A Tale of Two Dinners

The past week we have had some glorious weather, but yesterday we experienced a cold snap and so I decided that I would like a nice warm soup for dinner.

When shopping at H-Mart I found a prepared version of the beef bone soup that I have now attempted to make twice. So I thought 'what the heck, I'll give this a go'

I thought that some ramen noodles, kimchi and soondae (korean blood sausage) would go well with it. I like to use the instant lunch noodles as, unlike many other packages of ramen, they are only 1 serving per container and therefore keeps the calories undercontrol.

I cooked the ramen and then drained them, heated the soup, chopped some kimchi, boiled some soondae and sliced some green onions....

Mixed it all together and voila....

 A very easy to make and satisfying warm bowl of noodles. Delish!!!

Tonight I wanted to make a dried shrimp banchan. To make this you will need
- 3 sliced scallions
- 2 cloves finely chopped garlic
- 1/2 inch finely chopped ginger
- 3 sliced serrano peppers
- 3 tbsp gochujang
- 1 tbsp honey
- 2 tsp peanut oil
- 1 tsp dark soy sauce
- 1 tsp sesame oil
- sprinkling of black and white sesame seeds
- small amount of chicken stock (I make a big batch and then freeze it in ice cube trays)

Here are the dried shrimp. They don't have their heads or legs but they still have their shells and tails. Crunch crunch crunch!!!

There were some dried anchovies in my fridge that I wanted to use too, so I added them to this recipe.

In a wok fry the green onion, garlic and ginger over a medium heat for 2-3 minutes.

Add the dried fish, shrimp and stock cubes

Allow to cook for 5-10 minutes over a low heat before adding the gochujang, soy sauce and honey. I love the colour of this dish.

Turn off the heat before adding the small amount of sesame oil. Sprinkle with the sesame seeds on the serving plate. Remember, this is a banchan (Korean side dish) so you don't serve up a big amount, it's there to compliment the rest of the meal.

There was also some chicken in my fridge that I wanted to use up today and so I decided to make stir-fried chicken with kimchi. The name of the meal tells you what to do. Stir fry some chicken till it's cooked, lower the heat and throw in some kimchi (I did a 1:1 ratio). Allow the kimchi to heat through and then serve.

So here is tonights meal. I added some plain boiled string beans. Both the chicken and the shrimp dishes are rather strong flavours, so the plainness of the beans was a great addition to the meal. I served it with rice and seasoned seaweed. My drink was guava and aloe vera gel with san pellegrino. 맛있다!!

Matt is in Boston this evening for work. So I had my dinner in the living room on the coffee table, sat on the floor and watched some kdramas :) Ah bliss!

Trying out new recipes

Last Friday I decided that I would spend the afternoon cooking some new-to-me Korean dishes. The idea was to cook enough to last over the weekend and into this week.

The first dish was an oxtail soup. The version I was trying to make is the milky version. The bones are cooked for many hours and 'should' result in a broth that is milky in colour. Mine didn't turn out milky at all. I think I need to adapt my recipe in a couple of ways

1. Soak the meat to draw out as much blood as possible

2. Allow the tail meat to stay in the pot for a longer amount of time

3. Research more...

I made 2 big bowls worth of broth. Having already finished the first bowl over the past few days, tonight I used broth from the second bowl. It appears to be more strong in flavour than the first bowl and it was phenomenal with some pork and shrimp wontons in it. I should have taken a photo of it, but I'll have it again tomorrow and will try to take one then.

Another dish was stir-fried fish cakes with veggies. Fish cakes come in many shapes and sizes. I ended up with thin sheets of fish cakes. I thought I was buying slightly thicker ones, but these worked well too.

It uses fish cakes, bell pepper, oyster sauce, peanut oil, black and white sesame seeds, carrots, onion and garlic.

The veggies were chopped and fried in a little bit of peanut oil

The fish cakes were sliced and then added to the veggies

Add oyster sauce and sesame seeds et voila!

Next was a cucumber salad. This would have been prettier had I used Asian cucumber, coarse pepper flakes and a wavy vegetable slicer. Ingredients: cucumber, shallot, garlic, red pepper powder, black sesame seeds and rice vinegar

Slice, dice and mix

Not the prettiest dish I've ever made, will try again with the aforementioned changes.

Then it was on to an acorn jelly dish.

Soy sauce, honey, sesame oil, red pepper powder, scallion and garlic were combined in a bowl.

Acorn jelly was sliced (a wavy cutter would have made this prettier too!)

Lettuce, cucumber, onion and carrots were mixed in a bowl. The sliced jelly and sauce were then added.

 It resulted in a nutty dish. Again, not very pretty. I think using a different type of lettuce would be better.

I served these banchan to accompany our soybean soup and rice. I had also bought some Korean pancakes from the supermarket incase any of my dishes turned out to be inedible!

I love this soup!!!!

While I was shopping at H-mart, the local Korean supermarket, I picked up this jug. I like that it is glass, pink and has nice sayings on it. I use it to make my corn tea, a good digestive.

The next day I made a chicken dish using chicken wings, red pepper paste, red pepper powder, soy sauce, sugar, potatoes, onion, garlic, chili pepper and scallions.

The pepper powder, paste, soy sauce, sugar and minced garlic were mixed in a bowl.

In a dutch over the chicken, sauce, 2 cups of water and chopped onion were brought to a boil and allowed to cook, covered, for 20 minutes before adding the peeled and cubed potatoes. Another 20 minutes boiling with the lid on before allowing 5 minutes with the lid off to reduce the sauce.

This was Matt's favourite dish. A great sauce, something we're going to try on the grill when the weather is better!

Soup for the Soul

Today's Jjigae is quite similar to yesterday's but at the same time it is altogether different! Yesterday we had predominate flavours coming from the red pepper paste and the kimchi.

Today's jjigae uses less kimchi and instead of red pepper paste we use Soybean paste and clams.

You will need:

Tofu

Soybean paste

Zucchini (courgette)

Onion

Beech mushrooms

Enoki mushrooms

Kimchi

Clams (I used thawed fully cooked clams meat)

Spring onion

A pinch of red pepper powder.

Don't I have the cutest kitchen helper in the world!!!

Blend a tsp of soybean paste in a little hot water. Add your chopped zucchini, onion, beech mushrooms, red pepper powder and whole clams to the pot. Fill the pot up with some cold water and bring everything to a boil.

When it's boiling away add the sliced tofu and chopped kimchi...

Allow it to boil for a couple of minutes and then add the enoki mushrooms and finely sliced green onion...

I served the soup with plain rice and toasted seaweed lava...

You can use a spoonfull of rice to absorb some of the broth or you can add it to a sheet of the lava and make a mini rice roll. Yummza!

Gettin' Jjigae With It

Tonight for dinner I made a super easy Kimchi Jjigae. Jjigae is a Korean soup/stew of which there are many varieties!

To make this yummy soup you will need:
Tofu
Zucchini (courgette)
Onion
Enoki mushrooms
Kimchi (the smellier the better!)
Gochujang (red pepper paste)
and a pinch of red pepper powder

I use a single serving size pottery style pot to make this soup, I think it does a great job of intensifying flavours and getting the soup super hot. You could always follow this recipe in a saucepan, which in addition is a less messy way to do it. My bowl is placed on the gas stove top and when it boils it sends liquid everywhere.

Dissolve the red pepper paste into a couple tablespoons of hot water in your soup pot. Add the chopped zucchini, onion and red pepper powder. Add more water and bring to a boil

When it starts to boil add the sliced tofu and chopped kimchi (get some kimchi juice in it too Mmmmm)

Here you can see my bowl on the stove top and why it can get rather messy!

Let it boil for a couple of minutes and then add the enoki mushrooms on the top for the last minute. I would normally add thinly sliced scallions at this stage too, but I was out of them today. Now is also the time to add a small drop of sesame oil, right before serving.

I served my soup with a bowl of rice and my little fishies (you can find my recipe for the fish here)

Super quick, easy and healthy!