5 tips for eating authentically Korean-style

Let your eyes covet the beautiful colors of kimbap: the dark green, nearly black seaweed wrap, the yellow radish, orange carrots, green spinach, brown cooked beef wrapped in white rice. Many Korean chefs will tell you the more colors, the more nutrition. (Tammy Quackenbush photo)

1. Make sure your meal is very colorful. Korean culinary tradition focuses on five colors, which are white, yellow, red, black and green. This is most obvious in a bowl of 비빔밥 bibimbap. Once you learn that pattern, you will notice it in other Korean foods as well, such as 김밥 kimbap, called sushi in Japan.

2. Cook your vegetables as little as possible. Steam or briefly blanch the vegetables then marinated them in sesame oil, garlic, soy sauce and black pepper. Sesame oil is potent, so use it sparingly.

Soup and veggies are the basic building blocks of all Korean meals. (Tammy Quackenbush photo)

3. Eat soup with every meal, or nearly every meal. It's an easy way to get your recommended eight glasses of water a day. Koreans usually drink little during mealtime.

Scientists are learning new health benefits from green tea every day. Drinking it daily is a good idea too. (Stock.xchg photo)

4. Kick to the curb the soda and other sugary beverages in favor of tea. Whether the tea is made from leaves, roasted corn, roasted barley or 유자차 yujacha, replace the carbonated soda with a more traditional beverage.

Korean pears make a good substitute in many recipes that call for apples or European pears. (Jeff Quackenbush photo)

5. The best dessert in the world is fruit. Korean pears, apples or oranges are mouth-cleansing and a nutritious end to a meal. Better than carbohydrate-loaded cakes and pies many Westerners eat to cap off a meal.

Guest Blogging for Cajun Chef Ryan

Chef Ryan Bourdeaux, aka Cajun Chef Ryan (both of us are Foodbuzz Featured Publishers) put out a call a few weeks ago for guest posts on his blog. Since he has 21+ years of experience as a professional cook, I decided to put my name in as one of his guest bloggers. Rather than telling him which recipe I wanted him to publish, I presented him with a choice of three different recipes for his blog and let him make the final decision of which one (if any) to publish.

He decided my recipe for Korean-style waffle syrup was the best fit with his blog and his audience. It is a really good, simple recipe that will spice up your Sunday brunch.

Please check out the recipe there, make a comment and get acquainted with Chef Ryan, too. 

Recipe: Yujacha Salmon (spicy citron sauce)

Some might think my love affair with 유자차 yujacha (Asian citron tea) has become an obsession. So far, I've made yuja chicken, yuja butter, yuja scones, and yujacha hamantaschen (triangle-shaped filled cookies usually eaten at the Jewish festival of Purim).

Now there's yujacha salmon, a simple glaze that will add zippy tang to your salmon. It would also make an excellent dipping sauce for chicken strips or spring rolls.

Yujacha Salmon sauce

1 cup yujacha mix (Basically, it's marmalade made from Asian citron, also called yuzu.)
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon 고추가루 gochugaru (coarse spicy red pepper powder or flakes)

1. Warm the yujacha, vinegar and red pepper flakes in a small saucepan over low heat until warm. Keep the sauce warm while the salmon is baking.

2. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Place the salmon, skin-side down, on a nonstick baking sheet or nonstick pan with an oven-proof handle. Bake until the salmon is cooked through, which is about 12 to 15 minutes.

3. Place the baked salmon on a plate, skin-side down, and ladle the yujacha sauce on top to serve.

Recipe: French Toast With Yujacha Syrup

Yujacha and cinnamon are a marriage made in heaven. (Photo by Tammy Quackenbush)

Writing recently for Plate magazine about Korean breakfast culture inspired me to try mixing traditional Korean ingredients with traditional western breakfast items in unconventional ways.

For some time my palate has been passionate about 유자차 yujacha, a hot tea made from Asian citron marmalade. Yuja is called yuzu in Japan.

French toast goes back to Roman times, making it one of the first "egg toast" dishes in recorded history. I've found that yujacha syrup and French toast work well together.

Recipe

serves four

1/3 cup yuja concentrate
1/3 cup water
1/2 cup yujacha marmalade
1/2 cup 2 percent (reduced-fat) milk
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 large eggs
8 slices of a sweet white bread (sliced challah, baguette or sourdough bread)
2 tablespoons butter

Preparation

1 For best results, dry the bread overnight, so it won't soak up too much of the egg and milk mixture and end up soggy.

2 Pour yuja juice concentrate, yujacha and water into a small saucepan over medium heat, and bring to a simmer. Remove from heat, and keep the syrup warm.

3 Combine milk, cinnamon and eggs in a shallow dish, and stir with a whisk.

4 Dip bread slices in egg mixture. Let slices sit in the egg mixture 20 seconds on each side.

5 Melt 1 tablespoon butter in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Place four bread slices in pan; cook two minutes on each side or until lightly browned. Remove from pan.

6 Repeat step 5 with the remaining butter and bread slices.

Review: Tov Tofu, Santa Rosa

Santa Rosa's newest Korean restaurant opened late last year a few doors down from Whole Foods Market. (Jeff Quackenbush photo)

Tov Tofu in Santa Rosa opened in late 2010 and is the latest Korean restaurant to open in Sonoma County, a winegrowing region about an hour north of San Francisco. Bear Korean in Cotati opened several years ago, followed by the now shuttered Nha Bee in Santa Rosa and Honey Cuisine in Rohnert Park in 2008.

My husband and I visited Tov Tofu for the first time on Dec. 24 for a late lunch with a couple of our friends and their two children ages 2 and 4. It's good to invite, cajole, plead or drag your family and friends with you to a new restaurant, so you more can sample more dishes and get a variety of opinions, from the expert Koreaphile to the first-time 한식 hansik (Korean food) diner.

Keywords weave an interesting web leading to Koreafornian Cooking

I sometimes wonder how readers find this blog. But thanks to Google Stats, I don't have to wonder for long.

No doubt there's lots of buzz about Korean tacos, based on the Google search terms. (Tammy Quackenbush photo) 

Recent popular search topics have been korean taco recipe, bulgogi taco recipe and kogi taco recipe. Notice a theme there?

People who already know about Stone Korean Kitchen can easily find my review. (Tammy Quackenbush photo) 

There were a couple of common San Francisco–centric search phrases. "Korean cooking classes San Francisco" most likely would have referred readers to a post about English language Korean cooking classes offered in Seoul. "San Francisco ferry stone restaurant" would send readers to my review of theStone Korean Kitchen restaurant across the street from San Francisco's Ferry Building.

The top three searches of all time so far are:

1  "Saeng Cream Cake." Thanks in part to Soompi.com, this search term has brought many readers to this blog. For someone who is not into baking that much, this is quite an accomplishment.

My cat isn't the only one who appreciates Korean pears. (Tammy Quackenbush photo) 

2  "Korean pears." Apparently enough people have found whatever knowledge they were looking for about the Korean pear from this blog to place my post about the superiority of Korean pears over their American counterparts to place it on the first page of Google's search for "korean pears."

3  "Bulgogi taco recipe." Since I've written four posts about Korean tacos, I'm not surprised that a search for a "korean taco recipe" would bring someone here.

The first page of a Google search for "Annie Chun's gochujang sauce" leads you towards my review of the newest of Ms. Chun's Asian sauces.  

There are little nuggets of barely useful information to glean from these stats too. For example, I discovered that one reader found this blog from an image search on Google India. I had posted a photo about Jamba Juice's planned entry in the South Korean market.

Another reader in South Korea found this blog via Naver after searching for "권오진 chef." I believe that the Kwon Oh Jin in question is a chef whose most recent foray online was in a "Star Chef v. Star Blogger" contest. Because I've never written about chef Kwon, what they found instead was a post about my video interview with chef Hector Marroquin about his "kimchi 3.0."

This is the marvelous and yet frustrating thing about the Internet. We want to believe that information about any topic that tickles our fancy is out there just waiting to be picked up. But sometimes, we are lead down strange trails that send us in a direction we never thought we'd entertain.

Sometimes, as Duran Duran will tell you, "it's just too much information for me."

Last-minute Super Bowl party ideas

Super Bowl XLV is coming this Sunday, Feb. 6. You may still have no clue what to serve to the guests who are coming to watch the big game on your big screen TV.

No need for panic. I have some ideas that will heat up your taste buds and warm you stomachs.

1  Curry Deviled Eggs are a Korean-American version of deviled eggs, featuring Korean curry as the primary flavor.

2  Chuncheon wings. I originally posted my Chuncheon chicken wings recipe on YouTube in January 2008. With more than 57,000 views, it is my most popular video recipe so far.

Chuncheon is the provincial capital of Korea's Gangwon province, and it's known for their spicy chicken dish called dakkalbi. I used the dakkalbi marinade to give these chicken wings a Korean flair. Serve them with a side of celery and blue cheese or ranch dipping sauce for a comforting homage to the Buffalo wing.

Bae Yong Joon may have intended for this dish to be eaten with a knife and a fork but it can easily get to one's mouth with fingers, too. (Jeff Quackenbush photo)

3  BYJ kalbi steak. I don't think Korean actor Bae Yong Joon had the Super Bowl in mind when he decided to include this recipe in his best-selling book The Search to Discover Korea's Beauty. But if beef is your thing, this recipe is a great option to rev up your Super Bowl party.

Lemon soju in a martini glass. Frilly Szechuan Button garnish is optional. (Tammy Quackenbush photo)

4  Lemon soju. No Super Bowl celebration is worth its salt without some libation to sing to victory or drown the sorrow of defeat. If homemade lemonade is too fancy for you, replace it with lemon-lime soft drinks for carbonated buzz.

Pulbbang are so cute, you can't resist taking a bite out of them. (Jeff Quakcenbush photo)

5  Pulbbang. These Korean "doughnut holes" are easy — too easy — to pop in your mouth while watching the half time show.

Video: Restaurant reveals secret to 'killer nakji bokkeum' (spicy stir-fried octopus)

Joe McPherson of ZenKimchi Food Journal and Stafford Lumsdsen of Chosun Bimbo sink their teeth into some "killer nakji bokkeum" (낙지 볶음, spicy stir-fried octopus) at a restaurant located in Seoul's Myeong-dong shopping district.

The restaurant allowed Joe to film the making of nakji bokkeum and give away the trade secret:

"Their secret is ginger and tons of shaved onions — oh, and lots of red chili powder."

Koreamerican creation: Kimchi buffalo hot dog

Napa Valley chef Hector Marroquin topped his buffalo hot dog with his "kimchi 3.0," on a whole wheat bun slathered with Dijon mustard. I included sweet potato fries to complement the spicy kimchi. (Photo by Tammy Quackenbush)

There's arguably no food more recognizably Korean than spicy cabbage kimchi. But what is quintessentially American? Few meats are more so than bison. Hunted nearly to extinction in the 19th century, the American buffalo was brought back from the brink of extinction to such abundance that it is becoming more common on American dinner tables via dedicated conservation.

Chef Hector Marroquin of the Pupusa Griddle booth at the St. Helena Farmers Market in Napa Valley wanted to expand kimchi creations beyond his kalbi-style short ribs topped with kimchi made with a blend of local peppers.

Inspired by a picture of my husband eating a hot dog topped with kimchi, Marroquin "koreafornianized" the street food favorite hot dog topped with sauerkraut. He put a Native American spin on it by replacing the beef Kosher dog with a buffalo dog and swapping the kraut for kimchi. The spicy, garlic-forward tang complements the bold buffalo flavor.

Marroquin's buffalo kimchi dog was a quick seller at the farmer's market.

"The customers loved it, and did not mind paying $7 for a buffalo kimchi dog on french," Marroquin told me. Demand for the Kimchi buffalo hot dogs consistently outlasted the supply.

But he ran into a serious problem making it a permanent feature on the menu.

Primarily, it was finding grass-fed, humanely raised buffalo hot dogs. The most promising source was the company who supplies the dogs exclusively to Whole Foods Market. Having to pay retail at $8.99/lb. took a big bite out of his profit margin.

Despite the setbacks, Marroquin featured the franks on the menu for several weeks, running out every time he offered them on the menu.