Stereotyping ourselves? on garlic and chili peppers

candied lotus root and carrot, Korean tea food

It was pleasure to see someone with Korean Background competing for the spot in major TV: Debbie in the next food network star season 5. However, I can not help cringing whenever she says "because I am Korean" in the same sentence with chili peppers and garlic.

lotus root stewed in soy sauce

That is not always true. chili peppers and garlic do not represent entire Korean cuisine as they do not for the Mexican culinary culture. Yes, it has big influence and seemingly ubiquitous but it is just part of Story. Korean style BBQ and Kimchi was most popular. But that is not the whole story.

Korean food can be and it IS quite subtle. For the many spring greens, the seasoning kept minimum, in order to the taste of spring greens to shine. It is true for the root vegetables, too. There are countless food that does not involve either garlic or chili peppers or even heavy seasonings. Best example is found in various Buddhist temples in Korea.

chilled noodle in soybean broth

I wish, only wish, it is known to outside of Korea as much as BBQs and kimchi.

And my fellow Koreans, let's think about stereotype that we hold about ourselves. This is not the first time I encountered stereotyping of ourselves. Self-image is important. It is part of identity. However, the self-image should grow with the discovery of new side of 'self', both as a person or as an ethnic group. Let's don't judge ourselves too quick. It does not leave room for the new realization of culture that we built and adored for several thousands years.

A culinary case of mystery greens – greens with tofu & shiitake mushroom en papillote

Often we encounter mysterious looking greens unexpectedly. It is sweet but challenging surprise. Last summer, I encountered one of mystery greens that I haven't figure out what it is till now.




My dear friend got this green on her hand but had no time to cook.

So, she generously offered it to me. I accepted the greens along with lots of other goodies but exactly don’t know what to do with it. I bited into it. It has certainly taste of leafy green and quite tender: a good mixture of little bit of bitterness and hint of indescribable tastes.
It was too tough and grassy to eat as salad. So, it should be cooked.
Instinctively I went back to what I know best; sesame oil, soy sauce and ginger. I haven found any green that didn’t work in this mixture.
Next, I needed to decide what is best cooking method: steamed, blenched, or sautéed.
Since the leaf was tender, I didn’t want to cook it too much. Also it was too hot to boil water or tend sauté pan. I needed something that let me stay out of kitchen while it cooked. So, I steamed it in the parchment paper pouch: en papillote.

Ingredient (for two people): half package of tofu, one cup of sweet potato greens or others cut into two inch length, 3-4 dried shiitake mushroom, 1 green onion cut into two inch length, sesame oil 1/2 tea spoon, soy sauce 1 Table spoon, white wine 1/2 Table spoon, grated fresh ginger 1/2 Table spoon, pinch of freshly cracked pepper, parchment paper 2 feet in length

1. Preheat oven for 380 F.
2. Wash lightly dried shiitake mushroom and soak them in cold water for 30 min or till the stem part become tender. Cut off the stems and squeeze gently out the excess water.
3. Cut tofu into 6 pieces.
4. Fold parchment paper into 3.



5. Arrange hard part of greens (stems) and white part of green onion in the center. On top of it, arrange tofu and shiitake mushroom. Cover it with remaining greens and green part of green onion.
6. Fold the edge of parchment paper tightly in length first and fold one of wide end, forming an envelop (or pouch) with one-end opened.
7. Add mixture of ginger, soy sauce, sesame oil, pepper, and white wine through one open end and crest it tightly. 8. Place it on top of cookie pan and bake it for at 380F for about 20 min.

9. Wear oven mitts and open it with kitchen scissors right before serving (watch out for hot steam!!!)

10. Serve it with steamed rice.



So far I found this methods works for most of tender greens including spinach, yu choi (edible rape), dandelion greens, and sweet potato greens. Adding bean sprouts and sugar snap peas is also good variation. En papillote is also good method to impress your guest with minimum effort. Not to mention, it makes excellent vegan main dish.

garden fever - growing kkaennip 깻잎

Last year, I found one of my friends had kkaennip plant. The discovery brought me back to my childhood. Some food probably took some degree of convincing (or desperation) for those had attempted to eat it for the first time in human history. Kkaennip, on the other hand, I don't think it was that hard. The smell of it is quite alluring. For me it is fragrance of summer!


I am from Seoul. I was born in south part of Korea, but raised in Seoul. It is a big city; a city with population of 24 million; one of the most crowded city in the world; city with skyscrapers and high technology. Most of people from Seoul would not remember any greenery or patch of garden outside of national parks located here and there. BUT I was lucky few who have lived in the area of Seoul without crowd and with lots green fields. I was running around fishing and foraging wild fruits with my friends. My neighborhood was about to be 'developed', so there was lots of empty fields and hills and ponds.

One day, I decided to be lady. Don't ask why. At the age of nine, I just decided that it would be cool to learn playing piano, drawing, and traditional calligraphy. Looking back, I still don't understand what inspired me.

During that summer, I was going back and forth between activities of my liking. It was short walk from my house to the piano and art class. My mother, as any other parents in Korea did, let me walk by myself. Around my neighborhood, every one knew everyone back then. So it was quite natural for us (me and my friends) to run around by ourselves.
I dropped by one house to greet the little puppy liked me and always was excited to see me. I wondered around little bit chasing white little butterflies in the open garden. Among this, I liked one patch of land most.
It was big (for my eyes, at least) fragrant green sea. Endless rows of kkaennip with their gorgeous thick fragrance and yellow Korean pumpkin blossoms picking out around the edge of garden.
With sweltering summer heat, the air was thicken with the smell of refreshing kkaennip. It was like opening hot pot of stew, which fresh kkaennip was just added. It was clean and refreshing smell. There was always an old lady, sitting under the parasol, chatting with her friends where the edge of the garden met the pedestrian side of street, . Occasionally a customer would show up asking her to get some of kkaennip or other vegetable she grew. She did not have anything on display. Whenever asked, the old lady with cheerful smile would get up, walked into her garden, harvested whatever the customer asked and some more, and sold them with a exchange of small money. I was fascinated the smell of it. After all, it was my favorite vegetable. The kkaennip and other small vegetable gardens and the ponds were there till my senior high school years. One day, coming back from school, I discovered to my horror all were gone replaced by big construction site. Irony is, my home in Korea is now one of the big condominium complex built during that time, facing directly where my favorite garden was.

After I came US for study, there were so many greens I miss including kkaennip. It is not so hard to get but too expensive for poor graduate student budget. I couldn't believe the price tag!!! So discovery of my friend with kkaennip garden was like ten Christmas combined all together! She was more than happy to let me have some of plants, for seed. And this year I am having garden fever. Like all other proud parent (of child, pat, and plants), I photograph them every day.
Here, they were just peeking out in cold April Boston morning!


Look! Now they are looking like kkaetnnip!

Every day, I picture various things I can do later with the harvest! I become the owner of perillar garden, like the old lady in my memory (though I am way younger then she was). I can not wait to make kimchi with it. Or simply roll steamed rice mixed with other grains, specially barley with Korean bean paste!!!

Fresh kkaennip has after taste of mint. well, after all, kkaennip is a member of Perilla frutescens which belongs mint family.
Almost all northeast and southeast Asian country have their own perilla. Japan has Shiso which used widely from in soups to coloring umeboshi, pickled plum dish. In China, it is 紫蘇 which used as medicine and in Vietnam tía tô used in various dish. Each has very different taste, even though they are in same family.

Like Italian parsley, kkaennip is used here and there to add fresh taste in otherwise heavy tasting dish. The seed is used as condiment or for oil. The cake after extracting oil made excellent animal feed and compost.

Some Korean cookbooks and recipes (including mine) refer kkaennip as sesame leaf, despite it has nothing to do with sesame plant. The reason, I guess, is that the seed of perilla is called deulkkae which literal translation would be 'wild sesame' even though botanically sesame and perilla is not related.


Speaking of garden fever, I was so inspired by kkaennip, I decided to let them have some company. So here it (or they) goes!


I now grow snowpea, basil, mint, mustard green, lettuce, Korean cucumber, kkwari chili pepper and still debating, yes you guessed, growing tomatos.

Beachu Kimchi - Korean Buddhist temple style

Korean Buddhist temple food is recent discovery even for many Koreans. The food from Buddhist temple has distinctively clean taste without punch of garlic.

Here is one of recipe I used to make Temple style kimchi for my vegan friend.

2 Napa cabbage(about 5-6 lb), Daikan radish 2lb, 3 dried shiitake mushroom, 1 piece of konbu 2 inch by 2 inch, 1/4 apple, 1 small Korean pear, 2 inch piece fresh ginger, 1 cup of cold water, 1 Tb of sweet rice powder, 1/2 C Kosher salt + 2T salt, 5-6 Green onion, 1/4 C Korean chili flake

1. Wash and quarter in length the Napa cabbage
2. Pickle Napa cabbage by sprinkling 1/2 cup of salt; make it sure that the salt is sprinkled in between layers of leaves. Let it sit for at least 6 hours.
3. Wash off excess salt and squeeze the cabbage well
4. Pour 1 cup of water in sauce pan with Konbu and lightly washed shiitake mushrooms. Let it sit for 30 min-1 hour. Take out mushroom and squeeze and slice it very thin. Discard the konbu (or dry and reuse it for other dish). Add sweet rice powder and mix well. Put it on medium heat and keep stirring until it thickens and slightly transparent. Remove from heat and let it cool down.
5. Skin ginger; chop them by pulse it in food processor. Same goes for apple and Korean pear.
6. Add apple, pear and ginger in rice porridge (from 3) along with chili flake and 1-2 Table spoon of Salt; set it aside
7. Cut white radish in thin strips (about 2mm thick and 5mm wide); cut green onion in same length (halve the white part if it is thicker than quarter inch)
8. Wear gloves and mix chilli, apple, pear and ginger paste (from 6), green onion, mushroom and white radish in big mixing bowl
9. Take one quarter of Napa cabbage and rub the seasonings around it. Take small amount of mixture, rub and put in between every leaves. At the end, gently band the cabbage into half. Repeat till all the cabbages are seasoned
10. Put little bit of seasoning on the bottom, tightly fit the cabbage quarters and seal the container tight. When you put cabbage in, make it sure the container had at least 1-1.5 inch room between the top ob cabbage and the container cover since remaining water from napa cabbage will come out as kimchi sits.
11. Let it sit on counter top for a day and put it in the refrigerator.
12. Give it at least week to develop the flavor.


** The container you use, now on, must be Kimchi container. Even though garlic is not added, still the container can hold on to the smell. So, choose your container accordingly.
** I found the napa cabbage in US has more watter than Korean one. So put a tray under the container for 3-4 days just in case water developes and ...you know, leak out. :)

Hobak Kimchi GhukBahp - pumpkin kimchi broth with rice

Ghukbahp is quite uniquely Korean: it is not exactly soup or steamed rice. This is dish usually have very deep and intensely flavored broth and is served piping hot. I suspect the reason why we have it is due to our winter. It is chill-to-the-bone cold. Sub zero gust runs down from Siberia, freezing everything in its path.
Since it has such a impact on mind, it is not so surprising that in Korea many people have special memory around this dish.

Kimchi ghukbahp is usually made with napa cabbage kimchi. The broth is made out of dried anchovy, sea weed, and head of dried Pollock. This was one of my late father's favorites. He did not have perfect table manner, but did have ability to make everyone to want to eat what he was eating. Even just simple one scoop of steamed rice seems the best dish in the world when he was the one eating it. He really enjoyed eating.




That day, my father drove us around and around Seoul that night. My brother and I was too young to have patience to wait for the good things to come. It was way pass our usual bed time and we were tired and hungry. My father and mother seemed to be very excited about the food we were going to eat. It was food from their home town. Something they ate when they secretly become boy friend and girl friend. It was one of the food that my father ordered to hush-off my mother's younger sister, so she would not tell my Grandma about the boy next door holding hands with the eldest daughter of the house.




Finally we arrived at small crowded restaurant, where the only menu was Kimchighukbahp. I didn't enjoyed the food at all. It was too fishy and too hot. But probably my parents fully enjoyed it. They said ghukbahp was very good. Exactly what they wanted. Since in my family who proud of our hometown, my parents rarely complimented food in Seoul. In our opinion, restaurant food in Seoul was too sweet or too salty, too much or lack of this and that, etc, etc.


This is not the exactly same recipe. I used Hobakkimchi instead of Beachukimchi. I did not use fermented shrimp sauce (which I missed dearly!!) because I don't like the things they sell in US. (Yes, you can see I am my parents' daughter) I am spoiled with my Grandma's specially ordered shrimp sauce. All the things I don't have was not matter. I enjoyed it after all this years. I enjoyed the memory of it, as my parents did some years ago.

Hobak Kimchi GhukBahp

Hobak kimchi (or beachu kimchi) about 1 cup + 1/4 cup of water from kimchi, 1/2 cup of soybean sprout, 1/3 dried pollack flake, 1T soy sauce, pinch of black pepper, green onion, 1 cup of steamed rice, 1/4 cup of Bracken namool (for recipe, see here )

broth: 3 cup water, 3 dried anchovy, 2 inch by 2 inch piece of dried konbu, I want to add one more thing to the posting below.

1. Place konbu in the cold water and let it sit for 30 min. Take Konbu out and put dried anchovy. Boil the water on medium heat for 30 hour. Take anchovy out.

2. Add dried pollack, soy sauce, pepper, water from kimchi and boil till pollack is tender.

3. Add hobak kimchi and bean sprout and cover. Boil for 15 min.

4. Place hot steamed rice and arrange kimchi, pollack, Bracken namool on top. Pour broth over carefully. add greeb onion on top.

When kimchi ferments, it develops unique texture and flavor. It is also a proof of good kimchi. Any minor mistake in selecting and handling the ingredient, cooking, and fermenting will make Kimchi something not so pleasant after few month. Well made kimchi is like good cheese: it can go up to three years (which is often the case in my family) and used in various cooking. That is also reason why you SHOULD NEVER EVER HURRY the fermentation. Kimchi needs its time to mature.

Why Vinegar???????

I don't understand the concept of 'quick' Kimchi. It was NOT supposed to be quick.

Every time I found these so called 'quick kimchi' recipe, I can not help getting little bit offended.

Using vinegar to mimic the sour taste is like mixing gelatin into milk to make it coagulate and claiming it as cheese.
I don't think any body would call it cheese? Than why is it OK for other culture's food to take such 'short-cut'? Ignorance is NOT a blessing nor the excuse.

Of course, you will see lots of vinegar in Korean food. It is just NOT a kimchi.

On Gourmet magazine's 'Mind, Body, and Seoul'

This was the email I sent to the editor of Gourmet magazine as a response to their article on Korean food.


'Mind, Body, and Seoul', or … Shanghai?

Congratulations, Gourmet magazine! Your article "Mind, Body, and Seoul" in the
March issue was full of fresh takes on Korean recipes. Although I would not use
vinegar in my Kimchi, your presentation was impressive, even to me as a Korean who is passionate (and opinionated!) about her country's cuisine. An authentic, yet
creative, depiction of Korean food (outside of Korea) is a really rare offering.

But I cannot help but ask where the Seoul is in the accompanying photographic spread? To my surprise, it was not Korea in the photos, it was...Shanghai?? The red lanterns, wall décor, table cloths, etc. are all iconic Chinese images. You would not put a cowboy and his chuck wagon in the background of a story about French Provencal cuisine, would you? The level of misrepresentation in the photos is egregious, since the recipes themselves were so incredibly Korean.





I should not complain too much since they got food part almost right. (I WOULD NOT use vinegar in my Kimchi!!!!) But the pictures...... Yes, they were beautiful. But the photos do not show Korea. It was like using a cowboy and his chuck wagon for traditional French Provencal cuisine. Nothing wrong with a cowboy himself but it does not represent French food. Same goes to the photo spread of Gourmet. It does not matter how good the photos are. They are just wrong.