If you read most Korean food blogs, they will tell you that Koreans don’t eat coriander, aka cilantro. They’ll tell you straight to your face that cilantro and Korean cuisine have never crossed paths before.
As the Ask the Korean blog reported a couple of years ago:
“Korea has never grown cilantro, and cilantro is not a part of Korean cuisine. …
But Korean people’s cilantro-hate is nonetheless interesting, because it is a nice reflection of Korea’s insularity.”
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Many keep some cans of tuna in the pantry as an inexpensive source of protein. But for a number of Americans, the only purpose for canned tuna is tuna salad or cat food. Veer from the deep-rutted tuna salad trail with this easy recipe for 참치전 chamchi jeon. These little, two-bite-sized tuna cakes are seasoned simply with salt,...
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Cho ganjang is one of those recipes that is so basic and fundamental, I can almost make the recipe in my sleep. It is a quick, flavorful dipping sauce that complements “dippable” dishes. That includes fried foods such as 감자전 gamja jeon (Korean latke) or 부추전 bu chu jeon (chive pancake) as well as fish and 김밥 kimbap...
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The onion does not have an ancient connection to Korean cuisine. But you wouldn’t know that, based on how popular the root vegetable is now in Korea. That’s in sharp contrast to the milder green onion, which has been a part of Korean cuisine for hundreds, even thousands of years. Onions were introduced to Korea just...
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I will show you how to make a very simple recipe of stuffed cucumber kimchi called oi sobaegi.
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I couldn’t get my mind off that nakji gguri I had a while back, so I thought I’d try to make it at home. Nakji (little octopus) was on sale, so I picked up a pack. Also, this was a good time to use my jar of [amazon_link id="B000NB1NYI" target="_blank" ]Airborne Thyme Honey[/amazon_link], which I received as a gift...
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Korean carrot salad, pronounced Koreyscha Sabzili Salat in the Uzbek language, is ubiquitous throughout the former Soviet Union. The dish was invented by Korean immigrants to Russia’s Far East and the recipe would have stayed there if Stalin hadn’t forcibly deported the Soviet Koreans further west to the Central Asian...
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Clockwise from the top left are seawater tofu, dallae (달래 – small wild onion or Allium monanthum), naeng-yi (냉이 – Capsella bursapastoris), and godeul bbaegi (고들뺴기 – Crepidiastrum sonchifolium). With the exception of tofu, these are considered early spring herbs easily found in grocery stores. But the ones above...
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One thing I miss about living in Korea is the abundance of sea vegetables. Although more people are now aware of and have found applications for a couple of kinds of dried seaweed in the U.S., such as nori (김 – gim, dried laver) for California rolls and kombu (다시마 – dashima, dried kelp) for quick dashi stock, I feel...
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Korean barbecue depends on the quality of the marinade. Diners might not have the well-trained sense of a sommelier, but they will detect a difference even if they can’t identify exactly which ingredient they are noticing in a good or bad way. There are two basic styles of marinades: acidic or enzymatic. Commonly used acidic...
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