Wordless Wednesday: Kalbi with a side of Bae Yong Joon

I found this photo on flickr.com taken by Seth and Alexa. Posted via creative commons license.

Recipe: Yuja scones

This is my third International Incident Party entry. The theme for August is scones. For most Americans, scones are for high tea or Easter Sunday brunches. Break out of that rut, and have them for dessert or as a mid-afternoon snack.

To make these scones more Korean, I've replaced the lemon with marmalade made from yuja (유자), which is akin to a citron and called yuzu in Japanese. Koreans often mix a couple of tablespoons of marmalade in hot water for a wintertime tea called 유자차 yujacha. Its high Vitamin C content makes it the perfect drink to sooth a winter cold.

This is my fourth recipe featuring Yuja marmalade. Check out the other three:

• Yujacha hamantaschen 
• Yuja chicken 
• Yuja butter

Yujacha scones

Inspired by The Joy of Baking Scones. This recipe makes eight scones.

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
½ cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2/3 - 3/4 cup (160 - 180 ml.) buttermilk
2/3 cup yuzu juice
½ cup butter, cold and cut into pieces
2 eggs
2 tablespoons yujacha marmalade (use up to 1/2 cup, whizzed up in a blender to chop up the longer pieces of yuja rind)
¼ cup pine nuts or walnuts

Directions

1. Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit (about 200 degrees Celsius).
2. In a bowl, combine the dry ingredients: flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. 
3. Cut the butter into small pieces and blend into the flour mixture with a pastry blender or a fork.
4. Mix the yuzu juice, butter milk, eggs, and yujacha marmalade to the dry ingredients to form a batter.
5. Transfer the batter to a lightly floured surface and knead it a few times.
6. Form the dough into a circle that is about 7 inches (18 cm.) in diameter. Cut the circle in half, then cut it into triangle slices, pizza-style.
7. Place the scones on a baking sheet.
8. Bake for 25 to 35 minutes, or until they are golden brown. Test with a toothpick in the center of the scone; if it comes out dry, they're done. Remove them from the oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool. They will look gushy until they cool.

The Beauty of Korea: Bae Yong Joon's Kalbi Steak

I bought the Korean version of Bae Yong Joon's best-selling book, The Journey to Discover the Beauty of Korea. I got the book because I knew there would be several Korean food recipes tucked in the pages. I got excited when I found his recipe for Kalbi steak so I decided I would work translating the recipe into English (ahead of Bae's forthcoming English version) and also test out the recipe to make sure the ingredients and methods would work in an American kitchen.

Even though the kalbi recipe excited me (and my family) the most, there are other noteworthy recipes in the book as well, including Bae's mother's personal recipe for cucumber kimchi (page 67).

My first step in translating this recipe for American audiences was to try to make sure I got the correct cut of beef rib. The picture Bae included is a spartan shot of the finished kalbi steak on a plate. It did not look like the chopped up beef ribs one usually finds in the grocery store for braised ribs. It also didn't look like the wang kalbi style that one finds all over Korea and at higher end kalbi restaurants in the USA. Bae's recipe does not use the thinly sliced LA style kalbi ribs like those featured in my own Kalbi video on YouTube.

I took my book to the nearest butcher. I showed him the picture in Bae's book and asked him what kind of beef rib was in the picture. He was adamant that Bae's kalbi steak was made with Beef Plate Short Ribs.

Meet the Flinstones ribs in the tupperware lasagne dish

These ribs are a much thicker cut than I've ever seen in Korean cuisine. I bought four plate ribs and brought them home. Each rib was 8-9 inches long and over an inch thick. There's no way that these behemoth ribs are the same thing as Bae's photo but I tried to make them work within the specifications of Bae's recipe. These ribs could have been a stand in for T-Rex ribs in a Flinstones movie.

Fortunately, the marinade was much less dramatic and traumatic.

Bae's kalbi steak recipe is divided into three parts: First he lists the ingredients for the kalbi steak marinade. Then he provides a recipe for the Hyang Shin Jeup sauce (향신즙) which is then mixed into the marinade. At the end, he gives instructions on how to cook the ribs.

If you live near a Koreatown or a well stocked Korean grocery store, you don't have to make your own Hyang Shin Jeup from scratch. Sempio(샘표), a South Korean food company, sells a version they call "Gourmet Seasoning Sauce." I'm standing by Bae's version (even though it takes some work) because not everyone has access to a well-stocked Korean grocery store.

Here is my paraphrase of Bae Yong Joon's Kalbi Steak Recipe. My comments are in parenthesis. I double checked my paraphrased translation of this recipe with my local Korean grocer to make sure I understood the recipe.

To prep 3-4 flanken cut beef ribs, you need to score them approximately a quarter way down to the rib so the beef will not contort while boiling or grilling.

How to make the Kalbi Steak Marinade

1 cup 향신즙 juice
1/3 cup soy sauce
*50 ml (approx 3 tbsp) 맛술 mirin
*50 ml (approx 3 tbsp) Cheongju rice wine (similar to Japanese sake)
2/3 cup sugar (설탕)
1/3 cup sesame seed oil
a pinch of black pepper

(*Bae's recipe calls for 50 cc of mirin and cheongju rice wine but cc is equal to ml)

How to make the Hyang Sin Jeup juice (향신즙)

100 grams (approx. 1/3 cup) Korean radish
100 grams (approx 1/3 cup) Korean pear
100 grams (approx 1/3 cup) garlic
10 grams of ginger

Grate the radish, pear, garlic and ginger. (I did it by hand but a food processor or a juicer will do the job, too). Strain in fine cheese cloth (or a fine mesh strainer). Add to the marinade.


How to pre-cook and marinade the ribs

1. Put the ribs in cold water and rinse off the blood.
2. Cook the ribs for 2-3 minutes in boiling water. Pull out the ribs and allow them to cool down before putting the ribs in the marinade. Marinade all day until you are ready to grill or broil the ribs. 

Here is where I ran into real problems. Bae recommends pre-boiling the ribs for about 2-3 minutes in boiling water and then pull them out, allow them to cool down and put them in the marinade all day until you're ready to grill them.

I ran into a lot of problems very quickly

• I didn't have a cooking pot tall enough to fit these very long ribs completely into the pot to boil them and getting them evenly boiled was a lot of work. 
• I didn't have a bowl large enough to properly marinade them so I had to buy the largest Tupperware dish I could find (larger than a lasagna pan) to marinade the ribs.
• Boiling these thick ribs for only 2-3 minutes wasn't going to shorten the broiling time enough to make this practical. I boiled them for over 1/2 an hour before marinading them and they still took over an hour, baking at 375 to get to medium rare. I don't eat meat medium rare on purpose.

So I went back to the drawing board, throwing out the counsel of my well-meaning, non-Korean butcher. I went online and found a page called The Zen of beef ribs and reached an epiphany. Bae has been using flanken ribs all along but he wasn't using the skinny cut common to LA Kalbi. He was using a thicker cut of flanken ribs. So, I went back to the butcher and ordered up 4 flanken cut beef ribs, approximately 1-2 inches thick.

Bae mentions scoring the ribs so they will broil evenly.  This is fine on the top but there's another step you must take to make sure the ribs do not shrink and contort while grilling. On the backside of the ribs, you'll find the silver skin, but it is not an edible or tasty silver lining. You must take your sharp chef's knife and remove the silver skin from the ribs. If you do it right, the silver skin will come off in one strip.

This time the recipe worked out very well. I baked the ribs at 375 for about 45 minutes to an hour to get them medium well and I was very happy with the results. Since the recipe includes natural sugar from the Asian pear as well as some granulated sugar, you will have some charring, which is unavoidable if you cook the ribs to medium well or well-done.

The ribs got rave reviews and my family are already begging me to make them again.

'In Search of the Beauty of Korea': A translation work in progress

I bought the original Korean version of The Journey to Discover the Beauty of Korea by Bae Yong Joon earlier this year.

Apparently, my cat Misook doesn't appreciate how much hard work translating Korean into English is. Or maybe, she understands too well, and sitting on the book is her way of "punishing" it for distracting me from the attention she thinks she deserves. She also might want you to think that SHE did the translation instead of me.

My efforts will soon pay off, and I'll be posting my translation — with a little help from my grocer and butcher — of one of the recipes from this book on both YouTube and on this blog. With that, I'll reveal the good, bad and the strange of my efforts to translate this recipe for American kitchens.

How to butterfly Galbi/Kalbi (Korean BBQ Short Ribs)

Photo courtesy of Arnold Inuyaki via creative commons license

"While LA galbi is convenient and increasingly popular in America, the butterflied English cut is classic for grilled galbi in Korea. I used LA galbi in my previous grilled galbi post. Here I am reintroducing my recipe using the butterflied English cut. "

If you would like to see how to properly butterfly your beef ribs for "old school kalbi," check out Galbi/Kalbi (Korean BBQ Short Ribs)

How to add tea to your cocktails:Green tea simple syrup

This article, posted on The Spirit, offers a couple of ways to infuse Earl Grey and Green tea into your vodka and rum to give your vodka martinis or Long Island iced tea (which doesn't even have tea in it) a tea-laden kick.

The recipe that caught my eye the most was the recipe posted for Jasmine tea simple syrup. This could be a wonderful alternative to the simple syrup recipes I offered in my Lemon Soju and Saeng Cake recipes.

Green tea simple syrup

Ingredients:
1/2 cup Jasmine green tea
1/2 cup Organic sugar

Preparation:
Brew the Jasmine green tea as directed. Combine the tea and sugar in a smal saucepan. Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce to a simmer until sugar is fully dissolved. Let cool to room temperature, then store in an airtight container.

Adapted from Organic, Shaken and Stirred by Paul Abercrombie

For more information, check out Tea Time: How to give your cocktails a calming edge

Han aka "Asian like me" teaches Twigim Tempura (튀김 [天ぷら]) Recipe

Did you know Koreans had their own version of tempura? Well, now you know and after you watch this video, you'll know how to make it and learn a little Korean along the way.



For more cooking videos, check out Han's Asian Like Me on YouTube.

South Korea limits TV ads on junk food

South Korea "just says no" to junk food advertisements, but at what cost? Photo courtesy of sxc.hu

The Telegraph UK newspaper (via Agent France Presse) reported in January 2010 that South Korea's Health Ministry banned television ads for "junk foods" during prime-time hours (5 to 7 p.m.) as well as during children programs regardless of the time of day the show is aired.

The food nannies hailed this move. For example, the blog NaturalNews.com wrote this headline, "South Korea does what the US refuses to do: Restrict junk food advertising to children."

I'd humbly submit to you there's a reason that the United States has so far refused to enact this type of legislation: we have something called the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. (emphasis added)

Since when did our society allow TV sets to become the dictators of the home, trumping the will of the adults who actually pay the mortgage and electric bill? Why is it the government's business to do the job that parents won't do and turn off the TV or "just say no"?

I was raised by grandparents who did not allow the mass media to dictate what foods came into their kitchen and into my mouth. I have many friends who are parents of young children and control their children's exposure to the mass media and don't allow it to control them or their food choices.

Why would we willingly subject other people's freedom of speech to popular vote and restrict it by fiat with the lame excuse of "but it's for the sake of the children"?

It's as if a century of communications research into the influence of mass media were in vain. The "magic bullet" and "hypodermic needle" theories of communication, which posited a direct connection between media message and recipient behavior, held sway for the first half of the 1900s, until they were found to be inadequate in explaining unpersuasive mass-media campaigns. That led to the two-step  and multi-step flow theories of communication, in which the message goes directly to opinion leaders who influence behavior of their followers or indirectly via followers who seek an opinion on a received message.

Such "diffusion of innovation," as it's called, is the engine of virtual and actual social networks and the motivator for advertisers and marketers work like mad to influence the influencers, a.k.a. "early adopters," "early majority," etc.

That brings us back to parents, who should be key opinion leaders for their children. If parents were, children would learn how to discern information from manipulation.

Korea's jonggatjip (wives of elder sons) reveal their ancient secrets

Try some yaksik, which is a dessert made with steamed glutinous rice made with chestnuts, jujubes, pine nuts and cinnamon, in a honey and soy sauce seasoning. Photo courtesy of Korea.net via creative commons license

The JoongAng Daily's Lee Seok-hee posted an article revealing some of the secrets of South Korea's daughters-in-law.

Being the wife of the eldest son in Korea used to be a full-time occupation. ... While Korea has come a long way from the days when extended families lived together under one roof and the women had to cook meals for many people throughout the day, remnants of the traditional Korea can still be seen in the recipes that have been passed down from mother to daughter-in-law for generations. Because of these traditions, jonggatjip (종가집, families of the eldest sons) have gained a reputation for making exquisite traditional food that is quite different from the food in mainstream groceries and restaurants. These treasured recipes were kept a family secret for hundreds of years. However, with the increasing globalization of Korean food in recent years, the recipes are now being released to the public.

For more information, check out Culinary secrets of Korea’s daughters-in-law - INSIDE JoongAng Daily

Gangwon Potato Festival, Aug. 6-8

Potatoes are a basic staple of Gangwon-do (do=province) cuisine. Even though they've only been popular for a few hundred years, Gangwon-do residents love their potatoes.

To prove the point, Gangwon-do is hosting their 14th annual Gangwon Potato Festival this weekend in Pyeongchang-gun (gun means county in Korean) this weekend.

This year's theme is "The Power of Gangwon Province, the power of the potato."

For those of us unable to make out this year, I have a couple of Korean potato videos to inspire you to have your own potato festival at home.

Review: Brothers Restaurant, San Francisco

Brothers Restaurant, located San Francisco's Inner Richmond neighborhood, is one of the few Korean restaurants in San Francisco that is Zagat-rated. It tied with Namu as Best Korean Restaurant in the 2010 Eat and Drink Reader's Choice Awards by 7x7 magazine.

Check out all the banchan.

Brothers is not a fancy restaurant, but it has a 20-plus year reputation (since 1987) of serving up authentic "old school" Korean food. It has generous operating hours from 11 am. to midnight Sunday through Friday.

There is a second location a block east at 4014 Geary Blvd. It opened in 1993 but operates only Friday through Sunday 5 p.m. to midnight.

Warning: Do not wear "dry clean only" clothes to this restaurant. You will walk out smelling like a barbecue grill, particularly one that uses real wood instead of briquettes. It's the first Korean restaurant I've visited in the Bay Area that has grills embedded in some tables with vent hoods above.

First you have to grill it, then you eat it.

Based on the reviews at Yelp! and Zagat, many go to Brothers for the barbecue. My husband and I ordered kalbi (Korean beef ribs) and dakgui (grilled chicken) from their dinner menu and decided to grill them ourselves. The server brought us two different tongs, one for the raw meat and the other to cook it. The attention to sanitation scored points with me.

The first food item brought to our table was a teapot full of hot barley tea. That scored even more points with me than the double tongs. Next, someone brought out the hot charcoal to get us instantly fired up for the main event.

The "main event" came with 10 different kinds of banchan (side dishes), including cucumber, radish and cabbage kimchi as well as spicy anchovies, spicy odeng (fish cakes). We also had two different ssam options, either romaine lettuce or kim (sheets of seasoned dried seaweed; nori in Japanese) for wrapping the grilled meat.

Kalbi with the salty ssamjang. Great kalbi, though.

One of the highlights of the meal was the bowl of soon dubu jjigae (soft tofu stew). It was full of dubu, zucchini and chives. The broth may have had some dashi (Japanese fish broth) or seaweed in it because it had a slight ocean taste but it was really good.

The only item we didn't like much was the ssamjang (Korean wrapping sauce). It was heavily slanted on the doenjang (Korean miso) side rather than the gochujang (Korean pepper paste) side but it was a bit too salty so we decided to get our spicy and good salty fix by sprinkling our ssam (meat and lettuce rolls) with the spicy anchovies instead.

Prepare to pay about $30 per person, including tax and tip, for Brothers' signature barbecue dishes. But this "old school" Korean barbecue is worth it.

Dakgui grilled to perfection.

If barbecue is not your style or in your budget, Brothers has a wide variety of Korean soups and stews, including kalbi tang (Korean stewed ribs),  kimchi jjigae (kimchi stew with beef), soon dubu jjigae (soft tofu soup) and kori kom tang (oxtail soup).

The restaurant also has about a dozen lunch items offered from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Prices on that menu top out at about $15.

Brothers Restaurant
4128 Geary Blvd. (between Fifth and Sixth avenues)
Hours: Sunday–Friday, 11 a.m. – midnight
415-387-7991

Old School Bulgogi--Neobiani

The Chosun Ilbo published an article on July 24, 2010 detailing the evolution of bulgogi, tracing it all the way back to the Goguryeo kingdom, which ruled over most of Manchuria and North and Central Korea from 37 BC to 668 AD. In Goguryeo times, the dish was called maekjeok (맥적). The Chosun Ilbo described the dish as "a generous serving of beef, chives, and garlic seasoned thoroughly with soy sauce." Notice no sugar listed.

As Buddhism took hold during the last few generations of the Goguryeo and into the Koryo period, meat consumption declined and so did the popularity of  maekjeok.

Mongolian influence in the 13th century made meat consumption more popular again. During the Chosun dynasty, the dish was called neobiani (너비아니). This version relied even more upon soy sauce for flavoring than its predecessor and was cut a bit thicker, according to Ms. Yoo Jeong-im, a chef specializing in royal court cuisine. Here's what she said in an interview with Korean Broadcasting System in 2002.

“Bulgogi was called neobiani in the olden days and it was a little thicker than today’s bulgogi. Beef slices have gotten a lot thinner in recent years and people mix in many different vegetables. But neobiani shouldn’t be mixed with any vegetables and should be thicker. And neobiani shouldn’t have any stock poured into it.”

The best cut of beef to use if you want to make neobiani would be a medium-thick beef rib eye slices with some decent marbling. Also use perilla oil rather than the more pungent sesame oil for grilling. 

Watch Chef Lee Jeong-Seop teach a Japanese student the secret of this Chosun dynasty delight.