Korean Food
Just looking at my clustrMaps thingy here, and I see there is a "10+" size dot on what looks to be South Korea. I find that fascinating. South Korea, hmmm? If there is a Korean person looking at my blog, I'd just like to tell them that I love Korean food. Well, at least the stuff I've had. I don't know anything else about Korea.
It's always tricky with "ethnic" food out of context - is it really like the Koreans, for example, eat it? The Korean restaurants we have in Dunedin are run by Korean people I think, and Korean people seem to eat there, so that is a good sign for authenticity. For all you Dunedin people, you should go have some Korean some time. So should anyone else who has a Korean restaurant lying around and hasn't been there before.
If you are a Korean cuisine newby, be warned that, as far as I know, the reason they sell sacks full of chilli flakes in the Asian food shops is so that Koreans can cook their national dishes. Some of the dishes seem to be noodles with chilli flake sauce for example. If you love hot food - go Korean.
However, don't worry, not all of it is that strong, either that or sometimes they be nice to "foreigners". A good introduction is always bibimbap (spelling may vary due to transliteration from Korean script). This is a rice dish with various meat and vegetables and an egg on top, and you mix it all together. It is WAY nicer than it should be by rights, because it is so simple. Chilli sauce is also either provided or put on top of the rice also. All the vegetables and the sauce and so on are arranged nicely in segments on the top so it looks pretty, with the egg in the middle. The reason I recommend this to timid people is that the ingredients are not too odd (other than some seaweed and pickled vegetables, but nothing too scary) and you control the chilli.
My favourite is budae pot stew (of course, the Western influenced dish) which is kimchi (pickled chilli cabbage - yummy) and sausage, pork, ham and noodles in some kind of soup-type base, sometimes with rice cakes or whatever in it too, with chilli flakes of course :) It is super yummy. Incidentally, it is like a Korean chilli version of the Polish dish bigos, with is pickled non-chilli cabbage and pork, ham, other meats, in a stew, with no chilli, but some pepper. I also go for the other kimchi and tofu stews.
There is one soup that is delicious, I think it is called yuk-gae-jang, approximately, but it is really hot and spicy; too much for me. Sometimes you can get it as an entree size. It is a spicy beef soup. I can't remember what I got on my birthday, but I decided to be adventurous and get a set meal that involved a whole fried fish. Like, a whole (small) fish, including head. Ha ha, that was fun.
Other good things to try are the kimchi pancake (you can guess what that is) and sweet bean buns, which are not for everyone. They are white bun things, I think boiled, with red bean paste inside. They aren't actually sweet by modern Western standards (the sweet refers to the bean). They seem to be cooked on paper in the pot, so remember to pull this off the bottom and not eat it. They are always very hot when they come out of the kitchen, so careful of burnt fingers :)
You also tend to get the pickled cabbage kimchi with a meal, and sometimes other kimchi accompaniments (because kimchi really means something a bit like "pickle", so it is any pickled vegetable, as well as specifically the cabbage one).
This is a website I found a while ago, Korean food at the Seoul Metropolitan Government site. I think we can trust them as an authority on these things. It tells you a bit about what some of the foods are, in case your menu doesn't provide descriptions. Of course the only one on there I've had or really heard of is bibimbap...
One useful word is "chigae" which seems to be the stew type things, like the one I mentioned is sometimes called "budae chigae".
You can easily find Korean recipes on the web, some a little confusing because English is the writer's second language, but usually quite good. Strangely I had real difficulty when I was looking a year or two ago finding anything I had had at the restaurants. All the sites had totally different types of food.
I've made budae pot stew and tuna pot stew (chigae), with my own variations - like using miso-soup as the base, a bit like you might use stock. Sometimes Korean restaurants will sell you the kimchi if you can't find it in Asian food shops. I've also made Korean dumplings (as annoying to make as any other dumpling - see my "Wigilia" post about pierogi, etc) and kimchi pancake and bibimbap.
If anyone has any Korean recipes or tips or anything to share, leave a comment :)
It's always tricky with "ethnic" food out of context - is it really like the Koreans, for example, eat it? The Korean restaurants we have in Dunedin are run by Korean people I think, and Korean people seem to eat there, so that is a good sign for authenticity. For all you Dunedin people, you should go have some Korean some time. So should anyone else who has a Korean restaurant lying around and hasn't been there before.
If you are a Korean cuisine newby, be warned that, as far as I know, the reason they sell sacks full of chilli flakes in the Asian food shops is so that Koreans can cook their national dishes. Some of the dishes seem to be noodles with chilli flake sauce for example. If you love hot food - go Korean.
However, don't worry, not all of it is that strong, either that or sometimes they be nice to "foreigners". A good introduction is always bibimbap (spelling may vary due to transliteration from Korean script). This is a rice dish with various meat and vegetables and an egg on top, and you mix it all together. It is WAY nicer than it should be by rights, because it is so simple. Chilli sauce is also either provided or put on top of the rice also. All the vegetables and the sauce and so on are arranged nicely in segments on the top so it looks pretty, with the egg in the middle. The reason I recommend this to timid people is that the ingredients are not too odd (other than some seaweed and pickled vegetables, but nothing too scary) and you control the chilli.
My favourite is budae pot stew (of course, the Western influenced dish) which is kimchi (pickled chilli cabbage - yummy) and sausage, pork, ham and noodles in some kind of soup-type base, sometimes with rice cakes or whatever in it too, with chilli flakes of course :) It is super yummy. Incidentally, it is like a Korean chilli version of the Polish dish bigos, with is pickled non-chilli cabbage and pork, ham, other meats, in a stew, with no chilli, but some pepper. I also go for the other kimchi and tofu stews.
There is one soup that is delicious, I think it is called yuk-gae-jang, approximately, but it is really hot and spicy; too much for me. Sometimes you can get it as an entree size. It is a spicy beef soup. I can't remember what I got on my birthday, but I decided to be adventurous and get a set meal that involved a whole fried fish. Like, a whole (small) fish, including head. Ha ha, that was fun.
Other good things to try are the kimchi pancake (you can guess what that is) and sweet bean buns, which are not for everyone. They are white bun things, I think boiled, with red bean paste inside. They aren't actually sweet by modern Western standards (the sweet refers to the bean). They seem to be cooked on paper in the pot, so remember to pull this off the bottom and not eat it. They are always very hot when they come out of the kitchen, so careful of burnt fingers :)
You also tend to get the pickled cabbage kimchi with a meal, and sometimes other kimchi accompaniments (because kimchi really means something a bit like "pickle", so it is any pickled vegetable, as well as specifically the cabbage one).
This is a website I found a while ago, Korean food at the Seoul Metropolitan Government site. I think we can trust them as an authority on these things. It tells you a bit about what some of the foods are, in case your menu doesn't provide descriptions. Of course the only one on there I've had or really heard of is bibimbap...
One useful word is "chigae" which seems to be the stew type things, like the one I mentioned is sometimes called "budae chigae".
You can easily find Korean recipes on the web, some a little confusing because English is the writer's second language, but usually quite good. Strangely I had real difficulty when I was looking a year or two ago finding anything I had had at the restaurants. All the sites had totally different types of food.
I've made budae pot stew and tuna pot stew (chigae), with my own variations - like using miso-soup as the base, a bit like you might use stock. Sometimes Korean restaurants will sell you the kimchi if you can't find it in Asian food shops. I've also made Korean dumplings (as annoying to make as any other dumpling - see my "Wigilia" post about pierogi, etc) and kimchi pancake and bibimbap.
If anyone has any Korean recipes or tips or anything to share, leave a comment :)
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