Brown Seaweed Soup and My Birthday

Posted on January 11, 2007 by Sue • 26 Comments
Brown Seaweed Soup and My Birthday flowers
(Flowers from my honey)

When is your birthday, Sue? Triple one, that’s the date I was born.

It can confuse people with November 1st, but still, pronouncing triple one sounds kind of cool. :D

It was very noisy from the early morning today. It was still dark outside but the strong smell of sesame oil woke me up. My two little sisters were up to something (they have been staying with us for two weeks now), making me some birthday soup.

What is birthday soup?

  • So called brown seaweed soup (miyeok-guk) is the birth day soup in Korea. However people eat it on normal days as well.

Why do people have it on a birthday?

  • Brown seaweed soup was actually consumed by a woman who delivered a child. Because it helps to clean blood vessels and to produce milk, it has abundant iodine to reduce the swollen body and calcium to help build strong bones, which are all important for both mother and child.
  • It is symbolic to have on a birthday, because while a baby’s mother has this soup, the baby also eats it through the milk. Though, my theory is to remind people about their mother’s hard work for delivering them and say thank you to their mother on their birthday. So on your birthday, you should say thank you to your mother. :)

This is a picture of the brown seaweed soup (Miyeok-guk) my sisters made for me.

Brown Seaweed Soup and My Birthday soup

I don’t know what she added to season it, but it would probably be some salt. The obvious ingredients are brown seaweed, some beef cuts, and sesame oil. It was delicious yet the sesame oil overpowered the overall taste. I hope my sister doesn’t read this post. Because I said it was very good. :D Sister, the thought is what counts!!

My sisters are self claimed night elves. They’ve been baking cookies, cakes and helping me cooking meals while they are staying with us.

Chocolate cake from the night elves (they used a prepackaged mix)

Brown Seaweed Soup and My Birthday cake1
Categories: Food and Culture, Kitchen Talk
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Seasoned Green Bean Sprouts (Sukju Namul Muchim in Korean)

Posted on January 10, 2007 by Sue • 16 Comments
Seasoned Green Bean Sprouts (Sukju Namul Muchim in Korean)1

I am into these green bean sprouts lately. They give a flavourful taste to soup and a savory taste to side dishes. I don’t make many side dishes (I prefer one dish meals that don’t require any side dishes, because it is simple and quick, and I don’t need to wash many plates later on :) ), but I thought I should try some side dish recipes to show you, since I haven’t made one for a while. So I tried making seasoned green bean sprouts and the more I eat them, the more I like them.

Their flavour comes out with a good balance of salt, garlic and sesame oil. They have a mild taste and chewing their fiber is another pleasure (They give a bit of a soft yet crunchy feeling).

Ingredients for 4 people

(Prep time – 2 minutes, Cooking time – 10 minutes)

  • Green bean sprouts 250 g
  • Salt – ½ tsp
  • Sesame oil – 1 tsp
  • Minced garlic – 1/8 tsp
  • Finely chopped green onion – 2 tsp
  • Parched sesame – 1/8 tsp

Steps

Seasoned Green Bean Sprouts (Sukju Namul Muchim in Korean) steps1
  1. Rinse the green bean sprouts in cold water, discard the bad beans.
  2. Boil some water in a pot. (I used 3 cups of water)
  3. Add the green bean sprouts when the water starts to boil.
  4. Par boil them for 2 minutes.
  5. Drain the water. Cool down the sprouts. (if you lift them with tongs or chopsticks frequently, it cools down faster.)
  6. Add the salt on top (sprinkle it all over the place) and leave it like that for 3 minutes.
  7. Squeeze the green bean sprouts with your hands. (discard the water if it comes out)
  8. Add the rest of the seasoning sauce, and mix them well.
  9. Serve them on a dish.
Seasoned Green Bean Sprouts (Sukju Namul Muchim in Korean) steps2

Side story about “Sukju Namul” (Green bean sprouts)

Seasoned Green Bean Sprouts (Sukju Namul Muchim in Korean)3

Writing about Korean food certainly makes me study. While I was translating sukju namul into English, which was about a month ago, I found that they are called green bean sprouts in English. Green bean sprouts? Are they made of green beans? I didn’t realize that they are made of green beans (apparently I was ignorant about Korean food and its history before I started this blog), because they disguised their name into sukju all this time. Green bean is Nokdu in Korean, then how come Koreans call green bean sprouts Sukju namul instead of Nokdu namul?

Well, apparently, there is a popular traditional theory and most Koreans seem to believe, that is the true. There was a scholar called Shin Suk-ju in 1462, and he betrayed his king when there was a coup (There was a young king called ‘Danjong’, and his uncle ‘Sejo’ tried to take over the throne.) When the coup happened he was asked to help his king, but he refused to do so. Apparently green bean sprouts go off very easily, so their easily changing characteristic is similar to Shin Suk-ju’s mind. That is why Green bean sprouts are named Sukju namul instead of Nokdu namul.

Apparently green bean sprouts are more nutritious than bean sprouts and have 80 times more nutrients than green beans themself.

Categories: Side Dishes (Banchan), Vegetarian
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Tuna Rolls (Chamchi Kimbap in Korean)

Posted on January 9, 2007 by Sue • 22 Comments
Tuna Rolls (Chamchi Kimbap in Korean)3

Chamchi Kimbap (참치김밥) is my favourite type of Kimbap. It has a savory taste and the smell from perilla leaves (Korean style sesame leaves, ggaennip) and tuna is just well balanced. I haven’t made it myself until today though, I did a pretty good job I think. I have learnt well from Kimgane. :D

Ingredients for 7 rolls (it serves 4 people)

Tuna Rolls (Chamchi Kimbap in Korean) ingredients1

Main ingredients

  • Laver 7 sheets
  • 4½ cups of steamed short grain rice
  • Tuna 250g
  • 7 yellow pickled radish strips
  • 7 long sticks of seasoned edible burdock root
  • 7 sticks of BBQ Kimbap ham (Kimbap ham is made for Kimbap. It is easy to slice.)
  • 4 crab sticks
  • 4 eggs
  • 4 stalks of spinach
  • 1/2 a medium carrot
  • 14 perilla leaves
  • Some mayonnaise

Seasoning (mix these in a bowl)

  • Sesame oil – 1tbsp
  • Salt – 1/2 tsp
  • Sugar – 1 tsp (I used dark brown sugar, the only sugar I have in my kitchen)
  • Vinegar – 1tbsp

Prep

  • Cut the roots off from the spinach, rinse it and parboil it in boiled water. (For 1 minute)
  • Drain the water, and put the spinach into a bowl. Add 2 sprinkles of salt and 1 dash of sesame oil on the spinach then mix it well.
Tuna Rolls (Chamchi Kimbap in Korean) prep1
  • Beat one egg in a bowl. Fry the egg in a pan and make the egg stick by rolling it. (it rolls well when it is 60-70% cooked) Repeat this with the rest of the eggs.
Tuna Rolls (Chamchi Kimbap in Korean) rolling the eggs
  • Cut the crab sticks and egg rolls in half. (Length ways, they will give you a total of 8 sticks each, but we will need only 7 each from them. So you can have spare ones if you are hungry.)
  • Cut the carrot into long thin slices. Make 14 sticks of it. We will use 2 carrot sticks per Kimbap.
  • Take out the rice from the rice cooker or pot. Add 1/2 of the seasoning on the rice. Mix it well. (The rice needs to be cooled down a little bit.)
  • Cook the carrots, crab sticks and BBQ ham in a pan with a little oil. (You can use un-cooked fillings, but I prefer cooked ones. When I cook these I prefer the order in the following picture, that way I can use one pan without washing it.)
Tuna Rolls (Chamchi Kimbap in Korean) prep2
  • Rinse the perilla leaves.
  • Put all the ingredients on one or two plates (depends on the size of the plate). It makes organized rolling.

Making

Tuna Rolls (Chamchi Kimbap in Korean) Making process
  1. Place one laver on the bamboo mat.
  2. Put the rice on the laver. You need to spread it thinly and fast, otherwise the laver get soggy. Leave the top 10% of the laver empty. (To spread the rice, I use my fingers and rice spatula. Have a bowl of cold water next to you to rinse your finger tips when the rice sticks on your fingers too much.)
  3. Put the two perilla leaves in the centre of the rice. (Facing each other)
  4. Put two carrot sticks, 2-3 spinach leaves, some tuna, mayonnaise on top.
  5. On top of that put the crab stick, ham, burdock stick, yellow radish, and egg stick (all one each).
  6. Lift the bottom end of the laver to cover the ingredients, once you cover it then roll it. (Paste some water at the edge of the laver, if it doesn’t stick).
  7. Once you have made rolls, paste the other half of the seasoning onto the laver surface and slice them.
  8. Serve it on the plate.
Tuna Rolls (Chamchi Kimbap in Korean)1

My chamchi Kimbap was very delicious, like some luxurious Kimbap restaurant. It was also cheaper to make 7 rolls of chamchi Kimbap myself than buying them from a Kimbap shop, because 1 chamchi kimbap is 2500 won at Kimgane, so I made 17,500 won (US $18.40) worth of Kimbap today for less than half the cost for the ingredients. What a bargain!

I hope you enjoy having this chamchi Kimbap.

Tuna Rolls (Chamchi Kimbap in Korean)2

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Categories: Rice
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