Tag: potatoes

  • Mini Potatoes in Soy-Honey Glaze

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    If you have access to Trader Joe’s, you might have noticed bags of teeny tiny potatoes there, appropriately tagged as “Teeny Tiny Potatoes.”  Not only are they cute, but the size of these potatoes – no bigger than your thumb – lets you skip the cutting step and saves you some cooking time as well.  It’s also easier to cook these tiny potatoes with skin-on because the skin prevents potato starch from getting released while cooking, which helps the potatoes not stick to the bottom of the pan.  Plus, you get to eat the good fiber that comes with potato skin.

    With these mini potatoes, I made gamja jorim (감자 조림).  It is a common banchan (반찬; side dish) that potato pieces – either using small round potatoes or a regular potato cut to bite-size – are first sautéed then reduced in soy sauce, sugar and corn syrup.  Depending on the size, potatoes are sometimes parboiled, i.e., boiled to cook a half-way, then transferred to a sauté pan to finish the rest of cooking.

    This everyday banchan is also a popular dosirak (도시락; lunch box) item in Korea.  And I wouldn’t hesitate to serve this next to a steak as well, instead of mashed potatoes or roasted potatoes for a change.  These mini potatoes are so simple, yet so versatile!

    Feel free to use other potatoes you can find, but preferably with their skin on and cut to bite-size.

    6a0120a58af6c6970c0147e2fe2eed970b 350wi 1Be patient…wait until every one of the potatoes are brown and wrinkly…

     

    KOREAN WORDS

    potato        감자   (gam ja)

    soy sauce  간장   (gan jang)

    eggplant     가지   (ga ji)

  • Potato Sujebi, Korean Gnocchi Soup

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    Sujebi is one of the most popular, simple dishes all year round in Korea, especially on rainy days and cold days.  I consider it a cousin of kalguksu (칼국수; knife-cut noodles), but its quick dough of white flour and water is torn with hands and dropped right into boiling broth.  Basic sujebi broth is made with dried anchovies and dried kelp, which are also basic pantry items in Korea.  Add sliced onion, potato and aehobak (애호박; similar to zucchini, but lighter in color and sweeter in taste), and you have a simple bowl of sujebi.  From this basic bowl of sujebi to popular variations of kimchi sujebi and haemul (해물; seafood) sujebi, you can easily create your own sujebi by playing with dough (chewy or soft?  Plumpy thick or wide-noodle thin?), ingredients or broth.

    This potato (감자; gam ja) sujebi comes from my sister whose version has become the standard sujebi for us.  Potato sujebi usually calls for a small amount of grated potato, which extends the chewy-starchy texture, folded into the flour dough.  Sometimes you will even see gamja sujebi that has just lots of potato slices in the soup with your regular flour sujebi.  My sister’s potato sujebi is mostly grated potato with just enough flour to keep it together.  It’s a nice compromise between sujebi and gamja (감자) ong sim i (옹심이), soup with potato balls made only with potato starch which is a regional specialty of Gangwon Province, famous for its potatoes in addition to beautiful beaches and mountains.

    If you consider the usual sujebi on the chewy-elastic side in the whole texture spectrum, this potato sujebi recipe will show you a softer side of sujebi, maybe even remind you of Italian gnocchi.  Garlic chive specks in sujebi is optional, but good for brightening up the dish from its mostly white-beige background.  The natural starch from potato will thicken the soup just about right, and makes it a bit heartier without any meat in the soup.  It’s still simple and easy to make with the same rustic warmth in a bowl.

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    KOREAN WORDS

    potato            감자     (gam ja)

    sweet potato  고구마  (go gu ma)

  • Tip: Pork Tenderloin Ain't So Pricey

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    We were at the Anyang Central Market the other day, and I was in the mood to grab a rack or two of ribs. I noticed that pork tenderloin was priced at W700 per 100 grams. Doing some calculations, that comes out to W3,171 per pound. A quick glance on U.S. prices, and pork tenderloin sells from $2.63 to $3.99 per pound. So it’s right around the same.

    Nonetheless, it’s a really good deal compared to other meats in Korea, and I hadn’t had a Sunday roast in  a long time. So we got half a full loin.

    Now, I used an oven for this one, which I know many expats don’t have, but there are many slow-cooked stove top tenderloin recipes out there, and I’m also sure you could pull this off in a toaster oven, as long as you have some type of meat thermometer.

    I first got some coarse ground salt and mixed it with some black peppercorns I had pounded in a mortar. I cut a slit through the middle of the loin and stuffed it with some rosemary and lemon thyme I had just picked up at a flower shop (W2,000 per plant). I rolled the tenderloin to coat it with the salt and pepper and roasted it at 300C for 15 minutes before taking it down to under 200C for some slow roasting.

    Pork tenderloin runs into the danger of drying out. The nasty stuff gets killed off at 59C, and pork starts really drying out at 77C, so I took it out of the oven when the thermometer said the center of the meat had reached 68C. The outside of the meat is always hotter than the inside, so it still continues to cook the middle after taking it out of the oven. I let it rest for 20 minutes before slicing, and it was PERFECT!

    You can easily make a yuja-omija sauce like the one I made for the duck a few months ago. The executive chef at the Novotel in Daegu has come up with an awesome and bold sounding Doenjang Cream sauce for pork, which will show up in May’s issue of 10 Magazine. I myself had a bottle of Apple Chipotle Glaze from America sitting around and used that instead. Oooh, so good!

    I served it with some Rosemary Potatoes, a side dish (maybe Tuscan inspired) that was served at an Italian restaurant I used to work at. Just clean and cut up some potatoes and onions, toss them in olive oil (I use a lot), salt, pepper and fresh rosemary leaves. Roast them in the oven at 200C until tender.

    Today’s Korean

    Tenderloin (an-shim) 안심

    Please give me 600 grams of pork tenderloin. (Dwaeji an-shim yuk baek gram juseyo.) 돼지안심 육백 (600) 그램 주세요.

  • Spicy Garlicky Potato Side Dish — Gamja Jorim

    Spicy Garlicky Potato Side Dish — Gamja Jorim

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    This is a simple potato side dish that Eun Jeong whipped together one night and has been making frequently since then. It’s a good garlicky peppery addition to any meal. Jorim, or Jorida (the verb), means to cook a food in a way so that steam and pressure force flavor into it.

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    She cooked some roughly cut potatoes with sliced onions in oil.

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    She added a sauce of red pepper paste (gochujang), red pepper powder (gochugaru), a lot of garlic crushed in the mortar, some soy sauce, and a little sugar and corn syrup. She added a little water. She covered the pot and let the water and sauce do its magic.

    Garnished with sesame seeds, it’s a great side dish to any meal, served hot or cold.

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