I like fresh mushrooms, and king oyster mushroom is one of my best favorites. These mushrooms are not so expensive but they are also not considered cheap as compared with other kinds of fresh mushroom (and with my family’s budget). Sometimes the supermarket offers an acceptable price, I often buy these mushrooms and will cook the most delicious dishes with them.
This stir-fried mushroom with sesame in particular is very flavorful and fragrant. The texture of the mushrooms is just great with their distinctive flavor. Furthermore, the sesame oil and sesame seeds make them so aromatic, which reminds me of other Korean foods that often use sesame oil and seeds in cooking. Olive oil is advised, however I think other cooking oil is also fine. My favorite soy sauce is Kikkoman, I always have one bottle of this soy sauce brand in my kitchen. At the supermarket, this soy sauce might be more expensive than the other brands, but one bottle can be used for a long time and in lots of dishes. In return, the foods smell and taste better with this soy sauce. In the long time I think it is quite economic. For the spices, herbs and sauce, I am often willing to pay more for better quality.
Having this mushroom dish made us totally satisfied while thinking about the good health benefits that this mushroom can bring to us.
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"Dynamic Korean" is one of my favorite TV shows on food and travel. Almost every weekend, I preserve half an hour sitting in front of the TV eagerly watching this show. The show really inspires me to learn more about Korean cuisine and searching for practical dishes to cook at home.
I find most of the Korean dishes that I had chances to eat and cook are really to my liking. From the show, I got the feeling that Korean people are very eager at cooking and eating, especially they show "big" appreciation for street foods and those foods for ordinary people. They always show their "big and noisy" happiness when eating yummy meals.
This time I made glazed chicken wings in Korean style. Once again, I love the chicken cooked in this way. It is just easy to make. Just one problem remains with my small oven. I reduced the recipe by two-third to cook for only two people. In order to save energy, I used the small one with the spoilt timer, so I couldn’t keep track of the time and the chickens got burn a bit. So unfortunate! Still, we finished them all within a wink!!!
Let’s have some taste for another Korean dish.
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It is no controversy that tofu is a all time favorite food of Asian people. And I am a fan of tofu. Each time I came home to visit my family, my Mom often asked me what I wished to eat for the first meal at home. The first thing I always remembered was a simple dish of fried tofu.
Tofu is very popular in Asian countries, however, the taste and the texture of tofu differ from country to country. And of course, tofu comes in a great variety of dishes. I am not a vegetarian, however, I never hesitate to try any dish made with tofu.
So this time, I am attracted to another Korean dish made with tofu. Tofu Jo Rim is the name of this dish in Korean. I have to admit that right from the first bite, I really loved the tofu cooked in this way. The only matter was that the tofu was a little too salty for my taste. So I remembered to omit the salt used to sprinkle the tofu slices before cooking them.
This dish goes well with hot cooked rice, vegetable and salad.
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Zucchini pancakes is one of the tradional dish by Korean people, especially during the Harvest Moon Festival. However, it is served whenever zucchini is available.
This is a pancake where the main ingredients are vegetables, so it may be suitable as a vegetarian dish. Wih a non-stick frying pan, only a very thin layer of oil is spreaded over the surface of the pan. The pancake is so very fresh with vegetable texture. There is no feeling of it being greasy.
The pancake offers a very comforting taste. The dipping sauce combines well with the pancake. It’s the first time I’ve tried a salty pancake of other cuisines, and I really loved it. I follow the recipe in one of my cookbook "Cooking the Korean way".
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This is a very simple Korean spinach salad. The fragrance of sesame is very strong in this salad – as one of the typical characteristics of Korean food.
Ingredients:
- 300g spinach, washed and cut into 4-5cm parts
- 1.5 tbs soy sauce (kikkoman – reduced salt type is recommended)
- 1 tsp sesame oil
- half a garlic clove, minced
- 1 tbs roasted sesame seeds
Cooking:
- Boil the spinach in salted water until just cooked. Drain and twist the spinach lightly to remove excess water.
- Combine the soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic and sesame seeds in a small bowl.
- Pour the dressing over the spinach. Mix well and serve.
I bet as many people know about Bulgogi (불 고 기) – the Korean barbeque beef as they know about Kimchi. It is not only a wonderful dish to be served on dining tables but also a yummy street food, the inviting smell of which people can sense while they walk along a street with a stall at the street corner somewhere.
The beef is best cooked with charcoal grill. I would prepare this food for our bbq gathering with friends and the beef was always welcomed. However, this time I cooked the beef with my oven. I don’t have a griller or broiler at home, so I tried the electric oven to cook the beef. The beef still tasted good and tender, it just lacked the ‘smoke’ from the charcoal. So this is my way of cooking this beef with the oven.
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A tasty but very simple stewed dish with beef and white radish (daikon). A food with typical Korean taste and flavor.
I bet everyone who knows something about Korea has heard of this very traditional dish: "kimbap" or seaweed rice. By appearance, it looks quite similar with maki – a kind of Japanese sushi rice rolled in a sheet of seaweed. However, there is a great difference in the taste between these two. Not only the rice tastes differently due to difference seasoning, the stuffed ingredients also vary. Instead of using vinegar and sugar, and sometime a little sake, in making dressing for sushi rice, the rice of kimbap is enriched by a little salt and sesame oil.
I have never had a chance to try a real piece of kimbap in Korea. However, I got my first chance to practise making kimbap in my Korean language class. My Korean teacher taught us to make kimbap in a most simple way. Kimbap is a healthy dish because normally, the amount of vegetables used to be wrapped with the rice accounts for 70 per cent of a whole roll of kimbap. This time making kimbap at home, I used the same ingredients that my teacher advised during our kimbap making session.
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