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Archive for November, 2006

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Ginger Tea (Saenggang Cha in Korean)

Published November 30th, 2006 in Beverages. 11 Comments
Ginger tea on the magazine

A few days ago, Michael was coughing a lot and he said he had a sore throat and mucus. I am not a doctor, but he thinks I can fix him. :) He basically doesn’t trust modern medicine and loves oriental treats so much. So I made this ginger tea for him. It has a warm character, helps blood circulation and keeps your hands and feet warm. It also helps stop coughing and clears mucus. Though oriental doctors recommend not to drink it, if you have a fever.

Ingredients

ginger tea ingredients
  • Fresh ginger - 80 g
  • Fresh cinnamon pieces- 20 g
  • Water - 8 cups
  • Optional (just before you serve the tea) - 4 to 5 pine nuts, 1 tsp of honey

Preparationginger tea cooking

  1. Clean the ginger well (peel the skin off as well). - I scrubbed it with rough cloth first then used a spoon to scrub off the skin
  2. Rinse the cinnamon in cold water. (You don’t need to cut them into small pieces, mine was already in small pieces.)
  3. Thin slice the ginger.

Cooking

  1. Put the ginger, cinnamon, and water into a pot.
  2. Boil it on medium (or low) heat for about 25-30 minutes.
  3. Sieve the ginger and cinnamon. (Use a white straining cloth if you can, to catch the small dirt from the cinnamon)
  4. Serve it in a tea cup. (You can also add some pine nuts and honey)
ginger tea

It gave me more than 1.5 L of tea (about 7-8 cups of tea). This is how I keep the rest.

ginger tea in a bottle

Michael just reheats a little amount of tea whenever he drinks it - 2 times a day. Here is a comment from the consumer :

“This is my favourite drink. It helps sooth my throat, and is very relaxing.”

This is a picture of the cinnamon (Korean name :Gyepi) I got last year from Homeplus. (about 5,800 won - US $6.10)

Cinnamon

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Ginseng Tea (Insam Cha in Korean)

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Uncurdled Tofu Stew (Sundubu Jjigae in Korean)

Published November 29th, 2006 in Soup and Stew. 12 Comments
sundubu jjigae on the magazine

Today, some people may say, “Finally!”. Yes, I finally made “Sundubu jjigae” last night. I think this is the top 3rd keyword search recipe people try to find from my blog. What is so special about this stew folks? I am really curious.

Ingredients for 2 people

ingredients for sundunu jjigae
  • Uncurdled tofu 400g
  • (Unshelled) little-neck clams 200g (Bajirak in Korean - you can learn a little bit more about it from the second paragraph of my other post)
  • 1 pack of enoki mushrooms
  • Oyster mushrooms 1 fistful
  • 1 stalk of spring onion
  • Dried kelp 2 sheets - 10×7cm size each (Though you don’t have to copy the exact size of mine)
  • Water 1 and 1/3 cups
  • Chili powder - 1tbsp
  • Olive oil - 1tbsp
  • Minced garlic - 1 tsp
  • Salt 1/4 tsp
  • Soy sauce - 1/2 tsp
  • Pepper 3 sprinkles
  • Sesame oil - 1 dash

Preparation

  1. Soak the clams in cold water for about 30 minutes. (Add some salt - about 1tsp)
  2. Soak the kelp in 1 and 1/3 cups of water for about 30 minutes.
  3. Diagonally thin slice the spring onion.
  4. Cut the bottom 4-5 cm of the mushrooms off (the roots) and wash the rest for use.
  5. Separate oyster mushrooms with hands.
  6. Drain the clams from no.1 (throw the water away)
  7. Drain the kelp from no.2 (keep the water, we will use it as a broth)

Cooking

1. Put the chili powder, olive oil, and the garlic in a pot.

2. Heat the pot on the stove and stir it.

Cooking sundubu jjigae1

3. Add the clams and stir it.
4. Add the water and tofu. Boil it for about 1 minute. (until the water starts to boil)
5. Add all the mushrooms, salt, and soy sauce. Boil it for about 1 minute. (again until the water starts to boil properly)
6. Add the spring onion, pepper and sesame oil.

Cooking sundubu jjigae2

7. Serve the pot on the table. (You can adjust the taste with salt)

sundubu jjigae

For your curiosity this is the tofu I used for this stew.
It is about 1000 won - US $ 1

sundubu

How to open - cut the red dotted line (next to the bar code) with scissors. Can you see the line?

Also, I hope you use a bit bigger pot than mine because it can boil over. This happened to me last night “again”, I think that is why I don’t like making this stew much. :) (I don’t know how to measure the dish, though I want to give the best description as I can. Its bottom diameter is 11.5 cm and top diameter is about 15.5 cm) If you can’t get a bigger pot then reduce some vegetable ingredients or water.

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Tofu Soybean Paste Stew (Dubu Doenjangjjigae in Korean)

Fish Cake Soup (Eomuk-Guk in Korean)

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How to Make Flour Tortillas (with Limited Resources)

Published November 28th, 2006 in Tips for Living in Korea and Bread and Bakery. 13 Comments
Hand made tortilla

Since I speak Korean, I can easily order tortillas from the internet. Though it seemed expensive to me to pay about 4 dollars (US) to get 12 sheets of tortillas, plus pay the delivery cost which is another 4 dollars if I spend less than 40 dollars from that shop.

So I researched a little bit on the weekend to get a very simple tortilla recipe.
Here is the one I found, I altered it a bit in my own way. They were quite good but they weren’t as thin as prepackaged ones. I guess I need a better technique to do so.

Ingredients for 4 wraps

  • White flour 2 cups - I used all purpose flour
  • Starch powder - 2 tbsp
  • Salt - 1 tsp
  • Water 3/4 cup
  • Olive oil - 2 tsp
  • White flour - 2 tbsp (Anti sticky purpose)

Make sure you pour 3/4 cup of water, not 1 and 3/4 cups. There was a incident while my sister was helping me cooking. She doesn’t have much experience with measuring cups like most Koreans, and she poured 1 cup extra on the flour. Thanks to her, I started all the steps over again, and had to cook lots of Buchimgae pancakes to use up the other failed dough whole weekend. I still have 2/3 more to go. :(

Steps

  1. Sieve the flour, salt, starch powder.
  2. Add the water and olive oil.
  3. Kneed the dough. (The recipe I found recommend to leave it like that for about 1 hour in the fridge, but I didn’t have much time to spare, because of the incident I had. So I just kept going to next step without having any break.)
Making tortillas1

4. Divide the dough into 4 pieces.

5. Spread the white flour (2tbsp) on the board.

6. Roll the 4 pieces of the dough lightly on the board into balls. (Separately)

7. Roll one piece of dough with a rolling pin to make a thin round shape. (Repeat this for the rest of them)

8. Preheat the pan for 10 seconds.

9. Add one tortilla sheet and cook it for 20-30 seconds.

10. Turn it over and cook it for 20-30 seconds.

Making tortillas2

If you have a tortilla press, here is a good recipe from Simply Recipes - How to make corn tortillas

Also, if you have better ideas or suggestions to make tortillas with limited resources, I would like to hear about it from you too.:)

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