Spring has come!

It seems to late to say, but I truly feel it. Now I can finally say, spring has come.

During the Winter, everything freezes, including mind. When the Spring comes, everything relaxes, and this make people little bit nostalgic and lethargic. It sounds very counter intuitive, while the frogs are jumping out of their slumber and the sprouts are sprung, people rather look like the sleepy cat. But that is how we describe the sign of Spring in Korea. To wake up from the spring slumber, we use bitter spring greens. Dureup (Fatsia), Neangee, Chwi, Mindulea(Dandelion green), and countless other bitter greens will be in the market. People also go and gather wild greens. It is tradition born out of necessity since spring was lean season in Korea.

Now, I found myself hungry. Hungry for the spring greens in Korea. When I was back home this year, it was still too early for the greens I craved for. Well, I can not get them here in Boston, MA, U.S.A. I may get it with big money but it wouldn't be the same: the fresh and bright bitterness wouldn't be there. Yes, my head understand all of it, but my hunger went on for a while. So, when I found fresh chicory I have to grab it. Even though it is not the perfect thing.



I made my comfort food: kimchi bibimbop. First I made chicory kimchi and add it on the freshly made steamed rice, adorned with fried egg, sesame oil and Korean chili paste. The taste was as bright as the spring sun.

Chicory Kimchi

chicory 2 lb, soy sauce 1/4 cup, Korean chili flake 1/4 cup (or up to taste), garlic, grated 1 T,
1/2 small Asian pear grounded (or 1t sugar with 1/4 cup water)

1. wash chicory well and drain it well.
2. mix soy sauce, pear, chili flake, garlic well.
3. add seasonings to chicory, mix well (but be gentle!!!) and let it sit for a day in room temperature.

It can be eaten as it is, but adding sesame oil or toasted sesame seeds right before eating is good option. (Do NOT mix sesame oil when you make kimchi if you intent to store it. sesame oil goes rancid faster than you can say rancid. :) )

Hot, hotter, hottest! - Meaoontang 매운탕

Speaking of winter delight, (or delight of any season, that is) Meaoontang, Korean hot fish stew is one that I can not miss.
I said not all Korean dish is spicy but didn't say all Korean dish is not spicy.
Be aware! Clear the way! This is piping hot (both temperature and taste), burning your tongue hot dish.

One thing I noticed about many people around me in Boston, they are afraid of fish head. For me, fish head is the best part. It makes nice broth. If it is big fish, the chicks are delicious treat.

This particular Meaoontang has little story. I went down to the fish place run by Koreans. I asked Ajooma (The lady of the house) if she had anything for Meaoontang. She looked for any good fish for it, but she had none. She told me to wait for a min. Then, she went into the back room. Lucky me!!!!!!!! There was a customer (whom I deeply feel sorry for his/her misfortune for missing the best part of fish) who took Kwanguh 광어 (Flounder) only the flesh of it, left me good fish bone with all the good parts left! Ajooma was also happy to found it, and more than happy to clean it for me and packed it for free.

I rushed back and made soup, but thought it might not enough. As a host of dinner, I could not make food not enough (both quantity and quality)!! So, I rushed back to other fish place (since the one I got Flounder was closed), got little more fish.

...It turned out it was totally unnecessary. The bones and inners of Big flounder made more than enough dinner for two. So, this one left untouched for the next day.

The next day, I found my two left over Meaoontangs doing all well-made-fish-stews do.

All the gelatin from fish coagulates ensuring I treated my guest with dish made right. :)


Deagu Meaoontang (Pollock Meaoontang)

Small Pollock (2lb), Daikon radish 1 lb, 1/2 package of Soybean sprout, 1/2 package of Tofu , Korean watercress 1/2 lb, Ssukat (type of Korean Herb, if you can't get it, you can increase the amount of watercress) 1/4 lb, 1 Onion, 4C cold water

Seasoning: 1T dry white wine or rice wine, Korean chilli powder 2T (or up to taste), Soy sauce 1T, minced garlic 1/2 T, minced fresh ginger 1/3 T

1. Clean the fish (ask your fishmonger to do the honor. cut it into the four parts including the head!) and soak in cold water. Cut tofu into desired thickness.
2. Cut daikon radish into quarter circle shape, by first slicing it into 0.4 of inch thick disk shape and quartering it. Slice onion into same shape.
3. Pour 4 cups of cold water in the soup pot, add head of Pollock, radish, onion, and all the seasonings. Bring it to boil and cook it till the radish is half cooked.
4. Add Soybean sprout and the rest of fish. Bring it to boil and cook. skim off any foam that may form. When fish is almost cooked add tofu.
5. Take the pot off the heat, add Korean water cress and Ssukat. Close the rid, and wait for 5 min. Serve with hot steamed rice.

Winter serenity

I love poems. One of them is Chinese poet, Li Bai 李白. He loved two things: the moon and good rice wine. He chased those two thing till his death. The legend has it, he had one too many, and tried to hug the moon (actually the reflection of the moon), drowned in the most beautiful lake in China.

Before my trip to home, it snowed a lot, as we all know in the East coast of USA. The night was ripening, snow was falling till all the night was covered white. I could not see the moon. So I decide to drink it, as Li Bai did.

I had nice rice wine and good Oden soup I made for snowy night. And winder gave me good snow.

Snow chilled rice wine and steaming hot Oden.

I found this the best luxury only winder can provide. It is almost over (hopefully). Saying good bye to each passing season is always makes me think of things that only that season can give.

Carrot Kimchi

Someone asked me to translate it into English. I haven't tried it yet, but the recipe seems reasonable.

Carrot 3kg, daikon radish 0.5 kg (cut into same shape and length with green onions), green onion (cut in 4-5cm length both white and green parts) 2C, rice porridge 1 C (=1Tb rice flour + 1 C water boiled while stirred then cool down), sea salt (or cores grain kosher salt) 2-3Tb + 1/2C, fresh crushed garlic 2/3C, grated fresh ginger 1C, Korean Chili powder 1/2C + up to the taste)

1. Clean the carrot, cut it into 5-7 cm length and mix it well with ½ C salt and let it sit for two to three hours. (If it is thin carrot, reduce the time. Let it cure till it bends little bit without breaking)
2. Mix rice porridge, salt (2-3 Tbsp) , garlic, ginger, and remaining chili powder in big bowl. (where protective glove if you have sensitive skin)
3. Wash carrots and drain very well (dry with paper towel if necessary). Mix it seasonings well.
4. Put kimchi in glass or stainless still container and seal tightly (remember, garlic stinks!!!). Place container or deep plate underneath the kimchi container (just in case the broth spill over) and let it sit for a day in room temperature. After a day, keep it in around 40 degree (meaning in your refrigerator!)

Bringing the Far East

After a tiring day in office in the mid-Summer of Bangladesh, I returned my humble room. The guard of my dormitory, whose wife worked as my chief, was unusually excited to present dinner. He burst into my room with the tray of goodies and proudly presented the meal that his wife labored over during the unbearably hot day in Dhaka.
He said,
“Chinese!!”
and pointed one plate.
And there it was: a shredded potato, carrot, and onion, stir-fired and seasoned with turmeric. TURMERIC!!!!!
I was polite enough not to laugh at his face. I thanked him and managed to show my deep appreciation and pleasant surprise. After all, shredding vegetable with the tools his wife had was by all means NOT an easy task. But I have to confess, that day, I laughed till my stomach hurt.

I often wonder what makes dish Korean, Chinese, or Japanese. What is the difference between French cuisine and Italian dish? What is authentic German? What? What? What?

I have read few anthropology books regarding food, Revy-strauss and few others. But I am still looking for an answer. Some people ponder upon more grandeur things, but mine is food. But, let’s leave those for another time.

Here what I want to say is how to bring Far East without breaking ever so thin bankbook.

The base of the Far East cuisine is, as you guessed, soy sauce. Yes, I am over simplifying and also stereotyping which I have all things to say against it. But, I also can not deny that it gives certain characteristic we (the Far East Asia) share.

Thanks to Chinese and influence of Buddhism, fermented soy bean became essential thing in the Far East cooking. With expansion of Buddhism, which anything that involves life of animal was banned, the people got into thinking what could be the alternative of traditional fish sauce. And thank you again, you brilliant Chinese, we have been blessed with fermented soy bean! Even there are some historic record of bringing fermented soy bean sauce and pates as dowry of a Princess.

So, go out and grab a good bottle of soy sauce. It will add every food an Asian flare.
Buying good soy sauce takes little bit of effort, though. You MUST read ingredient list. If you found less than four ingredient (soy bean, salt, water, and unfortunate but somehow essential, some benzoate thingy used as preservative), chances are, it is good one. If it is naturally brewed, meaning fermented in traditional, time consuming manner, it is even batter. The reason why I insist on reading the ingredient list is that soy sauce often contains MSG. If you are not allergic to it, as I am, it wouldn’t be that much of problem. But MSG makes taste little too heavy and dull. So, if you can avoid it, please do. You can flavor soy sauce to your own liking. For instance, I often mix soy sauce with half amount of water, add little bit of sugar, bring it to boil and infuse whatever flavor that I wish to have in. I use shiitake mushroom, ginger, garlic, spicy green chili, cinnamon, Dasima (AKA Konbu), dried anchovy, cinnamon or wonderfully fragrant Sichuan pepper corns. Brew them in the soy sauce and take solids out, pour the liquid in a glass bottle and refrigerate. It makes excellent dressing, base, and seasoning.

For instance, I made zaru soba (the picture above). The deeping sauce is made with soy sauce seasoned with cinnamon. Traditionally it is seasoned with dashi (broath that made from mixture of sea weed and dried and smocked tuna). This is my quick fix when I have no time to make dashi.


There is striking difference in soy sauce depending on the country. Chinese and south east Asian countries like their soy sauce thick but mild in salt. Korean soy sauce is sharp and salty. Japanese one is little sweet and delicate. So choose soy sauce depending on the dish you going to make. However, if you want to have only one, I recommend Japanese one. One, because it is very easy to find and two, you can always add flavor such as mushroom, tamarind, and even salt to it, mimicking the soy sauce from other cuisine.

Sesame oil is another essential in Far East cooking. Look for a toasted one. It usually comes in brown colored glass bottle. Untoasted sesame is also good ingredient. Sesame is high in unsaturated fat- meaning it can and will go stale very fast. So keep them in the refrigerator. In case of sesame seed, freezer is better option.

Shiitake mushroom and Konbu are also good thing to keep, especially for Korean and Japanese cooking. Dried shiitake can be kept several years in freezer and same goes for Konbu. So if you buy them, it would be good investment even if you cook Asian food once in a blue moon. Just put them in air tight container preventing smelling. They can take freezer smell but they also can spread their smell into other food in your refrigerator.

Ginger is quite essential. Again, freezer is your money saver. Though it does not stay as long as the dried shiitake, you can keep them without loosing any flavor up to three to four month. I don’t know what happens after since ginger doesn’t last that long in my kitchen.
Garlic, spicy green chili and green onion are also another thing that can be kept in the freezer. But you can also avoid using them. They are rather optional, in my opinion.

So here they are. I hope this helps you when you try to cook what the other side of globe cooks. Don't be afraid. If you are not sure where to begin, begin with stir fried onion and bell pepper. Add ginger and little bit of soy sauce. And next time add shrimp or firm tofu. And the next next time add Thai basil or Chinese five spice. You will find, bit by bit, a whole new world.

The American Beauty - sweet corn and red quinoa soup

Corn, quinoa, and potato all things from in calm broth, truly beautiful, truly sweet, and truly American, I think.

I was blessed with few ears of beautiful sweet corn. I know in English writing, same word should not be used too often. But what can I say? They are glorious, gorgeous, and beautiful.

I felt always guilty whenever I threw away sweet corncobs. They are still sweet but does not make good compost. So, it went to waist bin. One day, I came up with an idea. It looked like bone of corn, so why didn't I treat them as chicken or any other bone?

So, I cut off all the lovely sweet yellow corn, and drop the corncobs into the sauce pan. Add cold water, and brew it for a while with bruised garlic. Water turned into broth with sweet and lovely milky hue. Took them out and threw them away, feeling less guilty but still apologizing that I couldn't give proper burial.

Added potato and corn and quinoa, and drop of good Spanish extra virgin olive oil on top. Mixed in little bit of dried chili and ground cumin seed. Green onion for its sharp but not over powering onionness. Lime and cilantro were dearly missed.

That day, I discovered all things America. (Not United states, but the continent of America)

recipe:

1/2 cup of red quinoa, 3 medium size potato, 2 ears of sweet corn, 3 green onions, 1 garlic clove, fresh cilantro (up to your liking), 4 cups of water, dried oregano 1/2 t, crushed red chili, salt and pepper up to taste, zest and juice of half lime, good extra virgin Olive oil,

1. Cut off corn from the corncob, set a side corn. Do not milk the corncob.

2. Peel and dice potato into bite size pieces. Submerge them in cold water.

2. pour 4 cups of cold water in to good size sauce pan. drop corncob alone with tough part of cilantro, bruised garlic (whole) and put it on low heat. Brew about 30 min.

3. Take out corncob, garlic, and cilantro stems. Add potato, salt, chili, pepper, ground cumin, dried oregano and cook till potato is almost cooked.

4. Add lime zest, quinoa and sweet corn. cook till quinoa is fully cooked.

5. Take off from heat. Add lime juice, half of chopped cilantro and all of green onion. Put the lid back and let it sit for 5 min.

6. Serve with lime wage, olive oil and remaining chopped fresh cilantro.

This soup is good either cold, warm, or room temperature.

Adding chopped tomato is also a good option.

And of course, you can just grill sweet corn.

If you have good sweet corn in its beautiful husk, here is a suggestion.

Remove thread, and sock the corn in cold water for thirty miniut. tare off little bit of the corn husk and tie the end with it. Grill it as it is on the grill about 30-35 min, turning them once around 15 min point or so.

grilling corn in its husk enhances the corn taste, and of course, the corns are beautiful to look at.

Aren't they? :)

Garlic chive and cucumber, Hot and cool, rescue for the summer night

We have not been blessed with such delight, but it is often too hot to do anything in summer. So, here is one quick dish doesn't require any heating.



Few days ago, I got garlic chives and cool cucumber. Cucumber is so fresh, it is almost sweet. Chive is pungent, it has too precious to be heated. So, here it is.





This is quick form of kimchi called "Gutjulee". The word Gutjulee means salting before other seasonings as a part of preparation. It also means kimchi intended to be eaten fresh, like very spicy salad.



Garlic chive gutjulee is often served with meat dish such as Korean BBQ. Meat dish in Korea is rarely eaten by itself. It always have greens served with, often spicy, to cut the heavy taste of meat.



But I found this serves very well with many other things including tofu. Tofu has subtle taste so goes with anything that it gets. Heat up tofu in microwave for a min and eat it with Kimchi or Gutjuless to go with. Very fast, very good, not to mention, guilt free.



Recipe



serves 4 as main dish



Two package of firm tofu,

one cup of garlic chive, chopped in two inch length

one cucumber, skinned and cut into strips

1T toasted sesame seed

1 1/2 T soy sauce

1t or up to taste, Korean chili pepper flak**

1/2 t sugar (optional)



1. Mix soy sauce, chili pepper flake, sesame seed and sugar. Let it sit for at least five minutes.

2. Mix cucumber and garlic chive. Let it sit in the refrigerator for thirty minutes. It would first look have too little moisture but cucumber will soon let its water out, making dish just enough.

3. Slice tofu block in half length wise and cut each halve into five to six pieces. Heat it for one minutes.

4. Serve together.





** if not available, use chipotle or cayenne pepper. Wasabi (Japanese horseradish) also works well. use about 1/4 t or add up to your liking. If you have none of these, add arugula. The point here is sharp spicy flavor.