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<\/a><\/p>\nIdeally, you leave it to soak in a basin larger than the cabbage itself, but we don’t HAVE a basin larger than even HALF of one of these beasts.<\/p>\n
Once it’s ready, you cook some glutinous rice flour and sugar in water to make a sticky base for the sauce, the rest of which consists of garlic, ginger, onion, fish sauce, fermented shrimp, and a LOT of gochugaru. (Korean red pepper flakes.)\u00a0 Like, a LOT a lot.<\/p>\n
Once the sauce is mixed, you also add in some thinly sliced carrot, green onion, and daikon radish.\u00a0 Also something called “water dropwort,” but in this case the store didn’t have it. And then you get messy!<\/p>\n We mixed that up, smeared it over some nice thinly sliced top sirloin, and that went into the fridge as well.<\/p>\n Saturday, it was time to put everything together, as well as make our side dishes.\u00a0 And for extra special nervous making, we had invited an actual Korean person over to share the meal! For those keeping score at home, this is the third time we have done this – the first two were Brazil and Italy.<\/p>\n As mentioned last week, Korean meals typically have a range of side dishes, or\u00a0banchan<\/em>.\u00a0 If you count rice (you probably shouldn’t) we’d be having three.\u00a0 The only interesting thing to say about the rice is that short-grain sushi rice, like we used last week, appears to be the standard tabletop rice in Korea.<\/p>\n Next up, a nice simple dish with bean sprouts.\u00a0 A quick blanch in boiling water, then mix together with garlic, fish sauce, and sesame oil.\u00a0 Done.<\/p>\n Our final banchan involves potatoes.\u00a0 While potatoes are originally native to the Americas, they are at this point a staple just about everywhere, and that definitely includes Korea.\u00a0 This is another simple one – fry potatoes and onions in oil, and then glaze with soy sauce, garlic, and sugar. (The picture was taken in the “pre-glazing” portion of the program.)<\/p>\n For the very final step, the bulgogi came out of the fridge, and was slapped onto a hot cast iron grill to quickly cook.\u00a0 So quick, that I didn’t even remember to snap a picture.<\/p>\n Given that, let’s skip to the final spread!<\/p>\n Normally, I’d be concerned that she was just being polite, but not this time.\u00a0 We did an excellent job.<\/p>\n You may be wondering about the liquid in the glass.\u00a0 We had not one but TWO Korean beverages available for the meal.<\/p>\n The one on the right is\u00a0Makegolli,<\/em> which is a fermented sparkling rice wine.\u00a0 Our guest was quite surprised that we had a bottle on hand, but it turns out there’s a local store quite close to us that specializes in making the stuff.<\/p>\n They’re also not\u00a0technically<\/em> allowed to sell alcohol for takeaway unless you buy food, because they are not a liquor store.\u00a0 So I bought a scone.\u00a0 They also have a basket of $1 Rice Krispie treats by the door, if you REALLY don’t want to shell out too much extra.<\/p>\n That aside, Makegolli is ALSO delicious.\u00a0 There’s a little chart on the bottle to show how the levels of “sour”, “sparkly” and “sweet” change over time.\u00a0 This was a quite young bottle, so “sweet” was the dominant of the three.<\/p>\n And finally, dessert!\u00a0 These tasty little packages, called\u00a0gyeongdan<\/em>,\u00a0are just rice flour with a little sugar syrup inside, but they were a great conclusion to a hearty meal.<\/p>\n And that’s it for South Korea!\u00a0 We had a wonderful time with our guest, and will be eating leftover kimchi for WEEKS.\u00a0 Next up, we have to decide if we’re doing Kosovo – they’re recognized by more countries than not, but they aren’t on the UN list.<\/p>\n Recipes: If North Korea had a paucity of choices, South Korea is the opposite – there’s so much good stuff that it was hard to narrow it down.\u00a0 Korean Fried Chicken is definitely having a moment, at least in Vancouver – … Continue reading <\/a>
\nOr, at least, you’re SUPPOSED to put in the fermented shrimp, and not just buy them and then leave them in the freezer like an idiot.\u00a0 Sigh. (We added a little bit to the Kimchi right before serving, at the suggestion of our guest.)<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nTo do this right, you have to get in there and smear sauce on each and every cabbage leaf.\u00a0 It takes a while.\u00a0 But once you’re done, that’s it!\u00a0 Kimchi goes into containers on the counter to ferment for a day or two, and then into the fridge.<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nFor our main dish, we’re making bulgogi. Turns out this literally means “fire meat.” Can’t argue with that.\u00a0 But also can’t actually use fire, since we’re on the fourth floor now.\u00a0 But that’s a problem for Saturday us.\u00a0 First, FRIDAY us has to make up a tasty marinade.
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\nObviously, there’s many different recipes.\u00a0 The one we went with included Korean pear, onion, garlic, ginger, green onion, soy sauce, brown sugar, sesame oil, black pepper, and carrot.\u00a0 As it turns out, pureed pear looks EXACTLY like pureed onion, but you don’t want to get those two confused!<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>
\nClockwise from upper left, we have lettuce for wrapping, kimchi, soy sauce potatoes, chewy sweet rice flour desserts that our guest brought, seasoned bean sprouts, bulgogi, and rice.\u00a0 Looks pretty tempting, doesn’t it?\u00a0 Here’s a pile of everything on a plate:<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nOm nom nom.\u00a0 This was SO good.\u00a0 My only complaint would be that I didn’t cook the potatoes long enough, so they were a bit too crunchy.\u00a0 But the flavor of everything was great, and in particular, we\u00a0nailed<\/em> the kimchi.\u00a0 Our guest (who we COMPLETLY FORGOT to take a picture with, as usual) said that she couldn’t believe we had done it ourselves from scratch, and that it was an excellent job.<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nThe one on the left was brought by our guest, and is called Sujeonggwa,\u00a0<\/em>or cinnamon punch.\u00a0 It’s quite sweet, but it tastes of cinnamon and dried persimmon.\u00a0 In other words, it’s fall in a glass.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nKimchi<\/a>
\nBulgogi<\/a>
\nSoy sauce potatoes<\/a>
\nSeasoned mung beans<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"