A "Ginger" and her ginger

I discovered this video while I was snooping around on The Foodie Blog Roll website. This video was produced by The Ginger People, which is a California-based producer of ginger products, including minced ginger, ginger juice, sushi ginger, ginger candies and ginger beer (among other items).

I've used their ginger in several of my recipes posted on this blog, including Korean Gingered Pear Sauce, Thai Green Curry Tteokbokki, and  Hawaiian Tteokbokki.

Seoul City Wallet

If your favorite Korean (or Korea-phile) man needs a new wallet, consider this wallet with an artistic Seoul cityscape made by Mary Mungovan from Denver, Colo.

The wallet is 8"x3.5", which is the size of a standard men's wallet in the States.
The graphics are printed on double sided premium photo paper and are sandwiched between clear vinyl. For $20 USD, you can own a fashionable piece of Seoul's cityscape.

My submission to Korea's official cooking video contest

The (South Korean) Presidential Counsel on National Branding is hosting a cooking video contest. They are asking for English language recipe submissions. So I submitted my video for kalbi, but I had to remove most of the music soundtrack for this contest and re-upload it. The videos have to be posted by March 31, 2010 but they will keep the contest open until April 30. The contest judges will factor in the number of views into their judgment of the best Korean food video.

I have some stiff competition you can check out on the contest webpage. Please watch it and ask your friends to watch it, too.

Meet Kisa, my research assistant

Many of you enjoyed the photos of my cat Mi-Sook while I was on vacation last October. You probably didn't know I have another cat in my house. His name is Kisa. He's not quite as photogenic as his little sister but I can catch him in an amusing moment once in a while.

Kisa (which means "kitten" in Russian). He is 9 years old (a couple of weeks younger than Mi-sook), and his favorite hobbies are sleeping, chewing on my reusable shopping bags and purring at 100 dB when I'm trying to sleep. One of our nicknames for him is "Diesel" as in diesel engine for that reason.

What is his food expertise? It's limited to dry cat food and filtered water for the most part. However, he is a little bit more adventurous in the food department. Once when he was a very little kitten, he jumped up on our kitchen table and decided to take a little taste of gochujang. He didn't do that a second time. The only "real food" he enjoys is an occasional piece of string cheese or stealing homemade smoked salmon.

Do you know what Kisa's "reading"? Korean Cuisine: A Cultural Journey by Chung Haekyung. If you're in the USA, you can purchase it online from Seoul Selection and have it shipped straight from Seoul right to your home.

My Father in Law's wine rack

For someone who rarely drinks wine, he has quite the spiffy wine rack! Actually its just the cardboard dividers from a small case of wine he received at work. If they're good enough to pack the wine to keep it safe, they're good enough to display the wine, too.

How-To Make Egg Threads for Gungjung tteokbokki and Bibimbap

If you are a visual person and need a quick tutorial on how to make the egg strips for Gungjung tteokbokki, Japchae or Bibimbap, watch this video.

"Egg threads are used in many of the Korean dishes as a garnish to enhance the beauty of the dish. Egg whites and yolk cooked separately will create yellow and white threads."

For more information, check out www.notjustrice.com

Stone Korean Kitchen, San Francisco

This is what I traveled for an hour and a half one way to taste. Yum!

Stone Korean Kitchen is the newest Korean restaurant in San Francisco, officially opening in November 2009. To be fair, I waited four months for any mistakes or deficiencies common to all new restaurant ventures to be resolved.

The restaurant is located in Embarcadero Center office and retail development in the heart of San Francisco’s Financial District. That helps why explains the hours of operation — 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday–Friday and closed on Saturday and Sunday — are not very tourist-friendly. Yet the restaurant is an easy walk across the street from the Ferry Building, through which boatloads of commuters and tourists pass daily from the north San Francisco Bay counties.
 
I prefer to take a ferry to San Francisco from the Marin County city of Larkspur, because parking is difficult to find and can be expensive. San Francisco and other California cities are adopting a transportation-management policy called “congestion pricing,” which increases parking fees during high-demand times to discourage traffic congestion from drivers circling the streets looking for open spaces and to encourage walking, biking or riding mass transit.

As is increasingly common, the lunch, dinner and take-out menus are available on the restaurant’s website. I’m grateful for that, because I like to take my time studying a menu but don’t like to waste the waitstaff’s time.

I arrived at the restaurant at 11:50 a.m. just before lunch rush and ordered japchae and kimbap to get an idea of how the kitchen treats Korean classics. The menu also has a few fusion options, such as bulgogi sandwiches.

A view of Justin Herman Plaza from the front of the Stone Korean Restaurant. The landmark Ferry Building clocktower and palm trees along the boulevard are visible.

The restaurant is small, so the indoor seating is somewhat limited. As catching a sunny day in San Francisco during winter is rare, particularly this year amid week upon week of rain, I opted for the alfresco seating on Justin Herman Plaza. From that warm, breezy location I could see the row of palm trees that line the Embarcadero boulevard along the San Francisco waterfront.

My order arrived within five minutes. The japchae had the common mixture of marinated beef, mushrooms, spinach and carrots with cellophane noodles. It was a tasty dish, but the sauce seemed a little light on sesame oil and heavier on soy sauce, garlic and black pepper. For those who don’t like the heavy hand of sesame seed oil in a number of Korean restaurants, Stone Korean Kitchen’s japchae might be what you’re after. The accompanying white rice was perfectly cooked, not crunchy or mushy.

My husband shared leftovers with his co-workers that afternoon, and this japchae didn’t fail as a palate-pleaser for Korean food initiates.

Want some kimbap?

There were several packages of kimbap — one of my favorites — stacked at the front desk just inside the front door. How could I resist? The marinated beef, pickled daikon radish, egg and garlic-marinated spinach rolls were some of the best kimbap I’ve had in a long time.

It was certainly worth taking a day off from work for the four-hour car and ferry round trip to visit Stone Korean Kitchen. Now, if only the restaurant were open on Sundays.

Stone Korean Kitchen
4 Embarcadero Center, Street Level, San Francisco, Calif.
(415) 839-4070‎
www.stonekoreankitchen.com
Social network connections: Facebook and Twitter

Preparing for Passover: Moroccan Charoset

This is not a Korean-style Haroset despite the title of this blog. I am introducing you to my favorite version of Haroset. It's a Moroccan-style Haroset that my friends and family demand I make every Passover. It's my entry pass to our annual Pesach/Passover seder. No Haroset, no entry!

The traditional Ashkenazi Haroset features apples, raisins, cinnamon and walnuts.  I can't put my finger on the reason that this version of Haroset sets my teeth on edge, but I don't find it remotely appealing. One reason is the fact that it's highly unlikely that the earliest Jews would have served such a concoction at their Pesach seders.

Another reason I'm not a big fan of the Ashkenazi Haroset is that I don't like raisins at all.   No amount of cinnamon, sugar or walnuts can change that. I call them "shriveled up, dead fruit." I'm also not a big fan of apples, at least as the main actor, either.

It is my belief that the Haroset recipes found in such countries as Morocco, Iraq or Yemen are closer to what King David or even Moses would have eaten during this season. Maimonides (aka Rambam), the famous medieval Sephardic Jewish doctor and scholar said that Haroset,

is meant as a reminder of the mortar which the Israelites worked with in Egypt. Dates, dried figs, raisins, or the like are taken and pounded, wine vinegar is added, and the mixture is seasoned with condiments in the same way that mortar is seasoned with straw (Maimonides, The Book of Seasons 7:11).

So without further adieu, here's my recipe for Moroccan Haroset. If you buy the ingredients now, you'll have plenty of time to make this recipe before Pesach. Hag Sameach!

24 dried prunes
24 dried figs
24 pitted dates
12 dried apricots
1 tsp ground cinnamon or Chinese five spice powder
1 cup chopped pistachios
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
grape juice (optional for additional moisture)

Finely chop (with either a chef's knife or kitchen scissors) all the fruit and put it into a bowl. Put the nuts into a food processor or spice grinder and roughly chop them as well. Mix the nuts into the bowl with the dried fruit and mix well. If the nuts and fruits aren't sticking together well, add a few tablespoons of grape juice or kosher wine to help things along. 

You can omit the nuts of you have family or friends who are allergic to nuts. I have made this recipe without nuts in the past and have still received good reviews. 

If you have leftovers, and that's a big if, you can dip the rest in melted chocolate or roll them in crushed walnuts or pistachios to enjoy through the rest of the week (or at least the next day).



Moroccan Charosets

Green Tea may inhibit oral bacteria

A study lead by Yasushi Koyama from Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine and published in Preventive Medicine found that five or more cups a day associated with a 23 per cent reduction in risk of losing one's teeth from oral bacteria linked to periodontal disease.

I guess one could conclude that if you don't want to live out your golden years with dentures, replace the soda and fruit juice in your diet with green tea and keep the dentist at bay. 

For more information, go to Green tea may boost oral health, reduce tooth loss

St. Patrick's Day, Koreafornian-style

I was raised in an Irish-American household. Grandfather (of blessed memory) loved St. Patrick's day fervently. Every year, he would undergo his annual ritual of dying his long, white beard with green food coloring and would make absolutely sure I left for school that day wearing lots of green (so I wouldn't get pinched). I'm also sure it was a good excuse for him to drink lots of beer. (He was stereotypically Irish in his love of alcohol and struggled with alcoholism for most of his life).

My Grandmother (of blessed memory), however, didn't understand Grandpa's passion for St. Patrick's day (even though she was also Irish-American on her mother's side) or alcohol. We may have had corned beef and cabbage occasionally on St. Pat's day but traditional Irish food was not a part of her culinary identity.

So, how can a Korea-phile or an ex-pat in Korea celebrate St. Patrick's Day? Since I can't stand eating plain cabbage — probably the real reason Grandma rarely made it for me — I eat my annual corned beef meal with kimchi. Really.

So Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh! Happy St. Patrick’s Day, everyone!

How I celebrated White Day

I still haven't given up my day job to become a chocolatier. However, after my first custom-ordred chocolate bar, courtesy of Chocri, a German chocolate maker, turned out so well, I thought I'd try to create another Koreafornian chocolate bar, this time in honor of White Day.

White Day is celebrated in Korea as a follow-up to Valentine's Day on February 14. In Korea and Japan, Valentine's Day is the day for girls to give chocolate candies to the men in their lives either because of genuine love and affection or due to social obligation.

Men in Japan and Korea are supposed to reciprocate on March 14 by giving the ladies gifts of white chocolate, or other white colored items such as marshmallows.

I ordered 2 bars from Chocri this time. The only difference between this order and my prior order is I changed the base from milk chocolate to white chocolate.

Here are the ingredients: White Chocolate with Sea Salt, Pine Nuts, Cayenne Pepper, Pear and Black Sesame.

I placed my order on Feb. 17 and was told to expect it by March 10, 2010. It arrived on Friday, March 12, in plenty of time to enjoy on White Day.

Even though the ingredients are basically the same the dominant flavors have changed. In the milk chocolate version, the dried pear was the star. This time, the milder white chocolate made the sea salt and cayenne the most prominent flavors. My husband called it "salty and milky." (Even though there's no milk in them.)

If you want to try my recipe yourself, go to the Chocri site and type in code aso4vp. Chocri currently ships to Germany and the U.S. only. Sorry, the company still does not currently ship to South Korea.

5 minute Korean chocolate mug cake

Many Korean apartments and condos do not have ovens (as many expats discover after moving to South Korea). Having to adjust to cooking without a major appliance can make it life in the "Land of the Morning Calm" difficult if you enjoy baking.

This is a cake recipe you can make in your microwave in a coffee mug. It's very easy, since it makes only two servings. The touch of Korean pepper powder invokes chocolate's ancient past as an elixir of Aztec royalty.

You can find the original version of this recipe here. Cut it in half if you're making a solo treat.

Ingredients:

- 4 tbsp flour
- 5 tbsp sugar
- 2 tbsp cocoa (I used some powdered hot chocolate mix this time)
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp Korean pepper powder (or more), cinnamon or Chinese 5 spice powder
- A pinch of salt
- 1 egg
- 3 tbsp milk
- 3 tbsp oil (I used grapeseed oil)
- 3 tbsp chocolate chips or flakes plus 2 tablespoon extra
- A small splash of vanilla extract
- 2 microwave safe coffee mugs

Preparation:

1. Mix all the dry ingredients in a big bowl.

2. Next, add in the milk, oil, vanilla extract, egg and mix well.

3. Pour mixture into mugs (at the halfway mark).

4. Sprinkle the top with the extra tablespoonful of chocolate chips or flakes .

5. Microwave one mug at a time. Cook for 1 minute on medium heat. It will bubble and rise as it cooks, so make sure you provide ample room for that. Leave it for a few seconds, then microwave for another 30 seconds on medium again. The mixture will solidify, but still look a little molten. That is fine because it will continue cooking on residual heat. Overcook it and you get a chocolate rubber ball.

6. Allow to cool a little before serving. The chocolate chips will sink to the bottom for a chocolate syrup treat. Think of it as the icing on the bottom instead of the top.

As you can see from the photos, the end product looks a little messy (after all, you're serving it in the same dish you made it) but a generous scoop of your favorite ice-cream will hide that perfectly.

Recipe: Chuncheon dakkalbi

I talk about Chuncheon and dakkalbi (Chuncheon-style spicy stir-fried chicken) both in videos and on this blog, yet I've never posted my recipe for this iconic Chuncheon dish. When I lived in Chuncheon, I visited Dakkalbi Street at least once a month to savor this wonderful dish. There were more than a dozen restaurants in this small area, making their own variations on this classic dish.  It's an easy dish to make but most Koreans would rather eat it in a restaurant rather than at home.

Here's what you need to do to make yourself some authentic Chuncheon-style dakkalbi.

Dakkalbi sauce

4 tbsp. gochujang
2 tbsp. Korean gochugaru or hot paprika (or you can use 1 tbsp. gochugaru and 1 tbsp. Korean curry powder)
1 tbsp. minced garlic
1 tbsp. soy sauce
1 tbsp. sesame seed oil
1 tsp. stevia
1 tsp. honey or agave syrup
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1 tbsp. sesame seeds

Ingredients

1/2 cup dakkalbi sauce
3 tbsp. grapeseed oil
1 lb. chicken breast or thigh
3 spring onions, cuts into 1 inch pieces
12 oz. garae tteok (long Korean rice noodles)
1 sweet potato, cut into french fries
1/4 head cabbage, chopped

Instructions

1. Chop chicken into bite size pieces.
2. Mix the sauce ingredients together and marinade the chicken in the sauce for at least an hour.
3. Heat up your cast iron skillet or wok with the oil.
4. Put the chicken in first and give it a good stir for a minute. Add the veggies and keep cooking for about five to 10 minutes until the veggies and chicken are cooked.

Sweet potatoes might seem an ill-suited choice of vegetable for this meal. Koreans have been cultivating potatoes for nearly 200 years. In Korea's mountainous provinces, like Gangwon-do, where Chuncheon is located, sweet potatoes are a very popular dish.

Sink your teeth into this Korean-flavored journal

If you're looking for a journal to take with you on your next trip to South Korea, consider getting your hands on this journal from the Pretzels N Pumpkin shop on Etsy. After all, you can't take your laptop computer everywhere.

The 50-page journal is made from a recycled cookie box and spiral bound for ease of use. That's plenty of pages to take notes on your favorite museum, restaurant critique or to get the autograph of your favorite K-pop singer.

Korean chef stunned at foreigner's acceptance of spicy bibimbap

The JoongAng Daily ran an on-line feature article about Chef Park Hyo-nam, the executive chef at the Millennium Seoul Hilton in central Seoul. He helped President Lee and First Lady Kim host a Korea Night event during the World Economic Forum in Switzerland on Jan. 28. He had to come up with a menu for over 800 guests. You can read the article, Korean cuisine makes waves at the World Economic Forum for yourself to get the inside scoop on the menu and Chef Park's travails because he didn't have exclusive use of the hotel's kitchen to serve this many guests.

The comment that struck me the most comes towards the end of the article.

With the awareness that many foreigners have a difficult time adjusting to the spiciness of Korean cuisine, the team prepared two types of bibimbap - a spicy one and a nonspicy one. With the spicy version, rice and vegetables were mixed with gochujang (chili paste); in the milder version, soy sauce was used as seasoning instead of the spicy pepper paste.

"Surprisingly, eight out of ten guests picked bibimbap mixed with gochujang," he said, with disbelief in his eyes."I came to think that many Koreans, including me, tend to have many misconceptions about the foreign palate."

If Chef Park and First Lady Kim had asked me, I would have told them not to be surprised at how accepting Westerners, particularly people who live in the "New World", are of spicy foods.

Like a fried egg on bibimbap!

If you carry your love of Korean food on your sleeve (or know someone who does), consider this bibimbap-inspired wristlet as a gift to yourself or a Korea-phile chingu (friend).

A cute way to carry your essentials, this 4" by 4" square pouch is perfect for the Korean food lover in your life. Just the right size to carry your lipgloss, credit cards, and keys.

Get your own at Purpleandlime's Etsy store.