Noo-Roong-Ji (누룽지) – Burnt Rice Snack (?)

Hello everyone!  I know I’ve been MIA forever and ever.  This blog is always in the back of my mind and I often think, “This is the week where I will finally update…” and then another week passes and I find myself  doing other things.  =/  So again – my apologies first.

Life has been trudging along as usual.  I’m quickly approaching my two-year cancer anniversary and it’s unbelievable how quickly time has passed.  My life will never be the same, but my sense of normalcy is just now starting to come back.  There are actually some days I am able to forget what has happened – and those are the days that I call “good days.” 

There are more good days than bad.

Anyhow, I’m not cooking as much as I used to.  I’m not sure if it’s laziness, the heat, fatigue or a combination of everything – but I’m just not finding myself in the kitchen anymore.

 

This morning I awoke and after feeding Munchkin some miyuk gook, I decided to make myself one of these.  While making it – I realized I had some leftover rice and thought this would be the perfect opportunity to update my blog.  =P

 

 

Making noo-roong-ji is super easy.  Just grab a pan…

 

Fill a bowl with some water and get your rice scooper…

 

Turn the heat on medium-low…

 

 

…and then simply flatten your rice out like this.  Since Koreans tend to eat stickier rice, wet the rice spoon with water so that it doesn’t stick.  Press the rice down flat and then just let it cook for about 10-15 minutes on one side.

 

Flip it over and then let it brown on the other side as well.

 

I usually just make a bunch and store it in the freezer in Tupperware.

 

Whenever you’re ready to eat, just grab some and place it in a bowl (or you can just boil it).

 

Boil some water…

 

Add just enough water like this.

 

And then cover it with another bowl or use a lid like this.  Let it sit for about 10-15 minutes.

 

And you’re ready to enjoy!  I took this picture too soon, but if you leave it longer – the noo-roong-ji will be softer and the water will be milkier.  =)  I had to leave the house so this picture was just for blog purposes.  Anyhow, you can even fry the pieces and sprinkle some sugar on it too and eat it as a snack.  I’ll post up a “how-to” of that later this week if I have time.

I hope everyone has a safe and peaceful Labor Day weekend!

My little Munchkin is starting Kindy next week and it’s just so surreal.  I cannot believe my little boy has grown up so much.  =P

Onion Salad

Once again, I’ve been on a blogging hiatus and I apologize for that.  The weather has been SOOOOOOOOOO hot here in SoCal that just the thought of going into the kitchen and turning up the heat was suffocating.  I felt bad about not cooking more often, so this past weekend we headed to K-town and picked up some meat.  On Sunday we had some yummy steaks and today we ate cha-dol-begi.

Enough rambling and onto the recipe…

Ingredients:

• 1 large onion
• dressing: 1/2 TB minced garlic, 1/2 TB wasabi, 2 TB rice wine, 1 TB soy sauce and 7 TB vinegar

 

I was being lazy and didn’t want to head upstairs to grab my flash and THIS is what the picture looked like.  =/

 

So I went upstairs, grabbed my flash and this is the result.  It’s strange how flash works better for me with food pictures, but when I’m shooting Munchkin or anything else – I rarely use flash.  Anyhow…

I usually eat cha-dol-begi (thinly sliced beef brisket) with this sauce.  But today I decided that I would make an onion salad similar to the one they *used to* serve at Byul Dae Po – one of my favorite AYCE Korean BBQ places.  The last time I was there, the server informed me that they no longer gave out the onion salad because the price of onions had skyrocketed.  =/  I dunno if that’s the truth, but I’m hoping they will serve it again in the future.  Anyhow this is my replication of their onion salad.  Super easy and a perfect accompaniment to gogi-gogi!  First, go and grab one large white onion.  You can slice it by hand, or use a trusty mandolin to do the work for you!  Slice away~

 

You want it thin, but not too thin…

 

And then add the following ingredients:  1/2 TB minced garlic, 1/2 TB wasabi, 2 TB rice wine, 1 TB soy sauce and 7 TB vinegar.

 

Mix it up WELL.  You do not want to bite down into a chunk of wasabi.

 

And transfer it into a nice serving bowl.  You’ll be left with quite a bit of liquid so just pour it over the top and discard any excess.

 

You’re now ready to eat with some gogi!

 

I know I’ve mentioned Choice Meat Market before and if you haven’t already, you MUST go and try their meats.

 

It’s a lot more than what you would pay at the K-market, but their meat melts in your mouth. 

 

I sliced up some onions and mushrooms…

 

Got our trusty old indoor gogi-grill going (there’s even a compartment that collects the drained fat!) – I think the last time we brought this out was over two years ago! 

 

And then it was grilling time!

 

We ate the whole thing!

 

Everyone in our small family of three was happy and full!  Hope everyone is doing well.  I will *try* to be back sooner rather than later.  =)

100.000

It's yet another sleepless night so I decided to check out my google analytics (really cool!) and found that I have had over 100,000 (103,702 to be exact! =P) unique visitors to this site.

WOW! =O

Who knew that Korean food could be so popular?!

So I just wanted to say THANK YOU again to each and every one of you who visits this site. I'm sorry I don't update often, but like I say all the time this blog is a hobby and I just don't have enough hours in the day to sit and take step-by-step pictures of meals. =( When I *cook* for the blog it takes almost triple the time to make something. Not fun when you have a hungry, near-crazy toddler yelling for FOOD!

With that said, I'll try to post something up tomorrow. It's time to go to the K-market again, so let's see what I can whip up.

Hope everyone in SoCal is staying cool in this heat wave!!!

Mook Moochim – 묵무침

EDIT:  A reader informed me that I forgot to mention that I used red pepper powder.  Oops.  Yes, I did use red pepper powder and apparently forgot to write it down.  Sorry!  Recipe has been updated.

There are many ways to eat mook.  You can eat it straight, you can eat it with just sauce, you can eat mook bap, or you can make mook moochim!  I had a lot of fresh vegetables in my fridge and decided to pull them all out!  (I’m going to use the leftover vegetables for some gochu-jang samgyupsal bibimbap later this week!  Stay tuned!!!) 

Ingredients Needed:

• 1/4 CUP each of chopped perilla leaves, romaine lettuce, minari leaves, daikon sprouts, onions, carrots, cucumber and whatever else you have and/or like!
• sauce mixture: 2 TB red pepper powder, 3 TB gook ganjang, 1.5 TB soy sauce, 1 TB minced garlic, 1 TB sesame oil, 2 TB sesame seeds, 3 TB chopped green onions, 2 TB rice wine, and half tablespoon of vinegar

 

 
Clockwise from top left: minari leaves, romaine lettuce, daikon sprouts and perilla leaves. 

 
Thoroughly wash and drain about 1/4 CUP each of the veggies above.

   
Meanwhile, slice some cucumbers and onions (about 1/4 CUP each) and throw it into a bowl.

   
I didn’t have regular carrots, so I took some baby carrots and sliced those up as well.  Then start chopping up all the veggies from above and make a salad!

    
Make the sauce mixture:  2 TB red pepper powder, 3 TB gook ganjang, 1.5 TB soy sauce, 1 TB minced garlic, 1 TB sesame oil, 2 TB sesame seeds, 3 TB chopped green onions, 2 TB rice wine, and 1/2 TB vinegar.  I did NOT use all this sauce and actually have more than half of it left over.  I’m going to use the rest to just eat the mook with or to add to the mook bap.  You can store it for a few days, so no worries!

 
After about 5 hours or so in the fridge, the mook is ready to eaten.  Just plop it out like so and cut away.  I only used about half of this because I was serving it as a side dish.

Slice up your mook into bite-size pieces…

 

  
and add sauce to YOUR taste.  Note:  I made the mistake of trying to mix up everything together.  The mook is much too fragile to mix around, so I advise you to first mix the salad with the sauce thoroughly and then add the mook and just lightly give it a flip.

 

You’re now ready to serve!  Enjoy~~  Will be back with a mook bap recipe later this week as well.  Toodles!

Mook – (묵) - Part 1

I know I’ve been slacking off on the updating department again.  Once I heard the news that my scans were clear, I no longer needed this blog as much.  This blog takes up a lot of my time, so running a household, running a business and trying to update this regularly starts to become a little much sometimes.  I’m working from home today, so I finally had the opportunity to sit down and update.  I made mook yesterday and took pictures and wrote down as much as I could about the process.

Ingredients Needed:

• 1 CUP acorn starch + 3 CUPS water
• 3 CUPS boiling water

  
First grab a pack of Acorn Starch.

Put about a CUP of acorn starch into a bowl and add 3 CUPS of water.  MIX IT WELL! 


  
Meanwhile, bring another 3 CUPS of water to a boil.

  
Just as the water is about to boil, pour the acorn starch mixture through a sieve and bring up the heat.  KEEP MIXING!  It’s very important to keep the mixture moving.  You really can’t do much else but stand by the stove and mix, mix, mix!


   
After awhile, it will be thick and gravy like.  Lower the heat down to LOW and keep stirring away.  Little bubbles will start to pop, ignore and just keep STIRRING!

After about 20-25 minutes of stirring, add a pinch of salt, mix it around and finally turn off the heat!

Let it cool down a bit and transfer it into some containers.  I used two smaller ones because I’m going to use one for mook moochim and one for mook bap.

Once it has cooled down, place it into the refrigerator and chill overnight or until cold.  I will be back shortly with a *how-to* for mook moochim.

Chicken with Potatoes – DakDoriTang - (닭도리탕)

I’m about to have a heart attack watching this Lakers game.  I know true sports fanatics will say THIS is the way to play and that the excitement is what makes it real sports, but honestly I wish it could be a simple repeat of Game 6! 

Anyhow, I’m sure I’ve mentioned before that there are various ways to make the same dish.  There’s no right way and no wrong way.  Whatever tastes best to you, is the RIGHT way! 

While in Korea, I had the opportunity to visit one of my favorite eemos.  I dub her the eemo “who makes the *best* dakdoritang!”  I didn’t have the opportunity to actually WATCH her make it, but I did question her extensively on her method and made her tell me how she makes her dakdoritang taste so darn good.  I actually remembered her dakdoritang from the last time I ate it over eight years ago and when she asked me, “What do you want to eat?”  I replied without hesitation, “Your dakdoritang!!!”

Here’s what she told me…and no, she didn’t give me any *real* measurements.  =)

Note: my eemo also uses beef dashida, but I omitted that part!

Ingredients Needed:

• 1 Cornish Game Hen
• potatoes - (2 large ones, or a cup of baby potatoes)
• 1/2 onion
• 1/2 carrot
• 2 small red peppers
• handful of garlic cloves
• sauce mixture: 1 TB minced garlic, 3 TB soy sauce, 8 TB water, 2 TB red pepper powder, 2 TB red pepper paste, 1 TB sesame oil, 2 TB rice wine, 1.5 TB honey (real honey!), 1/2 TB onion powder (optional)
• 2 TB ketchup

 
My eemo actually uses a whole chicken, but we’re a small family of three, so I know there’s no way we could eat all that chicken!  =P  Plus, I live with a man that doesn’t like chicken. 

 
First make sure your chicken is defrosted!  I leave mine in the fridge overnight and that usually does the trick.  If you have a really good pair of kitchen shears, you can cut this NOW or you can cut it after you boil it to make it easier.  I like cutting it up before boiling because I feel that this makes the chicken cook more evenly.

 

While you’re waiting for the water to boil, prep your veggies.  I chose to use 1/2 onion, 1/2 carrot, a handful of garlic cloves, 2 small red peppers and some baby potatoes I found lurking in the bottom drawer of the fridge.  Did I mention I haven’t been to the grocery store in a while?  =P



Once the water is boiling, dump your chicken in there and let it boil for a good 10-15 minutes.

 
While the chicken is boiling, make your sauce mixture: 1 TB minced garlic, 3 TB soy sauce, 8 TB water, 2 TB red pepper powder, 2 TB red pepper paste, 1 TB sesame oil, 2 TB rice wine, 1.5 TB honey (real honey!), 1/2 TB onion powder (optional)

  
After about 15 minutes wash your chicken under cool water.  Make sure to clean off all the gunk.

  
Transfer it to a clean bowl…

…and dump in the sauce mixture.  Use a large spoon (or a gloved hand like me) and just make sure to thoroughly coat the chicken.

Then dump the chicken into a pot and turn up the heat!  I suppose you can mix the chicken in the pot and save yourself a clean bowl.  =P  I was too busy trying to get this finished in time to watch the Lakers game that I wasn’t really thinking.

 
Anyhow, after the chicken starts boiling, turn DOWN the heat and throw in the carrots and potatoes.  You want the heat to be fairly LOW.  Just simmering.  And remember to mix, mix, mix!

 

 
After about 10 minutes, add the rest of the veggies and let it simmer for about another 5-10 minutes.

 

 
Make sure you come back and stir it around and up and down and mix everything up nice like so!

  
And when you’re almost done cooking (after about 20 minutes of simmering) – add 2 TB of KETCHUP!  Yup.  My eemo’s secret ingredient.  =P

 
Make sure to thoroughly mix it around yet again…

And you’re ready to serve!  Enjoy!!!  (Yes, I realize this is NOT the prettiest picture!)  Oh wells.  =/