korean – Cannibalicious

Not all cuisines have staple accoutrements but those that do have them because they found something so great that it had to be eaten with every single meal. Mexicans have salsa, Peruvians have aji, and Koreans have kimchi. It’s the topic of heated debates, mostly because of its overpowering taste and smell. It’s garlicky, funky, stinky, spicy, and delicious. It can be made with pretty much any vegetable but for the sake of simplicity we’ll only talk about the OG cabbage version here. There’s rumors that it is banned from the dorms at the Culinary Institute of America, also that it is what saved Koreans from the avian flu when the outbreak happened all across Asia. Apparently, the lactic acid bacteria and fermentation metabolites in kimchi inhibit the growth of influenza virus, so say a bunch of sources (PRN, BBC, WSJ). Bottom line, it’s stinky but super good for you.

Ingredients
– 1 Head napa cabbage (~2.5kg / ~5lbs)
– 2 cups coarse sea salt
– 4 scallions
– 1 sheet dashima (about the size of your hand)
– 1 tbsp glutinous rice powder
– 2/3 cup gochugaru (Korean red chili pepper flakes)
– 1/4 cup saeujeot (salted fermented baby shrimp)
– 2 fresh oysters (optional)
– 3 tbsp fish sauce
– 5 tbsp fermented ginger and garlic
– Small handful scallions, green onion and/or chives

Cut the cabbage lengthwise into 4 pieces. In a large bowl dissolve a cup of salt in water and bathe the cabbage, making sure you get water in all the nooks and crannies. Take turns with each quarter if the bowl isn’t big enough. Shake off the excess water and generously sprinkle salt between each leaf, concentrating on getting the salt in the thick white parts of the cabbage. This will soften the cabbage to make it malleable. Once salted, submerge in the salt water for 5 to 8 hours. Rotate the pieces if needed so they all spend time underwater. Once the cabbage leaves are easily bendable, rinse it thoroughly.

Boil the sheet of dashima in a cup of water, let cool and add the rice powder. Bring back up to a simmer to make a thin paste. Mix in the ginger+garlic paste, the gochugaru, saeujeot, fish sauce, and diagonal-cut scallions in the paste. Let sit for a few minutes to get the pepper flakes re hydrated. It should have a thick but easily spreadable consistency. Add water if necessary. If adding the fresh oysters, do this process in a blender and add the scallions after it’s blended.

Cut enough off the bottom part of the cabbage for the leaves to still be held on together. Spread the paste evenly between all the leaves. When done, fold the quarters nicely wrapping them with the outermost leaf and place in the container you’ll use to ferment it in. You can definitely just eat it as is but if you want truly magical kimchi, let it sit in room temperature for two to 3 days. Weather, temperature, and how ripe you like your kimchi will determine how long you leave it out. Just taste it as you go.

Korean recipes are almost never measured. At least the people I have watched, like my mom and aunts, never measure and just go by eyeballing measurements and taste. I guess it’s an old school thing because I’ve seen similar behavior from other ajummas, Mexican doñas, Italian nonnas, and the like. My mother scoffs at measuring cups and instead, gives me measurements from one of our tablespoons and different levels of hand-cuppings. Measurements are given like half a handful, a full handful but with the hand slightly splayed, just the fingers but from the second knuckle up. I have done my best to turn these measurements into standardized cups and spoons but since most of these recipes are scalable, just eyeball them.

Bulgogi might be THE taste of Korean cuisine. It’s the marinade that everyone has tried and associates with Korean food. As soon as you smell the garlicky, soy sauce-y, sesame seed-y fumes, you know someone’s cooking a variation of bulgogi. The name bulgogi translates to fire meat. Technically, it can be any animal and any cut of it, but it’s usually beef. Any variation on animal is usually noted in the name, like dweji bulgogi which is pork bulgogi or dak bulgogi which is chicken.

In this recipe, I’ll concentrate on the marinade. Use any beef you’d like that your budget will allow. Most people use top sirloin or tenderloin when going the inexpensive route, and short rib or ribeye when splurging.

Ingredients
– 1/2 cup soy sauce
– 1/4 cup garlic honey (or regular honey or a bit less brown sugar)
– 4 tbsp mirin (rice wine)
– 1 onion
– 4 tbsp fermented ginger garlic (or 2 tbsp ginger + 2 tbsp garlic, chopped)
– 1 large asian pear
– 5 tbsp sesame seed oil
– Pepper to taste

Slice your meat thin. It helps to either buy it sliced or freeze it for a couple hours before cutting. Blend all the ingredients and marinade the meat for about 5 hours. This is one of those recipes that is hard to mess up. Add more or less honey depending on how sweet you like it. You can’t go wrong with a lot of garlic, so play around with that, too. If you choose to go with less garlic than I recommended, gtfo and don’t come back. Just kidding, but no, really.

Cook on a skillet or grill on medium heat, you don’t want the sugars to burn before the meat is cooked. If you crowd the pan, you end up steaming instead of grilling the meat. It’s not the worst thing to happen since you get a bunch of “sauce” you can mix into your rice, but you won’t get the delicious char. You know what you like, so play around with it. The recipe makes a lot of marinade so you get a few tries to find out how you like it.

Tag: korean

Kimchi

Bulgogi