Author: shinshine

Yonhap Feature: Visitors learn to make their own Korean dishes
Here is my latest feature article for Yonhap News. I started working on this in Seoul then finished it when I came back to New York. I am introducing a few different options for people who are considering a Korean cooking class in Seoul. The table below didn’t make it to the article, but I thought some of you might find it useful.

Click Image to Enlarge Table

(Yonhap Feature) Visitors learn to make their own Korean dishes
By Shin Kim
Contributing writer
SEOUL, March 16 (Yonhap) — When Robin Searl came to Seoul from Hong Kong for a weekend getaway, she didn’t just settle for trying the local cuisine. She learned to cook it herself.
“I just took a cooking class and I’m heading to the rice cake museum later,” she said. “I like taking cooking classes when I go on vacation because I learn something new and I get to eat something delicious. Besides, it’s fun.”
As Korean food gains recognition and popularity abroad, more visitors to Seoul are taking time to not only eat various Korean dishes, but also include hands-on Korean cooking classes as part of their itinerary.
There are a handful of culinary institutions in Seoul that offer various Korean cooking experiences, conducted by English- and Japanese-speaking chef instructors in classrooms equipped with cooking facilities. These schools are located in the tourist and shopping districts, such as Insadong and Myeongdong in the heart of Seoul….
You can read the full article from the link here.
RELATED POSTS)
Yonhap Feature) For New Yorkers, cooking classes demystify Korean cuisine
March 18, 2012
Spring Herb Dishes of Korea
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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 that I found in Chuncheon open market (오일장 – o il jang) were a different breed with their flavors so vividly fragrant, they awakened my taste buds to the new season despite the frigid cold day. The grandma who gave me a sample knew that I couldn’t resist them once I took a bite.
Again, this post is without the usual recipe measurements. I hope my description gives you an idea of how to make use of them if you find these or something similar near you. These are all simple, common preparations applied to many namul (나물 – lightly seasoned, often lightly cooked, herbs and vegetables) banchan (반찬 – side dish) in Korea. Cleaning these ingredients in the beginning took me the most time and effort, but you might not have to deal with that so much if you purchase these ingredients from a grocery store.
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Pan-fried Tofu with Dallae Soy Sauce (두부 부침과 달래 간장)

Rinse tofu in cold water, then pat dry with paper towel. Cut tofu into about 1″x1″ slices. Sprinkle salt and pepper on tofu slices.
Prepare a bowl of flour and a separate bowl of egg wash (2 eggs and a spoonful of water whisked to combine). Season egg wash with salt and pepper.
On a warm pan, drizzle oil. Coat each slice of tofu in flour first then dip in egg wash. Place tofu on the pan and flip when the bottom side turns golden brown. When both sides of tofu turns golden brown, transfer them to a plate. Serve with soy sauce mixed with vinegar and toasted sesame seeds. If you have dallae, add chopped dallae for its slightly bitter, early spring flavor in the sauce.
Better yet, serve with pickled dallae and its soy pickling liquid.
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Pickled Dallae (달래 장아찌 – dal lae jang ah jji)
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Clean dallae by removing peels from its bulbs and rinse in cold water. Drain and spread them out on a paper towel-lined plate to remove excess water. Transfer dallae into a container with a lid.
Prepare soy sauce pickling liquid by pouring soy sauce and water (soy sauce: water = 1:1) in a pot, just enough to cover dallae. Add vinegar to your taste. Add peeled garlic, onion slices, and carrot slices. Also, add a sliced chili pepper if you want some heat in the background. Feel free to add a bay leaf and black peppercorns if you have them. Bring it up to a boil then pour it over dallae.
Cool to room temperature then cover with the lid. Refrigerate overnight. You can have pickled dallae for banchan and use the soy sauce liquid for seasoning in place of regular soy sauce. It has richer flavor but not as salty.
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Naeng-yi Doenjang Soup (냉이 된장국)
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Clean naeng-yi by removing yellow or wilted leaves, rinse in cold water and drain excess water. If you want, cut them into about an inch length.
Mix cleaned naeng-yi in a spoonful of doenjang (된장 – fermented soy paste) and minced garlic (2-3 cloves) and rest for 30 minutes.
In the meantime, make stock for the soup by boiling water with a few dried anchovies and dried kelp (다시마 – da shi ma). Once kelp becomes fully bloomed, remove anchovies and kelp. Add a spoonful of doenjang and continue boiling.
Add naeng-yi and bring up to a boil again. When naeng-yi becomes soft, it’s done. Taste and adjust seasoning with soy sauce, preferably Korean soy sauce specifically for seasoning soups (국간장 – guk gan jang).
It’s the most common way to enjoy naeng-yi. Although doenjang and garlic usually play an assertive role in a dish, combined with naeng-yi, they come together well in a mellow way to show you the way to early spring.
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Godeul Bbaegi in Spicy-Tangy Sauce (고들빼기 초무침)

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Godeul bbaegi has a pretty strong bitter taste to it, so it’s popular as kimchi after being treated in salt for at least a few hours and dressed in the usual, spicy kimchi seasoning. I didn’t have time to make kimchi, so I went with another popular, fairly strong seasoning, chomuchim (초무침 – tossed in spicy & tangy seasoning).
Peel away blemishes and skin from godeul bbaegi by scraping them with a spoon. Rinse in cold water, then blanch briefly in salted, boiling water for 30 seconds or less. Drain and cool godeul bbaegi in ice cold water. This step helps to mellow out the usually strong bitter taste from godeul bbaegi a little bit.
Mix gochujang (고추장 – fermented red pepper paste), vinegar, sesame seeds. Taste and decide how much soy sauce to mix in.
Mix the gochujang sauce in godeul bbaegi. Sprinkle sesame seeds on top for garnish.

RELATED POSTS
A Day Trip to Chuncheon (춘천)
Fresh Tot (톳 – hijiki) 3 Ways
Delicious Seoul Scenes
KOREAN WORDS
국 (guk) – soup in general
깨 (ggae) – sesame seeds
March 9, 2012
Fresh Tot (a.k.a. hijiki) 3 Ways
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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 that these still fall into one mysteriously unattractive grass category lumped in as sea-‘weeds’ to many. On the other hand, these sea vegetables are part of the everyday dinner table in Korea, each with an identity of its own and used in multiple simple dishes. Even if you go to a shikdang (식당 – restaurant, usually referring to humble, local Korean ones) in Korea, especially in coastal towns, it’s common to find at least a couple of simply prepared sea vegetable banchan (반찬 – side dish) along with a small grilled fish for each person. Having missed these ingredients, I was happy to get my hands on them during my recent month-long stay in Korea. One is tot (톳 pronounced like “tote”), also less commonly known as nokmichae (녹미채) in Korea, but you may be more familiar with it as hijiki, dried form of tot, in a Japanese side dish with its black color contrasting shredded carrot pieces. Tot in Korea is known for high content of calcium and iron as well as for oceany crunchy bites. Applications for tot are simple and easy. For this post, I don’t have the usual recipe measurements since a blog post was an after-thought to a happy meal at home in Korea. I just hope that this provides you with some ideas of how tot can be used in simple, delicious ways. If you live in Korea, by all means go buy some fresh tot from a grocery store and make your own dish tonight – I envy you.
Basic Tot Preparation
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For any tot dish you want to make, start with rinsing tot in cold water to remove dirt. Blanch tot in boiling water with salt for base seasoning. Tot will turn bright green as soon as you put them in boiling water. After 30 seconds or less when they are all bright green, remove from heat. Drain and rinse tot in cold water. Squeeze out excess water. They come in long strands, so cut them into about 1-inch or bite size length, depending on how you prefer them in your dish.

Tot Rice (톳밥) Simply add tot in rice to cook in rice cooker. You don’t need to change the ratio of rice to water measurements. You can also make rice in a regular pot or Korean ddukbaegi (뚝배기 – clay pot for stovetop cooking). Without getting into too much detail, you can start by pre-soaking rice in water for 30 minutes. Mix blanched tot with rice before putting it on the stovetop. Then put it over low heat, covered, for about 20 minutes until you can smell the rice. Turn off the heat and let the rice rest for another 10 minutes, covered. If you like an egg on top of your rice, feel free to crack in an egg after turning off the heat but before the 10-minute resting. When you open the lid at the end, you will get a whiff of sea from your rice. If this sounds all mystery to you, I recommend the rice cooker method. Tot rice doesn’t need seasoning if you are eating it with the usual Korean side dishes. If it’s the feature dish, make seasoning sauce separately. A simple seasoning sauce is a mix of soy sauce, sesame oil, sesame seeds, minced garlic, chopped scallions and gochugaru (고추가루 – red pepper powder).
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Tot with Spicy-Tangy Seasoning (톳 초무침) Make the sauce by mixing gochujang (고추장 – red pepper paste), vinegar, honey, and sesame seeds. Mix in the blanched tot. This can be a side dish to eat with rice or an accent ingredient in your everyday salad.
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Tot & Tofu Side Dish (톳 두부 반찬) A common preparation I saw in restaurants was this tot and crumbled tofu mixed together. You can use the trimmings and ends of tofu after using tofu for a main ingredient in another dish. Squeeze excess water out from tofu and crumble. Season crumbled tofu with soy sauce, vinegar and black pepper. Let it rest for 30 minutes. Mix in blanched tot. Sprinkle toasted sesame seeds for garnish.
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shinshine | ZenKimchi
매생이 (mae saeng yi), another common sea vegetable used in many ways Here is a bonus track of the day.^_^ I also bought a package of 매생이 (Capsosiphon fulvescens) on sale. It looks like a ball of really fine, green threads, and you may be thinking something really unappetizing by the look of this. But it’s so fine that the mouthfeel is just very soft, and there is no effort necessary to chew this one. It’s commonly used in soups, but I like it in savory pancakes, where the outside is crispy but the inside just melts in your mouth. Make the pancake batter by mixing flour, egg and water. Season with salt and pepper. Rinse mae-saeng-yi in cold water and drain. Squeeze out excess water. Whisk it in the batter to loosen, which will slowly spread out and be incorporated in the batter. Add the batter on a heated, oiled pan and spread out to a thin, round shape. When the edges become crispy, flip to the other side. The pancakes are ready when both sides turn crispy golden. Serve hot with simple dipping sauce (soy sauce splashed with vinegar or lemon juice).
Here is a link to deep-fried mae-saeng-yi (매생이 튀김) from the popular Korean food magazine Essen (에쎈) website. Although the recipe is in Korean, the step-by-step pictures should be helpful. Deep-fry (튀김 – tuigim) powder is used for this, sold in Korean grocery stores.
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Here is a mae-saeng-yi kalguksu (칼국수 – knife-cut noodles) I had when I was in Korea 2 years ago. Enjoy!
March 2, 2012
Delicious Seoul Scenes
Here are a few things I’ve been doing in Seoul for the last 2 weeks…
Pollock stew (생태찌개 – saeng tae jji gae) in a brass pot cooked at the table. Once ignored as a reminder of the hard times, this type of thin brass pots and bowls called yang-pun (양푼) made a comeback as a nostalgic memento in Korea. I love how Korean stews can be so hearty and refreshing at the same time, and having pollock-in-season as the main ingredient only makes it better.

Thanks to Joshua of Wine Korea, I had a chance to DIY grilled clams over briquettes. Clams were fresh, fire was hot, and it was actually a lot of work, true to the meaning of do-it-yourself. It was made truly unique with a bottle of Chardonnay poured in proper wine glasses, courtesy of Joshua.

I was back at Baru, where Korean temple cuisine is served in course meals. Above is beoseot gangjeong (버섯 강정), crispy mushrooms in spicy-sweet glaze. This is a dish that would make everyone – vegetarian or not – happy.

A new duck dish at Jung Sik Dang, it tastes as good as it looks pretty on the plate, if that’s possible. Every morsel on this plate adds to the whole with its flavor and texture.

Jujube tea at a tea house in Insadong. Jujubes, a.k.a., Chinese dates (대추- dae chu) or red dates are used in traditional medicine in Korea, but don’t let that scare you away. These are naturally sweet and known to soothe your mood. After walking a long way in the cold, I think a cup of hot, sweet jujube tea would work for everyone.

I could never get tired of street food – mini kimbap, tteokbokki and fish cakes (어묵 – eo muk) in Gwangjang Market (광장 시장 – gwang jang shi jang).

I’m being a tourist in my own city and I’m finding new angles and details I overlooked before. I don’t remember much about my childhood field trips to palaces in Seoul, but this time, I was in awe in the secret garden (후원 – hu won) behind Changdeok Palace (창덕궁).

Gilsangsa (길상사) is a Buddhist temple in Seongbukdong (성북동). The site and some of the original buildings were donated by the owner of what used to be an exclusive restaurant to the Venerable Beopjeong, one of the most beloved Buddhist monks in Korea. Beopjeong seunim (스님 – Buddhist monk) later spent his last days here before he passed away in 2010. Not only does the temple sit on a picturesque site, I found another little pleasures of this temple. There are short messages and teachings of the late Beopjeong sunim found in random places in the temple. Here is one.
우리가 인생에서
참으로 소중한 것은
어떤 사회적인 지위나
신분, 소유물이 아니다.
우리들 자신이 누구인지를
아는 일이다.
– 법정 스님 –
In life,
a truly precious thing is
not any specific social status,
class, or things we own.
It is to know
who we are ourselves.
– Beopjeong Seunim –

I was off to Chuncheon (춘천) for a day trip. I think it was about -15C (5F) that day, or at least it felt like one. Still, when I got to Soyang River Dam (소양강 댐), the view just opened my eyes and my mind.

…and here are my pickings from the farmers market in Chuncheon. Clockwise from the the top left, sea water tofu, dallae (달래 – small wild onion, Allium monanthum), naeng i (냉이 – Capsella bursapastoris [argh, a very long and boring title for such tasty grass]), godeul bbaegi (고들빼기 – Crepidiastrum sonchifolium), announcing the arrival of spring.

Back in Seoul, I helped a friend with the new menu for his cafe/bar. Look out for the new bruschetta plate at 1950 hotel in Shinsadong (신사동) Garosugil (가로수길).

Spending time in tourist sites in winter means…that you’re spending your day in the cold. Really cold. But it also keeps many others indoors, which allows you to take it slow and notice the remaining snow on the tiled roof at Gyeongbok Palace (경복궁). The sun came out for a few minutes before it hid itself for the rest of the day, and there was a perfect minute of silence before others joined in for the view.

Gwanghwamun (광화문), the main entrance to Gyeongbok Palace (경복궁), was reopened in 2010 after renovation. I guess I wouldn’t have walked by Gwanghwamun at this hour if I lived in Seoul. Gwanghwamun came a little closer and real to me this time.

Ssamjigil (쌈지길) in Insadong is a complex of cute shops selling traditional, kitchy, fun, random stuff like teas, T-shirts, plates and hats.

Cheong-gye-cheon (청계천) is a stream running through the middle of the busy office and tourist districts in Seoul. Looking down the water feels rather cold during the day, but evening lights seem to warm it up a bit.

Bukchon Hanok Maeul (북촌 한옥 마을) is a hilly neighborhood lined with traditional houses. Although I had been here before, I decided to take a detour on my way to dinner that evening. How glad I was to go the long way instead of rushing to a meeting like I usually do.
That’s what I have for now. I’m spending my last couple of days in Seoul with my family and wrapping things up. I’m not really sure how I’ll organize hundreds of photos I took, but I hope to tell you somewhat coherent, interesting stories through those photos soon. But I’ll worry about that when I get back to New York.
RELATED POSTS
Korea Trip – First Update
Trip to Korea – Part 1, 2010
Trip to Korea – Part 2, 2010
Bukchon Hanok Village (북촌 한옥 마을), 2010
February 25, 2012
Shin's Korea Trip – First Update
It’s already been 10 days since I arrived in Seoul. I try to keep a relaxed vacation pace, but that doesn’t seem to be working (not that I’m complaining). Here are a few photos of my first days in Korea.
This was my first time to Tong Young (통영), a lovely port city on the south coast. It was a quick day trip with an easy itinerary as I was still recovering from jetlag/fatigue/stomach-something, but I loved everything about the city and the food.
Anywhere from the top of Mireuk Mountain, you have amazing views of the coast with hundreds (…or so I hear) of small islands. Although it doesn’t look it, it was a beautiful, sunny day only ruined by my photo skills as shown above. You can walk all the way, but I liked that there was a cable car service then walk about 15 more minutes to finish off the trip up to the top.
For lunch, we went to a place that specializes in sea squirt (멍게 – meong ge) rice sets (10,000 won or about US$10 per person). Freshest sea squirts transport you to the ocean with one bite, and this was it. The side dishes were also flavorful and tasty, and showcase the fresh regional ingredients – kelp, fresh oysters, egg custard, spicy pickled squid, kimchi, lightly seasoned broccoli, fish cakes, and toasted & lightly seasoned anchovies (clockwise from top left). Oh, and the lighty grilled and seasoned fish in the middle.
Sirakguk (시락국) in Seoho Shijang (시장 – market). Shirakguk, known as shiraegi guk (시래기국) in Seoul, is a soup made with sun-dried radish stems and leaves usually seasoned with doenjang (된장 – fermented soybean paste). It was a way of utilizing the radish stems and leaves after making a big batch of radish kimchi in late autumn, but it’s evolved to have its own identity. This one in Tong Young was a pleasant surprise, partly because I didn’t expect much out of such a common dish. A Tong Young native strongly recommended we try this soup, and we were all glad we did. The soup is full of flavor in a subtle way – light yet deep, hearty and refreshing all in one, all for 4,000 won (~US$4) with self-serve side dishes of 10+ kinds. I’ve never had shiraegi guk like this and never expected to develop such a strong opinion on this dish, but I’m still thinking about it….yum…
There must be 100,000 dried anchovies of all sizes in each store. Tong Young is famous for its anchovies.
Back to Seoul, but I still found myself…
…in the back alley of Dongdaemun (동대문), known for grilled fish sets.
I got the gul bi (굴비 – yellow corvina) set (백반 – meal set), for 6,000 won (~US$6) because that’s something I can’t easily get at home. The selection is limited to Spanish mackerel (삼치 – sam chi), Pacific saury (꽁치 – ggong chi) and hairtail (갈치 – gal chi) in addition to yellow corvina for fish meal sets, and that’s plenty. It didn’t disappoint. I got a small bonus piece of ggongchi (far left on the fish plate) once I started taking pictures, FYI. ^_^

I went to a traditional Korean fine dining for dinner. Hmmm…I have to still think about this one.
I walked around in Insadong (인사동). I have a thing for Korean clay pots.
A big lunch spread at Jirisan (지리산) with Professor Jo Hee Suk and a couple of friends. Prof Jo is a well-known expert in traditional Korean food. I was very lucky to meet with her and hear her wisdom and advice about cooking, food, my future, etc. She has such a warm, comforting personality.
The food at Jirisan in Insadong seemed to be focused on bringing out the best side of traditional ingredients, and I was happy to indulge in Korean vegetables I missed so much. My favorite was the roots of sseumbagui (씀바귀), a vegetable that belongs to the chrysanthemum family, on the bottom right. Despite the color, spiciness is just one of many flavors in this side dish – spicy tangy seasoning supports fragrantly bitter sseumbagui roots. The white milky kongbiji (콩비지 – soy pulp) soup in the middle was also amazing for its simplicity. Usually, kongbiji is made into a stew with aged kimchi and pork. This one is smoother, creamier – something closer to silken tofu. It’s barely seasoned, which helped me actually taste kongbiji done right, as it’s supposed to be. We finished most of the food on the table, were happy to be comfortably full and felt energized after such a big meal.

Thanks to Nanoomi, a group of English bloggers on Korea-related topics and tnm Media which supports a network of bloggers in Korea and to which Nanoomi belongs, I had a chance to attend a meeting with Mayor Park Won-soon of Seoul, along with 30 or so other bloggers. Living in New York and loving Korean food, I have to admit that my exposure to Korea has become pretty limited. It’s rare to meet other Korean bloggers specializing in variety of topics, hearing their daily concerns and questions and the mayor’s personal response to those. You can read about it here in Korean and see my face too. ^_^
That’s it for today. Off I go again~
February 7, 2012
Sweet Soy Glazed Lotus Roots (Yeongeun Jorim)
Yeongeun 연근 (lotus root) jorim 조림 (reduced) is one of the basic, everyday banchan 반찬 (side dishes) found at home tables and restaurants. It is a simple dish of sliced lotus roots boiled then reduced in soy sauce and corn syrup. That’s also how a Korean mother will describe it to you if you asked about a recipe of this dish.It is true to some extent, that there isn’t much to this side dish. Aside from the basic ingredients of lotus root, water, soy sauce, and some kind of sweetener such as sugar or corn syrup 물엿 (mulyeot), the rest are bells and whistles that add a deeper dimension to the flavor and affect its texture, but you could certainly do without kelp, shitake mushroom or Korean rice malt syrup 조청 (jocheong).What stumped me was that, although the name yeongeun jorim is shared by both home and restaurant versions, the home version tends to have crunchy bites with light seasoning of sweet-salty flavor, whereas a sticky, sweet, chewy yeongeun jorim seems to be more common in restaurants (oh and they look so shiny and sexy). In fact, the restaurant version comes closer to candied snack 정과 (jeonggwa) with added soy sauce. Just to be clear, I didn’t get this from any restaurant informant, but the recipe below is what I had to do to get something similar. You can also use a mix of regular corn syrup and Korean rice malt syrup, a.k.a. brown corn syrup, grain syrup, or rice syrup. Although rice malt syrup tastes sweeter with a hint of malty-earthy back note on its own, the end result of yeongeun jorim is not too noticeably different in color, taste, or texture (ones cooked in jocheong are slightly chewier) from using just regular corn syrup. This might have to do with how traditional jocheong is produced these days, but I’ll leave that for another day.Also, speaking of candied snacks, I’ve seen from a few places on the world wide web out there that named this side dish as yeongeun jeonggwa. Jeonggwa is a generic term referring to traditional candied snack in Korea and is not used for savory dishes. Traditionally, many root vegetables as well as fruits were cooked in syrup to have the sweet flavor infused and alter the texture to sticky-soft, which were then enjoyed as snack or used as garnish with altered shapes. Radish 무우 (mu-u), balloon flower root 도라지 (doraji), ginseng 인삼 (insam), and lotus root are some common ingredients made into jeonggwa.Now, back to today’s topic – yeongeun jorim. A common recipe, home or restaurant version, calls for drops of vinegar in the beginning to prevent the lotus root from oxidizing, i.e., browning, and for the initial boiling to remove the tannic/puckering bitterness, I generally skip vinegar. I am okay with letting the vegetable turn a little brown which will be soon doused in brown sauce anyway. As far as the bitterness goes, maybe it’s the kind I get (the kind that’s available near me), but I haven’t found the lotus roots too bitter in any sense.One more thing about the lotus roots–although lotus roots are available year-round in dried and packaged forms, they remain seasonal ingredients to me. I bought packaged sliced lotus roots a long time ago, lacking other options. They looked sickly pale (I wonder, bleached?) and tasted like crumbled recycled paper (and somehow I know the taste of crumbled recycled paper). I might have picked a wrong package, but, lotus roots as seasonal ingredients are much more enjoyable to me.So here you go – hope you enjoy the variety of yeongeun jorim styles. And thank you Alice for requesting this recipe and for your infinite patience.>RELATED POSTS Mini Potatoes in Soy-Honey Glaze Kimchi Stew Made Simple (김치 찌개) Chive-Mushroom Pancakes (부추 버섯전)KOREAN WORDS sugar 설탕 (seol tang) brown sugar 흑설탕 (heuk seol tang) honey 꿀 (ggul)
January 20, 2012
S’more Gyeongdan

S’mores!  The combination of graham crackers, gooey marshmallow and chocolate is an American classic that has found so many sweet applications, like cupcakes, bars, shakes, etc. So it’s only natural that I try my own take on s’more for an easy sweet-tooth fix…
…and you are probably not surprised I made rice cakes with these ingredients. Gyeongdan (경단) is a quick and easy kind of rice cakes made by boiling small balls of sweet rice flour dough, a.k.a. glutinous rice flour (despite no gluten in the flour…so confusing). They are often rolled in sponge cake crumbs or toasted bean powder (콩고물 – kong go mul) which only enhance their already cute looks and flavors.
Now you can enjoy a soft Korean rendition of s’mores from this sweet gyeongdan, with the rice flour wrapper as a snug pocket for holding melted chocolate chips and marshmallow bits together.
These gyeongdan are best, soft and slightly chewy, when they’re warm. If necessary, you can re-heat them, covered, in the microwave for 30 seconds (more or less, depending on the number of gyeongdan) before serving. I have to warn you though there is a chance that the chocolate and marshmallow filling might burst out in the microwave (how do I know this…?). This doesn’t affect taste much, just not the most well put-together pieces of gyeongdan at this point.
If you want to make ahead, make gyeongdan but don’t boil them. Place gyeongdan on a plate, not touching each other, and freeze for a couple of hours until they are firm.  Keep them in a plastic bag in the freezer. When you are ready to serve, go directly from the freezer to boiling water, then roll in graham cracker crumbs.
RELATED POSTS
Orange Seolgi (설기)
Patbingsu Cupcakes (팥빙수 컵케이크)
KOREAN WORDS
ice    얼음    (eol eum, which becomes ‘eo reum’ in actual pronounciation)
adult  어른   (eo reun)
January 17, 2012
Christmas Rice Cake

Merry Christmas!
Today, I present my Christmas rice cake to you. Although I started with a grand vision of creating a whole Santa’s village, after a tree and Santa, I came to senses and accepted the lack of my skill, patience, time and space (on the cake to place a whole village). Still, in keeping with the spirit of this blog, it is made with natural ingredients and coloring – green from green tea powder, red from a grated beet, yellow from a grated carrot and white from..well, just plain white rice flour mix. The base cake is pecan seolgi (설기; steamed cake made with short-grain rice powder) covered with sweet potato puree.  All around the base cake are mini rice cake morsels usually reserved for patbingsu (팥빙수; shaved ice with red beans) and finely chopped pecans. Santa’s eyes are black sesame seeds, and his beard is slightly melted marshmallow. Of course, as it is typical for rice cakes, no butter was used for the cake, but a good dose of picture editing was used to make it look all warm and soft.
I can’t believe this is my first post in December, possibly the only one, with more items I’m adding on my to-do list every day…including Korean translation of my recent feature article for Yonhap, a couple of recipe requests I’ve promised to post, and other dishes I want to share with you. Work has been busy, and between caffeine-activated lucidity and caffeine-induced headache, I’m just trying to stay awake these days. If I feel exceptionally dilligent, I may still post a dish or two before the year’s over, but you may know me better.  Although I’m still trying to figure out my own purpose of tweeting, occasional short and sweet tweets will take over until the regular programming resumes in 2012.
With that, I wish you the happiest, merriest end of 2011.
Happy Holidays, wherever you are, whatever you’re celebrating.
RELATED POSTS
Patbingsu Cupcakes (팥빙수 컵케이크), October 2011
Orange Seolgi (설기), March 2011
Dancing Ghosts and Sleepy Pumpkin Rice Cakes, October 2010
Broccoli Christmas Tree, December 2009
KOREAN WORDS
carrot        당근  (dang geun)
green tea   녹차 (nok cha)
(EDITOR’S NOTE: You can follow Shin on Twitter at @shinsineny)
December 21, 2011
Jjajangmyeon: Noodles with Black Bean Sauce

It’s an odd time to talk about jjajangmyeon, in mid-November when everything is about Thanksgiving dishes. Yet we just eat normal, simple food that nourishes us and comforts us until that one big day. Aren’t we all tired of hearing one more great idea for the Thanksgiving table anyway (which, I might still try to sneak in at the last minute ^_^)?
So I’ve decided to talk about jjajangmyeon today, because I think I can eat jjajangmyeon every day, any time of the year.  The oddity of this dish is that it’s one the most common people’s food, yet at the same time, one of the most celebrated dishes so many associate with special occasions from their childhood. I sometimes wish I could survive on jjajangmyeon. Ok, maybe I’ll go back and forth between jjajangmyeon and tteokbokgi (떡볶이; rice cake in spicy sauce).  Like so many other Koreans, it’s comfort food I don’t want to grow out of.
I found a comprehensive, entertaining article on jjajangmyeon from Essen (에쎈), a Korean food magazine, back in April. You can see the full article in Korean here (“한국인의 소울 푸드, 자장면 예찬,” – Koreans’ Soul Food, Praise for Jajangmyeon). Much of the information on jjajangmyeon here comes from that article, unless otherwise noted.
Jjajangmyeon started as ‘jakjang myeon’ (Korean pronounciation of Chinese Zha Ziang Mian) which means ‘noodles with fried sauce.’ It started at the dock of Incheon, a port city near Seoul (you may be more familiar with it as where ICN is located, the gateway airport to Korea).  In the late 1800’s to early 1900’s, during the period of active trade with the Qing Dynasty, dock workers loading and unloading trade articles were in high demand.
Many of the workers were Chinese people from Shandong area, and they brought their black bean sauce from home. With that, workers were able to make a quick bowl of noodles reminiscent of home flavors, and soon jjajangmyeon carts started to roam around selling this easy meal option.
The original ‘jakjangmyeon,’ or jjajangmyeon of earlier days apparently had a much different taste. Since the original sauce was fermented and aged mix of flour and beans, it tasted much saltier without sweetness. And since it was people’s food, jjajangmyeon wasn’t sold in Chinese restaurants in the earlier days. Even in Gonghwachun (공화춘), the Chinese restaurant in Incheon known to have first developed jjajangmyeon, didn’t serve jjajangmyeon in the beginning but included it in the menu with its increasing popularity.
Then the new, mass-produced Korean version of the sauce appeared, with caramel sauce mixed in the original black bean sauce, which is what we’ve come to know as the base of jjajangmyeon sauce, or chunjang (춘장; black bean paste). At the time a sweet taste was a rarity, this became something of a sensational new taste. It was also a new, convenient option for Chinese restaurants in Korea since they didn’t have to make the base themselves.
While chunjang remained pretty much the same over the years, vegetable ingredients for jjajangmyeon have varied based on seasonality and price. Many people remember potato cubes as a main ingredient from their childhood jjajangmyeon.  As you can imagine, potatoes played a major role in jjajangmyeon because they were abundant and cheap. The increasing amount of onion has to do with Koreans’ general preference for sweeter flavor, in addition to extra sugar that goes into chunjang during cooking. Also, lard was used to stir-fry ingredients and chunjang in the beginning. However, a shift was made to use vegetable oil after a ‘shortening shock’ in the late 1980s, when the news came out that the industrial-grade beef fat was used in food, which led to the general belief that animal fat was bad. The porky flavor is still there through added pork meat in the dish.
Jjajangmyeon is also an item in the effective living cost index, complementary to the Consumer Price Index, in which prices of essential goods for daily living regardless of income level are carefully watched over.  This shows how ingrained jjajangmyeon is in Korea, and it also explains why the price of jjajangmyeon would never increase dramatically.
Chinese restaurants, therefore, developed other jjajangmyeon varieties for which they can charge more. Seafood (삼선; sam seon) jjajangmyeon with exotic sea cucumber, shrimp, cuttlefish was introduced via the chefs from Hong Kong who were invited to work at Chinese restaurants in fancy hotels. For Koreans who love spicy food, Sichuan-style (사천식; sa cheon sik) jjajangmyeon came to light.  Wide plate (쟁반; jaeng ban) jjajangmyeon, a generous portion of noodles stir-fried with chunjang in the wok then served on a big plate like a main dish to be shared, also appeared. Still, the most popular version of jjajangmyeon to this day is the basic, original jjajangmyeon. And many consider the original jjajangmyeon as the barometer of a quality Chinese restaurant.
In addition to the information on jjajangmyeon in the Essen article, jjajangmyeon signifies other meanings for various occasions. One that I find sad yet funny is the ritual that is forced upon(?) singles on the Black Day on April 14th. Just to give you a little background on the Black Day and related ‘holidays’ without getting into the legitimacy of these highly commercialized days, in short, Koreans celebrate the Valentines Day (February 14th) as the day of women confessing their love for their men with chocolates. Then comes the White Day (March 14th), when the men return the favor with white, or mint-flavored candies. What’s left out in these two celebrations are the singles who are to gather together on April 14th to commiserate their misery of singlehood by eating dark, gloomy black food, and what else fits that description better than jjajangmyeon (which I, and many Koreans, accept as not the most aesthetically pleasing dish)?
I want to address one more thing about jjajangmyeon before getting into a simple home recipe.  The National Institute of the Korean Language determined jjajangmyeon (자장면) as the standard spelling and pronounciation for the dish in 1986, but people never relented to it.  Only on TV, reporters would pronounce it as jjajangmyeon, but in the real world, people said it with the accented “jja” (짜) as in jja-jang-myeon (짜장면). Finally, in August of this year, both 자장면 and 짜장면 were recognized as standard spellings. As far as I know, there has been no study on why people have been so attached to the slightly stronger pronounciation, a nominal difference at best from the outside. Yet, my guess is that sometimes people have such strong memory attached to a certain dish, they want to keep everything about it as they remember, including the pronounciation, from their childhood.  Yes, I also pronounce it as 짜장면 with the accented ‘jja’ but left the English spelling here as jjajangmyeon for…convenience on my part.
There are now many options of enjoying jjajangmyeon at home. You can buy the 3-minute jjajangmyeon sauce pouch, which you can put in boiling water or in the microwave to heat up and pour over the noodles.  You can buy instant jjajangmyeon, packaged and cooked just like Korean ramyeon (라면; Korean version of ramen).  Personally, I consider these different noodle dishes with different tastes. When I crave jjajangmyeon, I’m thinking of a big bowl of noodles mixed with glistening black sauce and the sides of kimchi and danmuji (단무지; sweet radish pickle, yellow or off-white).
Over time, my jjajangmyeon has become simplified, now left with only few ingredients that are essential to the jjajangmyeon flavor. This, by no means, belongs to a health food category. But once in a while, this does satisfy my cravings without much effort of going to a Korean-Chinese restaurant or spending much time on (trying) cooking an elaborate restaurant version. Here comes my weeknight comfort dinner – simple, spicy jjajangmyeon.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnFo1LDLKr4
Related Posts
Danmuji (단무지; Sweet Radish Pickle), November 2011
Dak Kalguksu (닭 칼국수; Chicken Noodle Soup), July 2010
Bibim Guksu (비빔국수; Spicy Chilled Noodles), June 2010
KOREAN WORDS
pork belly   삼겹살   (sam gyeop sal)
onion           양파     (yang pa)
November 19, 2011
Cooking Video – Crispy Bibimbap
Just in time for Halloween, not that I intended that in any way or I can force any relations between bibimbap and Halloween, here comes my first self-produced cooking video on crispy bibimbap (recipe).
I submitted this to the Delicious Seoul Story cooking video contest, in which they choose 5 entries based on the number of views, ‘like’s, and creativity among other things. The finalists will be invited to Seoul, Korea for a final round of cooking in front of judges and will be treated for various Korean food experiences.
With my late entry, I only have today to get the views and ‘like’ votes, so please follow this link to ‘like’ my video on Youtube and help me visit Korea in November.
At any rate, the contest deadline became a good motivator for me – I’ve wanted to put up complementary video clips to my blog posts for a while because of, well, obvious reasons. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a short video clip is worth…a lot of pictures.
Now I’ve shot and edited my first cooking video, I commend anyone who does this on a regular basis. In the process of making this 3-minute clip which took too much time and made me watch my endless faults endless times, I also had a lot of fun with it. I plan to post complementary video clips once in a while, maybe going back to some of my previous dishes and of course for my future trials.
I hope you enjoy the video clip. If nothing else, it’s 3 minutes of good laugh. Imagine me all dressed up, cooking and talking to myself all afternoon.
Go ahead, laugh at me, laugh with me. I also hope that it shows you how easy it is to make crispy bibimbap at home and how delicious it really is. Even if it doesn’t, I hope it brings you at least a sliver of smile.
For my previous blog posts on crispy bibimbap, click the link below.
Crispy Bibimbap, Revisited February, 2011
Crispy Bibimbap January, 2010
By the way, it’s bizarre, weird and worrisome to have blizzard-like snow in October, but I couldn’t help myself getting really excited about it. I mean that in the ‘sitting at home watching the snowfall outside’-kind of way, not the ‘let’s go outside in the snow’ way. Here is a picture of the first snow of the season in NYC from yesterday (Saturday) afternoon.

Happy Halloween and stay warm!
October 31, 2011