I admit I eat 라면 ramyeon (ramen) once in a while. I’ve even made a ramyeon dessert once, but I’ve never reviewed ramyeon before.
When I saw packages of Ottogi Kiss-myun aka Kiss noodles at my local Korean grocery store, I was drawn more by the name than the contents. I asked the grocer if the name were some kind of double-entendre or play on 뽀뽀 bbo-bbo (kiss)?
He assured me that Ottogi is not promising one will become a better kisser after eating this ramyeon. He said it’s a Chinese-style ramyeon with milder spiciness, not Korean heat.
Hans from The Ramen Raterreviewed this ramyeon in April and gave it 3.75 out of 5 stars:
The broth is pretty good stuff — has a nice, spicy jalapeno heat to it and had a good chicken flavor.
The label said it was “Spicy Chicken Flavor.” The yellow-tinged broth and the yellow package color seemed to reinforce the chicken flavor meme, so I brought a five-pack home.
Then I read the small print and was quite surprised to discover the packet of “powder soup” — it makes the broth — had powdered extracts of oyster, mussel and cuttlefish listed before that of chicken. The powder also had extracts of bonito and kelp.
The packet of dehydrated vegetables even had freeze-dried cuttlefish in the ingredients. Where’s the chicken?! There’s not even “chicken of the sea” in there.
Predictably, the broth tasted like slightly spicy seafood but not chicken.
If you’re in the mood for a pleasantly spicy, fish broth ramyeon, this Kiss-myun might work for you. Look elsewhere for chicken ramyeon.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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).
This has been my go-to kimchi jjigage recipe for more than 10 years. (Tammy Quackenbush photo)
Northern Californian winters are all about cold dampness — rain, lots of rain. For me, the only purpose for winter is to get the full benefit of a hot bowl of 김치찌개 kimchi jjigae, or kimchi stew. That’s a dish Koreans commonly make to finish off a jar of kimchi that has become too sour and mostly “juice,” the tangy, spicy, flavorful remnant of pickling.
Kimchi jjigae with 돼지고기 dwaegi gogi (pork), Spam processed ham or 두부 dubu (tofu), are common variations of the dish. Avoiding pork for religious reasons, I was pleased to find 참치김치찌개 chamchi kimchi jjigae, or kimchi stew with tuna, on the menu of a restaurant near Kangwon National University in Chuncheon, a lakeside city in the mountains northeast of Seoul. I first tasted that version in the mid-’90s and have been making it ever since.
Korean grocery stores sell canned tuna specially made for kimchi jjigae, marinated in 고추장 gochujang (Korean red pepper paste). Because tuna is usually chunk light tuna, which has a smell and flavor, albacore canned tuna is my tuna of choice. (But I may have to reconsider after reading this Epicurious article about mercury in albacore.)
Since most canned tuna isn’t packed in gochujang, I add gochujang or 고추가루gochugaru (Korean red pepper flakes or powder) to the stew. Gochujang will make the stew thicker; gochugaru, thinner.
Tov Tofu in Santa Rosa opened in late 2010 and is the latest Korean restaurant to open in Sonoma County, a winegrowing region about an hour north of San Francisco. Bear Korean in Cotati opened several years ago, followed by the now shuttered Nha Bee in Santa Rosa and Honey Cuisine in Rohnert Park in 2008.
My husband and I visited Tov Tofu for the first time on Dec. 24 for a late lunch with a couple of our friends and their two children ages 2 and 4. It’s good to invite, cajole, plead or drag your family and friends with you to a new restaurant, so you more can sample more dishes and get a variety of opinions, from the expert Koreaphile to the first-time 한식 hansik (Korean food) diner.
The dipping sauce was beautiful, but it was the pajeon itself that kept the children happy. (Jeff Quackenbush photo)
Our menu included vegetable 판전 pajeon (egg and flour pancakes), 오무라이스 omurice (fried egg omelet over fried rice), 꼬리곰탕 ggori gomtang (oxtail soup), 비빔밥 bibimbap and 냉면 naengmyeon ($9.95). Both the pajeon ($8.50) and the fried egg omelet turned out to be a kid-pleaser.
The waitress brought out salt and pepper shakers to spice up the oxtail soup. (Jeff Quackenbush photo)
The oxtail soup ($12.50) was a mellow and non-spicy option, which ties into its reputation as a health tonic. Some who are not familiar with Korean cuisine might be put off by the milky-white bone broth, but it is full of minerals, including calcium, iron and potassium.
As part of his repeated challenge to K-pop and now Hollywood star Rain, Stephen Colbert said, "I'm all over it like egg on bibimbap." This bibimbap was garnished with strips of scrambled egg. (Jeff Quackenbush photo)
Tov Tofu’s bibimbap ($12.95) was the first such dish I’ve seen that didn’t have a large fried egg placed on top, but I enjoyed the sliced egg omelet homage to the fried egg as well as the pile of kimchi, beef, mushrooms, shredded daikon radish, seaweed (김 kim) and spinach.
A surprising discovery for newcomers to Korean cuisine is 옥수수차 oksusucha (roasted-corn tea), because corn often is not thought of as a tea ingredient. I’ve found that it has to be requested at a number of Korean restaurants I’ve visited in the U.S., rather than being automatically served as green tea is at Chinese restaurants. The hint of corn in a hot beverage is a welcome way to warm the insides while waiting for the food to arrive.
We went back to Tov Tofu on my birthday. This time, my stomach drew me toward the Korean cuisine stalwart 불고기 bulgogi. Tov Tofu’s version was served in typical fashion, layered on a bed of onions and sizzling on a hot iron plate.
Bulgogi and its grilled onion bedding. (Tammy Quackenbush photo)
The savory side of bulgogi was more prominent in this interpretation than the characteristic sweetness, which is usually imparted by a Korean pear-forward marinade. Yet the grilled onions added a little sweetness and were just as tasty as the bulgogi itself.
My husband ordered the beef version of 김치 순두부 찌개 kimchi soondubu jjigae (kimchi stew with silken tofu) ($9.95). Those who may be averse to kimchi may want to give kimchi jjigae a try, because cooking gives kimchi tames the tang. Also, the tofu soothes the fire of this spicy dish. The broth had a slight fishy flavor, which likely came from either a fish broth or the fish paste used in many versions of kimchi.
Tov Tofu
1169 Yulupa Ave., Santa Rosa, Calif.
www.tovtofu.com
Hours: Six days a week and closed Mondays. Lunch is served from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.; dinner, 5 to 9 p.m.
The base to any soup or stew, Korean or otherwise, is a good broth or stock. This article will discuss three methods for adding beef flavor, from the easiest to the most complex.
Debra Boutin, M.S., R.D., chairwoman of Bastyr University’s Department of Nutrition and Exercise Science, described the healthful aspects of bone broth in a natural medicine column:
Properly made bone broth contains measurable amounts of calcium, phosphorous, magnesium, potassium and other minerals, as well as collagen, gelatin and amino acids. These nutrients are beneficial for bone and joint health, for muscle strength and action, and for maintaining connective tissues and the gastrointestinal tract.
The gelatin in bone broth has been shown in some studies to stimulate digestion and protect the lining of the gastrointestinal tract. It also is thought to improve digestion of milk, beans, meat and gluten-containing grains.
The Weston A. Price Foundation also has an article detailing the health benefits of bone broth.
Bone broth will give needed calcium to those on a dairy-restricted diet for health reasons or less availability of dairy products, such as in Korea compared with the U.S.
Easiest: Dashida Dashida (다시다) is a Korean instant beef stock. It comes in large bags and is found in many grocery stores in Korea or Asian markets in the U.S. You don’t need to use more than a teaspoon or so in most soups. A caveat: It is high in salt and monosodium glutamate (MSG).
More difficult: Korean beef broth Korean beef broth takes a little more time to make — about two and a half hours — but the little extra time will produce a much better beef broth. It won’t have MSG, unless you want it.
Ingredients 2 pounds beef brisket 8 quarts (roughly 8 liters) of cold water (enough to fill a large soup pot)
Instructions 1 Rinse the brisket in cold water.
2 Place the brisket into into a pot, covered with cold water, and bring to a boil.
3 Once it’s boiling, turn down the heat to a simmer.
4 Allow it to simmer, uncovered for a couple of hours.
Add some aromatics of your choosing (such as ginger, onion, celery, carrots, thyme, black peppercorns, etc.) and boil until the brisket is completely cooked.
Skim the foam off the top periodically to remove fat and impurities.
5 Once the two hours are expired, retrieve the beef and slice it for the soup or stew or reserve it for future use.
The same can be done with the broth: Use immediately in your soup or stew recipe or store in the freezer for future use.
Most challenging: Beef bone stock Beef bone stock is the most time-consuming option but will reward you with a robust and healthful base for any soup, stew, gravy or sauce your want to make.
Summarizing the steps for sizzling and simmering
Roast beef bones in the oven until they turn brown.
Place the bones in a pot, cover them with cold water and boil until scum appears on the surface.
Clear the scum off the broth and add aromatic ingredients, such as ginger, onion and black peppercorns.
Continue to boil for at least three to four more hours. Some stock connoisseurs recommend simmering the bones for 12 to 72 hours all together.
Ingredients 2-4 pounds meaty beef stock bones (include some knuckle bones and a hoof) 1 pound meaty rib or neck bones (perhaps, oxtail with meat still on it) olive oil 1 onion, peeled and quartered 2 celery ribs (a bunch/stalk contains several ribs), cut into 1-2 inch pieces 2-3 garlic cloves, unpeeled 10 black, red or white peppercorns
Instructions
This is where the fun starts: in your broiler, not on the stovetop. (Photo by Tammy Quackenbush)
1 Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Rub the onions with oil, and place them into a large roasting pan with the bones. Roast the bones and onions for about 45 minutes, turning the bones over about 20 minutes into the roasting time. If the bones start to char, turn the heat down. The bones should be deep brown, not black.
Pre-roasting the bones is a crucial step in this recipe. If you simply put raw bones into the pot and start boiling, the smell will be horrendous and traumatic.
The meat and the bones are golden brown and the onions are a little caramelized but not overly so. (Photo by Tammy Quackenbush)
2 Place the bones and onion into a stockpot.
3 Place the roasting pan on the oven on low heat, covering two burners. Pour a half-cup of water into the pan and let the water come to a boil. Use a metal spatula to scrape off all the cooked bits at the bottom of the pan and add them to the stockpot.
4 Fill up with cold water until there’s enough water to cover the bones by one to two inches.
This is when it's good to skim off the top. It's also the most time-consuming task in creating consomme starter. (Photo by Jeff Quackenbush)
5 Bring to a boil briefly, then turn down the heat for a simmer.
Do not take your eyes off the stock pot for the first hour. Carefully remove the scum on top with a spoon.
After removing the scum, add the rest of the vegetables and aromatics to the pot and continue to simmer.
Skim off the white scum rising to the top.
When the water level sinks below the bones, add more water and return to a good simmer. Continue periodic skimming.
Do not dump hot oil or fat down the kitchen drain. It will solidify and block your pipes. Save the grease in a small jar for future use, or discard it in the trash after it has cooled.
6 After simmering the bones for three to 12 hours, remove them from the pot with tongs or a slotted spoon. I simmered my stock for eight hours.
7 Line another large pot with a fine mesh sieve lined with cheesecloth. Ladle the broth through the screening material into the other pot. Allow the broth to cool before storing it in the refrigerator.
This is what it looks like after it's been refrigerated for a few hours and skimmed. Notice how thick the broth appears. (Photo by Tammy Quackenbush)
8 Skim the fat off the cooled stock. Discard the fat in the trash, or save it for another recipe.
At this point, you can put the pot back onto the stove and continue to simmer until you have reduced it by half to make a more concentrated stock.
This step might come in handy if your freezer space is very limited.
After more than eight hours of keeping an eye on this concoction one Sunday, I ended up with eight cups of broth, which I put into small sandwich bags and stored in the freezer for future use.
There is a pretty nice Korean community in the Rowland Heights/Diamond Bar area on the border of Los Angeles and Orange counties. Along Colima Road, between Fullerton Road and Fairway Drive, you can find a number of Korean and Chinese restaurants.
I was having one of those Mondays. A day filled with meetings and odd waiting times led me to skip lunch. After the last meeting, I got in the car and just started to drive. Traffic in Los Angeles was no joke that day — typical Monday evening going-home traffic. I wanted to wait until I got home to eat, but I just couldn’t hold off the hunger any longer.
On this day, due to some silly drivers on the road and bad construction markings, I ended up at Galleria Market Plaza at the corner of Fullerton and Colima roads. In the shopping center, my choices narrowed down to either a tonkatsu restaurant or Go Hyang Tofu Restaurant. The Korean script above the English sign read, Gohyang Sulungtang, or “Hometown Sulung Soup.”
It is a small place, with about 25 seats. The straightforward menu had no appetizers but various soondubu soups and some other Korean favorites. It seems this restaurant specializes in two main tang dishes — soondubu, or soft tofu, and sulung.
As for banchan, or side dishes, I was served baechu kimchi, the common spicy Nappa cabbage kind of pickled vegetables; gagtooki, or cubed daikon radish kimchi; and soy sauce–braised potatoes.
The star attraction: sulungtang
If sulungtang is in the name of the joint, it had to be good. My bowl of it came a couple of minutes after the banchan. The broth looked great. I added some sea salt and chopped green onions to my taste. Then, I dumped the accompanying bowlful of rice into the soup.
Personally, I’m a gomtang kind of a guy. If you like gomtang, you may not like sulungtang. The two soups may look very similar, but they are slightly different. Gomtang uses more types of bones in the stock and it’s cooked much, much longer, providing a much deeper taste. Sulungtang is lighter in taste, because it’s cooked relatively fast. Sulung is roughly translated “haste” or “hollow.”
Go Hyang’s sulungtang had nice texture or viscosity. The meat was excellently prepared, sliced thin and without the funny aftertaste it often has in basic Korean restaurants.
One reservation I had with the soup was the flavor was rather bland. I know, it was sulungtang and not gomtang, but there was absolutely no umami, or savory, taste to the broth. Maybe it was an off-day for the kitchen.
So, in the three categories that make a great Korean tang, Go Hyang gets top-notch scores on two: color/viscosity and meat preparation. This makes me want to go for a second time to confirm the impression.
Go Hyang Tofu Restaurant
18311 Colima Road Rowland Heights, Calif. (626) 913-7104 [googleMap name=”Go Hyang Tofu Restaurant 고향설렁탕”]18311 Colima Road Rowland Heights, CA[/googleMap]
Taeyang Yoon is an entrepreneur who has owned and operated a small Asian fusion restaurant with a sushi/sake bar. He loves to marry flavors and textures from various parts of the world and tries to make them his own. Although, he is not professionally trained in a culinary school, nor journalism, that doesn’t stop him from opining on the world of food. He founded KarFarm.com and bokko10.com, and you can find him roaming around the San Francisco Bay Area or Southern California.
With the weather continuing to hover in the negative double digits, a steaming bowl of So-Ggori Gomtang 소꼬리곰탕 (Oxtail Soup) would hit the spot right now. Steaming thick stock made from bones that have been boiling overnight. Earthy ginseng infused in the cauldron brew. Large crispy slices of leeks. Succulent beefy and fatty oxtails. And fruity little jujubes–the prizes at the bottom of the cereal box as far as Korean soups go. I sprinkle just a bit of salt, just enough to bring the volume where I can hear it. Then a little pepper to give it more depth. Dip some fresh sweet crunchy kimchi in there, and it will cure what ails you.
When I can’t get Ggori Gomtang, I also look for So-MeoriTang 소머리탕 (Cow Head Soup). Lots of unidentifiable beefy bits possessing interesting textures going on there.
How are you beating this particularly grumpy Old Man Winter?
Fall is my favorite day of the year. And it came and went quickly.
I arrived at work, and it was freezing. We turned on the heater, but it doesn’t warm up the building for a couple of hours. I needed something hot and soothing to give me energy for the day.
Luckily Korean food was made for this type of situation.
I was unsure about ordering something without fatty meat. Tuna just sounds too healthy for a cold growing boy.
Yet I went ahead with it. And it was a good call. The soup was full of tang. The tuna gave it a sweet smoothness.
We ordered it from Olive, which is one of the few choices we have for delivery in our school’s area. It gets tiresome ordering from the same restaurant all the time. Yet they have a sizable menu, and their Korean section has never failed me. Sometimes their side dishes (banchan 반찬) are pretty decent. What do we have here?
Some fish noodles and balls — good
Fresh kimchi — better than usual
Stir-fried spinach — made me feel like I was eating healthy
The hard marinated black beans — eh, somewhat edible
Like all Korean orders, it came with rice in a stainless steel bowl (not pictured). This meal actually held me over until the end of work, which is rare. And I’m pretty sure it didn’t hurt my girlish figure either.
There’s Chris, my boss, getting ready to have lunch at work.
Some of us are great procrastinators, so we usually show up at work without eating lunch first. Daily we order in whatever we can to feed us before classes start. Unfortunately, the location of our school is a bad location for restaurants. Our choices are very limited. It’s usually fried pork cutlet and fried pork cutlet.
Chris decided to try something different from the place we usually order from. He ordered their GamjaTang 감자탕• (Potato Soup). The name “Potato Soup” is misleading. There is more pork in the soup than potatoes, and it’s a rich spicy red broth that covers it all.
Alas, much of Korean food isn’t really on-the-go fare. It seems to be a requirement in the DNA of Korean food that it has to inflict blisters on your tongue. You’re supposed to eat meat as it’s grilling and eat soup as it’s boiling.
So how do delivery places deal with this requirement?
They give you your food and the stove to cook it on.
Just unwrap the pots and bowls, place the pan on the stove, pour in the broth…
And turn it on.
And in… oh well, it does take a while. This ain’t fast food, and I don’t think we’ll be getting this again during the crunch time before class starts. Besides, it’s hard to eat when ten-year-old students are pressing their noses and salivating tongues against the window to the office.
I’ve tried lots of different soups in Korea. And I know sundae, Korea’s odd-textured noodle and blood sausage. I always passed by places that offered SundaeGuk 순대국, a stew using that ingredient. Yet I frequently found an excuse to eat something else. I had no idea what was in it — other than sundae.
Then one day, soon after our move, I ordered it. This was mainly because Eun Jeong and I were tired from moving, and we wanted delivery, and we hadn’t accumulated many magnetic restaurant menus on our door yet. Doors in Korea tend to get covered in restaurant delivery fliers after a while. Ours was still fresh and empty.
So one of the only places we had a number for was a HaeJangGuk place. I was not in the mood for Fred Flinstone Hangover Soup, so I opted to finally try a bowl of SundaeGuk.
A few minutes later, it arrived at the door in a heavy black bowl with a divided container full of side dishes and hot peppers and a stainless steel covered bowl of rice. I gingerly removed the plastic wrap from the hot bowl.
The steam smelled of heaven. It was the smell of bacon frying in the morning. I unwrapped the spoon and dug in. The broth itself contained a lot of pork fat, as was evident when I refrigerated the leftovers, and the entire soup hardened. Yet it was the little nasty treasures that made this soup special. There was, of course, the sundae. And this was the best way I have ever had this dark savory gelatinous sausage. Its little friends included slabs of fatty pork belly, some liver, crunchy yet tasty bits of cartilege, and the forbidden but irresistable gobchang, intestines.
It was a heavy stew, and I couldn’t finish it all in one sitting. Only once have I finished an entire bowl. It fills my grease quota for the week when I’m missing my good ole American greasy food. It’s not for the culinary wimps out there. It is another great example of Korean Man Food.
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