My Korean Kitchen » Tips for Living in Korea

Korea, Outback Steakhouse Membership Service has changed

sue — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 02:29:53 +0000

In the past I wrote about these

However, they changed the rules just last month, and since I continually have some readers wanting information about membership at Outback Steakhouse, I felt like I have to add something to direct them correctly.

The Birthday coupon or Anniversary coupon service ended on December 31st, 2006. Instead, you can get a 10% discount once from January 1st 2007 to June 30th 2007 if you became an online member before December 31st, 2006.

The good news is that if you eat at Outback steakhouse from now on, you can apply for “My Outback Membership Card” (Anyone can apply for it and the restaurant will give it to you on the spot), which will give you a 10% discount all the time and on top of that you will get a 15% discount for 15 days around your birthday or anniversary for an unlimited number of times.

However, to get the discount, you need to register the membership card on the internet first. Here is the registration page in both Korean and English. (Only people with an ID card can apply for it, you have to scroll down to see it.)

Enjoy your meals.

How to Make Flour Tortillas (with Limited Resources)

sue — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 03:10:15 +0000

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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Kimbap Places in Korea

sue — Sat, 18 Nov 2006 11:07:14 +0000

I remember buying some rolls of Kimbab couple of years ago.

There was a shop called “Kimbap Nara” and they sold Kimbap for 1000 won. (About US $1 that time) It was so sensational because it was so cheap. Kimbap used to be 2000 won for the cheapest one. So everyone lined up to get some Kimbap at Kimbap Nara, sometimes I had to wait for about 10 minutes or more. But still everyone was so happy that they could get some Kimbap so cheaply, so it became more popular as a simple meal or snack. Before that time, it was only a picnic meal.

Anyhow, as the shop got popular, lots of other similar shops opened near the Kimbap Nara. In the town where I live, we have 3 Kimbap shops on the same street about 25m away from each other.

These three franchises are what we have in this town and are the most common franchises.

Kimbap Nara (means Kimbap country)

Kimbap Cheonguk (means Kimbap heaven)

Kim-ga-ne (means Mr.Kim’s households) Kim/gim also means sea weed sheets in Korean.

They all have similar menus, especially the first and second one. But Kim-ga-ne is a little more expensive than the other two shops, though its food quality is better. Since I first went to Kim-ga-ne I haven’t been to Kimbap Nara nor Kimbap Cheonguk. I like tuna Kimbap best from Kim-ga-ne.

I wanted to talk about these cheap Korean style fast food shops for a long time, but I just couldn’t dare to mention them. Because, simply, their menus are just too much. There are about 70 items on each menu. However, yesterday, Mary from maryeats pulled the trigger. She named all the menus from Kimbap Nara in Korean and English, the prices, and also simple but descriptive descriptions. I was simply amazed with her effort. It will be very useful if you are living in Korea, if you are not, just be jealous.

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Sushi from Homeplus

sue — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 07:55:41 +0000

Whenever I go to Homeplus (big supermarket), there is a corner I always keep an eye on. It is a sushi corner. I often buy sushi at Homeplus. Only when it is cheap though.

Its usual price is 400-600 won each. But sometimes they sell any kind of sushi for 390 won each (US $0.40), like today. So I bought some. This is the picture of my portion and I always get the same stuff. (I bought 2 each of them.)

They are all my favourite.

From the top: Red and yellow salmon caviar sushi, shrimp sushi, smoked salmon sushi.

Amongst these, the most expensive sushi is salmon caviar sushi when it is not on sale. I like them best too, because I like the popping feeling when I chew them.
If you go to Homeplus you should try some too. It tastes very good too.

Tuna Salad Sushi Rolls

How to Keep the Mushrooms fresh in the Fridge

sue — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 02:37:23 +0000

My husband used to complain about the paper bag for mushrooms.
If you go grocery shopping in Korea, there aren’t any paper bags for the mushrooms, only plastic bags are available. If you keep them in a plastic bag, they go bad (slimy feeling) really fast.

I recently found a way to keep the mushrooms fresher in the fridge. You might know already. Anyway, as soon as you get home from grocery shopping, take out all the mushrooms from the plastic bag, wrap the mushrooms with kitchen paper towel, and put them back in to the plastic bag. It is really amazing how this simple thing makes a difference.

They stay in good condition for more than a week I think.

If you have any better idea, just let me know it. I can try that too.

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