2011-06-08T16:45:00.000-07:00

As seen in a convenience store a few days ago..."wellbeing" (웰빙) is Konglish for health food, or at least, things that are supposed to be good for you.

I like the color scheme and the cheeky little army guy.

Daelim: A Photo Essay

2011-05-15T17:48:00.000-07:00

Well, midterms have come and gone, and as usual I have a backlog of things to write about. Here's one for starters...

A few weeks ago, on Easter, M. and I, along with a friend, went to one of our favorite areas in Seoul, Daelim, for some Northeastern Chinese food and a sunny Sunday afternoon stroll.

The area around Daelim station, on Line 2, is known as a Korean Chinese area, where many Joseon-jok, or Chinese-born Koreans, live. There's fresh and cheap produce, including cilantro (a relatively rare find here), numerous dumpling and noodle shops, dog hot pot restaurants and grocery stores selling everything from spices to dried noodles to baijiu (a.k.a. Chinese "white lightning") if you want it. I typically go there to get cilantro, plump shallots, and ginger root, and get another bottle of my favorite Chinese black vinegar when I run out (it's great stir-fried with eggplant).

Though I plan to write more about this in the near future, for my first post about Daelim I thought I'd let the pictures speak for themselves.

Promoting an international dialing code from Korea to China

Selling jewelry on the street in front of a sign for a 24-hour hot pot restaurant

Stir-fried lamb with two kinds of chiles

Beef soup noodles

Plump boiled dumplings (shui jiao 水饺) stuffed with ground pork and celery

Mixing alcohol

Produce and pickles on display outside a small shop (I bought shallots and garlic here)

Selling baozi 包子

Baijiu 白酒 on display in a shop

Mixed script sign advertising "Hometown dog meat hot pot"

The Spice of Life

2011-04-20T18:01:00.000-07:00

These days I'm not reading much of anything except my students' writing, but the other day I read something in the New York Times that M. had told me about - Food Raves Gain in Popularity. It reminded me of how much I loved running my own "food club" back in 2009...and how different things seem to be here in Korea compared to the U.S. I doubt that very many of the food carts that I have eaten at here (or in Thailand or Malaysia for that matter) would be able to afford the legal fees, and I know they're meant to protect the consumer, but as far as I know I have never gotten sick from eating at any of them (I did get some kind of food poisoning here two times last year, but I'm pretty sure it was from "recycled" banchan at a Korean diner, and undercooked chicken at a different restaurant).

Diversity in food offerings on the street is something that I think could improve in the U.S. for sure, and loosening the restrictions/curbing the fees would help. D.C., where I lived for nearly three years, is one of the worst - stand upon stand of dirty water dogs, egg rolls and pretzels on the Mall (the bulgogi cart at 14th and L provided some relief from the monotony, but it was kind of off the beaten path for anyone other than people who worked around there. There was also a small Salvadorean collection of food stalls in Mount Pleasant that was open on weekends). In contrast, before traveling to Thailand last December I came across this guy in my (food) research who was able to eat out at a different food stall for (roughly) three meals a day for a month - while losing weight and saving money on his electricity bill - as of March he was going to do it again (By the way, I've plugged his site before - if you're headed to Thailand it's a great resource for learning "menu Thai" - he's got some quizzes on there).

Though I've got so many things I want to write about on here (got quite the backlog), after reading this article I'm adding one more thing - Korean street food. With the exception of toast and sweet potatoes, I haven't really written a lot about the offerings here. As a preview and a way to commit to this, here's what I can dash off, and if anyone reading is curious about a particular thing I'll get to that first:

*hotteok - tastes kind of like a Korean cinnamon roll (but it's flat) -I've seen other varieties too that contain japchae or a mixture of sweet potato and Korean pumpkin
*sundae - not what you'd think; it's Korean blood sausage
*tteokbokki Rice cakes and fish cakes in a spicy sauce - an ubiquitous Korean street food - my visiting relative referred to it as "Korean Chef Boyardee" - don't know if that appeals to you or not but I can see where he's coming from...

*twigim
*sausage skewers - I actually don't know what they call these in Korean but they're one of my favorites
*waffles
*beondegi - I don't eat it (if you click on the link you might see why) but I would blog about it...
*mandu
*hot dogs
*chicken cups - fried chicken nuggets layered with tater tots and ddeok (rice cakes) and topped with a spicy-sweet sauce
*moroccan sandwiches - an Itaewon specialty

(and I'll stop there for now...)

43 Thailand #9: Runny Eggs

2011-04-20T04:17:00.002-07:00

Fried egg over easy with curries
at a rest stop on our way to Loei

With Easter around the corner, here I am writing about eggs that I ate in Thailand four months ago...

I love runny eggs, a newish development. Growing up I always insisted on "medium hard" (though I enjoyed everything from liver and onions to kimchi and was an adventurous eater compared to my peers, I was still kind of a finicky kid in some ways). Hard boiled was too dry and crumbly, but, without getting too macabre about it, the runny-ness just felt...wrong.

I don't know when my conversion happened exactly. It might have been while traveling in Japan, mixing natto with a raw egg yolk and eating it over hot rice for breakfast. But however it happened, now I only like my eggs drippy, otherwise they're not worth eating. M's the same way. The yolk basically becomes a condiment for whatever you pair it with.

Soft boiled eggs eaten with
End of the World Chicken

From my experiences, Thai cooks "get" the egg thing, whether soft boiled and served with End of the World Chicken, or, M's favorite, fried over easy and served over gai pad kapao (Thai basil chicken) and rice - he says he could eat this every day. His favorite was the takeout order that T. picked up for us in Chiang Mai to sustain us on our overnight bus to Khon Kaen (Unfortunately I was sick with some kind of food poisoning/stomach bug so couldn't enjoy it, but at least M. was able to...). It's a great combination that I'd like to try at home one of these days, when I get around to making my own: The creaminess of the yolk curbs the chile bite in the kapao.

(No chicken-egg jokes, please... )

43 Thailand #8: End of the World Chicken

2011-03-26T03:05:00.000-07:00

I love eating at places like this!

The spread

Nam prik noon and cabbage

On our second night in Chiang Mai, A. and T. told us that we were going to a place that served something T. and his friend had dubbed "End of the World Chicken" because it was the last thing they would want to eat if the world was ending. A place known mostly to locals, it was packed, with a line out the door (so to speak, since the whole place was open to the street) when we arrived around midnight.

After a short wait, our midnight snack arrived: A half order of pieces of fried chicken and innards and a half order of fried pork, served with sticky rice, a dank nam prick noon (chile paste) redolent of chile char and fermented fishy essence, strips of pickled cabbage, and soft boiled eggs oozing dark orange yolk. M. was particularly fond of the nam prick noon. My favorite part was dipping neatly rolled marbles of sticky rice into the drippy yolk, followed by a bite of salty, crispy chicken.

I probably would have forgotten it was Christmas Day if it wasn't for the guys in Santa hats sitting at a nearby table.

43 Thailand #7: Sukiyaki

2011-03-26T02:46:00.000-07:00

Think there's enough scallions?

Lately, I've been thinking about Japan a lot. Originally, we were thinking about sending clothes and food, but as Maki of Just Bento and Just Hungry, one of my favorite bloggers (she's responsible for getting me into bentoing) points out in a recent post, given all the current transportation difficulties, the surest way to make sure you're helping from overseas is to send money. In her post she recommends organizations that you can donate to.

And that's a segueway to my next travel post from our trip to Thailand (getting back to my 43 travel stories).

Japanese food is pretty popular in Thailand: from sushi to sukiyaki, a hearty soup of sliced beef simmered together with vegetables and noodles in a hot pot and eaten family style. On both of my trips there I've eaten the latter with my friends A. and T., though the Thai versions I've had bore a closer resemblance to Chinese hotpot or Japanese shabu shabu, with your own individual dipping sauce and quick cooking vegetables, meat, and other ingredients that you add at different times.

However, I had never encountered a dish like the one pictured, also called sukiyaki. A. ordered it on our second night in Chiang Mai. The basic elements were thin noodles and scallions, stir-fried with egg in a sweetish sauce. Though the dish itself wasn't particularly memorable (I preferred my lad na), the name intrigued both me and M., though our friends were at a loss to explain where the name came from when we asked.

It's interesting to see how the use of an imported word develops and evolves over time (in a particular culture (case in point, mandu). I wonder how common the fried noodle dish called sukiyaki is in Thailand?

43 Thailand #6: Lad Na

2011-03-07T15:54:00.002-08:00

On our second night in Chiang Mai, after visiting A's aunt, we went to a brightly lit cafe for dinner. M. ordered Penang curry, A. got something called Sukiyaki, and, for nostalgia's sake, I got Lad Na Moo.

My dad has been cooking Thai food since before I was born, and his dishes were a regular part of meals at home while I was growing up. For what it's worth, his Thai food remains the standard by which I judge other Thai food, and some of his versions are still my favorites. Even today when I go home for a visit I always request at least one Thai dish from Dad.

There were several dishes that were part of the regular rotation at our house: Pad thai, Larb (my favorite, especially with fresh green beans from the garden), various kinds of Tom Yum soups, Kao Pad (Thai fried rice), and a noodle dish called Guay Teow Lad Na, which I didn't really care for all that much as a kid. It was made with wider rice noodles than pad thai, in a sticky brown sauce with sliced pork and gai lan (Chinese broccoli). At the table he'd serve the finished dish with a jar of his vinegar peppers. The resulting combination of textures and flavors didn't really appeal to me. The vinegar was too pungent, the sticky sweetness not to my liking at all (I was the weird kid who would forgo dessert in favor of a second helping of peas).

However, as I got older and my palate expanded, I started to appreciate Lad Na more: the deep flavor and sticky texture of dark soy sauce, the contrast of crunchy vinegar peppers and chewy noodles, and the savory bits of slightly charred gai lan. Though I like it more now, I don't eat it very often, as it is not as common as other Thai dishes on menus outside of Thailand.

The Lad Na that I ordered in Chiang Mai was not dark brown like Dad's but in a much lighter gravy, with more of it (in Dad's version the sauce is much thicker and clings to the noodles more) and made with sen yai (thick rice noodles). It could be that this was a regional variant. However, with its contrast of chewy noodles, vinegar and crunch from the added peppers, gai lan and garlicky sauce, it evoked meals long past, and I might as well have been sitting at our kitchen table in Minnesota with the sun slanting through the atrium, eating dinner with my family. When you're living abroad and family times are few and far between, those moments count for a lot.

43 Thailand #5: Mieng Kham

2011-02-27T18:15:00.012-08:00

Mieng Kham kits for sale in the Warorot market in Chiang Mai

10 baht (approx 30 cents) each

Getting back to my 43 stories from Thailand and Malaysia...

I first encountered this vibrant little snack at a temple market on my first trip to Thailand over eight years ago. Mieng means "many" and kham means "one bite." It's a little betel leaf packet containing bits of dried shrimp, fresh lime, roasted peanuts, a teeny cube of ginger, toasted coconut, and shallot, with a spicy tangy sauce. Sweet, salty, sour, savory, crunchy - all the elements combine to create something bright and vibrant, greater than the sum of its parts, and really refreshing. It was a bit hard for me to find places to get it once I got back to the U.S., so I'd only had it once (at my dad's friend's restaurant) and it was on my must-eats list on my December trip.

While browsing Chiang Mai's Warorot market with my friend A., I found a stall selling mieng kham kits. We bought a few of these packets to take to A.'s aunt's house, where we sat next to her fish pond (getting bit by not a few mosquitoes in the process) and drank bright blue butterfly pea tea. The taste was just as I remembered, and M. really enjoyed them, too. If you're curious and want to try making them at home, here's a recipe.

Seoul Cooking: Salteñas Cakes

2011-02-26T23:20:00.003-08:00

I created this recipe a few hours ago, and it turned out so well I had to post about it.

This came about because I wanted to make something nice for Sunday brunch at home without having to go to the store first. We've been eating out a decent amount recently so there wasn't much to build on. M. reminded me about a bag of sweet potatoes that we needed to use. With that, I decided to make a kind of potato cake using twigim flour. While I was cooking the cakes I thought about what to pair them with, since we didn't have any sour cream or plain yogurt, my usual potato cake accompaniment. We had all kinds of hot sauce to shower them with, but that alone seemed kind of boring. Suddenly, I remembered the two hard boiled eggs we had sitting in the fridge. Combined with raisins and chopped green olives, it became a salteñas-inspired topping for the sweet potato cakes, an homage to Julia's. Eating them was a bit like eating a deconstructed empanada.

Hard boiled eggs, olives, raisins - somehow, it works

Salteñas Cakes
Serves 2 for a hearty brunch

For the salteñas topping:
*2 hard boiled eggs, chopped into bite-sized pieces
*10-12 green olives, chopped
*a small handful of raisins
*dash of freshly ground black pepper

For the cakes:
*3 small sweet potatoes, peeled and shredded
*Half a thinly sliced onion
*Twigim flour (seasoned flour for deep frying; substitute all-purpose flour with a bit of garlic powder and salt)
*1 teaspoon chili powder

Whisk the flour and chili powder with water until you get a thin batter (I didn't measure; pancake batter consistency or maybe a bit thinner). When the batter is smooth and lump-free, mix in the sweet potatoes and onion.

Beautifully browned cakes

Meanwhile, heat up a large skillet over medium heat. Add a bit of oil (or butter for something more decadent) to the pan; when the oil's hot, add dollops of the sweet potato mixture and spread them out thin, pressing them out (a measuring cup with a flat bottom works great for this). Cook the cakes on one side until they start to brown a bit, then flip and cook the other side, pressing to thin them out evenly. Continue flipping, cooking, and pressing until they are thin and crispy and the sweet potato and onion are cooked through. Remove to a serving plate and continue until you've used up the rest of the mixture. To serve, spoon a bit of salteñas topping onto the center of one cake, add a bit of hot sauce, fold in half and enjoy. If you have some, yogurt or sour cream would be great with these too.

The Mystery of 'Mandu'

2011-02-26T22:29:00.003-08:00

Note: This is an expanded and revised version of a post from January 2010.

I am a big fan of dumplings and other foods that come in small packages. Whether they're called pierogies, pelmeni, or potstickers, manti or empanadas, I can't imagine a more satisfying snack. Savory, sweet, served with or without sauce, deep fried, steamed, baked or boiled – I love them all. At home I enjoy making my own homemade potstickers and ravioli, and when I travel, I seek out the local varieties in street stalls and snack shops. While traveling and living in various parts of East Asia, I've enjoyed discovering dumplings in all their glorious incarnations.

Steamers at Gui Il Mandu in Sinchon

At many dumpling stalls and restaurants across the region you can see the dumplings displayed out front (usually steaming in towers of stacked baskets) and thus have an idea of what you will be ordering. That is not always the case, however, and there are many different varieties, all called by different names. When I lived in China, I became accustomed to how dumplings and their brethren were classified. Basically, there were two types of dumpling-esque foods: those made with a thin wrapper of water and flour, which I will refer to as 'thin wrapper type' and those made with a yeast-risen dough similar to bread, henceforth known as 'bread type.' If I encountered a menu item with the character jiao (餃), I knew to expect a thin wrapper type dumpling crimped into a half-moon shape. On the other hand, if I saw a street vendor uncovering a basket crowded with round steamed breadlike buns containing a sweet or savory filling, I knew to order baozi（飽子）and when they did not contain a filling, mantou（饅頭).

Chinese dumplings are also distinguishable by cooking method. Ordering shui jiao (水餃) produced something that was exactly as their Chinese characters predicted: “water” （水）＋ “dumpling” （餃）= boiled dumplings. If I saw guotie (鍋貼) on the menu, I knew to expect a steam-fried dumpling, crisp and golden on the pot side, pale and slightly chewy on the reverse, what we call a “potsticker” in English. Furthermore, anything labeled baozi would be either steamed or baked.

With so many different fillings to choose from, I never got bored. They ranged from the sweet: red or yellow bean paste, or my favorite, black sesame paste; to the savory: anything from Chinese chives and egg, to thin sweet potato noodles with spiced eggplant, to ground pork and cabbage, to the “three freshnesses” (sanxian 三鮮) of shrimp, egg, and pork. If I ordered dumplings in a restaurant, the filling would be included in the name on the menu, but on the street I typically had to ask what a particular item contained. Although the exact nature of many Chinese dishes were obscured by poetic names (once, judging from the name of the dish, what I thought to be bamboo shoots turned out to be a plate of steamed intestines), dumplings were one thing I could count on to be transparently named.

I later encountered a similar situation while traveling in Japan. There, I found gyoza, thin wrapper type dumplings, and manju, bread type buns. Furthermore, they were named differently according to the cooking method. If I ordered yaki gyoza (焼き餃子) I got steam-fried dumplings, lined belly-up displaying a golden layer of fried dough where they stuck to the pan. Asking for sui gyoza (水餃子) produced boiled crescent-shaped dumplings, whereas nikuman (肉まん) got me meat-filled steamed buns reminiscent of Chinese baozi.

After moving to Korea in 2009, armed with the knowledge that mandu (만두) meant "dumpling," I anticipated that soon the Korean classification of dumplings would become clear.

Oops, never mind...

Many tasty mandu meals and snacks later, and having added to my glossary of specific mandu types, I am still puzzled about how one can predict the type of mandu one will get. Mandu came to Korea via China centuries ago, during the Yuan (Mongol) dynasty, and at that time there seems to have been a connection between mandu, a Sino-Korean word, and the Chinese word mantou, where mantou might have originally meant a jiaozi-type dumpling. However, the uses of the words in both countries have since diverged: While mandu now refers to a variety of dumplings in Korean, mantou simply refers to plain steamed bread in Chinese. On a recent trip to Hyundai department store's food hall, I discovered three different items, all called mandu. One was a flat panfried crescent similar to gyoza, another resembled a steamed jiaozi, and the third looked like a large baozi.

While I will eagerly eat any mandu offered to me, a lack of a clear classification system makes it difficult to discuss mandu matters, and sometimes leads to disappointment when ordering. Here's my attempt to sort through the chaos: by examining the factors of wrapper type, cooking method, shape, and filling.

Wrapper type
Out of all the factors, this seems the murkiest. Here in Seoul at least, simply listing mandu on a menu might refer to either a thin wrapper type or bread type dumpling. Two examples from the area around Sinchon station exit 6 will illustrate this point. Gui Il Mandu (귀일만두) offers kimchi mandu that are the thin wrapper type. However, the petite, round kimchi mandu at Rotary Bunsik (로타리분식) are bread type. So far, I have found only one exception to this confusion: the poja (포자, baozi) offered at Hyundai department store's food hall, which delivers on what it promises, a steamed bread bun with filling.

Cooking method

Gun mandu

It would be really helpful if Korean mandu were consistently labeled by their cooking method, like in China and Japan. This happens sometimes, but more often than not simply mandu is used. However, it's useful to know these words for when they do turn up on menus. Jin (진) means “steamed,” so jin mandu (진만두) indicates a steamed dumpling (whether it will be a thin wrapper type or bread type is a different story). There are many different terms that can be used for fried mandu: some places use gun (군), “fried,” while others mix Japanese and Korean, calling them yaki mandu (야끼만두) or use another Korean word for fried, twigim mandu (튀김만두). Additionally, there's mul mandu (물만두), “water” mandu, boiled dumplings.

This said, what I've found is that if you encounter the simple term mandu on a menu it tends to be steamed (if the stacked metal or bamboo baskets outside didn't already tell you that). Furthermore, there is one item in my experience that is always predictable – jjinppang (찐빵) always refers to the steamed bread type, like Chinese baozi or mantou or Japanese manju, and either contains a filling or is plain.

Shape

Homemade gochu mandu

Mandu also come in different shapes: in half-moons (flat or bulgy), in balls with pinched tops, or folded like tortellini, with a round of filling in the middle and a seal on one end. The half-moon shape tends to be the most common, at least here in Seoul, but there are plenty of round ones too, usually with pinched tops, like the gochu (고추 hot green pepper) mandu at Myongin Mandu (명인만두), a chain with branches around the city. These cute baby mandu (which, incidentally, are steamed thin wrapper type) look a bit like little pointed hats.

There are also mandu of different sizes. While Myongin Mandu's gochu mandu are bite-sized, and an order of 12 or so serves nicely as a light snack, you can easily make a meal out of several wang mandu (왕만두, literally “king” mandu), about two inches in diameter each.

Filling

kimchi mandu

In spite of all the confusion, one factor has been most reliable: the filling. For example, kimchi mandu (김치만두) contains kimchi mixed with ground pork, kalbi mandu (갈비만두), a specialty of Mapo Mandu (마포만두), contains kalbi, and the aforementioned gochu mandu features spicy green peppers (like the kimchi mandu, mixed with ground pork). However, this does not solve the problem of transparency: ordering kimchi mandu from a menu, you have an equal chance of receiving either a thin wrapper type or a bread type dumpling.

Since I find them all equally delicious, the ambiguity of the term mandu hasn't been a problem per se. Actually, encountering inconsistencies can be fun and interesting, and I've come to accept it as the slightly mysterious but always fun process of ordering and consuming mandu.

Hooray for fizzy funky fetid food!

2011-02-21T20:15:00.000-08:00

I'm really looking forward to attending this event: Seoul's apparently first (annual?) fete of all things fermented, appropriately titled "Fermentation Celebration."

Apparently there's going to be a lot of different types of kombucha on offer! I hadn't really thought about that stuff since my dad was making it in the late 90's. Although I thought the name referred to the Japanese word for a type of seaweed, apparently (according to the Wikipedia article) the Japanese name is actually kocha kinoko 紅茶キノコ or "black tea mushroom" (although the character 紅 means "red" it is used to refer to what we call black tea in English) and the tea itself is derived from yeast, not seaweed (though there is actually a Japanese seaweed tea called kombucha).

From the Facebook page for the event, I found out that one vendor will be bringing two types of kombucha: ginger and rosemary, as well as...kombucha makgeolli, which should be interesting.

A Day in the Life

2011-02-20T19:24:00.001-08:00

People have been asking, so thought I'd share: a typical day at 천장사 Cheonjangsa, my life for two weeks. As anyone who's experienced a one-night temple stay here in Korea can see, this isn't really your typical temple stay regimen. For me, it felt like just the right balance of free time and structure.

3:00am ~ Wake up; sometimes the cook would do a bit of breakfast prep (떡국ddeok guk or 죽juk)
3:10-3:20am ~ 예불 (yebul) Morning service
3:30-4:00 am ~ Meditation (my choice; others would spend this time bowing and praying)
4:00-6:00am ~ Nap (usually, sometimes I'd stay up and help prepare breakfast
6am ~ 스님 (Sunim)'s breakfast followed by cleanup
6:30am ~ Our breakfast
7:00-9:00am ~ Free time - usually I'd take a hike, or if I hadn't napped earlier, nap, or sometimes study Korean. I met with the head monk and some of the laypeople once or twice to drink tea and have a chat about meditation
9:00-11:00am ~ Lunch prep: Making banchan and rice and the main dish of the day, helping with other tasks as needed

Hitting the moktak, which we used as a dinner bell

10:20am ~ Prepare and bring the 마지 maji (rice offering) to the 법당 boptang (a task usually reserved for the apprentice monks but allocated to me while there)
11:00am ~ 스님 (Sunim)'s lunch
11:30am ~ Our lunch, or if we had laypeople here for the morning service, they would eat first and then we'd eat
11:30am-12:30pm ~ Eating and cleanup (lots of dishes)
12:30-4:00pm ~ Free time. I'd study Korean for a couple of hours, or go hiking if I hadn't gone in the morning, or go to the market with the head monk and some of the other laypeople. We went to the spa twice while I was there (once a week is just about right for me)
4:00-5:00pm ~ Dinner prep (usually lighter than lunch prep since we'd serve some of the same banchan and sometimes the same main dish)
5:00pm ~ 스님 (Sunim)'s dinner
5:20pm or so ~ Our dinner
5:30-7:00pm ~ Free time - we might chat after dinner or maybe have tea together
7:00pm~ 예불 (yebul) Evening service
7:30-8:00pm ~ Meditation
8:00-9:00pm ~ Free time; we'd usually watch a drama or two (웃어라동해야), or I'd read or something
9:00-9:30pm ~ Bedtime

A Plum Alternative

2011-02-20T18:24:00.002-08:00

I became a bit of a beer snob while living in Seattle. It was hard not to. Microbreweries in abundance with all kinds of innovative, delicious brews on tap, beer that actually made you feel buzzed and satisfied after one instead of bloated and still sober after three or four. Then in D.C. we could get Dogfish Head. Here in Korea we basically have the Hydra of Max, Cass, Hite, and occasionally O.B. - all heads of the same boring snake (M thinks Hite is the best but I honestly can't tell the difference).


It says "tea" but it's actually more like a concentrate

However, the other night we made an incredible discovery. I had had M go to the store to look for "meshil" (basically, plum syrup/concentrate) for a seaweed banchan I was making that I learned at Cheonjangsa. Although it took a bit of work, (not as straightforward as I thought it would be), he came back with a can of 梅丹("medan" or "Plum tea" in English) which worked just fine for my purposes.

Since I only needed a bit for the banchan, we had discussed using the rest for a drink mixer - mixing the rest it with soju, which seemed natural, but then during dinner he was inspired to splash a bit of it in his cup of Hite - shades of what we used to get at Domku - and the resulting concoction transformed watery mass market beer into a slightly tart, fruity, refreshing libation. After trying that, I don't see any reason to go back to drinking plain beer here anymore.

Seoul Cooking: Moo Mu Jorim

2011-02-17T20:37:00.002-08:00

Okay, so maybe the title of this recipe is a bit too clever. It's a crosslinguistic description of the main ingredients in this dish: pork (using the Thai word) and Korean radish (which is like a chubby Japanese daikon). While it might evoke blousy Hawaiian beachware, it's intended to reflect the main inspirations for this dish: a meatball recipe from a popular Korean blogger, a Chinese-Thai dish that my friend A. taught me how to make in Chiang Mai this past December called "puh-loh," and a soy-simmered Korean pickle of cucumbers, hot peppers and the aforementioned radish that I watched the early stages of making but unfortunately was unable to sample at Cheonjangsa and still need to research, called, simply, "지" (ji) (some of the monks had never heard of it).

Mooooooooooo

I intended this as a banchan that you eat with rice and other side dishes. It's pretty strongly flavored. The meatballs were extra delicious with the addition of some tangerine gochujang that I got from my host on Jeju.

Moo Mo Jorim
Makes approximately 6-8 servings as a banchan

Meatballs:
-Ground pork approx. 1/2 pound or 300 grams
-Gochujang (Korean red pepper paste) 1-2 teaspoons
-Soy sauce, generous splash
-1 clove garlic, minced

Radish:
-One large mu, peeled and cut into 1" chunks

Seasoning (to your taste):
-1-2 Tablespoons Soy sauce
-1 teaspoon brown sugar
-Several splashes apple cider vinegar

1. Mix the meatball ingredients thoroughly. Roll the meatballs into approx. 1" balls. Steam for about 10 minutes or until cooked through.

2. Meanwhile, in a large wok pan or pot, heat up a bit of oil over medium heat. Add the radish pieces and stirfry for a few minutes, then add the soy sauce, brown sugar, and apple cider vinegar, plus 1-2 cups of water (just enough to cook the radish and make a broth). Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer until the radish is cooked.

3. When the meatballs are finished steaming, add them to the pot containing the radishes, stirring carefully to coat them in sauce. Add water if needed, then cover again and simmer to incorporate the meatballs (as long as you want but just a few minutes is probably enough).

4. Serve with rice as part of a Korean-style meal with other side dishes. Cucumbers are nice.

The shape of my Korean

2011-02-17T00:26:00.005-08:00

A while back, M's friend, who was tutoring him in Korean, asked why he possessed such an impressive food vocabulary but knew hardly any words for body parts. What can I say? It's a reflection of our life here (and probably our generally good health).

Up until I went on my solo adventures first to Jeju and then to Cheonjangsa, my exposure to Korean was basically limited to classrooms and restaurants, and my abilities reflected that (very limited and awkward exchanges with cashiers in supermarkets and various stores doesn't count for much, in my opinion). While I might have appeared perfectly comfortable ordering 순대국, I would have been at a loss to, say, describe my personality or my meditation practices. In my daily life as an English teacher with an American husband, there weren't really many opportunities for me to broaden my Korean.

One area of my Korean vocabulary that has particularly improved after my experiences is in the realm of washing various things - words that I initially learned in the classroom but that just weren't sticking. They certainly stick now!

There were other words that I knew but didn't really have a context to use them in. I now have a Korean extended family of sorts that includes an 언니 (eonni) (woman's older sister), an 이모 (imo) (auntie, mother's sister) from Daegu, and an 오빠 (oppa) (woman's older brother).

One caveat: when I'm in a so-called naturalistic situation, it helps that I've studied Chinese and that Korean still contains many compound words derived from Hanja (Chinese characters). While modern Korean doesn't use the characters themselves, the meaning in Chinese can still be accessed from the pronunciation. For example, I just guessed that the word for progress was "jinbo" based on the fact that the Mandarin pronunciation is "jinbu" - and it worked. This gives me a bit of an advantage over Korean language learners who have not studied Chinese or Japanese - kind of like Spanish speakers learning Italian.

I thought it would be interesting to compile a glossary of the words here that I found particularly useful or that I picked up during my adventures. While not comprehensive by any means, it is a good representation of what my life was like in each place, and very personal. Each word or phrase in this list carries a certain resonance with it - images, feelings, experiences - that is in a certain way more valuable than anything I ever learned in a classroom.

From Jeju WWOOFing:
메주 (meju) - soybean brick - the first stage of making dwaenjang
배달 (baedal) - delivery
텍배 (tekbae) - package
단지 (danji) - large earthenware crocks used for making and storing a variety of fermented foods such as dwaenjang, gochujang, ganjang (soysauce), and kimchi
내리오다 (naeri oda) - to take down
장갑 (janggab) - gloves
판매 (panmae) - to sell
곰팡이 (gompangi) - mold
싱겁다 (singeobda) - bland, tasteless
점 (jeom) - point(s) (used when playing GoStop)
오름 (oreum; jeju dialect) - small mountain
아이잰 (aijaen) - spikes attached to the bottom of your boots, used for hiking in snow (I think it's a borrowing from German)
무겁다 (mugeobda) -heavy

From two weeks at Cheonjangsa:
스님 (seunim) - monk
보살님 (bosalnim) - female layperson
거사님 (geosanim) - male layperson
"됐어" ("dwaesseo") - finished (like for a dish)
아가씨 (agassi) - young woman/miss (no children)
부저 (bujeo) - apprentice (chef)
저리사 (jeorisa) - cafeteria chef
삼배 (sambae) - three bows
행자 (haengja) - apprentice monk or nun
마지 (maji) - offering
법당 (beopdang) - Buddhist worship hall
예불 (yebul) - Buddhist prayer service
넣다 (neoda) to put in
성격 (seonggyeok) - personality
경험 (gyeongheom) - experience
방법 (bangbeop) - method
명상 (myeongsang) - meditation
참선 (chamseon) Seon/Zen meditation
화두 (hwadu) - Seon/Zen Koan
접시 (jeopshi) - plate
그릇 (geureus) - bowl
목탁 (mogtak) - a "temple block" - the wooden percussion instrument that monks use for chanting, and that the temple cook used for a dinner bell
새벽 (saebyeok) - dawn
사슴 (saseum) - deer
까마귀 (kkamagui) - crow
다시마 (dasima) - "kombu" seaweed used for making stock
더반 (deoban) - spiritual brother/sister
정 (jeong) - an emotional connection with another person; apparently there is no direct translation into English
설거지 (seolgeoji) - washing dishes
세탁 (setak) - washing clothes
비누 (binu) - soap
껍질 (ggeobjil) peel (of an orange or potato, etc)
미끄러움 (mikgeureoum) - slippery
책임감 (chaegimgan) - sense of responsibility책임감
해바라기 (haebaragi) - sunflower
수행 (suhaeng) - training

Note: I have tried to use the standard Romanization system with the exception of kimchi (spelling it "gimchi" just looks weird to me).

Hmm, where to start?

2011-02-14T23:58:00.005-08:00

Although usually I have no excuse for not updating this blog, I actually have a good one this time: I just finished up my solo vacation this past Sunday. My entire vacation consisted of one week of WWOOFing on Jeju island, followed by two weeks learning how to make Korean Buddhist dishes from the cook at a temple in in south Chungcheong province (충청남도). Both trips were transforming and revelatory in many ways, and there's much that I want to share on this blog (in addition to getting back to posting Thailand and Malaysia stories, that adds up to a lot...).

Working on my knife skills (no match for hers!)

However, it's M's birthday and I'm headed out to celebrate with him (Japanese style ramen; we're going to try a place near Sangsu station mentioned in this article), so I will have to stop here for now, but I promise to write more soon!

In the meantime, here are some highlights:

-Hiking snowy Hallasan
-Participating in the early stages of making dongdongju (hint: it involves lots of stomping)
-Watching the sunrise from the top of Yeonam mountain
-Meditating daily in a room where Kyeong Heo Sunim stayed for a time after attaining enlightenment

43 Thailand #4: First Cooking Lesson

2011-01-20T18:30:00.002-08:00

On our first morning in Chiang Mai, my friend A. and I made fried rice and tom yum goong (sour lemongrass soup with shrimp). In her sunny kitchen we fried the aromatics for the soup and chopped ingredients for the fried rice. A. cooks like me, by feel, so it was a lot of fun to cook with her. She had lots of tips to offer. For one, she showed me how to cut a lime so that each piece is easily squeezable. Basically, you cut around the center so that all of the hard pith gets extracted. Dad used to cut his limes the same way and I never understood why, because they weren't in perfect wedges, but now I finally get it.

The fried rice was a bit mushy but very flavorful. My favorite part was the slices of naem, garlicky pink sausages that are cured somehow so that they're safe to eat "raw" but I feel better cooking them. Growing up I used to see Dad eating them like string cheese out of their plastic wrappers.

Back in a week...

2011-01-20T05:36:00.001-08:00

...I'm going WWOOFing.

43 Thailand #3: Chili heat

2011-01-20T05:26:00.000-08:00

Dishes on display

Hardly anyone in my family is a lightweight when it comes to spicy food. Even my grandma, since living with my parents, has developed a higher tolerance for heat. My mom told me that once she lost her hearing for a full minute because of eating a hot chili (it might have been a habanero).

Popping raw chiles has become kind of an addiction for me; the resultant endorphin rush is worth any temporary discomfort. My mom's experience has become my litmus test for whether something is too spicy for me: if I lose my hearing, I've gone too far (Fingers crossed it hasn't happened yet, not that I haven't pushed it a few times...).

On our first full day in Bangkok, we were at lunch with my Thai brother and his friend, and I saw the little red chilies innocently hanging out on the edge of the plate, thought "Why not?" and popped one into my mouth, to the mild horror and amusement of my dining companions.

At first I was thinking "This isn't so bad." But then, inevitably, the heat started building, the insides of my ears started to hurt, and my eyes began to water. To get through it I just kept eating rice (no water; that's the worst) and slowly, slowly, the fire abated. Totally worth it (I personally believe that subjecting myself to this trial set me up for the intensely spicy somptam that we had in Chiang Mai a few days later).

Cool Thai Food Links

2011-01-15T00:01:00.001-08:00

Thought I'd share a few links that were useful in preparing for one of the most important parts of our Thailand (and Malaysia) trip: Eating.

1. This list was indispensible in planning what we wanted to prioritize putting in our gullets (and when you're in Thailand, some prioritizing is needed, believe me). If you're a street food enthusiast like me and planning a trip to Thailand, you should definitely check it out. And, even if you're not planning a trip - enjoy the photos!

2. One man, the author of this blog, spent 30 days eating exclusively street food around his home in Thailand. 100 meals in total, and he never repeated a dish, plus he reports saving money and losing weight. If I attempted that in my neighborhood, I'd probably be stuck on a rotation of twigim 튀김, ddeokbokki 떡볶기, hotteok 호떡, toast 토스트, and sundae 순대; there's no way I could even approach 100 (and as for losing weight...).

3. Featured on the same site as #2 is this series of quizzes and menu decoders, which you can use to practice reading Thai (if you already know the alphabet. If you don't already but are interested in learning, this is the site that I used to brush up on the alphabet and continue learning before we went; Dad has used it, too, to keep up his Thai).

43 Thailand #2: Thai Condiments

2011-01-14T23:36:00.005-08:00

Growing up, I could always tell when Dad had a cold because there he'd be, huddled at the kitchen table over a steaming bowl of soup noodles (guay teow rhua) with a box of tissues at the ready, and his jars of sliced peppers in vinegar, sugar, and pepper flakes. It's a cold remedy that I have used over the years since I started living on my own (and of course is delicious even when I'm not sick).

The three additions of sugar, vinegar peppers and red chili flakes were an indispensable part of this ritual. For years, and to this day, the peppers in particular were a reliable sight on the second shelf of our fridge, typically stored in an old marinated artichokes jar. Besides soup noodles, we also added them to rad na (click here for a description: it's closest to #95 on the list).

In Thailand, those condiments are a ubiquitous presence on the tables of restaurants and street stalls everywhere. Our first morning in Bangkok, I proudly ordered two bowls in my rudimentary Thai, and felt completely at home slurping happily away and sweating in the heat. Our order quickly arrived, each bowl containing thin rice noodles (sen lek) plus fish balls, sliced of roast pork, beansprouts, and something I hadn't encountered before: pieces of deep-fried wonton skin, which soaked up the broth and added interesting textures to the bowl. It cost 50 baht for two bowls (about $1.60 USD).

It was after this picture was taken and we finished our meal that we ran into my Thai brother on the street, coming to find us at our guesthouse! We had our reunion (it had been 8 years since I'd seen him last) there on the street north of Khao San road. If we hadn't decided to stop for noodles at that particular time, we would have missed him.

43 Thailand #1: Mataba

2011-01-14T01:45:00.004-08:00

My knowledge and experience of Thai food is centered around Isan, the northeastern region. It's where my dad lived while he was serving in the army, and also where my Thai family lives (basically my host family in Thailand; their son, my Thai brother, lived with my family for a time as an exchange student when he was in high school and we've been visiting back and forth ever since). Isan food is also popular in other parts of Thailand, and since I'm familiar with it, I tend to order it. Therefore, my knowledge of Thai food from other regions is lacking in comparison.

Our first night in Bangkok, our friend J., who has lived in Thailand for several years now, took us to a southern Thai restaurant around Khao San Road (an experience for another post...) and we ordered something called mataba that turned out to be a kind of stuffed roti served with a bit of pickled cucumber relish on the side:

Isn't it pretty on its blue plate? The egg and meat layered with pastry inside created a nice texture. Unfortunately, this particular mataba didn't really strike me. It could have been the time: We were eating fairly late (around 10pm) and it wasn't warmed completely through. Also, there wasn't anything particularly distinctive about the spicing. However, after reading this description of the dish on Kasma Lola-unchit's site, I'm willing to give it another try when I have the chance.

Note: Also from Kasma Lola-unchit: Apparently "mataba" is the Thai word for what is referred to as "murtabak" in Malaysia and Singapore.

43 Travel Stories

2011-01-12T21:16:00.003-08:00

As a way of sharing my experiences in Thailand and Malaysia, I thought I'd do something a little different.

Last year I started a page on the goal-setting website 43Things. In a nod to that site, and an effort to get into more regular blogging this year, I will be posting 43 photos with accompanying anecdotes from my travels.

Happy 2011!

2011-01-12T00:18:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

It was back to wintry Seoul this past Sunday morning after a red eye flight from Kuala Lumpur. We hurried, me shivering in my thin Thai pants (one size fits all, super comfortable, we bought 4 pairs...) the block from the subway station to our house, where we immediately turned on the ondol, got under the covers, and slept. I felt fortunate to live so close to a subway station! The new airport express just opened up a stop at Digital Media City on our line, which made the journey a little easier.

It's taken some adjustment to be back in weather that's nearly 50 degrees (F) colder (I was sweating in my newly shorn pixie haircut in KL and now find myself bundling up my bare head in my huge winter hat). At the same time, I appreciate snow and cold when it's winter; after two weeks, M and I could see how the lack of differentiation between seasons in a tropical climate might get to us after a while.

For my first post of 2011, thought I'd share a photo of some of my favorite souvenirs from our trip:

The green curry paste was purchased in Chiang Mai; the rest, at a grocery store in Brickfields, the Little India neighborhood of Kuala Lumpur.

Looking forward to experimenting with them soon! Will have to make a coconut milk run to Itaewon in the near future...

Exorcist coffee

2010-12-10T19:00:00.001-08:00

Here's an interesting coffee shop I came across in Edae a few weekends ago*:

What kind of coffee would an exorcist drink?

Apparently teddy bears love it.

(*although note that 'exorcist' in the Korean context typically refers to someone like this and doesn't necessarily evoke something like this)

Tip: Cheater's Omuraisu

2010-12-09T18:48:00.002-08:00

Though I made this, I have to give credit to M. for the idea. Made this for lunch this past Tuesday. I had made the omuraisu (omelette rice) filling but using Jasmine rice instead of Korean short-grain, which I normally use, and I was worried it wasn't going to hold together very well (the grains are more distinct with Jasmine). Then, M. suggested I just make a flat omelette and drape it over the mound of rice (the cheese blanket, I should say, was his idea too). Isn't it purdy?:

Fried rice waiting with cheese blanket

Close-up on the masterpiece

Looks like some kind of sea creature...a horseshoe crab, perhaps?

This time I added canned diced tomatoes, sliced pyogo 표고 mushrooms (my current favorite Korean mushroom, kind of like a shitake, sooo good) and broccoli florets to the rice filling (whatever happened to be on hand).

Recipe: Black Eyed Beans with Spinach and Dill (from Madhur Jaffrey)

2010-12-08T17:30:00.003-08:00

For a description of the making of this recipe and ingredient notes, see this post.

Parveen Haroon's Black eyed Beans with Spinach and Dill
From Pakistan

From Madhur Jaffrey's "From Curries to Kebabs: Recipes from the Indian Spice Trail." Clarkson Potter 2003.

1 cup dried black-eyed peas
1 3/4 teaspoons salt
3 Tablespoons corn or peanut oil
1 teaspoon whole cumin seeds
1 teaspoon whole brown mustard seeds
4 cloves garlic, chopped
15-20 fresh curry leaves, if available (I used 8 or so dried)
1 pound spinach, washed, finely chopped, and left to drain in a colander (I used one bunch, probably half a pound)
7-8 Tablespoons very finely chopped fresh dill
6 Tablespoons plain yoghurt (I used about 4 Tablespoons milk)

1 1/2 to 2 teaspoons coarsely ground, pure chili powder (gochu karu!)
1 dried lime or 1 fresh lime or 1 to 2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Cover the beans generously with water and leave to soak overnight. Drain them the next day, put in a pan with 4 cups of fresh water, and bring to a simmer. Partially cover with a lid, and cook for 50 to 60 minutes, or until tender (mine took 2 hours). Stir in 1 1/2 teaspoons of the salt.

Pour the oil into a large pan or wok and set over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot, put in the cumin seeds and mustard seeds. As soon as the mustard seeds begin to pop, a matter of seconds, put in the garlic and curry leaves. Stir once, then add the spinach and dill. Stir and cook until most of the liquid in the spinach is absorbed. Reduce the heat to low and add 1 1/2 cups of water, the chili powder, and the remaining 1/4 teaspoon of salt. Stir. If using a dried lime, crack the lime and take out the dried black pulp. Remove any seeds and crush the pulp. Add it to the spinach. Now pour the contents of the spinach pan into the pan containing the beans. Stir and bring to a simmer. Cover, reduce the heat to low, and simmer gently for 10 minutes. Serve with tomato-garlic rice (separate recipe).

Rorschach Peas

2010-12-08T05:25:00.003-08:00

I continue on my Indian/Curry cooking jag, inspired by Madhur Jaffrey and her cookbook, "From Curries to Kebabs: Recipes from the Indian Spice Trail." Tonight it was a Malaysian lentil curry (no photographic evidence of that, unfortunately...).

Everything I've made from that cookbook (4 recipes and counting) has turned out well. Last Sunday I decided to try a black-eyed pea (she calls them 'beans' in the book) curry seasoned with curry leaves and dill. I hadn't been planning on it, but while at the Foreign Food Mart in Itaewon I noticed they had some packs of dill (why didn't they have it when I needed it for my Thanksgiving rice dish? Oh well...) and decided to make it for lunch on Sunday. It was the dill that I was hesitant about...but it turned out to be one of the best curries that I've ever made, and one of M.'s favorites.

Also, happily, it was via this dish that I discovered the frozen limes in my freezer (brought to us from a friend coming back from an unnamed tropical location) were salvageable after all, and I didn't have to use the suggested lemon substitute (which I think wouldn't have been as good).

I served it with tomato rice, as she suggests, although without an oven I couldn't bake it and had to, instead, stir-fry the rice with the tomato-garlic sauce before serving. It was a great combination: The dill and curry leaves blended together beautifully to create a wonderful tang, and the milk (my yoghurt “substitute”) added a bit of creaminess. It was a bit watery, but this allowed for plenty of rich, delicious broth. The comforting tomato-garlic rice balanced the bold flavors of the peas.

It took a bit more time than I anticipated – even though I soaked the peas last night, they still took double the time she indicates to cook (2 hours instead of 50-60 minutes) – but the results were well-worth it. South Asian peas and rice! I could live on the stuff. (I'll post the recipe tomorrow; too good not to share).

A note on the ingredients: I got the dill and dried curry leaves at the Foreign Food Mart in Itaewon (where you can also get plain Denmark yoghurt in individual containers like they have at Costco; not sure why I didn't buy any at that time...). I was delighted to read in Jaffrey's headnote that she recommends Korean coarse-ground red pepper powder (gochu karu 고추가루) – something you can get in any supermarket here! If you can't get the Korean version, she recommends cayenne pepper as a substitute.

A final note: M. thinks that this pea looks like Rorschach from Watchmen:

What do you think?

'Western' food: A one-two punch, take two: Chili King

2010-12-08T05:09:00.003-08:00

I first heard about Chili King via Seoul Eats and was curious to try it, particularly the chili burgers. So I recruited K. again, and along with M., the three of us checked it out for dinner this past Thursday.

The restaurant, a short walk from Itaewon station, is small and cozy. The place threw K. off a little, because everything was written entirely in English only – the menu and the signboards. An army of hot sauces lined the shelf under the passthrough to the kitchen. We sat next to a group of three young guys, one of whom, judging from his Gophers jersey and Twins cap, was apparently a fellow Minnesotan.

Instead of a chili burger, I ended up ordering a bowl of chili, K. got a bacon cheeseburger and M. ordered a chili dog. The chili itself was a solid, meat-and-beans chili, evenly textured and spiced (I'd say on the low end of medium-spicy for me) topped with a bit of cheese and accompanied by sliced French bread. M. really enjoyed his chili dog accompanied by crinkly fries, and K. liked her burger (well, it had bacon on it, so it had that going for it at least).

The waitstaff were friendly and seemed to speak English pretty well. Unlike Butterfingers, Chili King is located relatively close to me (in Itaewon) and I could see going back there again, though it's a bit spendy for a bowl of chili (8,500 won). I don't know if I'd go back just for the chili, but I could see getting a chili dog again.

The following directions and info are from Seoul Eats :

The Chili King
010 6873 1304
Hours 11-11
Closed on Tuesday because the King goes to Three Alley Pub to have wings.

Directions go out Exit one of Itaewon Station and make the second right: make a right at "Pacific Shopping," you'll see OK2 Kitchen on your left. Go up the hill about 200 meters and you'll see it on the left.

Malaysian Street Food!

2010-12-05T22:30:00.000-08:00

M. and I are heading to Thailand and Malaysia over the winter holiday this year. While researching our trip, I stumbled across this awesome site, which led me to this site: a series of short promotional videos for the street food nominees, in 12 different categories (scroll down to 'And the Winners Are').

Apparently the contest was held on December 3rd, but I don't think they've announced the winners yet.

I'm really looking forward to our trip! The food looks really interesting and delicious; a lot of old favorites and some new ones. I miss going to Malaysia Kopitiam...

Curry season

2010-12-04T17:30:00.001-08:00

Lately, with the chilly weather setting in, all I've been wanting to cook at home is variations on the theme of Indian-style curry.

I got this recipe from a cookbook by Madhur Jaffrey, which I found a copy of in my university's library (somewhat unexpectedly). Here's the recipe, with my modifications and notes:

Chickpea, Potato and Cabbage Curry (from Guyana)
From Madhur Jaffrey's "From Curries to Kebabs: Recipes from the Indian Spice Trail." Clarkson Potter 2003.

Serves 4 to 6

1 cup dried chickpeas
1 cup chopped onion
4 cloves garlic, chopped
2 wiri-wiri peppers, 1/8 of a congo pepper (scotch bonnet; habanero), without seeds, or 3 bird's eye chiles, chopped
4 Tablespoons corn, peanut, or olive oil
1 Tablespoon hot curry powder
1 teaspoon roasted and ground cumin seeds
3 medium potatoes (about 1 pound), peeled and cut into 3/4-inch dice
1.5 teaspoons salt, or to taste
4.5 cups green cabbage, its leaves cut into 1/2-inch squares (or substitute 1 large bunch spinach, chopped)

Soak the chickpeas overnight in 5 cups of water. Drain the next day, put in a pan, add 5 cups of fresh water, and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce the heat to low, and cook very gently for 1 to 3 hours, or until the chickpeas are very tender. If the water in the pan threatens to dry out, add more boiling water. Drain the chickpeas, reserving the cooking liquid. Pour the liquid into a measuring cup and add enough water to make 2.5 cups.

Put the onion, garlic, peppers, and 4 Tablespoons of water into a blender and blend until smooth.

Pour the oil into a heavy, preferably nonstick, lidded pan and set over medium-high head. Put in the paste from the blender. Stir and fry for 2-3 minutes, then reduce the heat to medium-low. Cover and cook for a further 2-3 minutes, removing the lid to stir frequently. Add the curry powder and roasted cumin. Stir once and put in the chickpeas, potatoes, salt, and the mixture of chickpea-cooking liquid and water. Bring to a boil, cover, reduce the heat, and cook gently, stirring now and then, for 20-25 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender. Add the cabbage and a further 1 cup of water. Stir and bring to a simmer. Cover and simmer gently for 10-15 minutes, or until the cabbage has just softened. Taste for salt before serving. My serving suggestions: Serve with pickle and rice, or tortillas browned over a gas flame and buttered (a good substitute for naan or chapatis, I've found) if you like.

My notes: I substituted one bunch of spinach (it's been so cheap and good these days) for the cabbage. If you use spinach, you don't need to cook the curry for as long at the end (maybe just 5 extra minutes) since spinach cooks so fast compared to cabbage.

Since I don't have a food processor, the garlic cloves were smashed with a mortar and pestle instead, and I finely minced the onion and chiles (I just substituted 2 green gochu with the seeds removed). I didn't add the 4 Tbsp water either.

For the "hot curry powder," I mixed about equal amounts (about one generous Tablespoon each) of 1) ground red pepper and 2) ground coriander.
****
Just went to the Foreign Food Mart in Itaewon to stock up on more chickpeas, and now I'm set to make this again next week! So good, cheap, and easy.

Cutest. Cake. Ever.

2010-12-04T01:38:00.001-08:00

Look what my students got me for the last day of class last week!

A cute and delicious bear cake from Tous Les Jours!

I suspect they chose it because it 'bears' (haha) some resemblance to the bear on the bag that I used to collect money from them whenever they spoke Korean (1,000 won fine each time):

Am I a cruel teacher? Well, considering I used that money to buy them all treats on the last day, probably not...

'Western' food: A one-two punch, take one: Butterfinger Pancakes

2010-12-04T01:32:00.001-08:00

As much as I love Korean food, sometimes I just crave something from back home, like a proper (quote unquote) American breakfast. Before moving here, I wondered what I would miss the most, and actually predicted one thing right: bacon. Real bacon: not the uncured samgyupsal that everyone is crazy about here and that I also enjoy, but salty, cured, crispy bacon. Not only do I miss bacon, but also biscuits and gravy (hard for me to make with only a teeny tiny toaster oven) and good sausages. I can do eggs at home – we have a lot of British-ish breakfasts consisting of fried eggs, toast-and-jam, and baked beans (thanks to HomePlus a.k.a. Tesco's in Korea) and sometimes do pancakes or potato hash, but it's those breakfast meats that I typically crave.

So last Sunday, my friend K. and I decided to go to Butterfingers, a favorite of K.'s. They have two branches, and we went to the one near Gangnam station. K's a bacon fiend, more than me – she tells me that for 6 months while studying and living in the U.S., she ate 10 pieces of bacon at each meal! (sometimes in fried rice, she says, but still) – and Butterfingers is a place she can go to satisfy her cravings. The atmosphere was bright and open, and reminded me a bit of The Diner in D.C., although a little more upscale. The menu was huge and everything looked delicious (chive waffle with sauteed cherry tomatoes and bacon on the side; corned beef hash platter; blueberry pancakes). As expected, it was a bit pricey. We didn't get any coffee because the prices started at 5,000 won for a regular drip coffee. At last, I decided to order my breakfast a la carte (spiced pecan pancakes with apple compote; hashbrowns; bacon), which added up to be around 12,000 won. The two pancakes alone cost 5,500 won. K. ordered a waffle platter with eggs, potatoes, sausage and bacon for about the same price, and we shared our food and gushed over the bacon. My food came out on three separate plates, probably because I ordered a la carte, which made it a bit hard to eat the pancakes; serving it all on one plate would have made more sense to me.

The food was good, but not awesome. Basically, like something you'd get at a good diner back home. The hashbrowns were pre-frozen and not cooked very well; they could have been crispier. I preferred K.'s potatoes (homefries), although even those could have been better (a bit undercooked but well-seasoned). I could have made those pancakes at home myself, and I agree with this review - the portion should have made it a side order. The bacon and sausage were a highlight: the former crispy-chewy and smoky, the latter plump, juicy, and mildly spiced (kind of like a weiswurst). At those prices, and the fact it's in Gangnam, I wouldn't go regularly, but it'd be a nice place for the occasional treat.

What to do with leftover eggwash?

2010-11-23T19:10:00.002-08:00

Whenever I made something breaded that requires an egg wash, I always end up either tossing the extra beaten egg immediately, or put it in the fridge but toss it later anyway because I forget it's there and it goes bad.

Now, though, I know exactly what to do.

The other day I was making breaded chicken cutlets to go with pasta for lunch, and it dawned on me:
Why not just mix the leftover beaten egg in with the hot pasta in the pan, Carbonara-style?

So I did (being careful to cook the egg, stirring constantly, so, not exactly Carbonara...) and the results were really tasty: the egg coated each strand and gave it a silky texture.

The pasta sauce itself was a riff on a green olive pantry sauce that I've been making a lot lately (taking advantage of my huge jars of pimento-stuffed green olives from Costco): chopped green olives, minced garlic, minced green hot peppers (고추) and lots of freshly ground black pepper.

All those times I squandered that extra egg...

Restaurant 유라시아 (Eurasia): Russian Food in Edae

2010-11-22T23:00:00.001-08:00

Typically, when M. and I want to eat Russian food here in Seoul, "Edae" is not really a place that springs to mind (we usually go to Caravan in Dongdaemun). Therefore, I was a bit surprised when my friend T. called me up last Saturday and suggested we join him and some friends for Russian food...in Edae. I wondered where it was, exactly, and how the food compared to what we were used to getting in Dongdaemun.

Turns out that the place, Restaurant Eurasia, is right across the street from Sinchon Station and the Megabox, on the 4th floor of the 뉴포트빌딩 ("Newport Building").

The food itself was pretty inexpensive: Each dish we ordered cost between 6,000-8,000 won, and the portions were pretty generous. I ordered the golubsy, and M. ordered these meat patties whose name I have embarrassingly forgotten. For appetizers/things to share with the table, we got an order of vinagrette (beet salad) and lamb pelmeni (dumplings) in broth. One of T's friends ordered a layered herring salad that came out with a pretty latticework of pink mayonnaise:

Vinagrette

Herring salad

Lamb pelmeni

Golubtsy (cabbage rolls)

Meat patties with mashed potatoes and dipping sauce

While the cabbage rolls were comforting and just the ticket for my hangover (thanks to Bar Da and its Manhattans the previous night), the flavor wasn't too distinctive. The potatoes that came with M's meal were either instant or overseasoned with broth (the texture made me think it was the former), and the patties themselves were kind of fatty. The lamb pelmeni was probably my favorite: well-stuffed and not overly seasoned, and the wrappers weren't overcooked. I also enjoyed the roasted pepper dipping sauce that came with the lamb shashlik (kabob/고치) and the meat patties, and the vinagrette with its chunks of dill pickle.

However, though the portions, prices, and proximity might cause me to return, the atmosphere, with its decently loud dance music, huge booths and glaring white furniture lit by eerie blue lights, was a bit jarring and not exactly conducive to dinnertime conversation. Our server forgot to bring out one entree and we had to ask for it again. Also, I was not a fan of the slippery square white plates with upturned edges, which looked nice enough and I'm sure work great for sushi or other finger foods, but are less suited for eating food with a knife and fork (my utensils kept slipping off the edge and clattering onto my lap; maybe I should just chalk that up to my general clumsiness though...).

After dinner we wandered through Edae browsing the various stalls and finally decided to go for waffles (2,000 won each). T. and I got green tea ones filled with cream and jam, and M. ordered a frozen yoghurt-stuffed one. Yum.

Restaurant Eurasia:
Line 2, Ewha station exit 2
"뉴포트빌딩" 4F
(02) 393-7011

Waffles: "와플공장" in Edae...not sure how to get there, exactly...

JT in Hongdae

2010-11-22T22:14:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, we went to see 'The Social Network.' While the movie itself was kind of hit-or-miss, my husband and I agreed that Justin Timberlake's portrayal of Shawn Parker, the founder of Napster (casting irony) was a highlight.

Then the other night on our way to Bar Da in Hongdae, I saw this:

Wonder if the burgers are delicious, like JT says they are...?

Roots

2010-11-18T16:50:00.003-08:00

Why did my husband send me this link?

Which got me here?

Holy Land Deli! Now I'm really homesick...

Serendipitous Black Tofu & Bo Ssam with Seoul Eats at 오수 (Osu)

2010-11-17T23:20:00.001-08:00

Yesterday afternoon, in the midst of an epic and cathartic trans-continental G-chat with an old friend, I decided to take up Seoul Eats on his offer (via mailing list) of dinner in Insadong. I've been meaning to get in touch with him for quite some time regarding the cooking classes at O'ngo Food Communications, but scheduling and studying and etcetera have conspired against me up until this point.

So last night, we met up at his cooking school where I met another new friend and we enjoyed some coffee (real coffee!) and a food-centric chat before heading off to the restaurant.

Before getting to the restaurant, we had to make a detour because Dan had gotten cheated out of a 야채진빵(yachae jin ppang/vegetable steamed bun), at a nearby 만두 (mandu) shop the day before (I forgot to take a picture of the sign, so the name escapes me...). Instead of a savory meat-and-veggie bun, he received a red bean one. As someone with a salt tooth who is frequently disappointed by the overwhelming number of sweet foods disguised as savory here (case in point: garlic bread at Paris Baguette), I could appreciate his frustration. However, all three of us benefited from the oversight: The fluffy bun was stuffed full of ground pork and sweet cabbage and my favorite, short lengths of transparent noodle, with a hint of ginger in the mix.

After clearing that up, it was on to the main event. After weaving our way through the alleys of Insadong, we arrived at 오수 (Osu), with '흑두부' (heuk dubu/black tofu) advertised on the window. Shortly after ordering, our banchan arrived, followed by our meal (which, as Dan pointed out, was presented on a kimchi pot lid): a large platter of 보쌈 (bossam/sliced pork) with raw oysters and black tofu.

The oysters were served on a bed of strips of dried radish (무) tossed in a spicy red sauce. Though I'd sampled this before, I previously thought it was strips of fruit, not radish. Dan explained that the radish is cut into strips and then dried before being used in this dish, which imparts a sweetness to the vegetable. This was my first time having bo ssam with oysters; the fresh taste of the oysters cut through the fattiness of the meat. With just a little ssam jang and a slice of raw garlic, it made a great ssam(wrap).

All three of us agreed that the oysters were the best: fresh, clean-tasting and just a bit briny. The tofu itself, other than being a bit nuttier than the regular white tofu I'm used to having, was not all that distinctive.

Since we were going for tofu, I had expected something lighter than what we ended up ordering. Bo ssam is something that I can't eat more than a few times a year, as it's so heavy. Overall though: Good food, comfortable atmosphere, and interesting company. I'm glad I answered that email.

Election Day update

2010-06-01T22:46:00.007-07:00

It's election day here in Seoul and I figured I'd update a bit. I'm back after a month abroad (Hong Kong for a week, and then three weeks in the U.S. visiting family and friends). The weather changed noticeably while I was gone; it's now getting balmy and slightly sticky and there's that familiar slightly sweet smell in the air that I recognize from Shanghai, Tokyo, and Thailand - not sure what the origin is, but it makes me feel pleasantly nostalgic.

Before I left on vacation, I was in a bit of a cooking and food rut. After a month of sampling Hong Kong treats and my parents' cooking, I feel inspired and back on track, with lots of ideas for recipes bouncing around in my head.

Seeing the fruit and vegetable sellers out on the streets has also inspired me. On Monday night I made beef and barley soup, along with a salad consisting of cherry tomatoes from a vendor around the Grand Mart at Sinchon Rotary, in addition to zucchini and lots of celery leaves in a lemon, soy sauce and sesame oil dressing. Here's a photo:

ZenKimchi's 100 Korean foods you gotta try (from 2008)

2010-04-25T03:38:00.010-07:00

Since finishing up my work for my second semester of teaching here, I've had more time to poke around on the Internet. While looking up some information on Mary eats for my toast post, I happened to revisit her posting of ZenKimchi's "100 Korean foods you gotta try" (from 2008, original post by ZenKimchi, on September 16, 2008, can be found here)

I was not new to Korean food when I moved here. I've been a long time fan of kimchi since my dad introduced it to me when I was a kid. Then, while living in Seattle and D.C., I learned more about the cuisine by exploring the markets and restaurants in both places. A decent number of these are things I tried before I came to Seoul. Currently, I'm looking to expand my horizons even more. I thought posting this list now would be a good way to both get a sense of what I've tried so far, and prioritize my "to-eat" list for my time here.
Italics=foods I've tried.
1. Myeolchi Bokkeum (Stir-fried Anchovies) - my favorite version that I've tried so far was at a temple in Jirisan, with both pumpkin and sesame seeds.

2. Samgyetang (Ginseng Chicken Soup) Still haven't had this...

3. Bulgogi (Grilled Marinated Beef)

4. BulDalk (spicy chicken)

5. DalkBal (Spicy Chicken Feet)

6. Korean Fried Chicken Love it. So good with pickled radish cubes and a cold beer.

7. Dalk Galbi (Stir-fried Marinated Chicken and Veggies) - my favorite is with octopus, and gamja myun sari (sweet potato noodles as an add-in)

8. San Nakji, chopped (Semi-live Baby Octopus)

9. San Nakji, whole (Live Octopus)

10. Sundubu Jjigae (Soft Tofu Stew)

11. Juk (Rice Porridge) Have been eating this since I was a little kid (and we called it "jook") but my favorite Korean version is hobak (pumpkin).

12. Galbi (Grilled Short Ribs)

13. Galbitang (Short Rib Soup)

14. Shinseollo (Fancy Hot Pot)

15. Gobchang Gui (Grilled Beef Intestines). Had some stuffed with garlic at a second round with M and his coworkers in Wangsimni. Apparently there are lots of good gobchang restaurants around Wangsimni.

16. Seng Gan (Raw Beef Liver)

17. Galbi Jjim (Stewed Ribs)

18. Bossam (Steamed Marinated Pork with Lettuce Wraps) Tried it in Fairfax county; have yet to try it in Korea. Wasn't crazy about it.

19. Japchae (Clear Noodles Stir-fried with Pork and Vegetables)

20. Jaeyuk Bokkeum (Spicy Stir-fried Pork)

21. Kimchi Jjim (Stewed Kimchi with Tofu) - I don't have a distinct memory of trying this, even though it seems like one of those things I must have tried...

22. Ddong Jip (Chicken Gizzards)

23. Odeng/Eomuk (Street-side Fish Noodles)

24. Hoddeok (Stuffed Street-side Pastries) Mmm. Fried dough with brown sugar. Had a really tasty deep-fried version in Busan.

25. GeiJang (Raw Fermented Crabs)

26. Hongeo (Fermented Skate)

27. Gochujang Samgyeopsal (Grilled Pork Belly Smothered in Red Pepper Paste) Have also had other versions of samgyeopsal at Palseksamgyeopsal, near Sogang.

28. Lotteria’s Shrimp Burger

29. Sae-u Kang (Shrimp Flavored “Fries”)

30. Doenjang Jjigae (Fermented Bean Paste Stew) Love ordering it, and make it at home, too.

31. Cheonggukjang (Stinky Fermented Bean Paste Stew) Have had it at a Buddhist temple and at restaurants. Love the funkiness.

32. Boshintang (Dog Soup)

33. Seonji Haejangguk (Hangover Stew with Clotted Cow Blood) - Haven't ordered it myself but tried some of M's once.

34. Ddeokbokki (Chewy Rice Cakes in Spicy Sauce)

35. YukHui (Ground raw beef) - like tartare, served with radish matchsticks.

36. MiyeokGuk (Seaweed Soup) My students told me that you're not supposed to eat this before a test (for fear that your test scores will 'slip' down, or something like that).

37. Mae-eunTang (Spicy Fish Soup)

38. Nakji Bokkeum (Stir-fried Baby Octopus)

39. Ojingeo (Dried Cuttlefish)

40. Beondaeggi (Silkworm Larvae)
Once was enough.

41. Golbaenggi (Sea Snails)

42. Jangeo Gui (Grilled Eel)

43. Jaratang (Turtle Soup)

44. Bogeo (Blowfish)

45. Sae-u Sogeum Gui (Salt Grilled Shrimp) Had these in Busan at Jagalchi fish market.

46. Deodeok Root

47. BindaeDdeok (Mung Bean Pancake) Love love love these with makkeoli. I like them more than pajeon.

48. Pajeon (Green Onion Pancake) Or, often, haemul pajeon, with seafood.

49. Bibimbap (Mixed Rice and Vegetables)

50. Boribap (Mixed Barley Rice and Vegetables)

51. Marinated Garlic

52. Patbingsu (Shaved Ice and Red Bean Treat) On my list for this summer.

53. Dotorimok (Acorn Jelly) One of my favorite banchan. Just had some for dinner tonight, in a salad with greens.

54. Naengmyeon (Chilled Noodles) - the first meal I had here (though it's more of a snack, I realize now). Used to make the instant version of bibimnaengmyeon (the red spicy one) in college; my Korean roommate brought some packets over with her.

55. Makkeoli/Dongdongju (Rice Beer) Love Makkeoli.

56. Bokbunja (Raspberry Wine) You can buy this at the convenience store. I like baek seju better.

57. Soju (Rice Whiskey) Best when consumed with fatty barbeque, like samgyupsal or kalbi.

58. Andong Soju (Strong Rice Whiskey from the Andong Region) - Had this once at home, bought it at Grand Mart, not sure how good it was; tasted kind of dusty.

59. Jogae Gui (Grilled Shellfish)

60.span style="font-weight:bold;"> Haepari (Jellyfish)

61. Gyeran Jjim (Steamed Egg)

62. Corn Ice Cream

63. Dolsot Bibimbap (Mixed Rice and Vegetables in a Sizzling Stone Pot)

64. Mandu (Stuffed Dumplings) I wrote a whole post about mandu so I don't think I need to elaborate on how much I love these...

65. Ddeokguk (Chewy Rice Cake Soup)

66. Songpyeon (Stuffed Chewy Rice Cakes) Rice cakes stuffed with sugar and sesame seeds. My favorite is the pine needle one. Traditionally eaten at Chuseok ("Korean Thanksgiving")

67. Hot Bar (Fried Fish Batter Street Food)

68. Shikhye (Sweet Rice Punch) I drank this all the time when we first moved here in sticky late August.

69. Any product with Green Tea in it There is a green tea hotteok (#24) that I want to try.

70. Gujeolpan (Nine-section Dish) Had a version with thin daikon slices at a traditional Korean restaurant in Samcheongdong on New Year's Day.

71. Yogurt Soju Cocktail

72. Baechu Kimchi (Cabbage Kimchi)

73. Any Kimchi that’s over 3 years old – Not sure. Probably...

74. Baek Kimchi (White Cabbage Kimchi)

75. Shake-’em-up Dosirak
- “Dosirak” is the Korean word for a boxed lunch (“bento” in Japanese). The “shake 'em up” variety, as I have encountered them in restaurants, consist of a thin aluminum box with fitted lid, containing a portion of steamed rice topped with a fried egg. Close the lid and shake the box before eating.

76. Mul Kimchi (Water Kimchi) Very refreshing.

77. Oi Sobagi (Stuffed Cucumber Kimchi)

78. Ggakdugi (Cubed Radish Kimchi) My favorite kimchi at the moment, especially when made with lots of bright ginger.

79. Sae-u Jeot (Salted Tiny Shrimp)I'm pretty sure this is what they give you as an add-in at sundaeguk restaurants.

80. Myeongran Jeot (Salted Pollack Roe) – Haven't had it in Korea, but have had it as mentaiko, the Japanese version - Myeongran jeot preceded mentaiko, something I've wondered about that this page confirms.

81. Changran Jeot (Salted Pollack Guts)

82. Ssamjang (Mixed Soybean and Pepper Paste)

83. Kalguksu (Hand-cut Noodle Soup) Not a big fan. Too filling.

84. Ramyeon (Ramen Noodles) in a Tin Pot

85. Entire Hui Meal (Korean style Sashimi) Had in Busan. Well, I think it was an entire meal...

86. Gimbap (Seaweed Rice Rolls) Have had these for breakfast and lunch, sometimes in the same day.

87. Jokbal (Pigs Feet) I can't eat this very often (so rich) but really enjoy it. A great drinking food. Reminds me of siljee, the Chinese roast pork that I grew up with.

88. Sundae (Blood and Noodle Sausage) I like it dry with salt-and-hot pepper dip, or in sundaeguk.

89. Yeot (Traditional Korean Candy)

90. Naengi (Shepherd’s Purse)

91.Kimchi Jjigae (Kimchi Stew) One of my favorites.

92. Budae Jjigae (“Army Camp” Stew, traditionally including hot dogs and Spam)

93. Agu Jjim (Stewed Monkfish)

94. Haemultang (Seafood Soup) Not really a favorite, but I've had it a couple of times.

95.Nurungji (Hot Water Mixed with Rice Scrapings in a Stone Pot) – Ate the scrapings as a kid; we called it “ngok jook” - one of my mom's favorite treats. Never ate it as a soup though. Hoping that Mom comes to visit so I can take her to a sundubu restaurant and have her try this.

96. Sujebi (Rustic Dumpling Soup)

97. Janchi Guksu (Thin Noodles in a Seaweed Broth with Condiments)

98. BungeoBbang (Goldfish-shaped Stuffed Pastry)

99. Raw Ginseng or anything with Ginseng in it My favorite way to have ginseng right now is in makkeoli.

100. MakHui (Chilled Sashimi Soup)

Grand total? 70/100. Any recommendations on what I should try first?

Toast (토스트)

2010-04-23T19:37:00.004-07:00

Before I moved to Seoul, the word 'toast' evoked something like this:

Now, I've added a new association:

I first heard of 'toast' from reading Mary eats, and was won over by her description in this post prior to moving here last August. Now I order it fairly regularly, although usually it's as a quick lunch, hurriedly wolfed down before heading off to teach. We also make our own version at home (like the one that M made and took a picture of, above).

I typically get my toast from the bright yellow stand on the Sogang campus. The basic version is just an omelette patty with cheese, and generally "야체 yachae (vegetables)" , which in this case refers to shredded cabbage. Other versions I've seen include ham toast, bacon toast (which can have ham and bacon together), or "special toast" which includes a chicken patty. Haven't tried the chicken one yet.

Another distinctive feature of toast is the condiments: I've had versions with mustard, ketchup, and a kind of kiwi jam. There's also a brown sauce that I haven't identified yet.

We probably eat toast in as much as out. Our home versions usually include mayo on one side of the bread and sriracha on the other, and eggs and cheese (sometimes with the addition of those Vienna sausages, ubiquitous in grocery stores here, chopped up).

Apparently, the toast chain Isaac has gone overseas; there's an Isaac toast in L.A.

Flight of the Condorchords

2010-04-22T17:44:00.006-07:00

I've been informed that the song I was taken with in G&B the other night was 'El Condor Pasa', originally a Peruvian song but famously covered by Simon and Garfunkel on 'Bridge Over Troubled Water'.

And now for some cross-linguistic word association; Wikipedia tells me that "El Condor Pasa" means 'flight of the condor'--> Flight of the Conchords!

"I'd rather be a sparrow than a snail..."

2010-04-21T18:08:00.005-07:00

Last night, after a semi-successful afternoon of shopping, as it neared dinnertime and the sum total of my food consumption for the day was a grilled cheese sandwich at home and a late afternoon snack of kalbi mandu from Mapo Mandu, I was desperate for something to eat. On top of this, it was starting to rain. While on line 2 heading towards home, I thought of something.

Some time back, a coworker of mine had recommended a goulash place in Hongdae, on the hill next to the park where the Free Market is held on Saturdays, in one of the alleys there. At that moment on the subway, tired, hungry and wet, it sounded perfect.

At G&B (Goulash and Bread), for 3,500 won (they used to have a sign advertising 2,500 but everyone in the place last night was paying 3,500...) you get all-you-can-eat rolls, goulash, and coffee. I was full after two bowls and rolls.

The rolls were large, crusty, and fresh, and the goulash consisted of a peppery, tangy tomato broth holding chunks of potato, carrot, and tender beef, and additionally seasoned with caraway seeds.

It's run, as far as I can tell, by a friendly middle-aged couple, and it seemed popular: the cozy space was packed with six people in addition to me, on a rainy weekday evening. I leisurely ate my goulash, listened to a medley of melancholy ballads (in English, Mandarin, and other languages), and enjoyed two cups of coffee. The title of this post comes from one of the songs, which I'd never heard before. Other lyrics included: "I'd rather be a hammer than a nail; a forest than a street..."

I would definitely recommend it to anyone who wants a cheap, tasty, and filling meal. Thanks again, L!

L'atelier doux review (thanks to ZenKimchil)

2010-04-21T04:57:00.005-07:00

A little shameless self-promotion...

ZenKimchi dining published a quick review of mine a couple of weeks ago, for an Italian restaurant in Apgujeong called L'atelier doux. You can read the review here

First street sweet potato in seoul (it's about time)

2010-04-03T20:00:00.001-07:00

All winter I'd been wanting to purchase a roasted sweet potato off the street, just like I did during the chilly months when I was living in Shanghai. The months passed without my craving being satisfied, and the weather had nearly become too warm for it when, last Tuesday, M and I were walking around Apgujeong in the late afternoon and I spotted a vendor and decided to get one:

These were actually steamed. They were really sweet, caramelly (for lack of a better word), and delicious.

At 1,000 won for one I think they were kinda spendy (about double what I paid in China) but then again it was in Apgujeong.

Happy Spring!

2010-04-02T21:52:00.001-07:00

@ a cafe in Hongdae

Seoul Cooking: Tomato sauce with anchovies and celery leaves

2010-04-01T21:04:00.013-07:00

Since we're on Easter break, I'm at home for the day and didn't feel like going grocery shopping. With the remaining can of stewed tomatoes left in our pantry, I decided to make some pasta sauce for lunch. At the last minute, I threw in some of the leaves of the celery that we bought around Daelim station this past Sunday before they went off.

The result might be considered the Italian-Chinese cousin of my gochu chamchi spaghetti sauce. The celery leaves and lemon, both last minute additions, melded with the other ingredients to create a vibrant, tangy sauce that offset the saltiness of the anchovies (and even though I did add salt to this, you certainly don't need to). "Zesty" would also be an apt (albeit overused) descriptor. It was not unlike the spaghetti puttanesca that I had at l'atelier doux in Gangnam earlier this week.

Tomato sauce with anchovies and celery leaves

1 can (28 oz) stewed tomatoes, chopped
4-5 cloves garlic
1 medium-large onion, chopped
1-2 Tbsp olive oil
2-3 small or one large celery stalk, minced
1 2-ounce can anchovy fillets, finely chopped - Being a salt fiend/anchovy lover, I used the whole can, but you could just as easily use half or three quarters of the can
3 generous handfuls celery leaves, chopped
lemon zest, 1/4 of a lemon
2-3 generous squeezes of fresh lemon juice
red pepper flakes (I used gochukaru), to taste
ground black pepper, to taste

In a medium saucepan, heat the olive oil. Then add the garlic and onion and cook until the onion is soft and the garlic starts to brown (I like that toasted flavor). Add the chopped celery during the last few minutes of cooking the garlic-onion mixture. Next, add the tomatoes, anchovy, hot pepper flakes and black pepper. Simmer until the flavors meld, about 15 minutes. Meanwhile, put a large saucepan of water on to boil. When the water boils, add your pasta of choice and cook until al dente; drain and set aside. If the sauce isn't finished yet, mix the cooked pasta with a little olive oil so it doesn't stick together. When the sauce has thickened, add the celery leaves, stir, and cook for a few minutes until the flavors start blending. Finally, stir in the lemon zest and juice. To serve, toss the pasta with the sauce until coated and top with remaining sauce. Makes approximately 4-5 servings (depending on how saucy you like your pasta).

***

I was so excited to share this that I started writing this entry before I was finished eating it!

Mapo Jokbal

2010-02-09T17:26:00.001-08:00

M and I went to this place for dinner last Saturday...one of the best meals I've had since we moved here. First time having jokbal:

http://www.mapojokbal.com

More later...

A couch, a t.v., and tuna melts

2010-01-25T05:35:00.005-08:00

Yesterday, thanks to the generosity of a coworker of mine and her husband, who are moving house (and seriously downsizing), we acquired several pieces of furniture and a few household items. Among other things, we now have a couch! And a t.v.! And a desk, which I am now typing on!

And, additionally, something which M was particularly excited for: a toaster oven. Prior to this, we only had three gas burners and made toast one piece of bread at a time in a pan. Now, he can make his beloved broiler sandwiches. For lunch today we had open-faced tuna melts, the tuna spiced with ground coriander, garam masala and a bit of gochu karu (red pepper powder). Very tasty. Looking forward to seeing what else we can make in that toaster oven.

Thanks again L and D!

Peanut Butter Squid

2010-01-22T16:00:00.001-08:00

Seen in Edae a few months ago. I have yet to try this but I like the cute sign.

Seoul Cooking: Hobak 호박 (Pumpkin) Chili

2010-01-22T02:30:00.001-08:00

Here's my recipe for hobak chili. I invented this one evening when we were having a vegetarian coworker of M's over for dinner. It's very similar to other squash chili recipes that I've made in the past, except that I prefer this one because of the chestnutty taste of the hobak. It also thickens up the chili nicely.

My understanding is that "hobak" is a general term for squash and thus includes zucchini, but here it refers to kabocha.

Hobak chili

2-3 cups kabocha squash, cubed (you can leave the skin on)
one large onion, chopped
one carrot, diced
3-4 garlic cloves, minced
1 28-ounce can stewed tomatoes, chopped, with juice
3 "regular size" (15.5 oz?) cans kidney beans, drained and rinsed
chili flakes, to taste (I used gochu karu, Korean dried ground red chili)
2 generous spoons (I used regular spoons) ground cumin
salt to taste - generous teaspoon?
ground black pepper to taste
garnishes: chopped scallions; sour cream

In a large pot, sautee the onions and garlic until soft. Add the carrot and sautee. When the carrot is half cooked or so add the squash, stir and cook for a few minutes. Add the seasonings: red pepper powder, cumin, salt, black pepper. Finally, add the tomatoes and a couple cups of water (?) to cover the ingredients. Bring it to a boil and then reduce the heat and simmer for 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the squash is soft, the chili thickens up and the flavors meld. Taste and adjust for seasonings.

Serve with sour cream, green onions, and saltines, if you like.

Korean Food Encyclopedia: Soups! (Part 1: 순대국)

2010-01-21T05:03:00.006-08:00

One thing that we discovered shortly after arriving here is how much Koreans love to eat soup. In any kind of weather, and of every conceivable variety: thin broths, thick, hearty stews, hot soups, cold soups, vegetarian soups, meat soups, etc. Previously we had known about and fallen in love with sundubu while living in D.C., but other than that I had eaten very few Korean soups, and was certainly unaware of how central they were to the cuisine. Guk, tang, jang, jjigae: there are at least four names for soups/stews in Korean as well, and, similar to mandu, I am in the process of untangling their referents (jjigae is basically stew; the others seem a little more ambiguous).

Since there are so many, I'm not going to make this an exhaustive post, but will start instead with one of our current favorites: sundaeguk, or blood-sausage soup.

Before I moved here, I had tried sundae(pronounced "soon-day") sliced with a salt-and-pepper mix for dipping, but never in soup. Here you can also frequently find it as a street snack mixed with bright red ddeokbokki sauce. Having tried all three, I am currently partial to sundaeguk, partially because of its accompaniments.

Side dishes

Radish kimchi and a dish of barley (in addition to white rice)

Raw chilies with ssam jang

Condiments

One restaurant serves this delicious, smoky pepper paste with it (and I keep forgetting the name; when I remember I'll edit this entry).

Although so far I have only eaten at two sundaeguk restaurants, from what I can tell, one commonality is this shrimp sauce that is served with it.

I'm looking forward to trying other versions. Any recommendations?

Seoul Cooking: 고추참치스파계티 (Gochu chamchi spaghetti)

2010-01-19T04:46:00.009-08:00

Happy 2010! With a new year ahead, one semester at my new job under my belt, and a fairly reliable Internet connection, I feel like I can get started writing in here again. We'll see how that unfolds...

Some readers might be curious about what I've been cooking these four-odd months since M and I relocated to Seoul. As it turned out, not much to begin with, and not nearly as much as I did in D.C. since then.

When we first moved here back in late August, we had to wait a full month before we could move into our apartment, and after that, it took us another month before we were able to buy a fridge. Therefore, there was at least a full month where we were living in a one-room without a fridge and eating in restaurants for every meal, every day, something that I had never done before. Since I was used to cooking for us in D.C. and had been able to cook over the summer, it felt a little odd at first, but slowly it became a routine, and a welcome chance to practice our reading skills.

During this restaurant period, I started noticing what was available and where, in preparation for the increasingly anticipated arrival of our fridge. By the time we were finally able to purchase said fridge, M and I had decided that it made the most economic sense to cook non-Korean dishes at home and continue to eat Korean food out. This has led to a periodic exploration of dishes that I used to make back home, but with a Korean twist, using ingredients that are readily available and cheap here.

One of my favorites so far has been the following recipe, which I will call, for lack of more imaginative title, "Spicy Tuna Spaghetti Sauce." (I was just speaking with a coworker earlier today about how many Korean dish names don't translate elegantly into English). It utilizes 고추참치 (gochu chamchi) - canned tuna spiced with Korean red pepper and packed with carrots (not sure how crazy I am about the carrot bits but the addition of red pepper is tasty):

The following recipe is basically a riff on my normal tomato sauce:

Spicy Tuna Spaghetti Sauce (Gochu chamchi spaghetti)
Serves 3-4

1 can of tomato sauce or a can of whole tomatoes, chopped, with juice
1 carrot, scrubbed/peeled and diced
1 onion, chopped
3-5 cloves garlic, minced
1-2 Tablespoons olive oil (other cooking oil will do)
1 can of gochu chamchi – tuna with red pepper
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon salt
Cracked black pepper to taste

In a medium saucepan, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and the onion and fry, stirring occasionally, until the onion is soft and slightly browned. Then, add the carrots and cook, stirring more frequently, until the carrots start to soften. Finally, add the tomatoes, tuna, and seasonings. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to as low as it can go and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the flavors have blended (10-15 minutes). If the sauce thickens too much, add a little water and stir. Meanwhile, boil water for pasta in a separate pot. When the water boils, cook the spaghetti until al dente, then drain. Serve the sauce over spaghetti.

A change of scene

2009-10-18T18:28:00.006-07:00

Well, once again I haven't updated in quite some time. This time, my excuse is that I was moving overseas in stages throughout the summer: to Seoul, South Korea. We arrived in late August and have been settling in these last two months.

Because we were unable to move into our more permanent apartment until late September, we have spent the better part of these last two months eating in restaurants. Although I had my reservations initially, eating out at every meal here has actually proved to be quite fun, tasty, and economical.

Here is a picture of my current favorite breakfast:

Contents (clockwise from left): seaweed, doenjangjjigae (basically Korean miso soup - it's loaded with vegetables, tofu and hot peppers. This restaurant makes my favorite version so far) with white rice; kimchi; damuji (sp)-the yellow pickled radish; Mandu (dumplings), some kind of greens in a cold "soup," and spicy beansprouts. We ordered the doenjangjjigae and mandu, and everything else came with the meal (typical here; the gratis side dishes are called "banchan" in Korean).

Article on Friday Muslim Market in Shanghai

2009-05-09T07:25:00.004-07:00

It's been several months since I've posted anything here. Mostly I've been too busy to post, and when I do get the chance to post, I've been posting to Aidan Bento Society.

I wanted to link to this post on Appetite for China about the Friday Muslim market in Shanghai.

While I was living in Shanghai in the fall of 2002, I didn't know about this market. If I had known, I definitely would have gone. My favorite street food there was always the lamb skewers (羊肉串 yangrou chuan) and bread (nan). The pictures look very appetizing. I miss that bread...

Ajvar, burek, ćevapčići: A Serbian food primer

2009-03-02T09:03:00.005-08:00

It's snowing, and we're snowed in out here at the house where we are house sitting (in the NoVA 'burbs). Both M. and I aren't going in to work today. The roads were pretty treacherous last night, and it's currently (lightly) snowing like the dickens (love that phrase, definitely underused) and windy to boot (another great phrase). School was canceled for me (not D.C. schools though, maybe in part because of what our president had to say the last time DC public schools closed for inclement weather? ).

What can I say? It warms this Minnesota ex-pat's heart. I'm enjoying my day of cooking (for the first Bento Society bento, to be delivered tomorrow) and catching up on blogging and work and such. Hopefully we can take the dogs out later for a snow walk when M. gets up.

M. and I had a great weekend, food-wise. On Saturday A. threw a belated birthday dinner party for him, a Twin Peaks-themed vegan meal complete with homemade cherry pie (her first, definitely an achievement!) and home baked bread. Pretty awesome - thanks again, A.!

Twin Peaks Meal - Pie not pictured...

Then, last night we drove back into town for my Serbian teacher's party, complete with buffet spread, which was also amazing. It was my first time having a Serbian meal. Our hostess did a commendable job - it was a lot of food, and I believe there were over 20 guests there!

Loading up our plates

Bread, ćevapčići, and burek (in the back)

Here's a sampling of the menu, with links for the curious:
* ćevapčići (my teacher told me it was from Restaurant Cosmopolitan in Alexandria) with delicious fluffy-chewy bread reminiscent of ciabatta but fluffier, and raw onions and sour cream-butter
* burek (also from Restaurant Cosmopolitan)
* gibanica - really buttery and delicious
* sarma - Serbian cabbage rolls. I was told by another dinner guest that they are made with pickled cabbage leaves, unlike the Russian/Polish versions (golubtsy/golabki). The Wikipedia article I've referenced here states that sarma can be made with either fresh or pickled cabbage.
* proja/projara - mini muffin style
* several different salads: green salad with radishes, potato salad with peas (was too full to try that one), and a cucumber and tomato salad topped with grated kefalotiri
* ajvar - I finally got to try it! Roasted red pepper spread - delicious.
* a stewed dish of chicken, carrots, and potatoes whose name I did not catch
* two desserts: "the prince's doughnuts" (basically cream puffs) and this layered creamy nutty bar that was really good. I can't remember all of the food names, unfortunately...
* all kinds of alcohol including šljivovica. We also tried this Serbian Coke (Cockto) and red wine concoction called bambus ("bamboo"); I had heard the term calimocho before for the Spanish version of the same

While poking around Wikipedia, I learned that the word sarma is derived from the Turkish verb "sarmak," meaning "wrapping" or "rolling." A different etymology from the Polish term for the same dish, golabki, which means "little pigeons."

Made me want to go on a food tour of the Balkans. So good. I also miss Serbian class...that was a great semester.

To my Serbian teacher: Hvala for the odlicno meal!

New Bento Blog

2009-02-25T05:27:00.002-08:00

I mentioned recently that I was thinking about starting a blog devoted to the bento lunches that I will be making for my coworkers. The blog is now up and running; you can view it here. I am only offering my bento lunches to my coworkers, but anyone is free to comment on the contents of my bento lunches and the blog posts in general.

The first set of menus is up next week, for March 3-5.

Here we go...Wish me luck!

JK Bento for today

2009-02-19T12:58:00.006-08:00

Whew, busy. First I was sick, and now I'm (still sick) busy!

I have just enough time to post about today's bento for my coworker, "JK," including a link to the original recipe. She loved this particular one, and at least one other coworker is also interested in the recipe. So, here it is - if you click on the name it will take you to the original recipe, which I basically followed as written. The only difference? More fish sauce for me (love that fish sauce. What can I say; I'm my father's daughter). Oh, also, I used water instead of vegetable stock.

JK Bento #5:
*Thai tofu and squash curry
*Steamed jasmine rice
*Accompaniments: Crushed peanuts (never again; it's a peanut-free school!), lime wedges, and chopped cilantro

No photo, unfortunately - I forgot to take one! I was so involved in planning and cooking this bento lunch that photographing it slipped my mind.

A word on the red Thai curry paste that I use: I usually use Mae Ploy brand (cheaper, and it comes in a larger tub - it's the one on the right here at this link), which Dad always uses, but this time I had to grab something from Harris Teeter, so I ended up with a small jar of Thai Kitchen red curry paste. Good in a pinch, but I think I'll go back to Mae Ploy when I get the chance to buy some more.

Lately I've been thinking about starting a new blog devoted exclusively to my work bento lunches. Stay tuned...

Blah. (or, Why I Have Not Published My Week 5 Report Until Now)

2009-02-16T19:37:00.003-08:00

It's been busy this weekend (well, either I've been busy or sick or both), with hardly any time to update. I was just now able to publish my Valentine's Day post! So, hopefully I can wrap up my bento challenge report thoroughly (i.e., review goals, more bento thoughts) soon.

Now, time for a Woody Allen movie, and then bed.

Week 5 of Just Bento Challenge Final Wrap-up report

2009-02-14T07:54:00.011-08:00

Happy Valentine's Day! We started our Valentine's Day off right: in the emergency room at Sibley Memorial Hospital.

As I mentioned in my last post, I've been developing some kind of upper-respiratory infection over the last few days. Yesterday I had the day off, so I took the opportunity to rest in bed all day. By the time I thought to take my temperature and saw how high it was, our doctor's office was closed, but the on-call physician I got in touch with recommended that I get checked out. Since it was the weekend, the emergency room was the only option, joy. M and I have had to do this before - when I fainted in November 2007 and we spent 8 hours in the Georgetown University hospital emergency room (again, on a Friday night, what is with my timing on these things?) to find out that I had "a touch of pneumonia" (ha).

This time, the verdict was "you have a virus, get lots of rest and drink lots of fluids." And, I think my fever broke this morning, so hopefully no more fever.

My timing could not have been worse. Last night we had to miss the pre-birthday celebration at Black Cat for M and V's birthday (so it effectively became , Valentine's Day is today (luckily we did not make any reservations or formal plans) and M's birthday is tomorrow! Hopefully I will be up for going to SpaWorld to celebrate as planned.

So, to get to my somewhat belated wrap-up report for the Just Bento Challenge! This week I made at least one obento every weekday, for a total of 9.

Monday 02.09.09 Leftovers Obento x2

-Steak with coq au vin sauce
-roasted brussels sprouts
-roasted delicata squash from our CSA, with berebere
-short-grain white rice

Tuesday 02.10.09 - my lunch and our dinner

My lunch obento:
-leftover Thai-style steamed pork meatballs
-soy simmered carrots and mushrooms with ginger
-broccoli trees
-white rice with homemade noritama furikake (recipe courtesy Just Bento, here)

Our pre-class dinner bento - Steak sandwich fixings:
-sliced steak leftover from our Sunday dinner
-crumbled blue cheese
-thinly sliced onion
-salad savoy (the purple stuff underneath the onion)
-sliced bread
-Dijon mustard
-black bean and pork soup

Wednesday 02.11.09 Asian mish-mash obento for me and JK

My bento contents:
-instant bi bim naeng myun leftover from midnight snack
-lazy easy tea egg
-broccoli tree
-green beans in miso-sesame-soy sauce dressing
-homemade daikon pickles
-cold spiced Szechuan shrimp
-mandarin oranges

JK's bento contents:
-stir-fried shirataki noodles (I basically followed the recipe here at Just Bento)
-lazy easy tea egg
-green beans in miso-sesame-soy sauce dressing
-broccoli trees
-homemade daikon pickles
-cold spiced Szechuan shrimp
-mandarin oranges

Thursday 02.12.09 Separate obento for me and JK

JK's bento contents:
-2 onigiri (made using this method, so easy and fun!) one plain covered in noritama furikake, one with cream cheese and homegrown radish sprouts filling, covered in gomashio made by another coworker
-Simmered CSA kabocha squash (delicious - I was snacking on it as I was filling the bento)
-green beans in miso-sesame-soy dressing
-Cold spiced Szechuan shrimp

My bento contents:
-Shirataki noodles
-Leftover kul pa jun (Korean green onion and oyster pancake) from a yummy dinner at Yechon, a 24-hour Korean restaurant in Annandale

Friday 02.13.09 M's Valentine's Day Omuraisu (オムライス） "love wife bento" (ラブワイフ弁当）

M's bento Contents:
-Omuraisu (omelette rice): I pretty much followed Maki's recipe at Just Bento for this (and took her idea of making Omuraisu for special occasions. Thanks, Maki!).
The fried rice filling was seasoned with ketchup, soy sauce, and mirin, and for veggies I used shitake mushrooms, carrots, broccoli, onions and ginger.

Coworker Bento #2

2009-02-11T21:11:00.007-08:00

Just got back from checking our van out in Oakton and having dinner at a 24-hour Korean restaurant in Annandale. Needless to say, I'm really tired (and coming down with some kind of upper respiratory nastiness). Just wanted to take a quick minute to post details on the latest bento I made for my coworker:

Contents:
*stir-fried shirataki noodles based on Maki's recipe on Just Bento (but without gochujang, unfortunately, because I haven't been able to obtain any yet!): tofu, green pepper, carrot
*lazy easy tea egg
*chilled Szechuan spiced shrimp (recipe from a cookbook I have at home generically titled "Chinese Cooking" from JG Press)
*green beans in sesame-miso-soy sauce dressing
*homemade daikon pickles made in my tabletop pickle pot, a present from my brother-in-law and his girlfriend, who live in Tokyo
*broccoli trees
*mandarin orange segments

Gearing up for the long weekend: Tomorrow is my last day of work for the week, since we have an in-service day at school and specialty teachers are not required to attend, followed by the 3-day President's Day weekend. It will be Valentine's Day and birthday celebrations for M. the entire time, including a birthday trip out to SpaWorld on Sunday and a possible Valentine's Day trip somewhere else (Annapolis?) on Saturday. Thus the need to get our van checked out (which we had not used since Thanksgiving, and then only to take it for a test drive around the neighborhood - we really don't use a car at all).

And now, to bed!

Just Bento Challenge Final Week Goals

2009-02-08T18:44:00.007-08:00

It's the eve of Week 5 of Maki's Getting Started Bento Challenge, so here I go: my goals for this week.

What have you learned? What can you work on?
I have really enjoyed doing this challenge, and I think that it has served as a great start to a regular bento-making routine. I have also found that confining my efforts to a limited, definable space has enhanced my creativity when it comes to recipes and food pairings. Finally, it just feels really good to sit down to a full, beautiful meal of food every day at lunchtime - a great way to de-stress. M. also appreciates my efforts, although one surprise of doing this challenge has been that he doesn't need lunch as much as I thought he did, so the bento-making is mainly for me.

I want to work on building a stash and also an "arsenal" of go-to recipes that I can whip up in the morning. Obviously Just Bento has been very helpful in this regard, as well as Lunch in a Box.

Today gave us a head start on the week:
* I put up a batch of radish sprouts in my BioStarter, for maki sushi later in the week
* I roasted a couple of winter squash from our CSA when the oven was still on after making roasted brussels sprouts for our dinner
* I made a batch of tsubu an (chunky adzuki bean jam) to have on hand (numerous potential uses - I'm sure it'll turn up in at least one bento this week!). I use a recipe from Washoku, by Elizabeth Andoh.
* I marinated and M. then cooked up a London Broil that was on sale at Harris Teeter - we had this for dinner with rice and brussels sprouts, and the leftovers are going into our Monday obento.

Although I certainly don't have the luxury of time every weekend to put up so many things in preparation for the coming week, I plan on taking advantage of the time when I have it, because I feel so much more prepared having done all of that work today.

Is there any area of focus that was a stumbling block for you?
The hardest part for me has been getting organized to make bentos: setting up my mise en place. With the recent added challenge of making bento for my coworker and possibly additional coworkers in the near future, organization has become paramount to me not going insane.

I started working on this over the weekend, in taking the time to clear out and re-organize our fridge and freezer. I feel much better having done that, because now I know the exact contents of both fridge and freezer, and where everything is located!

I also found that I was focusing too much on bento making and not enough on dinner. I forgot how incorporating dinner leftovers into bentos can simplify and shorten the process of making bentos. For this coming week, I plan to focus a little more on dinner, in the hopes that it will decrease the amount of time that I spend on our bentos, particularly in the morning.

Finally, I think that in order for me to keep this up in the long run it's best to "keep it simple, stupid." While I would like to use bento making as a way to expand my cooking repertoire and be creative, I want to keep in mind that I am doing it to feel Less stressed, and back off a bit if I get to the point where bento making is becoming too time-consuming and overwhelming everything else in my life.

Where do bentos fit in your life?
Making bentos every workday for myself is definitely essential, since I don't have the time to go out to eat (better for my budget and my health, anyway, so it works out for the best!). However, I have discovered that M. only needs a bento a couple times a week. Also, bentos are becoming a source of income for me, as I have started making bento a couple of times a week for a coworker who pays me for them.

Reasons I want to continue making bentos:
* I have to! (otherwise I would skip lunch most days at work)
* It's a good way for me to expand my cooking repertoire
* It's a potential source of income for me (now and maybe in an expanded form in the future)
* It's fun!
* It gives me a reason to keep my kitchen organized, which helps me to feel less stressed in general.

My goals for this week are:
* Dinner bentos for Tuesday
* Plan a dinner every night that we're going to be at home
* Use of leftovers, and starting to put up a stash
* Finish a draft of a plan for offering my bento-making services to additional coworkers

Aside from everything that I've discussed here, this challenge has given me something to write about!

Two meals, back to back: A study in contrasts

2009-02-07T09:34:00.007-08:00

Here's what we had for breakfast at home this morning:

Thai-style jook with steamed pork meatballs (thanks for the suggestion to steam them, Mom! They were really light)

And here's what we made last night for our late-night dinner to break in my new Le Creuset pot:

Coq au Vin (Julia Child's recipe, found online here) with roasted brussels sprouts and mashed potatoes

The new pot, with lid:

First of many Le Creuset meals to come, I'm sure.

Just Bento Challenge Week 4 Wrap-up Report

2009-02-06T17:01:00.007-08:00

...it's the end of Week 4 of the Just Bento Getting Started Bento Challenge, and I'm tired.

In the spirit of making bentos for others (which was coincidentally the challenge theme for this week), I have taken on one "client" - a coworker who has been admiring my lunches for a while. JK, as we'll call her, was willing to pay me for my efforts, so as of Thursday I have started making her obento for most days that she is at school.

So, I have most certainly met the Week 4 challenge theme head-on. As it turns out, M. only needed a lunch a couple of days this week, so adding JK was not really that much extra effort. However, after this coming week there is a good chance that I will be adding more customers! Many people at work were interested in signing up for whatever I was able to offer them. My lunches have been attracting some attention around the lunch table for some time. It's a vast improvement from the fall, where I was habitually scrambling to find something that I could eat in the 20-30 minutes that I have to eat lunch (I have recess duty). So, I know that I will continue to make obento for myself, and making bento for others doesn't seem like that much of a stretch (plus, I would be getting paid!)

Here's what I ended up making for obento this week (seven total bento on all five weekdays):

Monday 02.02.09
You know what, I didn't take a picture, and I can't remember what I ate this day...hm.
I think it might have been curry, just like last Monday, plus some greens or something.

Tuesday 02.03.09 Tuna Salad Futomaki (fat roll) Bento, for me

-One tuna salad roll (tuna, Kewpie mayo, yuzu togarashi, scallions)
-One lazy tea egg, quartered
-Dribs and drabs of veg: lima beans and carrots; roasted CSA beets and parsnips with fennel
-Raw carrot sticks

Wednesday 02.04.09 First Korokke Bento (for me)

-3 beef korokke made with beef "soboro," previously frozen and then thawed, on a bed of shredded cabbage
-Kewpie mayo for dipping the korokke
-Steamed carrot coins
-Mushroom pasta with shoyu bata (soy sauce-butter) sauce, garnished with parsley, made fresh that morning

Thursday 02.05.09 First Coworker Bento day

JK bento contents:
-2 vegetable korokke (potato, scallion, a little cheese)
-Mushroom pasta with shoyu bata sauce
-Carrot sticks
-Garlicky white bean dip with lemon and scallions
-Green grapes

My Bento contents:
-Short-grain brown rice
-Beef soboro
-Boiled gailan (Chinese broccoli) in soy sauce and water, squeezed dry and chopped (the gailan was a little old so I wanted to make it tender)
-Raw carrot coins
-One potato korokke
-Green grapes

Friday 02.06.09 Grownups Like Octodogs, Too!

(My bento is on the left; M.'s is on the right, the only difference is that he had one extra octodog)
-Mac and cheese with tomatoes (leftovers from the night before, recipe courtesy Alton Brown, it was good except we would reduce the amount of dry mustard next time - what were you thinking, Alton?)
-Carrot chunks, simmered in a little water with ginger root; bit of salt added
-Octodogs!
-Green grapes

I made two new items this week, both of which turned out well: deep-fried korokke, and octodogs (great tutorial on Lunch in a Box, here) - I will go on record as saying that the octodogs are going to be the limit of cute in my obento.

As far as meeting my specific Week 4 goals:
* Re-organize freezer and designate a bento box for my bento "stash" (johbisai) - Not yet, it's on the weekend to-do list though.
* Designate a section of the fridge for the same purpose - ditto.
* Come up with a set list of stash items to keep on hand near-constantly (such as tofu, carrots, and canned tuna) - Been thinking about it a lot, just need to commit it to paper.
* At least plan (and possibly even make!) one lunch for my coworker this week - Done, and in style, even!
* Plan dinner bentos for next Tuesday's Korean class (the bento dinners for this week kind of made themselves; M ended up not needing his bento lunch for today so it's carrying over into tomorrow for our dinner) - No but this will also be part of the weekend planning.

Reflections: I found that I was planning my bento contents more the night before, but still feeling like things were taking a long time (like, 45 minutes to put together a bento with only one component that I had to make fresh!). Part of this was due to cases where we had clean dishes sitting in the dishwasher overnight (and thus the dishwasher was not readily available for dirty dishes from bento prep/sink was full of dishes waiting to go in the dishwasher), or hand washed dishes set out to dry that took up valuable counter space. Also, earlier in the week we had two incidents early in the morning that impeded my bento-making: First, M. dropped a glass lid, which shattered all over the place (we have subsequently instituted a "slippers 24/7" policy in the apartment). Then, our sink backed up, so we couldn't wash any more dishes (or had to cart them to the bathroom). So, although those things could not be anticipated, I *really* want to do better with the whole "mise en place" thing for the final week of the challenge.

Also, I find that I shop very differently post-challenge. For example, the frilly pink and light green leafy cabbage-like vegetable ("savoy salad") on one of the top shelves of the refrigerated produce section would have normally gone unnoticed, but I snapped one up on my last trip to the store, since it would make a great bento box garnish! I also pick up things like grapes and broccoli to use as gap fillers that I rarely purchased before.

I have been putting so much energy into making bento lunches that I frequently run out of ideas for dinner. (The Coq au Vin that we're making for dinner tonight is definitely an exception to this pattern).

I also know that I am going to have to be more organized, and this is where I feel that Maki and her Just Bento site are really going to come in handy. I'm definitely going to be utilizing her bento planner. I really want to be able to sustain cooking for JK, and add bento "clients," but I know that I'm going to have to find ways to be more efficient, or I'm going to burn out fast!

This evening has been devoted to relaxing - made some delicious and creamy spinach and artichoke dip, and now we're starting to make the aforementioned late dinner of Coq au Vin, in my new Le Creuset 5.5 quart pot, (in Kiwi) which I purchased with gift certificates over the last two Christmases given to me by my aunt. I thought that making Coq au Vin would be a fitting way to break in my new cooking vessel. Looking forward to trying it out.

Korokke recipe

2009-02-06T06:39:00.007-08:00

Since a few people have been commenting on and asking me about my deep-fried korokke (original post here), I thought I'd post more information about the recipe that I used.

The recipe comes from a bilingual cookbook published in 2003 by Kodansha called "Japanese Family-Style Recipes," by Urakami Hiroko, that I received as a Christmas gift in 2007 from my brother-in-law and his girlfriend, who live in Tokyo. I didn't check for sure (heading to work), but if you're interested in tracking it down, you can try Kinokuniya - we used to go to the one in the Uwajimaya in Seattle.

For the beef korokke, I used leftover beef "soboro" that I took out of the freezer (I put it in quotes because I didn't really follow a recipe) from when I made a bibimbap-esque dish a couple weeks ago.

For the veg korokke, I mixed in a couple of chopped scallions with a little shredded cheddar cheese along with the potato.

To cook them, I just dropped in 3 at a time into my Fry Daddy and deep-fried, turning occasionally, until golden-brown, and then drained on paper towels. When cool, I refrigerated them. Then, I heated them up in the oven before packing them in bentos the morning of.

Just wondering...

2009-02-05T06:58:00.006-08:00

...would you be willing to pay me for this?

* Mushroom pasta with soy-butter sauce
* 2 potato korokke with green onions and a little cheese
* Garlicky white bean dip with lemon and green onions
* Organic carrot sticks (from CSA)
* Green grapes

Apologies for the shameless self-promotion; I'm really not like this too often! Something about bento making brings it out...

Reflections of a soon-to-be quasi-professional chef

2009-02-04T17:20:00.007-08:00

On the eve of my official debut into the world of commercial food (i.e. making my first meal for someone else that I will get paid for), anticipating the possibility of getting bogged down in practicalities and losing sight of why I embarked on this in the first place, I wanted to revisit the core of why I am so interested in food (and, indeed, in making food for other people).

My maternal grandfather, a Chinese immigrant, was a professional chef who at one point was asked to serve as personal chef to a Middle Eastern oil baron. One of my earliest memories is of sitting on a stool in the kitchen of his restaurant, watching him stir-fry. I might have concocted this memory from the anecdotes of others (namely, my mother) but it still stands out as a memory of my past, whatever its origins.

At age 10 I served an omelette to my dad, who deemed it "restaurant quality" (i.e., that he would pay for it). I recall that he was on the phone with someone when I presented his omelette to him, and after taking a bite (while still talking) he gave me the silent thumbs-up, and I felt proud.

Since I first started cooking, I have enjoyed seeing how people respond to the food I create. Somehow I don't feel that cooking is a waste of time (although I don't particularly enjoy the clean-up afterwards). It's one of those rare things for me where I actually enjoy the process as well as the product, and the response of the people I cook for is a big part of process and product.

What I've realized I most like about making bento boxes is that it provides you with a set of parameters, within which you have free reign to exercise your creativity. Whether it's our CSA share (where the seasons provide the parameters) or a bento box (where there are physical parameters, and sometimes other guidelines), I feel most creative when I am given limits. Otherwise, anxiety takes over.

Wish me luck!

(Finally, I feel that I have been focusing altogether too much on the food part of this blog, and neglecting the language and linguistics part. I hope to remedy this in the near future.)

I just made...

2009-02-03T21:08:00.008-08:00

...21 korokke (and here, an article on croquettes in general)!

We got home from GWU at 10 pm, after which I was almost immediately in the kitchen prepping potatoes and getting ready to make a large batch of deep-fried korokke for tomorrow's and Thursday's bento lunches (and probably beyond; the rest will go into the freezer). While the potatoes cooked, I worked on updating my school journal (I've been keeping a journal on my first-year teaching experiences). By 11:30 pm, the korokke were all fried to a golden brown and draining on paper towels.

This was my first time ever making korokke, although I have consumed a decent number of them in the past, both here and in Japan, and I must say that they turned out great. M. discovered that they tasted really good dipped in Kewpie mayo (as an alternative, or in addition to, the more traditional Bulldog sauce). I have only recently started using the Fry Daddy that we received as a wedding gift; I was scared to use it for awhile, but now after I tried it out at a work party (for making samosas) I've been trying to come up with excuses to use it, since it's so easy to use: quick and not messy at all.

The korokke were really fun to shape and fry, and it was a great use of the leftover ground beef from when I made a sort of "bi bim bap" rice dish the other weekend. There is still a decent amount of filling left (I didn't want to be frying past midnight tonight), so I'll probably have to make another batch later in the week.

As I mentioned before, I am starting to make bentos a few times a week for a friend at work. She does not eat red meat or chicken, so, in keeping with the theme for this week of the Getting Started Bento Challenge at Just Bento, "Making bentos for other people," I present a picture of my korokke tray ("meat" ones indicate those stuffed with a ground beef, soboro-type mixture that I had stashed in the freezer):

The "veg" label, for those made with just green onions and a little cheese in addition to the potato, is covered up by delicious korokke!

So, "mystery coworker," if you're reading this, you just caught a glimpse of what's going into your first bento!

Great Job!

2009-02-02T20:46:00.005-08:00

In the spirit of writing more often, I am taking a few minutes to dash off my Week 4 of the Getting Started Bento Challenge goals for this week. The theme for this week is "Making bentos for others," and I might just start making bentos for a coworker this week in addition to myself and M. (who doesn't typically need a lunch bento every weekday, anyway):

* Re-organize freezer and designate a bento box for my bento "stash" (johbisai)
* Designate a section of the fridge for the same purpose
* Come up with a set list of stash items to keep on hand near-constantly (such as tofu, carrots, and canned tuna)
* At least plan (and possibly even make!) one lunch for my coworker this week
* Plan dinner bentos for next Tuesday's Korean class (the bento dinners for this week kind of made themselves; M ended up not needing his bento lunch for today so it's carrying over into tomorrow for our dinner)

Busy busy. The weekend filled up with socializing and subsequently flew by. Tonight we went to Matchbox for dinner (my weekend activities prevented me from having the time/energy to prepare dinner bentos for tonight) before catching the Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job! 2009 tour performance at the "6th and I historic synagogue." We were wondering why the synagogue changed their name to the "6th and I historic synagogue" from the perfectly respectable "Adas Israel." I would not really recommend Matchbox (we got their pizza, which doesn't really measure up to either Paradiso or 2 Amy's). Seeing Awesome Show in a synagogue was oddly appropriate. Loved Tim and Eric's spandex jumpsuits with glow in the dark details!

Salame!

Bento Challenge Week 3 Report

2009-01-31T06:51:00.006-08:00

Here's my Getting Started Bento Challenge report for Week 3! I was out in Arlington last night so I haven't had a chance to update until now.

I ended up making bentos on four out of five weekdays: I would have made five, except that I didn't eat the bento I made for Monday's lunch. I was too busy at work with the preparations for making Chinese dumplings with my students in honor of Chinese New Year, so I actually skipped lunch completely (not a good idea, I know) and ended up eating my Monday bento on Tuesday. Also, we had a snow day on Wednesday, so I only made a bento for M. on that day.

Monday 01.26.09 (no picture)
-Leftover Japanese chicken curry with rice
-Braised gailan (Chinese broccoli)

Tuesday 01.27.09 (ate Monday's bento today; M. packed something else for himself which I can't remember)

Wednesday 01.28.09 Snow Day Bento for M., who had to work

-Leftover Japanese chicken curry, in Stanley thermos
-Steamed white rice
-Steamed broccoli trees
-Carrot kinpira made with powdered ginger because we didn't have any fresh

Thursday 01.29.09 "First" Onigiri bento (for me; M. had lunch provided for him at a seminar that day)

-4 onigiri rolled in furikake
-raw carrot sticks
-roasted beets and parsnips with fennel
-marinated baked tofu cubes - I basically followed this recipe and just added Sichuan peppercorns (花椒）
-2 tuna tofu miso mini-burgers

Friday 01.30.09 Flavor Explosion Bento, for me and M. (M.'s bento is pictured)

-Leftover kubideh kabob, rice, and bread from Moby Dick's House of Kabob
-Simmered lima beans and carrots flavored with dried thyme and sherry
-Roasted beets and parsnips with fennel
-Marinated baked tofu slices (M.)
-2 tuna tofu miso mini-burgers (M.)

My favorite bento of the week was probably Thursday's - I'm definitely going to be making onigiri more often! I was also very pleased with how the lima beans turned out. M. commented that he thought the components in Friday's bento, while tasty on their own, didn't really harmonize very well in the bento. Since his bento also included the tuna tofu miso mini-burgers and the marinated tofu with Sichuan peppercorns, I could see that. I thought mine went together very well.

On meeting my goals for this week: I narrowed my bento-making goals down to three: Frugality (in keeping with the week's challenge), Variety, and Trying a new recipe. I succeeded in achieving all three goals, and did particularly well in the Frugality department, if I do say so myself: We used up leftovers (chicken curry; black bean soup) and I used up most of the tofu that I had in the fridge and dipped into our pantry a bit when making this week's bentos. I also used some of the frozen lima beans lurking in our fridge and overall thought that I did very well at using up odds and ends that we had around the pantry, in addition to restaurant leftovers (from Moby Dick). I managed to pack more of a variety of okazu into one bento on Thursday and Friday; and I tried three new recipes: roasted root vegetables (which I had never made before - more of a technique than a recipe, really), baked tofu (again, more of a technique than an actual recipe; I added huajiao, Sichuan peppercorns, to the marinade and it turned out great), and Maki's tuna-tofu-miso mini-burgers, which were delicious - thanks, Maki!

I need to expand my thinking on bentos to include dinners, especially since we started our Korean class on Tuesday evenings, and my husband occasionally attends evening seminars immediately after work. On Thursday I had the opportunity to make him a dinner bento, and it wouldn't have required more than the normal level of effort, since he didn't need a lunch bento that day - but it did not occur to me, so we ended up eating out Thursday night, not the most frugal thing to do. I also might be adding on an additional person to make bentos for at least a couple days a week (more on that later).

While I really enjoyed the challenge of trying to incorporate more of a variety of foods into one bento, I would like to try for bentos with a variety of foods that harmonize well together, by possibly balancing bland foods with more flavorful foods in the same box.

For next week I'd like to start packing us two bentos on Tuesdays so that we don't have to grab something out before our class.

Belated Week 3 Bento Challenge Goals

2009-01-29T17:28:00.002-08:00

恭喜发财－Happy Year of the Ox!

Our week started off very busily - we attended a house party in honor of Chinese New Year on Monday, and our Korean language class at GW started on Tuesday evening. In celebration of Chinese New Year, I decided to teach my students how to make jiaozi (dumplings) this week, and have been busy with the preparations for that. The weather has also been rather nasty here in D.C. and the surrounding area (and much of the Northeast, I've heard) - we had snow earlier in the week, followed close on its heels by freezing rain on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning:

Close-up of snow on the Duke Ellington bridge, taken on my way to work Tuesday morning

School was canceled yesterday due to the aforementioned weather, so I thought I'd have time to update - I got started on this post, but then didn't finish it!

My Week 3 report on the Get Started Bento Challenge over at Just Bento is "due" tomorrow, so I'm posting my goals here and now to reflect upon in that post:

* Frugality - I didn't know that the theme was "Money-Saving" when we did this, but last weekend M. and I made a pot of chicken curry and a pot of black bean soup (from dried beans and a pork bone that I had saved in the freezer, very frugal!), both of which I plan to use in this week's bento lunches. Also want to use up some of the tofu we have in the fridge; I bought several packages of tofu last weekend when I thought I was going to be using them for the filling in the dumplings at school this week, but we ended up using mock duck instead, so now I have a surplus of tofu that needs to get eaten!

* Variety - To try and include more foods in smaller amounts in the same bento, and different, healthier types of protein (other than Spam, which figured more than I would have liked to in last week's lunches), such as chicken, tofu, or beans. Also, more and varied veggies.

* Try a New Recipe - Such as Maki's turnip cakes, or her tuna tofu miso mini-burgers.

So far this week has yielded several bento-related "revelations." Stay tuned...

Bento Challenge Week 2 Recap

2009-01-23T19:45:00.005-08:00

So, it's Friday already! It's been quite the week, ending on a low note of sorts: I had a horrible, throbbing headache all morning that made me queasy and forced me to skip out on teaching my afternoon class today. Slept all afternoon, woke up still feeling horrible. When M. got home from work he made me some jook/okayu, the best convalescent food, with umeboshi (Japanese pickled plum), and I took an ibuprofen. Feeling a little better now after a second nap and lots and lots of water - the lights aren't making me queasy anymore!

Friday means that it's time to re-visit my goals for Week 2 of Maki's Just Bento challenge, with the theme "Healthy Bentos." I made bento lunches on Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of this week. Following are descriptions of the contents of each:

Sunday 01.18.09 Kimbap snack bento

-Korean-style sushi with leftover bi bim bap ingredients: ground beef, pea shoots, egg, carrot kinpira, kimchee

Tuesday 01.20.09 Obama Inaugural Bento

-spam musubi with broccoli trees (4 for M., me, and S. to share)(pictured)
-tea eggs on top of steamed broccoli, carrot kinpira, and pea shoots (not pictured)
-celery sticks (not pictured)
-assorted candy (not pictured)

Wednesday 01.21.09 Back to Work Bento (made two: one for M. and one for me)

-leftover Indonesian-y "mee goreng" stir-fried noodles with cabbage and carrot, seasoned with shrimp paste and ketchup and etc., topped with ground peanuts
-steamed broccoli trees
-half of a tea egg with black sesame seed garnish
-red grapes
-snack mix: wasabi peas, peanuts, and raisins

Thursday 01.22.09 Kidney Beans to the Rescue Bento (no picture)
-More mee goreng noodles
-salad of steamed carrot chunks and canned kidney beans, seasoned with bottled Pietro sesame dressing
-one orange, sliced
-wasabi pea, raisin, and peanut snack mix, again

Friday 01.22.09 Orange All Over Bento

This bento was prepared entirely the night before, and it still tasted good the next day (although maybe I shouldn't trust that judgment since I wasn't in the best shape at lunchtime...)
-Kimchee chahan (fried rice) prepared by M with spam chunks, kimchee, and egg
-Simmered vegetable medley: green cabbage, carrot, and reconstituted wakame, in a broth of water, soy sauce, and Japanese cooking wine, with black sesame seeds and gomashio (This gomashio was made and given to me by a coworker as a holiday gift - a very nice one, I might add!).
-Cheese chunks and red grapes
-The same orange from yesterday (not pictured)

As far as meeting my goals for this week, I did fairly okay.

1. Healthy - My need to honor the President with spam musubi was greater than that of rising to the "healthy" part of the bento challenge, and much spam was consumed this week, so I'm not sure how well I did on that score, but I did try to balance out the salty processed meat with simmered or raw veggie side dishes with minimal flavor enhancers (if any). I succeeded in including at least one veggie in every bento - frequently more.

2. "Beefing up" the bento with protein fillers - This worked really well, especially when I stumbled across the idea for the trail mix. I felt much fuller, and was also able to eat a bit of my lunch at lunchtime and save the rest for later in the afternoon, which helped prevent hunger pangs.

3. New recipe - Didn't get to it this week, with all the craziness. Maybe next week! I did purchase some shirataki noodles and konnyaku at our neighborhood Japanese market yesterday that I plan to use soon.

4. Make large portions of something to freeze - There is leftover beef soboro in the freezer. Didn't get to make gyoza, though, although I will be making a bunch of gyoza this coming week for Chinese New Year (jiaozi).

5. Making onigiri - If the musubi counts, then yes. Otherwise, no.

6. Looking at bento supplies online - Yes, I have started narrowing down my choices for actual bento boxes for us. I am partial to the tiffin-esque stainless steel bento boxes like these (Japanese page) because of their clean, timeless look and durability. I also looked at accessories, though I haven't purchased anything yet.

I also started using Maki's meal planner, which worked well for the lunches but was neglected for the other meals (and might have come in use, had I utilized it! We ended up going out to eat last night because we couldn't figure out what to make with what we had at home and didn't want to spend the time shopping and then preparing).

Two weeks down, three to go!

Spam Musubi on the Mall: A slightly belated inauguration report

2009-01-21T20:32:00.008-08:00

Whew.

It's been a busy few days, to say the least.

M. and I just got back from a long evening out with friends, first to see The Wrestler at the E Street Cinema (highly recommended, it's a great movie!), and then to Nando's Peri Peri Chicken in Chinatown for dinner (which merits a separate post). Most of the dinner conversation centered around our separate experiences at the inauguration and what we had heard/read of others' experiences and events around town.

Overall, especially after hearing others' tales of inauguration day woe (ticket holders enduring freezing temperatures for hours starting at the crack of dawn, only to be turned away at the gate and miss the entire inauguration proceedings) I feel extremely lucky: Our inauguration experience went very smoothly.

Yesterday morning at 7:30 found me somewhat blearily assembling spam musubi (with brown short-grain rice and fried spam slices marinated overnight in a mixture of soy sauce, sugar, and Japanese cooking wine) in our kitchen. I was faced with several challenges: getting the rice to stick together, and getting it to hold its shape. I finally got the rice to stick together after the third attempt, involving a small rectangular greased tupperware, even, firm pressure of my fingertips, and tightly wrapped plastic around each of the 4 finished musubi.

The rest of our inaugural bento snack included 3 lazy tea eggs on top of layered veggies (leftover carrot kinpira, pea shoots, and broccoli) and interspersed with grapes, celery sticks, and some assorted candy and chocolates. My idea was to assemble a small, tightly packed assortment of edibles that would keep outside for an extended period and save us from having to wait in line for hours in order to receive overpriced (and probably not very tasty) food purchased from Mall vendors.

My efforts were successful - not only did the food sustain us through the day, but we were able to enjoy it on the Mall in full view of one of the Jumbotron screens! We (M., S., and I) left our neighborhood about 8:00 am and found our viewing spot in front of the Washington Monument, facing the capital, at about 9:15. En route we were traveling in a steadily increasing crowd of people, and greeted by passersby cradling mugs of coffee and waving at us from their front steps.

I wasn't able to get a photo of the tea egg bento box, since my camera died (apparently, the batteries were unhappy in the cold).

In retrospect, I probably didn't need to plan my bento so that its contents would be enjoyable at room temperature, since the "room" in which the bento was enjoyed was the freezing cold Mall. We discovered that the spam musubi held together the best in the cold! (one was enjoyed afterwards, in the warmth of M.'s office a few blocks away).

Later that evening, while we were recuperating at home, I made some kind of variation on mee goreng (Indonesian/Malaysian fried noodles), with carrots, cabbage, and onions, seasoned with fish sauce, soy sauce, shrimp paste, sugar, and ketchup.

Given the time, I would have included these as part of the inaugural bento, a nod to the President's Indonesian background. However, considering the fact that I could barely manipulate the chopsticks with my frozen fingers to pick up pieces of carrot kinpira, it was probably better that I didn't manage to pack it.

Watching the President get sworn in yesterday, in the midst of such a huge and exuberant crowd, was an amazing experience. I feel extremely grateful that we were able to be there!

Week 2 Bento Challenge Goals

2009-01-18T16:43:00.009-08:00

The theme for Week 2 of the Just Bento Challenge is healthy bento lunches. Here are my goals for the week, some of which directly relate to the theme:

* Pad my bento lunches with healthy protein "fillers" such as nuts, furikake, an egg, small cheese cubes, or bean dip, so that I don't get hungry in the middle of the afternoon and end up eating a large snack right before dinner, spoiling my appetite.
* Include at least two different vegetables in every bento lunch.
* Work on my onigiri-making skills by including them in at least one bento lunch this week.
* Try a new recipe (the quick version of Maki's turnip cakes, or something with shirataki noodles or konnyaku).
* Make large portions of at least one food for bento to freeze (gyoza or korokke).
* Look at bento supplies online: boxes and small sauce containers.

It's a short week for "regular" bento since we're off on Monday (for MLK Day) and Tuesday (for the inauguration), but still, looking forward to it! And, planning on bringing a bento along on Tuesday to the inauguration craziness.

Back from the inaugural concert, and kim bap!

2009-01-18T16:35:00.006-08:00

Today, my friend S. and I spent six continuous hours outside, on our feet, in near-freezing temperatures.

Along with, I've heard, over 700,000 others - we were all at the Lincoln Memorial for President-elect Obama's inaugural kick-off concert.

It was pretty amazing to be a part of such a huge and energetic crowd, although we didn't get to see the concert continuously. Even with 6 Jumbotrons placed along the reflecting pool, it was often hard to see with so many (taller) people in front of us. Additionally, speakers placed at various locations produced a "phasing" effect of the sound being broadcast from the Memorial. I probably would have gotten a better viewing of the concert if I had watched it at home on our computer.

However, we still enjoyed ourselves (wouldn't have wanted to miss it!), and one of the highlights, at least for me, was enjoying the Korean-style rolled sushi (I'll call it kim bap, which literally means "seaweed" and "rice" in Korean) that I made with leftovers from yesterday's bi bim bap lunch.

Kim bap contents:
-rice, seasoned with sesame oil, vinegar, sugar, and salt
-carrot kinpira
-ground beef soboro (for a similar recipe to what I did, see Maki's recipe at Just Bento)
-egg ribbons
-pea sprouts
-kimchee

The kim bap sustained us through the entire afternoon out in the cold! At least one person commented on the fact that I had sushi with me, and I even shared one with a fellow concertgoer. It saved me from having to purchase one of the over-priced, foil-wrapped items from the vendors that dotted the mall (and losing our spot in the process!). Another plus: We also did not produce any trash (the scene on the ground was pretty chaotic afterwards - the garbage cans could only hold so much...).

Now I'm looking forward to the challenge of packing a lunch for two people that will fit in a container of these dimensions for the inauguration on Tuesday! All I know is that it will at least contain spam musubi in honor of our new president's Hawaiian background. Not healthy for Week 2 of the Just Bento challenge, but so appropriate that I couldn't leave it out!

Recipe for ground beef topping

2009-01-17T17:47:00.004-08:00

This is how I made the ground beef that went into the bi bim bap for lunch today. I wanted to make enough so that I could have extra for kim bap (Korean rolled sushi) and bento lunches next week. I was very pleased with how it turned out; it was just a little salty. So, here's basically what I did. It's kind of like soboro, a Japanese ground meat dish that can be made with all kinds of meat, from chicken to beef to tuna. Although it is different from my recipe, you may want to look at Maki's recipe for basic meat soboro for additional information.

Ingredients:
2 pounds ground beef
3 Tablespoons Japanese cooking wine (ryorishu), or mirin
3 Tablespoons soy sauce
1 Tablespoon sesame oil
3-4 garlic cloves, minced
about a 1-inch piece of ginger root, minced
sesame seeds, salt, and pepper to taste

In a medium bowl, mix the beef with the cooking wine, soy sauce, and sesame oil, and set aside to marinate for at least 30 minutes, or in the fridge until you're ready to use it (I just let it sit out while I made the other toppings and rice for the bi bim bap).

In a wok or frying pan, heat a small amount of oil (vegetable or peanut oil) over high
heat. When oil is hot, add the garlic and ginger and stir, cooking until fragrant, about 1 minute.

Add the marinated meat and stir until it is pretty much broken up and starting to brown. Leave it in the wok pan, stirring occasionally, until the liquid has pretty much evaporated. Add the sesame seeds, black pepper and salt towards the end.

When the meat is completely cooked and the liquid is cooked off, taste and adjust for seasonings.

Serve as the ground beef topping for bi bim bap, or as a bento protein item, or in kim bap, etc.

"Bi Bim Bap" Lunch at Home

2009-01-17T17:24:00.009-08:00

It continues to be freezing cold here. Last night, on his way back from the laundry room, M. encountered a man snoring in the stairwell. I wouldn't want to sleep outside in weather like this!

This afternoon we visited the Natural History Museum and its Korean and Rastafari exhibits. The celadon pottery they had on display in the Korean exhibit was beautiful. I also like the sentence that supposedly kicks off many Korean folktales, "Back when tigers smoked and rabbits talked to dragons..."

Although my original plan had been to make a lunch to take with us on our outing, it ended up making more sense to eat lunch at home, so I made my version of bi bim bap (Korean mixed rice):

and the dish, once mixed:

Contents:
-Short grain brown rice topped with...
...carrot kinpira (original recipe on Just Bento, here
...seasoned ground beef (for a description of what I did, see here)
...handful of pea shoots from our CSA that we just picked up this morning
...a soft fried egg, placed on top of the pea shoots so that they cooked a little
...kimchee

Such a beautiful and satisfying bowl of food! I wasn't hungry at all for the entire afternoon. This would fit well into a bento box; the only change that I would make would be to hard-cook the fried egg.

Heading out tomorrow for the opening inaugural ceremonies at the Lincoln Memorial. Freezing in a crowd of hundreds of thousands and eating kimbap in front of a jumbotron, can't wait! (In fact, this is one of those things that I would seriously regret if I did not at least try to attend it...)

Just Bento Challenge, Week 1 Recap

2009-01-16T15:11:00.004-08:00

Brr it's cold out today! I felt like I was back home in Minnesota, especially when I had to carefully wrap my scarf around my nose and mouth in order to brave my morning trek across the Duke Ellington bridge.

Here is my recap of Week 1 of the Just Bento challenge. I'm not including a calorie count for each bento, but just a general summary of what each bento contained. Click on the day of the week to link to a picture of the bento (only applies to Thursday and Friday of this week).

Monday (01.12.09):
-leftover curried lentils
-two homemade chapati
-butter lettuce salad with sesame dressing
-one orange which went uneaten

Tuesday (01.13.09):
-one leftover soy-stewed chicken leg (recipe from Washoku by Elizabeth Andoh)
-leftover spaghetti with red sauce and chicken sausage
-another orange that went uneaten

Wednesday (01.14.09):
-leftover curried lentils
-short grain brown rice
-carrots simmered with ginger, mirin, and soy sauce

Thursday (01.15.09):
-Four red kidney bean fritters on butter lettuce leaves
-brown rice with black sesame seeds
-shredded raw green cabbage salad with prepared sesame dressing
-Gold Rush apple that went uneaten

Friday (01.16.09):
-one egg salmon omelette seasoned with dried thyme, rolled and cut into strips, served atop brown rice with raw diced celery garnish
-leftover steamed blue potatoes with rosemary, salt, and pepper
-carrot simmered with a little water, honey, and cinnamon
-leftover "quick sauerkraut" made with shredded green cabbage, sliced apple and onion, seasoned with caraway seeds and simmered in apple cider vinegar

Observations:
Even though I packed fruit every day (either an orange or an apple) I never managed to get to it. I think that for next week I'll start cutting up the fruit to see if that will encourage me to eat it. I tended to underpack my bento and got hungry well before dinnertime, forcing me to scrounge for a snack when I got home from work. I had anticipated that I would be making an additional bento for my husband every day, but only ended up having to make him 3 since he got lunch elsewhere for two weekday lunches.

Goals for the coming week:
-Actually plan out my meals using the meal planner
-Assemble my mise the night before
-Make ahead at least one of the following: turnip cakes, salmon korokke, gyoza
-Make onigiri
-Buy some johbisai (staples) for my pantry: dried shitake mushrooms, tofu, shiritake noodles
-Bulk up my bento with fillers so that I don't get hungry by late afternoon
-Purchase small sauce bottles

My Week 2 of the challenge starts tomorrow, since I will be making bento for our daily treks to the Mall over the long Martin Luther King Jr. Day/Inauguration weekend - I decided we should pack our own food, in anticipation of restaurants being extremely crowded.

End of the week bento

2009-01-16T05:01:00.003-08:00

I've decided to take Just Bento's Getting Started with Bento 5 week challenge. Here is a breakdown of my bento for today, which took about 10-15 minutes to put together (I just had to make the carrots and omelette):

-short-grain brown rice; steamed blue potatoes with rosemary from last night
-one egg, mixed with some milk and dried thyme, made into a thin omelette and filled with about half a can of salmon, cut into strips
-one carrot, cut up and simmered with a bit of water, honey, and cinnamon, cooked until soft and the liquid evaporated
-leftover cabbage from last night (cooked with cider vinegar, onion, apple, caraway seeds)

I'm interested to see how the flavors of today's bento will go together. I thought that the cinnamon in the carrots might complement the caraway in the cabbage, and I decided to just make them sweet as opposed to sweet and sour (my original plan), since the cabbage contains vinegar.

I'm also trying to keep track of how long I can go in the afternoon after eating my bento before I start to get hungry.

Happy New Year and the Just Bento challenge!

2009-01-15T16:43:00.003-08:00

Too much time has passed since my last posting (October??) but in the spirit of a new year, a new page in the life of the Culinary Linguist if you will, I am jumping ahead with...

The Getting Started 5 Week Just Bento Challenge! (which you can read more about by clicking on the link).

I have been starting to make my own bento, or Japanese-style lunchboxes, since mid-fall or so. I barely get a half hour lunch break at the elementary school where I work, so eating out is not an option (plus, it gets to be very expensive and not satisfying). Making my own bento allows me to save money, and has also given me the chance to be creative. I was heavily inspired by Maki of Just Bento, and so I felt that taking her bento challenge (which officially started on January 12) would be a fitting way to start a new year of bento making.

My goals for this challenge, subject to revision, are:
-To try and make substantial, healthy bento that will get me through dinner
-To eat a variety of vegetables
-To expand my bento-making repertoire

Here are the contents of my first bento (for a picture, go to my Flickr page, here):

4 kidney bean fritters (for "recipe," see below) on top of butter lettuce leaves
short-grain brown rice with black sesame seeds
shredded green cabbage with bottled sesame dressing (Pietro)
a Gold Rush apple from our CSA box

I dreamed up the fritter recipe in bed this morning: one can of kidney beans, drained and mashed with a splash of soy sauce, to which I then added one finely minced garlic clove, a finely chopped stalk of celery, about a quarter cup of panko breadcrumbs (didn't measure), a generous sprinkling of goma shio (sesame salt), and black pepper. I then formed them into patties of approximately equal size and pan fried them in olive oil on both sides until golden brown. One 15.5 ounce can of beans made 5 fritters.

My bento turned out to be great at room temperature. The fritters were very flavorful. Not as elaborate as some of the other bento I've seen in the Flickr pool for the challenge, but overall it was a success. Next time I might add carrot to the fritters, and serve a sauteed dark green leafy vegetable like kale with it instead of the raw green cabbage salad.

Pickling talk and back to CSA

2008-10-17T07:01:00.004-07:00

After a 2-week hiatus, it's back to our CSA share tomorrow morning. I'm also recovering from being sick this week (flu-bronchitis-upper respiratory crap that caused me to lose my voice and my energy) and decided to attend a pickling talk at the D.C. historical society tomorrow morning, put on by Ed Bruske, past president of D.C. Urban Gardeners.

Saturday, October 18
10 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. Urban Gardening Series
Not Your Grandmother's Canning
Historical Society of Washington, DC
801 K St. NW at Mt. Vernon Square
Admission: Free

Here is his blog, The Slow Cook -- if you're curious about pickles (kimchee, Indian cauliflower pickles, eggplant pickle, etc) and can't make his talk, then check out his blog, since he posted many of the recipes that he's been working on in preparation for the talk.

Sick day: Scrambled egg and rice

2008-10-09T15:56:00.004-07:00

Home sick from work today (aches, chills, feverish, tired, etc). Trying to rest up and get better before we head to the Outer Banks for Columbus Day weekend. This afternoon, after waking up from a long nap, I decided that rice and a scrambled egg sounded good for dinner, so I put a pot of brown rice on while I did other things, and when the rice was done, quickly scrambled an egg in peanut oil in the wok and topped the rice with it, finishing with a drizzle of sesame oil. Yum.

Here's how I did the egg:

Ingredients:
one egg
peanut or other oil for frying
A generous teaspoon of minced fresh ginger root
dash of soy sauce
freshly ground black pepper
sesame oil, to finish
(I didn't have scallions but would have added some if I did, for color and flavor)

Heat the wok on medium heat (if you want softer curds, like I did), adding about a teaspoon or a little more of oil. Meanwhile, mix up the egg in a small bowl, adding a bit of water (couple Tablespoons?) to thin it out, and a splash of soy sauce. When oil is heated, add ginger and stir-fry until fragrant. Add egg and swirl around wok pan to coat (trying to get as much volume out of the egg as possible). After a few seconds, stir to develop curds. Turn off heat just before egg curds are set to let them finish.

Put desired amount of rice in a bowl and top with scrambled egg, a bit of sesame oil, and freshly ground black pepper. Serves one convalescent (or just hungry person).

Thanks!

2008-09-26T07:28:00.004-07:00

Thanks, Ipso Crafto, for including me on your blogroll! Publicity is always welcome. Perhaps I'm a little late in my gratitude, but better late than never, right?

~C.L.
p.s. I'm planning a visit down your way tomorrow, not to sound creepy or anything, but there it is

Plug: Crafty Bastards annual craft fair in Adams Morgan

2008-09-26T06:54:00.006-07:00

This might be a first: A non-food or language-related blog post from the Culinary Linguist!

Here's a plug to come to the fifth annual Crafty Bastards arts and crafts fair this Sunday! I go every year, and this year am going to be volunteering (since I live in the neighborhood, I'm working the early morning set-up shift from 5-10 am).

It's always fun to browse and get ideas. I don't tend to buy much, because half the time I'm thinking "hey, I could do that" (even if I never end up doing it...). This year I might attend one of the workshops, if I'm not too sleepy!

Here are a couple of my favorite vendors from years past:
Art School Dropout (I'm a sucker for brightly colored plastic jewelry)
gregmetal (I bought my sister's Christmas present here last year)

Fall arrives, and with it an update

2008-09-26T06:26:00.006-07:00

Fall has arrived in the District, the temperatures feel like they've plummeted 20 degrees since last week. This month has been packed with my new job on weekdays and various fun social things that come up on the weekends in-between.

Although we've both been busy, we've managed to squeeze in some good cooking and eating in-between. Some highlights: lots and lots of tasty, garlicky and lemony bean dip for snacking, coconut curry shrimp over rice noodles (a last minute Plan B when we had to scrap our plan to eat goat curry leftovers), Italian pea soup, and eggplant and cauliflower curry with couscous.

A couple weeks ago our friend J. packed up and left DC to take a job in California. Although we were sad to see him go, the upside of this development is that we inherited his houseplants (including a basil and sage plant) and his CSA share, from Star Hollow Farms. So that's one more that I can cross off of my "to-do" list (along with "take out a community garden plot," since that's not going to happen anytime soon)!

The great thing about this share is that it works like a debit account, and so you don't have to commit to getting a box every week, they just take money out of your share account every time you order a box. It's very convenient for us as well, since Star Hollow Farms has a stand at the Adams Morgan farmer's market every Saturday morning at 18th and Columbia, which takes a matter of minutes for us to walk to from home.

Here is a breakdown of what we received in our first box last week ($15 for a small box):
1 huge head of cauliflower
1 cantaloupe
at least 2 pounds (I never weighed them) of green beans, the same variety my parents grew this summer in Minnesota
1 beautiful sweet red pepper
1 head of garlic
1 red onion
a box of concord grapes

Considering that our box featured produce that we wouldn't normally buy in the store (grapes, melon) mainly because it's usually too expensive for what it's worth, we estimated that this is a pretty good value.

Here's what we made with our produce:
-the aforementioned cauliflower and eggplant curry, with some cut-up beans added at the end of cooking time so that they were still a little crisp
-steamed beans dressed with a little balsamic and olive oil and eaten at room temp in lunches
-stir-fried beans and red pepper
-the garlic went into a pasta sauce I made last night with collards and tomato and served over shells
-melon and grapes for breakfast accompaniments and as a dessert on several occasions

Star Hollow Farms also has an online farmer's market on their website worth checking out if you aren't interested in getting CSA or they aren't open for adding new members.

Soup update: Italian pea soup (made with a hambone) for this week. Will have to figure out what to make next week.

NYC Labor day weekend: Food highlights

2008-09-02T20:50:00.009-07:00

M and I went up to NYC for the three-day weekend, here are some food highlights:

*chicken rice, our first stop after getting off the bus

*B & H Vegetarian restaurant (dairy restaurant; the link shows a picture of one of their sandwiches, showcasing the awesome bread)

*pimento olive schmear on marble rye bagel at Absolute bagels (eaten on the grounds of nearby St. John the Divine). All of their spreads (savory and sweet) looked really fresh and were generously loaded with ingredients. My schmear came with chunks of red and yellow bell pepper in addition to the green olive slices.

*bibim gooksu (cold spicy noodles with a fried egg) at Momofuku noodle bar; toasted sesame horchata to drink and a swirl of blueberry and smoked peach soft-serve for dessert.

And, last but not least: Everything that we ate in Flushing's Chinatown. We did good this time; last year, in our exuberance at being in a place where we could get the stuff we missed from living in China, we loaded up on too many heavy things. This time we chose wisely and the results were very satisfying (I'm being a dork, but I have to proudly proclaim that I ordered everything on this list in Mandarin, which I guess may have been implied...).:

*Peking duck buns, .75 cents apiece, in buns similar to those we had in David Chang's pork buns at Momofuku, from Corner 28 (“旺角”in characters) at 40-28 Main Street,

and, from the same streetside window,

*gaicheungti - I discovered the characters for an approximation of gaicheungti, one of my favorite snacks that Gram used to make for me: 虾仁肠粉. It's basically a chewy roll made of a rice flour batter. Hers are steamed; this was fried in a thin cake on a griddle. They asked me whether I wanted 1) egg and 2) scallions added, and I said 'yes' to both. In retrospect, I don't think the egg was necessary.

*Hong Kong-style milk tea 港试奶茶

*the Best: Boiled dumplings at one of the stalls in the underground mall that I found out about from reading the Flushing thread on Chowhound (the link leads to an update as well as a link to the original thread). These were 韭菜三鲜－ Chinese chives with beef, pork, and shrimp, $3 a dozen. Seriously, I had not had boiled dumplings (水饺）this good since I was living in Shanghai six years ago.

*yang rou chuan 羊肉串 (barbecued lamb skewers) from a street cart, one apiece.

All these cost us a little over $10 total. All environmental and other potentially nail-biting concerns aside, it's pretty satisfying to procure so much tasty food so cheaply (and in my second language, no less).

Back in D.C., I have decided that this fall, when I will be starting teaching, will be soup season because soup is easy and usually quick to make, cheap, and healthy. My first contribution to this effort, made earlier tonight, was a barley and mushroom soup that was deemed "hearty" and "satisfying" by M. It was inspired by the thick soup that we had at B&H Vegetarian.

New job, new haunt

2008-08-27T14:55:00.006-07:00

M's brother left on Sunday, and I've started in on orienting and preparing for my new job this week. With all this activity and changes, I have found solace in a newish restaurant which is happily located not far from my new job: Open City. I'm currently updating from the restaurant, in between bites of my dinner (the special for today: Asian chicken slaw. Not the type of thing I normally order, but I've been kind of overdoing it on the red meat and cheese lately).

Open City is the latest in the Tryst restaurant group (circa 2005), which also includes the Diner. I love Tryst, with its huge cups of coffee and bagel and lox plate, but I am growing equally if not more fond of Open City, and quickly. This is the third time I've been here this week, and the second time to grab a coffee on the way to my new school! I like that they have good beer on tap, and that they also feature wines on tap, something that I have never tried (does it even make much of a difference, like beer? I am intrigued). They also boast more extensive and varied food offerings than Tryst, including the huge but fresh-tasting and light salad that I am currently consuming, pizzas, mussels, steak, and a selection of hot and cold sandwiches, resulting in a hybrid of its two predecessors. The restaurant features two patios, one covered and one open, and an interesting selection of music: Currently 99 luftballoons, though the other afternoon they were playing the Neverending Story theme song, which I appreciated.

As time passes, I might have some criticisms to offer (my biggest complaint about Tryst is the noise, followed by frequent lack of seating), but for now, Open City gets a glowing review from me for providing a comfortable place to de-stress in this transitional time in my life. The happy fact that their food and beer are also good is just icing.

"Lazy" Sunday

2008-08-17T21:20:00.003-07:00

A recap of my Sunday cooking:

-poached salmon (it took 5 minutes to prepare!) on butter lettuce with some buttered rye bread on the side. The leftovers will probably find their way into some kind of salmon salad spread for M's lunch (I kind of overcooked it, unfortunately, but it was still tasty)
-fried up a batch of Hungarian hots like my grandpa used to do (peppers in oil, great with eggs or to dress up spaghetti that's already been sauced)
-Huge batch of pasta sauce: tomato sauce base (with garlic and onions) with eggplant, zucchini, green bell pepper, capers, lemon zest, chopped cured black olives, lots of fresh basil and flat-leaf parsley

I have to say that lunch was one of the most satisfying parts of my day. Dinner was also very good - the peppers tasted really good with everything.