Eating Korean

I had the joy of attending the Fancy Food Show a couple of weeks ago and ate more gourmet food than a girl should be allowed to in 3 days.

Tucked in a small corner of the Javits Center were the real secrets of the culinary market—small independent purveyors directly selling their wares, packaging their grandmother’s secret recipe or trying to fulfill a dream with a newly bottled sauce or a blend of exciting spices.

Robert Kim was one of those people literally sharing his halmuhni’s secret recipe for making boolgogi-flavored beef jerky.

If you’re not Korean, you may not know about the Korean propensity for beef jerky, which is a popular anju (drinking snack). Koreans returning from America used to fill their giant luggage with enough coffee, make-up and beef jerky to bring back to their waiting family back home.

Now that there are Costco stores in Korea and beef jerky is more easily accessible, we don’t have to pack as much dried meat for the journey home, but we still do love the smoky, salty, spicy dried stuff.

Go•ggi (which means “meat” in Korean) is a dried beef round seasoned like boolgogi (sweet, salty with a bit of spice). Robert found a factory in New Mexico to make it like his grandma used to make it and now you can try that homemade taste, too.

It sells for about $9 to $10 for a 2-ounce package mostly in New York, with select markets in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and California with wider distribution coming, hopefully, soon. You can see the full list here.

Photos courtesy of Go•ggi.

I had heard about the drinking vinegar craze in Korea for a few years now. And I’ve finally gotten a chance to taste some of them at the Fancy Food Show last week.

For those of you who’ve never heard of drinking vinegars, it’s not a new fad at all. In fact, it’s actually old world and people have been drinking vinegar for its supposedly healthful benefits for centuries. From balsamic vinegar downed by the Romans to fruit vinegars used as mixers in the South during prohibition, drinking vinegars (also called “shrubs”) spans different cultures and time boundaries.

In Korea, they’ve been touting them as anti-oxidants, cleansing agents and digestive aids for the past few years.

The Korean versions come in flavors like persimon (gamsikcho), pomegranate, black raspberry, blueberry and others. The black vinegar is called “heuksikcho” and any number of the red berry or pomegranate flavors are labeled “hongcho” or “hongsikcho.” They are delightfully tangy and not so sour to make you pucker.

You’re not supposed to drink them straight, but diluted with some ice water, hot water, seltzer or even used as an ingredient for mixed drinks. Korean also mix it with milk to make a “yogeureauteu”-type drink, as well.

Toby Cecchini even wrote about drinking vinegars in the New York Times Magazine last year.

He suggests making your own by soaking your choice of fruit in a good quality apple cider or wine vinegar for about a week; adding some sugar, boiling for an hour, straining and keeping the bottle in the fridge for months.

I haven’t taken to making my own yet and I’m skeptical about the health benefits. However, I did find the drinking vinegars to be a refreshing alternative to heavily sweet juices or corn syrup-laden mixers.

Here in America, we can find them in Korean, Chinese or Japanese markets. Or go crazy and make your own. Even if they’re not good for you, they’re pretty dang tasty and they couldn’t hurt.

Now that summer is officially here, I wanted to share with you my favorite gimchi to make when it’s hot — Oi Gimchi!

(The lovely photo is by Julie Toy.)

It’s a refreshingly light gimchi for the hot weather and goes so nicely with galbi and other grilled meats.

Since I live walking distance to a largely Middle Eastern market, I’ve been making them with Persian cucumbers, which are thinner and slightly sweeter than the Korean oi. Dare I say it? They’re almost better than the Korean cucumbers. I’ll have to make another batch, just to be sure.

But for now, you can see the full recipe from my last cookbook, Quick and Easy Korean Cooking, on Epicurious.com

Happy Summer, everyone! Stay cool like a cucumber.

I know you’ve all been waiting with baited breath for the update of my Frommer’s South Korea guide. Ha ha.

It’s officially out (as of today!).

I tried to squeeze in more fun stuff — like the farm for dwenjang, herbal markets in the mountains, secret beaches, tasty restaurants (like the one where the chef makes jjajangmyeon noodles by hand!), wild tea fields and more.

I really do hope you make a trip to Korea soon and see the gorgeous scenery (like the one on the front cover!). You can order a copy of the guide on Amazon by clicking here

When most Korean mothers tell their kids that they’re making mandu and to come get some, you don’t expect to have to make it yourself. Not my mom. Not only is she not even there when I go to pick up the mandu, but there’s just a giant tub of filling in the refrigerator and not even any mandu skins (pi) to be seen. So, I have to make a special trip to the market to get some mandu skins. So, I went home, put on some good music, and spent an evening making mandu.

I always prepare everything in advance before I sit down: the filling, the skins, the right-sized spoon, a cold bowl of water and a tray to hold the finished mandu.

You start by spooning enough filling for the middle of the skin, but not too much that it gets overstuffed.

Then, you dip your finger in the water and wet about 60% of the edges (you want to do more than 1/2 since when you put in the folds, you’ll end up using more than half the skin edge. The water helps seal the skin and keep the folds together.

Then you take your thumb and forefingers of both hands to make the ripples, poking with the forefinger of your right hand as you pinch with your left. You’ll get the hang of it as you practice.

Once you’ve made all the ripples, make sure the mandu is completely sealed and pinch together parts that aren’t. Repeat until you’ve used up all the filling or run out of skins.

If you have extra skins, you can just make fried wonton strips or make crispy mandu with just a little bit of filling. If you have too much filling leftover, you can make small, flat half-dollar-sized rounds, dust them in flour, dip them in egg batter and have a different jun.

My mom laughs because she says that my mandu look like a machine made them. Here they are in a row:

I guess she’s right. The do look terribly machine stamped, don’t they? It’s funny b/c my mom is the one who taught me how to make mandu. It’s just that I’ve made so many thousands in my life (As you can see, my mom just makes me the filling and I have to make them myself), I got pretty good at it.

So, once you have all your mandu laid out on a tray, stick them in the freezer for a couple of hours. Once they’re solid, you can put them in a large zipper bag and they won’t stick together. Then, you’ll have plenty of dumplings for future bowls of mandu gook (dumpling soup) or mandu twigim (fried mandu).

Enjoy!

One of my favorite holidays in Korea is the “Day the Buddha Came ” (or Buddha’s Birthday, for short), which is celebrated with the Lotus Lantern Festival.

All of the Buddhist temples throughout the country will be celebrating on Friday May 21st with a lantern-lighting ceremony when the sun goes down.

In Seoul, there will be performances, a street festival and a lantern parade. The parade will be in Jongno on the evening of Sunday, May 16th). The Dharma service and the lantern lighting will be at Jongyesa. You can even learn how to make the paper lotus lanterns and see the beautiful lights floating on the Han River.

It’s like Xmas for the Buddha, except no trees, no presents and no fat man in a red suit.

You can see the full schedule here.

Directions: Take subway line 3 to Anguk station or line 1 to Jong-gak station to get to Insadong and Jongyesa.

I’ve been a proponent of fresh tofu and soymilk for years, so I was thrilled to get an inside look at the Hodo Soy Beanery.

Located in a non-descript building in the industrial part of Oakland, this artisan tofu-maker creates warm soymilk, fresh tofu and smooth yuba (a.k.a. tofu skin or dried bean curd) to be sold at farmer’s markets and select restaurants in the Bay Area.

After watching a brief video about soy production, we were each handed a bowl of fresh soymilk straight from the vat. Like drinking delicate silk, I felt the impurities wash from my body with each gulp of the creamy beverage.

Then, we put on hairnets and the usual accoutrements to enter the factory floor. It was a quiet Monday and the inviting scent of organic soybeans rushed into our nostrils, as the workers diligently went about their business.

Soy production is labor intensive when it’s done right.

Take for instance the making of yuba. If you’ve ever tried packaged dried bean curd from a regular store, you haven’t really tried tofu skin. The yuba, the thin skin that forms on top of heated soymilk, is considered the best form of soy, not only for its nutritional content, but for its wonderful texture. Watching the layers form over shallow pans of soymilk and seeing each sheet individually picked up and dried by hand, I came to appreciate the work involved. But tasting the fresh yuba, right off the line, transformed my idea of what tofu skin could be. I had visions of stir-frys and delicious food experiments I could make with this silky stuff. Ah, if only I lived in the Bay Area.

Hodo’s yuba and soymilk are made from just two ingredients: soybeans and filtered water. Their sweetened milk just has a bit of cane sugar added, for those who like their soymilk that way. And they get their soybeans honest and organic from small farmers in the Midwest.

Lucky San Franciscans can get their share of Hodo’s tasty soy products at certain groceries, farmer’s markets and from such restaurants, like the Slanted Door.

You, too, can experience a tour and tasting of the Beanery in Oakland on select Wednesday. You won’t be able to go onto the production floor, but you can learn about tofu making, watch the soy products being made through the see-through glass and (the best part!) sample fresh soymilk, tofus, yuba and more.

Get tickets in advance on their website. $10 pp for 1 hour.

I swear, if you’ve never had fresh soy products before, you’ll be transformed!

I’m making a rare East Coast appearance and teaching a cooking class at the Korea Society in New York on Friday, April 2nd.

I’ll be demonstrating recipes from my latest book, Quick and Easy Korean Cooking.

The recipes you’ll get to learn (and did I mention, taste?) are: Pa Jeon (savory green onion flatcakes), Ddukbokgi (a spicy snack made with rice cake sticks), and Yachae Gooksu (colorful vegetables mixed with somen noodles).

Here’s the scoop:

Friday, April 02, 2010

5:45 PM Registration and Sign-in
6:00 PM Cooking demo and tasting

The Korea Society
950 Third Avenue @ 57th Street, 8th Floor
(Building entrance on SW corner of Third Avenue and 57th Street)

$25 for members and students; $30 for nonmembers
($35 for walk-in registration, but the class will most likely sell out, so you’ll want to reserve early)
[Note: This is an excellent deal, since I usually charge double this for a class AND I rarely teach on the east coast.]

For more info, contact Natalee Newcombe at 212-759-7525, ext. 328 or register on the Korea Society website.

Although Korea has developed into a modern society, traces of its agricultural past can be seen in so much of the culture and traditions.

Take for instance the celebration of the first full moon of the year, Daeboreum, which falls on the 15th day of the first month of the lunar year. This year, it was yesterday, Sunday, February 28th.

People would share “o-gokbap” (5-grain rice) with their neighbors. They believed that sharing it with at least 3 other households would bring good luck through the year (or maybe it just felt like good luck because your neighbors were being nice to you!).

It was a way for people to clear out their larders (of all those dried beans and grains and dried herbs to make room for the spring). That’s why we also eat “yakshik” (a kind of “dduk” made from glutinous rice, pine nuts, chest nuts, sesame oil and honey), another way to clear out the cabinets from winter storage.

After they ate the o-bokbap and vegetables/herbs, they fed it to their animals. If the animals went for the rice, it meant that it was going to be a prosperous year for the farm, but if they ate the vegetables first, it was going to be a lean year (I don’t know why they just didn’t give the animals the rice first, or maybe smart farmers did!)

Farmers also set the dried grasses and weeds on fire (to rid their fields of pests). In Jeju-do, they still have a special bonfire celebration for the Daeboreum.

It’s also considered good luck to be the first to see the full moon rise, so you may see flocks of Koreans climbing mountains at sundown to catch a glimpse of the glowing orb.

Another good luck ritual was to crack nuts with your teeth, because people thought that it would keep one’s teeth healthy for a year and prevent skin problems. (Thank goodness that superstition has gone by the wayside.) But people still give each other walnuts and other hard-shelled nuts as new year’s gifts.

My mom brought over some of that healthy rice and yachae (dried herbs and vegetables) We made bibimbap (mixed rice) with it before we went out to go look at the rabbit pounding rice on the full moon.

The last time I was in Seoul, I wanted to get Korean vegetable seeds to take back home to Los Angeles (probably a touch on the illegal side, but I’m only growing them to eat).

After asking around and doing some research I found some nice nurseries and seed shops in the Dongdaemun area. I went to a store, called “Aram,” where they cultivate the seeds directly. The owner was really nice and helped me pick out plants to bring home to my humble garden.

Here are some of the packets:

I chose a hobak (squash), some sangchu (lettuce), baechu (Korean napa cabbage), altalimu a.k.a. yulmu (ponytail radish), ggaetnip (perilla), oi (cucumber) and she even threw in a geundae (some type of chard) packet. I though some of the packets were pricey at W3,000 each (about $3), but when I opened them up, there were enough seeds to populate an entire field!

I just put them in seed trays (recycled egg cartons) on Monday and am eagerly waiting for the little sprouts to poke their heads out of the dirt.

I’ll occasionally post pix and updates as the little plants progress. Last year, I had way too many tomatoes, so I’m trying to vary things up a bit this year.

Now if the rains could just stop a bit so I can dig up the weeds in the front yard and prepare the beds for planting. But we rarely get so much rain, so I can’t really complain.