Thank you to Sarah Bates of The Chef Next Door for hosting today's Hot and Spicy #SundaySupper event! Have you heard of the 10,000-hour rule? Author Malcolm Gladwell theorizes that to truly master something, you will have had to log in at least 10,000 hours of practice. This theory was based on a study by Swedish psychologist Anders Ericsson. So what does this have to do with kimchi? Well, I feel like kimchi-making requires some level of practice to get to a point where it's easy to make and, most importantly, it consistently tastes awesome. When I first posted a recipe for this same dish, I had only made it a few times and it turned out a decent kimchi...50 percent of the time. Now 5 years later, I've made this particular kimchi a little less than 100 times. And if we're following the 10,000-hour rule, I've got about 9,900 hours become an expert kimchi maker. But I feel like after 5 years or about 100 hours, I've got this dish down. I've gotten rid of a couple of steps, streamlined ...
Perilla Pancakes
Originally published September 11, 2011. I thought I'd revive this recipe for Chuseok! Happy Chuseok! The cool fall weather is here to stay and school is in full swing. It is also the end of the season for kaenip (perilla) and the leaves are fading into a yellowish light green hue. The other weekend, I plucked the remaining leaves and decided to do a few experiments after speaking with my mom. She mentioned that the older leaves tend to be a less tender and a little tougher. Sometimes she steams a bunch of leaves and makes ssam (wraps) or chops them up and makes jun (pancakes) or jang dduk, a special recipe that my mom culled from her mother that sounded really hearty and quite simply, yummy. The recipe incorporates a spoonful of dwaen jang into the batter. (I know, dwaen jang!) I've never actually had the dish before or even heard of such a thing, but the combination of the pungent salty, nutty dwaen jang, and the strong peppery, minty kaenip sounded enticing. If you ...
Some Korean Flavor…
Roasted Seasoned Dried Seaweed (Gheem Gui / 김구이)
These salty, crunchy paper-thin sheets of dried seaweed (laver or gheem) are being stocked on shelves in mainstream grocery stores. It used to be (even just 5 years ago), that I had to trek to my nearest Asian grocery store to stock up my pantry. Now I see the small cartons being sold at Whole…
Korean Soy Braised Chicken (Ddak Jjim)
Korean soy braised chicken (ddak jjim) for your weeknight dinner – slightly sweet and slightly salty but packed with flavor! Go to the recipe I have officially started back-to-school shopping. My mission was to find toddler-sized winter parkas and snow pants since I did not want to be left out in the cold (quite literally) this…
I. Love. Eggs.
I don’t remember ever liking this dish as a kid. Perhaps it was my aversion to egg yolks at the time. And restaurant versions never appealed to me. It was always given as “service” (free) and always lacked flavor. But my mom made it for us during a recent visit and it was not the…
Kimchi Contest in Brooklyn! Bring it!
It’s been a while since my last post, but I hope to start doing some real cooking soon. In the meantime, there will be some serious kimchi making action. My sister entered a team to compete in the New York Kimchi Contest organized by blogger, Maangchi. The event takes place on June 26th in Prospect Park,…