Korean Food and Recipes
AeHoBak BokkEum (애호박 볶음) is a simple Korean side dish. The natural zucchini flavor shines in this dish with a hint of the garlic, green onions, salt, sesame oil, and sesame seeds. This is a common flavor that you can taste in Korean dishes. It is good when added to bibimbap.
Yield: 1 Pint
TteokGuk (떡국) is a traditional Korean New Year soup. Korean people celebrate the Lunar New Year, and this soup is the main dish for that holiday meal. On New Year’s morning, we wear HanBok (Korean traditional clothes) and greet (bow) our grandparents, parents, or relatives. Older people give a blessing for the New Year to their children along with some money called “SaeBatDon” (새뱃돈). After greeting the older people, family and relatives eat breakfast together. The meal will have New Year’s soup, different kinds of vegetable dishes, fish, jeon, japvchae, galbi jjim, and so on. Since Koreans calculate their age according to New Year, and not according to their actual birthday, eating the bowl of New Year soup on New Year’s Day means becoming one year older. It might sound a little crazy. Sometime we joke, “I don’t want to eat more than one bowl of New Year’s soup, otherwise I would become more than one year older.” hehe
Yield: 2 Servings
In Korea, we love to grill marinated meat (beef, pork, or chicken). There are two main flavors for marinated meat. One is spicy, which uses mainly red pepper paste. The other one is sweet & salty which is similar to a BBQ flavor. That type uses mainly soy sauce, pear, honey, sugar, apple, kiwi, and etc. Many restaurants have indoor grills at each table so that customers can grill their own meat themselves and enjoy the fresh cooked flavor. Today, I will show you a very popular marinated meat dish called GalBi. It takes time to marinate the meat, but otherwise, it is very simple and easy to make. You can freeze some of the marinated meat to grill at a later time. Enjoy! 😀
Yield: 3 Servings
Porridge (죽) is a common dish for patients, babies, or just normal people in Korea. When somebody feels sick or gets an operation, they eat porridge since it is easier to digest. Porridge can bring back your taste when you do not feel like eating anything. There are so many different kinds of porridge using nuts, grains, seafood, vegetables, beef, or chicken. Some porridge will be sweet like hobak juk (pumpkin porridge) or pat juk (red bean porridge) and some will be very healthy like GgaeJuk (black sesame seed porridge) or JatJuk (pine nut porridge). There are some restaurants that specialize in porridge. Today, I will show you how to make one of my favorite porridges, DakJuk (chicken porridge). You might be familiar with SamGaeTang (Korean chicken rice soup) if you know about Korean food. This chicken porridge tastes similar to SamGaeTang, but it skips some of ingredients that could be difficult to find, such as ginseng, dried dates, etc. This has very simple ingredients, but it still has great flavor. The secret for the great taste is good broth, so I highly recommend that you to boil chicken with the skin and bones to get the broth, and not use broth from a can or chicken stock. 😉
Yield: 2 Servings
SuJaeBi (수제비) is a traditional Korean soup made with flour dough and vegetables. Since I posted many~~ spicy foods so far, I’ll show a non-spicy Korean dish. This dish shows that not all Korean foods are spicy. hehe… Today I will use kelp and anchovies for the broth, but you also use clams or kimchi (or other spicy seasonings.) I like SuJaeBi with clam the most, but I didn’t get the chance to make it this time. Maybe next time… 🙂 On a rainy day, cook SuJaeBi and eat it while watching the rain, it tastes better that way. 😉 (Sometimes Korean people want to eat certain Korean dishes on rainy days such as SuJaeBi or Jeon or BuChimGae.)
Yield: 3 Servings
If you go to a Korean restaurant, you might have tried this spicy Korean soup or at least saw it on the menu. It is a popular Korean soup for people who like spicy food. Cooking different kinds of vegetables in homemade beef broth, along with a spicy sauce, will give you great soup flavor. In Korea, if somebody dies, we visit the funeral house to morn the dead person and comfort the family. They usually start getting visitors for 2 or 3 days before the funeral and they serve food to the guests. Nowadays, this is one of Korea’s funeral foods. I don’t know why, but it is… Of course, we enjoy eating this soup other times as well, especially in cold weather.
Yield: 6 Servings
Yield: ⅔ Quart
MaeUn OJingEo BokkEum (매운 오징어 볶음) is a spicy fried squid dish. This can be used as both a side dish or as a main dish. As a main dish, you put it on top of your rice, or thin boiled noodles. Then mix the fried squid with rice or noodles and eat. Sometimes you can eat it with boiled bean sprouts (KongNaMul) instead of noodles. If you really like spicy food, this recipe might not be that spicy for you, so add more red pepper paste and red pepper powder.
Yield: 2 Servings
This is a healthy Korean side dish made with mung bean sprouts. It is similar with the bean sprout side dish (Kong NaMul, 콩나물); however, mung bean sprouts are more perishable than other vegetables, so it is best to eat this dish right after you make it. You can keep it in the refrigerator for a day or two. Since it will get a lot of water after you make this dish, it is important to add salt and set it aside for sometime, and squeeze the water out later.
Yield: 1 Pint
JapChae (잡채) is a traditional Korean holiday food. You need special Cellophane Noodles called “Dang Myun” in Korean. The way to cook this food is a little complex but the delicious taste will reward your time and effort for cooking. If you are a vegetarian, you can skip the beef. 😀
Yield: 4 Servings
