For the soups, you can use Doenjang in soups like vegetable soups or shellfish soup (or others).

I don’t use many cookbooks in English (the ones I have are in Korean).
I’ll recommend an English language Korean cookbook soon.

Korean meals are not traditionally served in courses (with appetizer, main, dessert etc). The main dish and all the side dishes are all put on the table together (though they may take a few journeys to place on your table if there are lot of dishes).

In some websites and in some Korean restaurants outside of Korea, they will list appetizers or courses because that is what many westerners are used to.

If you look at the pictures on Cuisine of Korea at Wikipedia, you will see examples of meals with side dishes.

With soups, the meal will either have small individual soups or one large shared one, not usually both.

Good to see you here.

Thanks for your compliment.
I really like your blog too, especially your writing style. It is very intriguing and humorous.

I hope my blog is helpful for your new Korean cooking adventure.

Keep in touch.
Take care

-Sue

Thank you
Pepy

The cooking syrup I use is either a corn syrup or sugar cane syrup (basically a sweetener).

Thanks for the link to my blog and for your wonderful recipes. They are very well-written and are encouraging me to try new dishes at home. I want to try the gul jeon next, they look so yummy.

I have a question:
In some of the recipes here and in others I have seen, it calls for rice wine. However, I have been having a hard time finding rice wine in the store. What kind do you usually use? I seem to fine rice vinegar but not rice wine for cooking. I am probably seeing it but not realizing what it is? Can you write the Korean name for it? I will look for it in the store the next time.

Thanks again for such a great blog!

I am sorry about your trouble.

I meant rice wine for cooking, the alcohol.
Here is the link to the picture and price.

Refined Rice wine

If you can’t find it, using some left over wine or Soju can be good.
Though, I haven’t tried it that way.

Also if you have further questions you are always welcome.

Additional:
I just came from grocery shopping, and also bought a bottle of rice wine for myself.
You can find it in the condiment section (maybe near vinegar or sauce such as gochujang, ketchup etc)
I bought a small bottle this time (360 g), same brand as the link, for 1,850 won at Homeplus.

We do sort of have fish sauce, mainly when we make Kimchi, that is anchovy sauce. However I’ve never bought any.

About the rice paper, it is not really authentic Korean food as far as I know. It became popular as one of the ingredients for Vietnamese food.

Ssammu is pickled radish in vinegar, salt, sugar etc, People use it for wrapping when they eat bbq meat or make mussamari.

I don’t know whether you can get it in a Korea grocery store in Taiwan or not. Because I’ve never been there, I don’t know what the Taiwanese market is really like. Though it is very easy to get at a supermarket in Korea.

I guess it really depends on how many Koreans living in Taiwan want ssammu.

I don’t own this book. It is on my wish list.
However if we both want to have it, it must be a good book.

Sorry, I don’t make my own Kimchi at the moment, but maybe in the future. I will tell you when I make some.

I’ve tried several of your recipes, and each time the food (esp. the pork kimchi stew) just make my day!! (my husband gives two thumbs up too!) Be aware that your efforts on writing this blog are much appreciated….I’m sure by many others too!

I am really glad to hear that your husband gave you two thumbs up.
I got two thumbs up for that stew from my husband too. Thanks for your support.

Take care

Thanks.

First, What kind of instant noodles do you mean? Do you mean Korean instant noodles, like shin ramen? or udong noodles?

Most of the time I don’t add any special ingredients, especially for instant noodles (it comes with pre made package as you know.)

Or perhaps I am misunderstanding what you are saying. I think you need to give me more detail what you meant about instant noodles.

Good idea though, I will cook some instant noodle meals with my own additions. I think that’s what you mean.

Thanks for the info. I hope you know what dish I’m talking about.

To be honest, I don’t know what you’re describing, it could be regional.
As you know, most Korean food is sweet, spicy, and garlicky, which means it can be anything.

If you can contact your Korean friend who took you to that restaurant,
find out its exact name.

Also I don’t think it is easy to find out the recipe, especially if it was just a fad. However, I can create a dish which tastes sweet, spicy, and garlicky with several experiments. Though you might have wait several of weeks.

I can’t help but be impressed by your Blog! It’s really nice to have now that I’m into kimchi and stuff!

Just wondering - I’ve tried making Kaktugi Kimchi but oversalted it, so now the radishes are horribly salty and hopelessly inedible! Before I dump them into the rubbish chute, do you know if there’s anything else I can do with them? Can I do a normal Kimchi Jiggae with them you think?

sarah.

I think you can make Kimchi jjigae, I know my mom used kaktugi when it became sour after long fermenting. (I know it is a bit different to your case. ) But you might need to add less sauce when you make jjigae with it, since kaktugi itself is quite salty.

Also some people make bokkumbap with it. (Stir fried rice with Kimchi and some vegetables or spam.) If it is too salty, you can rinse it in water before you use it too.

thanks for the post. love your blog.

I was just wondering kind of instant noodles do you like to eat most. Would love to see pictures too. Korean noodles btw.

and yeah, what you usually add to the kind you are cooking. Because I read some people like to add cheese and other stuff with their noodles.

Shin-ramyun is my favorite brand of noodles. However, I don’t use instant noodles that much as my husband doesn’t really like them. (Though he does like Udong noodles)

On the occasional times I cook noodles, and if I add something extra, I add fresh vegetables like bean sprouts, spring onion, mushrooms, or green chili, and kimchi.
I’ve never tried cheese on noodles, just on spaghetti.

I am glad that my blog make you happy. I will do my best to post more Korean recipes.

Take care

Glad to see you here. I really love your blog too.
Thanks for stopping by.

To my knowledge, the leaves of the sesame plant are not used in the kitchen. Nevertheless, “sesame leaves” or “wild sesame leaves” are sometimes called for in Korean cookbooks. This is due to erroneous translation and should read perilla.

Would anyone know what I can use instead of sesame leaves or perilla, as they are not available where I live.

When I searched 깻잎(Kkaenip - this is the Korean name) in a Korean English dictionary, it says “a sesame leaf” and “perilla” next to it, so my guess is most Koreans decided to use the first description for it.

I researched a little bit and I think you are right that it should be called perilla leaf. However I think it can be called Korean sesame leaf, because that’s what the majority of Koreans think and mean, so you can say Korean style sesame leaf.

Kkaenip, the actual Korean word, generally means a type of sesame or perilla leaf, but most of the time when people say kkaenip they mean perilla leaf.

I don’t think any other herbs can replace perilla leaf since it has such a distinct taste and smell, though you never know right?
Did you try any Korean or Asian grocery shops?
I hope you can find it.

I hope your substitutes turn out well and if you have time let me know, so I can tell other people about it.

I’ve linked you on my blog - hope that’s alright. Lots of people in my neck of the woods LOVE Korean food so I thought it might be of interest.

Have a Happy New Year! (Will you be doing a traditional New Year menu?)

-Beast Mom

Good to meet you and I am glad that you are enjoying my blog.
I am planning to make some ddeok guk on new year and I think that is pretty much it. I hope you have a good time with your family.
Happy New year!

Awesome blog, I work for LG Electronics in the U.S. and became exposed to Korean food from my fellow co-workers. I fell in love with it and now cook a lot of Korean dishes myself. I saw in the previous posts about perilla leaves. Have you ever tried the canned versions? They come in tins like sardines. I see a lot of Koreans eating them as a side dish. And do you have made marinated black beans(Kong Jang)? Mine usually turns out to salty or not salty enough, just can’t seem to fix it like the Korean restaraunts do.

I have 2 questions for Sue — do you leave the chicken in the saki, and add the spices and paste into the saki/chicken/pepper mix? And you use sugar and corn syrup as a sweetener; I used honey, but is refined sugar more traditional? I want to get it right, not Cantonese tasting.

Thanks and Happy New Year.

Philip

Canned perilla leaves, they are marinated with some kind of sauce already. You can eat them as it is as a side dish, but you need fresh leaves to make dak galbi.
I haven’t made kong jang myself yet, but I am planning on making some in the near future. So stay tuned.

Yes, you are right. You marinate the chicken in the pepper and rice wine, then you add the seasoning sauce to it. I prefer to use dark sugar (least processed) instead of corn syrup now. I haven’t tried the recipe with honey.

It’s good to hear that you finally found some perilla leaves. If they look like these, then you found the right one. They really make good dish of dakgalbi.

I suspect that Korean soy sauce is a bit sweeter than other kinds, I didn’t know about the salt.

I live in Arizona and love to cook Korean food. Especially kim-chi and such. It is great to have your site as a reference.

Happy New Year!!

Your comment is one of the best compliments I’ve heard.
Thanks you. I will do my best to guide you in cooking Korean food.
Happy New Year.

I think you know I’ve become a regular reader of your blog and I’m so appreciative of all of your hard work. I hate to bother you with my question, but I bought some acorn powder (starch) and I tried to make 도토리묵 but it wasn’t gelatinuos–just mushy. I followed the directions on the bag as well as I could. I wonder if you could tell me how to make it? If you have time, that’d be great.

Thank you so much!

I would love to tell you how to make dotorimuk on the spot, but I haven’t tried making it from scratch myself and I don’t even have experience buying acorn powder yet.
However, I can put your request in my reader’s request notebook, and I will try to make it some other time.
I hope that’s OK with you?

Question about kimbap…Can I use seasoned laver or just plain roasted?

Thanks,
jennifer

For Kimbap, you use plain roasted laver.
I hope you make delicious Kimbap.

i was looking for a recipe for bibimbap and i came across your site..i’m glad I did! i will try your recipe soon.

thanks for having an awesome site.

Excellent! Most people who tried the recipe say that sesame leaves are the core of the flavour.
Hi Ryan,

Thanks, I am glad to hear that this blog is great.
I am adding new recipes nearly everyday, so I hope you enjoy them too.

Thanks for stopping by. I noticed that you are writing about Korean culture on your blog. Are you Korean or someone who is really into Korean things. When you talk about Korean food, you are welcome to refer to my blog if you want. See you around.

I prefer to keep my blog focused on Korean food, but I do want to put on a forum for people to discuss their variations or even other recipes and interact with each other. I just don’t know how to set up a forum yet. (But hopefully I will soon.)

I notice that the use of cooking syrup and sugar is very common in many Korean recipes. Traditionally, how was the sweet element added. Was honey or malt syrup used? Or, have Koreans become accustom to sweeter foods during today’s times? Thanks for you replies and tremendous contribution to web-gastronomy.

That is one thing my husband complains about. He thinks Koreans use too much sugar or corn syrup.

I am trying my best to avoid corn syrup and sugar, especially corn syrup, but it is kind of hard to make a decent taste without them now. I must have ruined all my taste buds while I was growing up in this culture.

My husband asked the same question just a couple of days ago, how did Koreans make the sweet taste before the sugar or corn syrup was imported. I have researched about it though, I haven’t found an answer yet.

Sorry, I couldn’t help here, but I will keep looking for an answer, if I do, I will mention it.

Thanks

Sue, while traveling in Korea I would always stop to eat neng myun and it leads me to these questions. Why is there so many different types of neng myun in restaurants, yet no difference in names. Sometimes the noodles are white, green, brown or even black.

I have noticed that some restaurants make their own with a noodle extruding machine, while others use packaged.. When browsing the isles in the Korean Markets in America, I have noticed many types of neng myun noodles. Some dry, others frozen and some refrigerated. Yet in Korea, rarely did I find this assortment of noodles in hyper-markets etc.

So what’s up with neng myun? Is it a predominant restaurant food that you go out and eat or something else? And do Koreans differentiate between house-made extruded type noodles and those from the package? Arrowroot noodles, buck-wheat noodles and acorn starch noodles. Are these all called neng-myun and be used interchangeably or are certain noodles for particular dishes? Why is there potato starch or other starch mixed noodles in neng myun? Was it originally only buck-wheat and non-elastic? And what’s the difference with Pyung-Yang style neng-myun?

Sorry for many questions, I just love these noodles as there is nothing similar in other Asian foods or European pasta!

Thanks for your help with this delicious and chewy Korean noodle!

Paul

You mentioned that your husband is perhaps allergic to wheat. My boyfriend is also allergic to wheat (perhaps speficially, gluten).

It depends on how severe the allergy is (my boyfriend’s is moderate), but I wasn’t sure if you knew that soy sauce contains gluten–you use it in many of your recipes. I cook without soy sauce or try to find wheat-free soy sauce, otherwise my boyfriend wakes up in the middle of the night with stomach pains!

There are lots of other foods with “hidden” gluten, but some things like buckwheat are fine to eat. I usually substitute rice noodles or buckwheat noodles for flour-based noodles, for instance. The same goes for flour.

Just thought I’d mention it. Thanks again for all your wonderful posts.
Adrienne

I don’t know much about the individual noodles and I have never made them from scratch, but most of them seem easily available at the shops near me.

Adrienne,
Thanks for that tip about soy sauce.
Once we move to Australia (fairly soon now) we should be able to find more gluten free products (mainly because my husband will be able to help me search too, instead of always leaving it up to me here in Korea).

I just noticed ur comment about your moving to Australia! Which part? I m in Adelaide.
Cheerios!!

I am moving to Brisbane. I have been to Adelaide, it is a beautiful city.

First of all.. congratulations, your site absolutely rocks. I discovered it looking for kimchi stew recipes. I have to admit I am a total noob concerning korean food. But I already cooked about ten of your recipes and each one was splendid.
And luckily although living on the other side of the world, I easily found a korean shop where they have absolutely everything you mentioned.

What was it, I actually wanted to say?

Oh yes, thank you and keep up the good work.

Greetings from Switzerland

Philipp

Thanks so much for your support and kind words.
I am very happy to hear that you are happy with your results.
You are really lucky to find ingredients easily, because lots of people ask me how to find certain ingredients and how to substitute.
I hope you don’t have difficulty in finding ingredients in the future too.
Take care.

I am glad to meet you too. More friends to talk about Korean food. See you around.

I have a comment though. I downloaded Firefox to make your page more viewable. But when I click on a side link, such as “Ingredient Descriptions” under “Categories.” The page only shows three of them, but there is a number (18).

I’m assuming this is the number of posts under that category, right? So how do I view all 18? I’m having trouble viewing other ones as well I only see a max of three on the page, and there is not link for a “Page 2, 3, 4″ or anything … What am I missing here?!

^_^; am i such a babo? :] thanks, courtney

Sorry about the trouble using the categories and archives.
My husband just upgraded this blog to Wordpress 2.1 (a new update to the blogging software), and that seems to be causing the problem.

Hopefully we’ll fix the problem in the next few days.

In the meantime, you can still find all the past articles via the Sitemap (in the menu under the header), or by searching for the name of an article or recipe (search is at the top of the center column).

I’m glad I found your website, it’s great. I’ve had a brief look and read a few comments from people.

These are the 2 Korean cookbooks I have which are written in English - “Korean Home Cooking” by Soon Young Chung. The other book - “Korean Cooking” by Hilaire Walden. Some of my favourite recipes that I’ve made from these books are - Mushrooms with Chicken & Vegetables (Posotbokkum). Stuffed Zucchini (Hobakseon). Fresh Vegetable bibimbap (Sanchae Bibimbap). Our family loves Korean food.

I can’t wait for your Homemade version of Sweet Pancakes (Hoddeok). We tried them at a street stall (Nov 2004) near Sinchon. We had them a couple of times and they’re mashisumnida.

A friend who lived in Korea for 2yrs got us onto a recipe he whipped up. Cook Kimchi Ramen or Shin Ramen noodles with milk (used instead of water), add tuna and an egg. Mixing occasionally so the egg is evenly distributed. Sounds weird but it’s tasty.

Some Korean Grocery stores in Brisbane *KOZ Market. Shop 3/85 Elizabeth Street, Brisbane. Phone - 3220 2677. *OK Mart - Princess Plaza, 14 Annerley Rd Woolloongabba. Phone - ?? *Seoul Supermarket. Shop 13/247 Brunswick St, Fortitude Valley. Phone - 3852 6263. *Kimchi Grocery Store. 6 Zamia St, Sunnybank. Phone - 3423 8989.

I’m sure you’ll both enjoy living in Brisbane Australia. We live 25 mins north of Brisbane CBD.

Lucas Kajok

No, I haven’t taken off any of my recipes. The search function isn’t working properly at the moment, but we expect to fix it very soon.
Here is version 1 you are looking for, by the way, what is the 3? I only have 2 dakgalbi recipes as far as I remember.

http://mykoreankitchen.com/2006/09/27/marinated-chicken-stir-fry-with-gochujang-sauce-dakgalbi-in-korean/

That’s great. Wow you must be a spiceholic.
Thank you.

I just wanted to say I found your blog today, and I have really enjoyed reading through it. I think I will try some of your recipes next week. Do you ever make ojingeo bokeum (spicy squid sauteed with vegetables)? I’ve been looking for a good recipe and didn’t see one on your blog. P.S. I live in Los Angeles and it’s pretty common to use Thai fish sauce in recipes here. They sell it at all the Korean markets. TIA

I have an Ojingeo Deopbap recipe, which is Ojingeo bokkum on rice. So as long as you don’t serve it on rice, that is what you are looking for.
http://mykoreankitchen.com/2006/09/23/stir-fried-calamari-squid-on-rice-ojingeo-deopbap-in-korean/

I am living in London right now, and after chancing upon your blog one very fine day, I decided to source down one of only TWO korean supermarkets in the whole of London!! I am very pleased this evening as I followed your recipe (quite closely) for your Dwaejigogi Kimchijiggae and it turned out absolutely superb and just as tasty as the one I recently tried in a Korean restaurant!!

In my excitement I did however manage to spend an absolute bomb in the korean supermarket today but mostly on korean snacks. I would think it is much more expensive to get ingredients here, for 2 fistfuls of kimchi cost me GBP 1.30 and 20 ricecakes set me back GBP 3.00!!

I will be trying your Dobukki recipe tomorrow.

Your blog absolutely RAWKS!! =D

xo
Beverley

That is good news. I totally loved that recipe too, yet I haven’t had it since then. Too busy with making other recipes.
I hope ddeokbokki turns out well for you as well.
Take care.

I’m sooo happy to chance upon your website. I just recently moved to Seoul to be with my Korean husband. I barely speak the language and has to be fully dependent on my husband until I take Korean courses. My husband has been wanting me to cook him some Korean dishes and I have to convince him I can learn through recipes rather than attending classes. He thinks it will be fun for me to learn with other people. We will see about that
Nonetheless, your steb-by-step pictures and translated ingredients are great help! Will definitely pull out some korean dishes for him (my previous attempts taste very Chinese-Korean)

Hope you and your husband will have a smooth transition from Korea to Australia.

Keep up the good work with this blog as you are a true ambassador of Korean cooking. Excellent pictures too! That’s why I can’t resist placing a link to your site from mine

I stumbled upon this site a couple days ago and wanted to tell you what a great job you’re doing. I’ve been in Korea 4 years and love the food, but have never attempted cooking any of it because it seems too complicated. (My boyfriend does all the cooking.) I like that you show different pictures of packages so I know what brands to pick up and can follow the directions on your blog. I’ve wanted to try many pre-packaged foods, but not being able to understand the directions put me off. Thanks so much for all your hard work! I’ve got a lot of recipes to try now.

By the way, dakgalbi is also my favorite Korean food. I had some from dakgalbi street in Chuncheon a couple days ago. Delicious!

I would like to request some recipes. Do you happen to have chapssalddeok or mujigaedeok recipe?

I am looking for some dessert-type deok. I love them so much. I only had them once on a trip to korea.

Thanks!
Love your blog!

Mujigae ddeok is on my requested recipe list already. Someone else asked for it long time ago. I am planing to make it once I move to Australia.
About the chapssalddeok, do you remember my strawberry rice cakes? If you don’t add any strawberries, that is chapssalddeok.

Thanks Sue!

I stumbled on your blog just today and I actually spent most of the day reading your recipes and looking at your yummy food photos!
It’s a shame that I haven’t found your blog earlier.. I’m so keen on recipes for Korean food I feel like being in paradise here~
It’s wonderful, really!
I’ll try to cook as many of your recipes as possible.. as far as I can get the ingredients (I live in Germany T.T It’s hard sometimes to get Asian ingredients over here..)

I tried your home-made-pancakes recipe and it worked out very well, though I had to replace the walnuts by hazelnuts.. but it was really good :]
The only problem I had was that there wasn’t enough dough to make 6 pancakes. I got only 4 out of it.. I don’t know why. Perhaps it’s because the cup I used was smaller than yours. ^^
Anyway…
Actually I wanted to ask you if I may translate the home-made-pancakes recipe (and maybe other ones as well, if that’s ok!?) into German and post them on my website. Of course I’d put a comment with a link to your blog to each of them.
The reason I’d like to do this is that I’m trying to get my friends into Korean food~ And I also think there are too little Germans, who really get to know about Korean food. Most think there’s no difference between Japanese, Chinese, Korean etc food.. like Asian food would be all the same ^^

However I really, really love your blog, the way you write the recipes, your photos, etc.
Thanks! :]

Greetings from rainy Germany ^^
엘자