Miyuk Moochim with Mae-Shil

Coming soon!

Hopefully in the next day or two, but hope you understand if that day or two ends up being a month or two. ;)

I AM a little preoccupied with other things lately...

Ggak Ddoogi–(깍두기)–Version 2.0

 

Is fall/winter (they sorta just blend in SoCal don’t they?) finally hitting SoCal?  About time, eh? 

It has been hot for so long that I’m sort of welcoming this cold.  SORT OF.  I’ll always be a SoCal girl and that means my body can only tolerate so much cold. 

On a side note, the MR has been out of the country for almost a month now leaving our house feeling a bit empty.  It has been just Munchkin and I for the last 23 days and counting.  Although it has been a bit trying at times, I’m relishing my one on one time with him.  He is now an almost five-year-old and I’m thankful every day that I was able to be here for three birthday parties after my diagnosis (I was diagnosed the day before his 3rd birthday party). 

I see Munchkin developing leaps and bounds every day.  He talks SO much.  SOOOOOOO much.  He talks about anything and everything under the sun.  “Can I ask you something?” is one of his favorite lines and you bet he will definitely ASK ME SOMETHING.  He drives me to the brink of insanity, but will then turn around and do something so sweet and inspiring that I thank God for each and every day.

To be honest, since it’s only Munchkin and I – our consumption of Korean food has been almost nil.  =P  With the exception of kimchi, Munchkin and I rarely eat Korean food.  We recently devoured the latest batch of my mom’s chong-gak-kimchi so I decided it was time to make some ggak ddoogi in it’s place.  I opted for a quicker and milder version this time since I was pressed for time and feeling absolutely lazy.

Ingredients Needed:

• 5 LBS of daikon radish (moo)
• 1/4 CUP red pepper powder, 4 TB minced garlic, 1 TB salt, 3 TB honey powder, 2 TB rice wine, 1/2 TB ginger powder, 3 TB minced shrimp jut plus about 1 TB of the shrimp jut liquid.

 

I bought about 5 lbs. of moo (daikon radish) at the K-market and went to work on my kitchen floor.  Yes, I did the kimchi squat.  =P

 

I chopped up the moo into smaller pieces than normal.

 

Try and make it about 1CM-ish.  It will get smaller once you salt it up.

 

Continue chopping it ALLLLLL up and dump it into a large bowl.

 

Dump about 1/4 cup of salt on top…

 

…mix it around and just let it sit.  No need to add water. 

 

Leave it for a few hours and when you come back, there will be all this liquid in the bowl.

 

Rinse all the moo pieces CLEAN.

 

Give it a nice bath a couple of times even.

 

And let it sit and drain out for about 10 minutes or so.

 

Then add all the following ingredients: 1/4 CUP red pepper powder, 4 TB minced garlic, 1 TB salt, 3 TB honey powder, 2 TB rice wine, 1/2 TB ginger powder, 3 TB minced shrimp jut plus about 1 TB of the shrimp jut liquid.

 

MIX, MIX, MIX!  I used this red pepper powder for the first time today.  I had brought it back with me earlier this year on our trip to Korea.  It looks a lot spicier than the one I used prior which is why I adjusted my recipe.  I actually used half a cup of red pepper powder, but I think 1/4 cup would have been plenty.

 

Transfer it over into a kimchi container…

 

And let it sit out in a cool area for 2-3 days.  You’re all set! 

 

I’m currently making beef soup with ox tails, do-gan-neeh (cow knee bone) and beef (eye of round?)  It will be a sul-lung-tang of sorts.  No recipe because it’s just boiling, boiling, boiling.  We’re going on 10 hours so far and I plan on boiling for over 24 hours.  =P

Hope you have all been doing well!

Serrano Chilies in Vinegar Sauce

I was at Bristol Farms a couple of weeks ago and saw that their Serrano chilies looked particularly fresh, so I picked up a bunch.  At first, I was going to pickle them in soy sauce, but then I remembered the chilies they serve at Thai restaurants and decided to make those instead.  Anyhow, here goes my rendition.  I made this over the weekend and did a taste test today and so far, so good.

 

Begin by washing and drying your chilies.  I honestly don’t know how much I bought.  Probably a few handfuls.  =P

 

Then just start slicing away at them.  Try to slice them as thing as you can.  Usually I would use a mandolin, but these Serrano chilies were so skinny that it was easier to just chop.

 

I ended up with about 1 CUP of sliced chilies.  If you need EXACT measurements.

 

Then just pour in a mixture of: 1 CUP water, 3/4 CUP vinegar, and 1 TB sugar.

 

Let it sit for about a week or so inside the fridge and you’re ready to enjoy.  It’s quite high on the spice scale so beware!  Hope everyone in Cali is keeping cool in this crazy heat wave.  I will be back soon with a Spicy Chicken Gizzard Recipe later tonight.  =)

Spicy Serrano Chiles in Vinegar and Sugar

Yup, an update will be coming soon.

I promise.

It's nothing fancy, but it's something in my fridge at the moment. =)

I missed you all once again.

Hope you have been well.

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.  =)

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.