My Kimchi 김치

I have spent a lot of time in Seoul over the years, and I have fell in love totally in Korean food, especially kimchis. Yes, I have used plural on word "kimchi", since there are large variety of diffrent kind of kimchis, not just that one people thinks.

Baechu kimchi is the one that everyone will know when you mention "kimchi". It’s made of salted and rinsed cabbages whose leaves have been packed and coated with a mixture of cochugaru, onion, garlic, ginger, green onions, and fish sauce (or shrimp or oysters). It’s then put into a container to ferment during storage and can be kept for months or even longer in the fridge.  Everyone has their favorite stage of baechu kimchi fermentation; it can be eaten fresh and is juicy and delicious when newly made, but, as it ages, it becomes more sour and better fermented. Some old men claim that kimchi cannot rotten at all, but I'n not convinced yet.

After year or so, my Korean business mates started to tease me, how korean I have become. Well, the main reason, I think, was the fact that I ate like korean people and already at time I had gathered a lot information about the korean dishes.  They also laughed that "She really knows her kimchi...". After few years, I got the biggest complement I could imagine, from my korean friends. I got the recipe of Baechu kimchi from my business mate's grandma. It was in korean originally, and I made huge work to translate it in finnish, and now it is available in english too. For me, this one is the authentic recipe, and I have used it ever since.

Baechu Kimchi (김치)
1 napa cabbage
100 g salt
1 l water
1 tbsp sweet rice flour
50 ml cochugaru
4 tsp korean fish sauce
½ korean pear (=Pyrus pyrifolia)
3 green onions
1/4 medium sized onion
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 tsp of ginger, minced

Dissolve salt in water. You might need to heat the water to dissolve all salt. Cut the napa cabbage in half (lengthwise) and soak in salt water for 6 hours to overnight. Once the cabbage is soft, remove from salt water and rinse thoroughly. Chop up the cabbage approx. 3 cm wide strips.
To make the paste, add the sweet rice flour and one cup of water to a pot. Put over medium heat and continue to stir until thickened (about 5 mins). Transfer paste to a large bowl and add the cochugaru and fish sauce. Mix well and let the paste cool. Add pear, green onions, onions, garlic, and ginger to the paste and mix.
Massage paste into the cabbage and store in a jar. Let it set in room temperature for few hours to overnight, and move to fridge. Serve immediately if you like fresh kimchi. If you like it more fermented, wait until it fits your tastes. For me, after one week, it is perfectly fermented.

Ps. Whenever you take out any kimchi, press down the remaining kimchi and submerge in the liquid or the kimchi will become very bitter and change flavor.

Korean stir fry glass noodles, Japchae, 잡채

When I visited first time in Korea, I ate noodles which were different, but amazingly delicious. Some time later I found out that the dish I loved so much is made of sweet potato starch noodles, and it is called Japchae, 잡채, Korean stir fry glass noodles. This dish can be eaten as a main course, side dish or appetizer, I usually prepare this as a side dish, or banchan as they say in Korea.

Japchae can be done either vegetarian version or with meat, usually beef. The noodles itself are called Dang-myeon. They have a unique and pleasant texture, and don't feel heavy like flour-based pastas.

Japchae 
For 4 person
150 g glass noodles (dang-myeon)
½ onion  
1 carrot (medium size)
50 g shiitake mushrooms
50 g spinach
1 clove of garlic finely chopped
1 tbsp vegetable oil
Salt, black pepper to taste 
Seasoning
4 tbsp soy sause
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp garlic (minced)
2 tbsp sesame oil
1 tsp sesame seeds

Make the seasoning by mixing all ingredients together.
Peel the carrot and onion and julienne them. Slice the mushrooms. 
Boil nice amount of water and add noodles, cook 6 minutes. Rinse glass noodles twice in cold water. Drain all the water out using a strainer.
Coat a frying pan with 1vegetable oil. Sauté carrot and onion 2-3 minutes, add mushrooms and continue cooking until they are tender. Add spinach.
Add noodles and pour the seasoning sauce into the glass noodles and mix well.
Sauté the glass noodles mixture on medium heat until all the noodles are warm.
Sprinkle sesame seeds as a garnish. Enjoy!

Sushi or Kimbap? Which I made?

Sushi is very familiar to most of the people nowadays, and korean food starts to be. I have eaten sushi many times in Korea, but as many, I have eaten kimbap. And they are both so delicious there. Unfortunately I have never had a change to eat sushi, or anything, in Japan, but hopefully that will change soon. I like them both, and today I couldn't choose which I wanted more, so I made seaweed rolls inspired by both of them.

But what is difference between sushi and kimbap? They are both basically rolls of rice wrapped in a sheet of nori seaweed.

The only rule for kimbap seems to be that it be some kind of rice wrapped in seaweed. The rice is usually steamed medium grain white rice, but it can also contain other types of rice.The rice is usually flavored with salt and sesame oil. The one rule for sushi rolls is that the rice itself is flavored with rice vinegar, salt and sugar. The term sushi itself refers to this vinegar-flavored rice. If the rice is not flavored with that vinegar mix, it's not considered to be sushi even if it's wrapped up in nori.

I made sushi rice but I wrapped very kimbapy ingredients in seaweed. So I really can't tell you which one I had...

Seaweed Rolls
for 2 persons
Sushi rice
2 sheets of gim (=nori)
1 small carrot pickled
1 thin omelette
5 cm piece cucumber cut in stripes
wasabi to taste

Place a sheet of gim on a bamboo mat with the shiny side down. Evenly spread half of the sushi rice over top of it, leaving about 2-3 cm uncovered on upper side of the gim.
Place wasabi, pickled carrot, omelette stripesand cucumber in the center of the rice.
Roll the mat (along with gim and rice) over the fillings.

***

Sushi Rice
250 g sushi rice
330 ml water
Seasoning
30 ml rice wine vineger
35 g sugar
5 g salt

Rinse the rice in a strainer or colander until the water runs clear, 3-4 times. Combine with water in a pan. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to low, cover and cook for 10 minutes. Remove heat and let it stay 25-30 minutes. Do not open the lid.
In a small saucepan, combine the rice wine vinegar, sugar and salt. Cook over medium heat until the sugar dissolves. Cool, then stir into the cooked rice slowly. Do not crush the rice but stir it very gently. Keep stirring and the rice will dry as it cools.
If you are not use rice immediately, let it stay in room temperature, covered with wet cloth.

Pickled carrots
1 small carrot
3 tbsp rice wine vinegar
½ tbsp sugar
½ salt

Peel carrot and cut it "julienne".
Mix all other ingredients together. Stir until sgar and salt are totally dissolved. Add carrot sticks and let them marinade at least an hour.

Thin omelette
2 small eggs
salt

Crack eggs in a bowl and add salt. Beat it with fork.
Drizzle a few drops of oil on a heated pan. Wipe off the excess with a paper towel so only a thin sheen of oil remains. Turn down the heat to low and pour the egg mixture into the pan. Spread it into a large circle so it fills the pan.When the bottom of the egg is cooked, flip it over. Remove from the heat and let it cook slowly in the hot pan for about 5 minutes, with the ultimate goal of keeping the egg as yellow as possible, and not brown.
Cut it into 1 cm wide strips.

My style Kimchi Jjigae (Korean kimchi stew)

Me and my colleague found quite a while ago small, very authentic, restaurant near our hotel at Seoul. The place was little frowzy, but we decided to enter anyway. And I'm glad we did!

All menus were on Korean, and at that time we didn't have that much experince of Korean food, and reading the korean hangul was not that smooth yet. Well, we asked from the waiter what we should take, and he recommended the Kimchi jjigae (김치찌개). We got big steaming and bubbling stew to our table over the flame. It was so hot but we couldn't keep our chopstick and spoons off it. I loved it immediately, and so would you. If you like spicy food...

Kimchi stew is warm, hearty, spicy, savory, delicious dish and one of the most-loved of all the stews in Korean cuisine, and it is one of my favourites as well. The dish is served with bowl of rice, like almost all korean dishes.

Kimchi Jjigae
For 2 persons
125 g pork belly
1 onion
1 garlic
1 tsp gochujang
2 tsp sesame oil
400 ml aged kimchi ( the older the better)
400 ml chicken stock
spring onion
200 g tofu

Peel and chop the onion and garlic, cut the pork belly for bites that is easy to eat. Heat the oil in a pot over medium heat. Cook pork belly until it is nice color and even a bit crispy. Add the onion and garlic. Cook few minutes. Add gochujang and kimchi, cook approx. 10 minutes.
Pour the chicken stock in, bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer about 30-45 minutes. 
Chop spring onion, dice 2/3 of the tofu and add then to a stew 5 minutes before serving. Slice the rest of the tofu. 
Place the stew into a bowls, place the sliced tofu on top of it and garnish with spring onion.

 For the drink, there is nothing better than Korean beer, or other lager. And of course you need to have some Soju...

Korean style chicken

I travel a lot to Korea, because of my work. Once per month I pack my suitcase and head to Seoul. The first time I visited there, I fell in love to the city. And the food wasn't the minor reason... Later on, I have tried to learn how to cook Korean food, and most of the seasonings I have brought from Seoul to Finland with me. One of the main ingredients in Korean kitchen is Gochujang; savory, spicy and pungent fermented chili sauce.

Today I made Gochuganj-sesame chicken, which is not actually "real" Korean dish, but the flavors goes to that direction. For the marinade I used almost same mix than I use for Bibimbap sauce, but I added some soy sauce to recipe.

Gochujang-sesame Chicken
For 2 person
500 g chicken breast
1 tbsp rice vinegar
2 tbsp Gochujang
1 tbsp sesame oil
2 tbsp soy sauce
1-2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp Gochugaru (Korean chili flakes)
50 ml fresh ginger chopped
3 garlic cloves chopped

Mix all ingredients, except chicken, together.
If your chicken breasts are very thick, you can cut them in half horizontally. Put chicken to bowl and add the marinade. Let rest in fridge approx. 2 hours or even over night.
Preheat the oven to 225 C. Place the chickens into a pan and bake them 20 minutes or so, until meat is tender and marinade has caramelized nicely. Or if you have possibility to grill this, do so. This is better when grilled with flavor of smoke.