Beksul Castella Mix (Sweet Honey Sponge Cake – Pre mix version)

Beksul Castella Mix (Sweet Honey Sponge Cake - Pre mix version)

One of my childhood favourite snacks is Castella (or Kasutera 카스테라, sweet honey sponge) cake. It’s sweet and soft and a well made version of it melts in your mouth. My mum also used to use this cake when making Korea rice cake balls (Gyeongdan 경단) after grinding it. Back then I didn’t know that the origin of Castella was Nagasaki, Japan. Regardless, Castella is a very common cake/bread in Korea and many people like it.

Conveniently, there is also a pre-mix version you can try as well. I only found out about this a few months ago. I was very delighted because even though the real ingredients that go in to this cake seem simple, many people said that it is a quite a difficult cake to bake from scratch. I guess it all comes down to how desperately you want a perfect cake?

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Dak Galbi Quesadilla (Korean Spicy Chicken Quesadilla) with Gochujang Salsa Sauce

Dakgalbi Quesadilla (Korean Spicy Chicken Quesadilla) with Gochujang Salsa Sauce

I love combining ingredients to give me more variety of food choices and be pleasantly surprised at its potential. Are you like me?

It was Cinco de Mayo a few days ago (I actually didn’t know until that day what the celebration was for. I’m very new to Mexican history.) and I saw a massive influx of Mexican food photos on pinterest. I’m not sure whether I was influenced by that or not, but I’ve been wanting to use my favourite Korean food “Dak Galbi” (Korean spicy chicken) with some other ingredients to create a Korean fusion food for a while. So here, I come up with Dak Galbi Quesadilla (Korean spicy chicken quesdilla, 닭갈비 퀘사딜라) with Gochujang salsa sauce.

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Korean Restaurant Visit – Maru in Brisbane

Dolsot Jjajang Tonkatsu (Pork cutlet with black bean sauce served in a hot stone pot) | My Korean Kitchen

I have a monthly play date day with my sister. We live in the same house but we don’t actually get to spend much time together, so we started this play date thing about two months ago. We go out for brunch or lunch and chat for 2-3 hours without any distractions. (Though on this occasion, I was quite distracted as I was busy taking multiple photos of food as it was arriving. *guilty*…Perhaps we should go to a non-Korean restaurant next time to spend real quality time together. :) )

A few weeks ago on our play date day, we decided to go to a Korean restaurant in the heart of Brisbane CBD. I didn’t have any particular food that I craved for as I’ve been cooking and eating Korean food for most of the meals since I came back to my blogging again, but my sister said she wanted to eat Sundubu Jjigae (Uncurdled Tofu Stew). While each restaurant might sell the same food, they all have different strengths in different food. According to my sister (who often visits various Korean restaurants here), soup & stew is best at Maru. So off we went. While Maru’s been around for a couple of years, this was my first visit. It was just after half past one, so it wasn’t as busy as it could be, but still tables were reasonably filled up.

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