Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bean sprouts, Easy Korean food, healthy Korean food
Lee Dong Sun
This dish is something I like to cook for my family, especially for my father because he likes spicy food. The preparation is more work than the actual cooking so get some help from the family – like I did!
This is my four year old niece, Yu-Jin. She is cute and she likes helping me to cook. Here we are preparing the bean sprouts by cutting the ends off.
The bean sprouts should look like this when you are done. Bean sprouts are good for detoxing so Korean people often eat them when they are hung over.
The next step is the sauce – the most important part. Mix red pepper paste, red pepper, soy sauce, sugar, crushed ginger and garlic and black pepper. The garlic and ginger deodorizes the smell of the pork belly.
Chop garlic, green and red chilli pepper and spring onion. Koreans like spicy food so these ingredients almost always feature in Korean food.
Cut the pork belly into large chunks. Pork is much cheaper than beef so Korean people eat it often. 600grams of meat is enough for four or five people.
Now you have to layer the ingredients into a big pan. Start with the bean sprouts, then the meat, onions and the sauce goes on top. You don’t need any oil so thisdish is also healthy.
Cover the pan with a lid and cook on medium heat for 8 minutes.
Add the garlic, peppers, spring onion and sesame leaf. Usually we wrap the meat in the sesame leaf but this time it must be cooked together with all the other ingredients.
Mix all the ingredients together while cooking for another 5 minutes on medium heat. Serve with rice and some Korean side dishes like kimchi.
Mani deusaeyeo!
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bokkeumpap, Korean food, South Africa, tteokbokki, ulleungdo
Gung Jung Tteokbokki
What is there to do on a Saturday night when you live in a small town? The simple delicious answer to this is, have dinner at your friend’s house.
Every weekend on Ulleungdo I’m in this situation and tonight I found myself at a new friend’s house. I met Lee Dong Sun a few days ago at our Wednesday afternoon art class where we made plans to meet up this weekend.
As the last bus from her town Namnyang, back to Dodong, where I live was at 7:40 pm we had to make it an early dinner. I got to her apartment before 5pm and she had already prepared everything before.
The main dish was the tangy and sweet Gung Jung Tteokbokki (Stir-fried Korean rice cake with meat and vegetables).
Dong Sun chose this for the menu as it’s not too spicy and it’s a traditional Korean dish.
The first step is to make the sauce, which is made up of sesame oil, sugar, garlic, soy sauce, black pepper and spring onion. Once these have been reduced to make a sauce, put it aside.
Then heat sesame oil and spring onion, so it can flavor the oil. Quickly fry julienne carrots, mushroom, onion, red and green pepper, pork and lastly the tteokbokki (rice cake). Just before it’s done add the sauce and let it coat the meat and vegetables. Toss in some sesame seeds to finish.
“It’s easy to make and very healthy,” said Dong Sun who makes this dish very often.
Ham Bokkeumpap Hearts
Besides the normal variety of exotic Korean side dishes she also made some pretty bokkeumpap (fried rice) hearts. Bokkeumpap is another dish that Dong Sun makes often as it’s a great way to use extra rice.
She combined the rice with ham, mushroom, carrots, onion and black sesame seeds, put the rice into heart moulds and surprise, leftovers filled with love. These dishes are things that I could actually make back home in South Africa, if I could actually find tteokkbokki.
Lee Dong Sun, my new Ulleungdo friend.
The dinner was great and so was Dong Sun’s company, we discovered a mutual love for cooking and amateur food styling. Even though I’m only going to be on Ulleungdo for another two weeks, we are going to cook for each other as many times as we can. Next week is my turn. Wait and see what will be on the menu then!
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: dolphin coast, dolphin meat, fish market, Japanese food, Pohang, South Africa, ulleungdo
Lisa's Japanese Menu
A few days ago my students at Hyunpo Elementary School on Ulleungdo handed in their English homework. After teaching them a lesson about food, I had asked them to make their own English menus for homework. They had to choose a style of food and create a menu of three courses plus drinks.
Some students didn’t put much effort into it but Lisa, a fourth grader tried her best to create a Japanese menu and did use the Internet for research. As you can see it was quite shocking to see that besides teppanyaki she also decided to include dolphin meat as a main course.
When she realised what dolphin meat is she was quite sheepish. All the students promised me that they don’t eat dolphin meat. I want to believe them, even though I have a bad memory of seeing a dolphin being chopped up in the Pohang fish market a year ago.
After explaining to them that we don’t eat dolphins, I told them about how at home it’s so special to see them swimming on South Africa’s beautiful coastline. Despite the outrage, I had to give Lisa some credit for at least trying to do her homework correctly.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Joseon dynasty, Korean food, Myeongi, ulleungdo, Ulleungdo history
Ulleungdo's Myeongi (Mountain Garlic)
In my experience, most of the time when I try some unusual food in Asia it tastes really bad. However, in Korea I have discovered a delicious exception to this norm in Ulleungdo’s wild edible green called Myeongi or in English, mountain garlic. Myeongi looks like spinach but tastes like a pickled leaf. It’s sour tanginess is a perfect combination to the fatty Samgyeopsal (Korean pork barbecue).
In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Joseon Dynasty had an empty island policy due to security concerns from previous invasions. This proved difficult and this policy was abandoned in 1881. When Koreans returned to the island, they initially struggled to find food. The dependable myeongi, which even grows through snow, saved the islanders from malnutrition. Korean tourists leave Ulleungdo with boxes of the stuff. If I could get away with taking it on the plane I would buy some to take home too – it’s that good.
Samgyeopsal (Korean pork barbecue)
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: fuyu, hachiya, Korea, korean pear, persimmon, rooibos, south african pancakes, ulleungdo
Sometimes it’s good to experiment and other times it’s better to stick to what you know. In my case when it comes to pancakes, I still have a lot to learn. I can only just manage the basic thin, cinnamon sugar style passed down from our grandmothers in South Africa. By just managing I mean that only 60% of the batch are edible.
South African cinnamon sugar pancake with banana
Pancakes are so simple yet impossible to master. The stove temperature has to be just right. If too hot they go straight to black with a nice rare doughy texture on the inside. If not hot enough they take forever to cook and then are impossible to flip.
Growing up on most rainy Sunday afternoons my Dad would be in the kitchen churning out one perfect pancake after another. I think the trick is that your first one has to be a flop for the rest to come out right. My brother and I always used to fight over who would get to eat the first dud.
Lately we have been having monsoon-like weather on Ulleungdo, even though it’s almost the start of winter. The grey clouds and wet weather sparked a desire deep down inside for some of these traditional South African treats.
At the moment in Korea it’s also the season for persimmons. My skin has just about turned orange with the amount of persimmons I’ve been eating. The fruit basket was still full of them and I decided to experiment.
Fuyu Persimmon, Ulleung Island Oct 09.
Did you know that there are many kinds of persimmons? The most common one is the Japanese persimmon, also known as the kaki or Asian persimmon in America. This kind looks like a flattened tomato and commonly also goes by the name of fuyu.
Apparently it’s also known as the Korean mango. This last name is ridiculous, the only similarity to the mango is the similar colour. I think Koreans really get it wrong sometimes when naming fruits. Take the Korean pear for example, it looks just like a big apple. Can’t they come up with another name, instead of just choosing a similar fruit and adding Korean to the front of it?
The other kind of persimmon found in Korea is the hachiya. When ripe it’s sweet, and pulp-like on the inside. I decided to use both in my fall pancake experimentation.
Pancake night arrived and I started us off with some of the tried and tested cinnamon style, with a few slices of banana in them. They were simple and delicious.
Now it was the moment I was waiting for, my culinary break through. Possibly, a success story that I could refer to when being interviewed by a food magazine one day, “Yes, I am a genius in the kitchen, inspiration is no problem!”
Hachiya Persimmon. South Korea. Oct 09
Alas, my accidental break through was going to wait for another time as I was bitterly disappointed.
The day before I chopped up the fuyu’s and steamed them in honey, rooibos and ginger tea. These were the filling. Just before the pancakes were ready I made a thick sauce of with the peeled hachiyas, a small orange, some honey, more ginger tea and some red chilli pepper. It wasn’t that bad, but not that great either. Next time I will try fresh ginger and maybe put less on the pancakes. Once again, like with the crazy cakes I can’t get to grips with the idea of less is more.
Despite the disappointment I’m satisfied with my effort. At least I won’t be lying awake at night wondering how this recipe would turn out. Now I know that it needs work and I’m to try again. Until then, I’ll stick to my favourite South African style. After all, why try and fix something if it’s not broken?
The persimmon pancake disappointment. It looks much better than it tasted.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: anyone can cook, cake, cream soda, decorate your own cake, Korea, tiffany blue, Ulleung island
Since I was a little girl I have always been crazy about cake, especially about making my own. When I was very young, my Mom didn’t always have time to help me bake so sometimes she would just buy a plain sponge cake and let me decorate it. I went wild and nobody wanted to eat the cake after I was done with it.
One I remember in particular had bright, cream soda green icing with concentric circles of coconut, raisins, cherries, nuts, coloured sprinkles, silver balls, you name it. Anything that could go on a cake was on this one. I still struggle to embrace the whole “less is more” design theory.
Blue Daisy Thursday Cake
Sometimes I end up making a cake even when I don’t plan to. This is what happened with my Blue Daisy Thursday cake. I initially wanted to make cookies and after the first batch came out the oven the texture was more like cake. Now I was stuck with five cake circles and no cookies. I put the rest of the mixture into a cake pan and used the round cookies for the top.
Blue wasn’t my first choice for the icing but that was the only food colouring in the cupboard. Flashbacks of the cream soda cake reminded me to go easy on the colouring and I tried to go for a pale tiffany blue which goes well with brown, i.e. the chocolate.I love this cake, it’s a little crazy but still looks good enough to eat.
After eating, decorating a cake is my favourite part. I love having control of how it looks, and adding my personal ideas of that time to the cake. Making cakes on Ulleung island (where I’m currently living) is almost impossible as I don’t have an oven.
Improvised Birthday Cake
Nevertheless I was determined to make a cake for my friend’s birthday so I went on a journey to find mini cakes that I could put together.
Koreans love sweet things so I was lucky enough to find some delicious dark chocolate and orange mini cakes and mini meringue cakes which I stuck together with strawberry jam and topped with almonds and chocolate.
The trick to making all the pieces stay together was to put it into the freezer for about an hour. My friend loved it and it was delicious too so double success.
Even if you think you can’t cook, there is always a way to do it. No time to bake a cake? Buy one and decorate it yourself. It adds a personal touch and makes it even more delicious to eat. Remember, “Anyone can cook!”
