Korean Food and Recipes
There are many different kinds of kimchi, and Koreans eat kimchi everyday. There are even songs about kimchi such as “I Can’t Live Without Kimchi.” Moms love to have a good kimchi refrigerator. Today I will post the most common kimchi, “napa cabbage kimchi.” Kimchi is a dish of fermented vegetables with various seasonings. It is a traditional dish in Korea.
Yield: 1 Gallon
In Korea, napa cabbage (BaeChu) is used in making the most common type of kimchi. It is the main ingredient of baechu kimchi, but is also eaten raw as a wrap for pork or oysters, dipped in gochujang. The outer, tougher leaves are called ugeoji, and used in soups.
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
Kongnamul is a seasoned side-dish made from soybean sprouts as well as being a term for the sprouts themselves. It is one of the most common side-dishes, as well as a basic ingredient of bibimbap. After bean skins and the very end of the tails are removed, the sprouts are boiled. Drained sprouts are then seasoned with sesame oil, salt, chopped green onions, sesame seeds, minced garlic, and a sprinkle of chili powder.
In South Korea, Taro is called ToRan (토란) meaning “egg from earth”, and the corm is stewed and the leaf stem is stir-fried. Taro roots can be used for medicinal purposes, particularly for curing insect bites. I tried to find this in Korean stores here (USA) but I couldn’t. My mom sent this to me from Korea. I tried to think of what kind of vegetables you can substitute for this, if you can’t find it. When I consider the texture, I recommend oyster mushroom or Enokitake mushroom. Those substitutes are especially good when making the Korean soup YukGaeJang.
In East Asia, Pteridium aquilinum (fernbrake or bracken fiddleheads) is eaten as a vegetable. In Korea, a typical banchan (small side dish) is GoSaRi-NaMul (고사리나물) that consists of prepared fernbrake that has been sauteed. It is a component of the popular dish BiBimBap.
In Korea, slightly cooked mung bean sprouts, called SukJu NaMul (숙주나물), are often served as a side dish. They are placed into boiling water for less than a minute, immediately cooled down in cold water, and mixed with sesame oil, garlic, salt, and often other ingredients.
My mother-in-law baked delicious Christmas cookies: Snickerdoodle, Chocolate Chip, Pecan Tassie, and Mexican Wedding Cake. It was great because I could learn how to make them from her and have fun. Everything tasted good. I said I don’t like sweet things in my introduction, but oops, I ate the cookies again and again until we finished the tin of cookies in just 2 days. Either my taste is changing or my mother-in-law’s cookies are too good. hehe 😉 We got cookies from her with that cute cookie tin. Thanks Mom!! Wow, in only 2 days, its Christmas. I hope everyone will have a great holiday with their family and friends. I also hope people enjoy not only this holiday season, but also remember the true meaning of Christmas and poor people around us. Merry Christmas!!! 😀
It would be weird to hear that somebody doesn’t like kimchi or kimchi soup in Korea, except for maybe young kids. Of course once they grow up, they like it. Kimchi is the most famous Korean food. It is thought to be one of the healthiest foods in the world. Like some other Korean food, there are different types of kimchi soup, depending on the ingredients: tofu, tuna, pork, bean sprout, etc. Today, I will post one of them, tuna kimchi soup.
Yield: 3 Servings
