November 2006 | My Korean Kitchen

Monthly Archives: November 2006

Ginger Tea (Saenggang Cha in Korean)

November 30, 2006 Category: Drinks and Desserts

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

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

Preparation

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
Rinse the cinnamon in cold water. (You don’t need to cut them into small pieces, mine was already in small pieces.)
Thin slice the ginger.

Cooking

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

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

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)

Related Posts

Ginseng Tea (Insam Cha in Korean)

Tags: Beverages

Uncurdled Tofu Stew (Sundubu Jjigae in Korean)

November 29, 2006 Category: Soup and Stew

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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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

Tofu Soybean Paste Stew (Dubu Doenjangjjigae in Korean)

Fish Cake Soup (Eomuk-Guk in Korean)

Tags: Korean Food, Korean-cuisine, Soup-and-Stew, Sundubu-Jjigae, Uncurdled-Tofu-Stew

How to Make Flour Tortillas (with Limited Resources)

November 28, 2006 Category: Snacks, Tips for Living in Korea

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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

Sieve the flour, salt, starch powder.
Add the water and olive oil.
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.)

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.

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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Bulgogi Flavoured Chicken Burrito

Tags: Bread and Bakery, Tips for Living in Korea

Bulgogi Flavoured Chicken Burrito

November 27, 2006 Category: Eggs and Poultry

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bulgogi flavoured chicken burrito on the magazine

I had some instant Bulgogi sauce left over from cooking a Bulgogi dish last month. (I know, it’s been a while) I thought it is really time to use it up, and this Bulgogi flavoured Chicken Burrito is what I came up with.
Surprisingly, the chicken tastes like Bulgogi beef, just cheaper this way. If you close your eyes, you can’t tell the difference. (That is a bit exaggerated )

Anyway, if you can get tortillas easily from shops, this chicken burrito will be a very easy cooking. You can get the tortillas on the internet for 3,450 won (US $ 3.60) for 500 g (12 sheets) if you can speak Korean that is. However if you live in a small city (in Korea) and can’t order it on the internet, then we need to start from the scratch. I am going to show you how to make tortillas with limited resources in the next post. It was really easy.

Ingredients for 4-6 wraps, depending on the tortilla size

Chicken burrito ingredients

2 tomatoes
Lettuce 70 g (about 10 leaves)
1/4 onion (I used purple one)
Shredded cheese 1 fistful
Tortillas 4 sheets (mine are proudly hand made – about 8 inches )
5 pieces of chicken breast
Instant Bulgogi sauce – 8 tbsp

Steps

1. Slice the chicken into small size pieces.

2. Marinate the chicken with instant Bulgogi sauce for about 15 minutes.

Marinating Chicken for bulgogi tortillas

3. Cut the tomatoes into small pieces.

4. Thin slice the onion and lettuce.

5. Stir fry the chicken in the wok.

6. Place the tortillas on the plate.

7. Add the topping as you want. But don’t be too greedy, otherwise, as you know it is hard to wrap it. (I add lettuce on the bottom, then onion, tomatoes, chicken, cheese) – You can add some sauce like honey mustard or chili sauce. Though it still tastes nice without the sauce.

Burrito before wrapping

8. Wrap it.

bulgogi flavoured chicken burrito

I had enough fillings left at the end to make another two wraps, but if you use large tortillas then you will use all the fillings.

Related Posts

Bulgogi Wrapped in Rice Paper

How to Make Flour Tortillas with Limited Resources

Marinated Beef (Bulgogi in Korean) -Instant sauce version

Tags: bulgogi-flavoured, burrito, chicken-burrito, Eggs and Poultry, Korean-fusion, tortillas

Oyster pancakes (Gul Jeon in Korean)

November 24, 2006 Category: Seafood, Side Dishes (Banchan)

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Oyster pancakes on the magazine

Apparently, oysters taste best and have the most nutrition in the winter season (From November to early March) in Korea. I bought 2 packs of oysters (total 400 g) for the price of one the other day and we enjoyed it a lot. They are usually about 2500 won (US $2.60) for 200g pack. Oysters are often referred to as “the milk of the sea“, because they contain lots of calcium. They are also very popular as a stamina food for Korean guys.

Ingredients
(Expected preparation time – 23 minutes, Expected cooking time – less than 10 minutes)

Ingredients for oyster pancakes