My Korean KitchenSnacks | My Korean Kitchen

Seasoned Dried Filefish (Jwipo)

sue — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 03:25:19 +0000

When I was a child I adored Jwipo (쥐포) so much. It was my favourite snack in the world.

Grilled Jwipo is sold on the street occasionally nowadays but it also used be sold at cinema snack bars as well. There was an episode when I went to see “Jurassic park” with my friend. I found that the snack bar was selling some grilled Jwipo, so I bought one just before the movie started. However as I finishing the one I had in my hand, I wanted to have some more. I ended up continually going backwards and forwards to get more Jwipo during the whole movie. I think I nearly ate about 10 or more of them (It was my second time watching the movie, for the record). It felt like I went to the cinema to eat those Jwipos instead of watching the movie, yet since then I don’t have any memories of eating Jwipo.

The other day, Zenkimchi wrote in his post that Jwipo is one of the strangest foods he had ever had, and that reminded of me how I fell in love with it at one time. So when I went grocery shopping the next day I instinctively grabbed Jwipo. The packet I bought only had 4 disks of Jwipo but it was extra big size for 3300 won (US $ 3.50)

I just baked them on a gas burner on medium heat. It was slightly salty and sweet, but fishy. It also was quite chewy. My jaw got sore a bit later. In general, it wasn’t as delicious as I remembered but it was a good snack.

Later I looked at the back of the packet and there were a couple of cooking methods recommended by the manufacturer. The first and second methods were for making spicy seasoned or soy sauce seasoned Jwipo as side dishes, which I will cover some other time. The third method was grilling Jwipo on a frying pan with some butter and the forth method was microwaving it slightly and using some Gochujang (Korean chili paste) or mayonnaise as a dipping sauce. The forth one is a common way to serve at a drink bar as well.

Jwipo is made out of filefish (dried, pressed, and seasoned). Once there was a rumor about filefishes that they are nearly extinct in Korea because of the massive consumption of Jwipo by Korean people. I have no idea if that is true or not.

Korean Sweet Pancakes (Hoddeok) – Fully Home Made Version

Eggs Baked on Elvan Stone

Steamed Kimchi Dumplings (Jjin Kimchi Mandu)

sue — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 10:27:11 +0000

It’s been just over 2 months since I made my failed Kimchi mandu (김치만두). Do you remember that post? I learnt a lot of lessons that day. I read my chronicle on How to make “successful” mandu two times thoroughly just before I gave it a second try. My second time trying it turned out really well. I shared the work with my two sisters, so it made it a lot easier but I still spent half of my day on making these.

The main point of making good mandu is

Squeezing dry the ingredients completely if it is possible.
Spreading enough flour on the board where you roll the dough each time and the dish where you put the mandu, so it is easy to separate.

Unfortunately, I got a lot less mandu than last time. I used a similar amount of ingredients but I got half less mandu. I think hand made mandu needs more stuffing than the ones made with a mandu shaper (You need to fill them fairly well to make cute looking mandu for hand made ones, but if you add too much stuffing for mandu shaper ones, it won’t close properly).

Ingredients for 25 dumplings

-Dumpling skins

All purpose white flour – 3 cups
Warm water – 1 cup

-Dumpling stuffing

Kimchi- 1⅔ cups
1/2 an onion
Mung bean sprouts – 200 g
Tofu – 275 g
Minced pork – 130 g
1 egg
Minced garlic – 1/2 tsp
Salt – 1 tsp
Sesame oil – 1 tsp
Pepper – 3 sprinkles

Preparation (You can click the picture to see the bigger image)

Sieve the flour, add the water, then knead it (my sister kneaded it for nearly 30 minutes).
Finely chop the Kimchi, onion, tofu, and pork.
Par boil the green bean sprouts and chop them finely too.
Squeeze the bean sprouts, tofu, onion, meat, and Kimchi, separately in a straining cloth.
Mix all the squeezed ingredients in a big bowl and season it with the garlic, salt, sesame oil, and pepper.
Add the eggs and mix them well.

My sister worked so hard being a hand model for this recipe, especially squeezing all those ingredients. It is quite hard work if you want to do it properly. Thanks again Hyunji!

Steps

Spread some flour onto the board and plate.
Slice a dough piece off.
Roll the dough into round shapes, not too thin not too thick.
Put the rolled pastry on one hand and add filling on top (you need to fill it with an adequate amount of the stuffing to make a good looking mandu).
Seal the pastry then place it on a plate (You can seal it into whatever shape you want, I fold it in half then wrap the ends round to touch each other)
Repeat steps 1 to 5 until you use up all the ingredients.
Put some kind of cloth on a steamer and put the mandu on top.
Steam it for 5-10 minutes.
Serve it on a plate with dipping sauce (a mix of; soy sauce – 1 tbsp, sugar – 1/2 tsp, chili powder 1/4 tsp, a dash of vinegar and a dash of sesame oil).

I also made some mandu soup (만두국) with the rest of the mandu (the ones that I didn’t steam), but steamed mandu tasted better.

Dumpling Pastry Pizza (Mandupy Pizza in Korean)

Rice Cake and Instant Dumpling Soup (Ddeok Mandu Guk in Korean)

Korean Sweet Pancakes (Hoddeok) – Fully Home Made Version

sue — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 07:20:58 +0000

Hey, Check this out! Last week I made these sweet pancakes with premixed ingredients from the factory, and now I present you here sweet pancakes with fully homemade ingredients. To be correct, I don’t have a farm to grow wheat or sugar cane etc. The point is that I was able to make it from scratch. It has been only a week since I posted the premix version, but due to its popularity and unavailability of the premix in the United States, I rushed a bit to post this recipe. .. You’re welcome.

Compared to the premix version, it was super. First, I made it, so it should be better with my extra tender love and care. Second, it didn’t taste like anything artificial because I could manage the ingredients. Third, it was very cheap. I didn’t buy any extra ingredients, because I had all ingredients available in my kitchen.

The Baked Hoddeok smelt really nice. A well balanced smell of melted sugar and cinnamon. The cinnamon smell reminded me of easter hot cross buns. Though, while you are fermenting you need to endure the unpleasant smell from the yeast, I don’t really have much experience using yeast, does it always smell awful?

Ingredients for 6 pancakes

All purpose white flour – 1¼ cups
Salt – 1/4 tsp
Milk – 90 ml (6 tbsp)

Fermented yeast water (mix these well in bowl 1)

Warm water (40℃) – 45 ml (3 tbsp)
White sugar – 1/4 tsp
Dry yeast- 1/4 tsp

Stuffing (mix these well in bowl 2)

Cinnamon powder – 1/4 tsp
Crushed walnuts- 2 tbsp (you can use peanuts instead, but I prefer walnuts)
Dark brown sugar – 90 ml (6 tbsp)

Steps

1. Leave the mix of fermented yeast water in a warm place (30-40 ℃) for 10 minutes.

2. After 10 minutes, sieve the flour then add the salt, milk, and yeast water.

3. Mix them well and cover the bowl with wrap. Ferment it in a warm place for 3 hours.

4. When the dough is ready, put some oil on your hands (anti stick purpose) and separate an adequate amount of the dough (to allow 6 to be made), then put it on your hand.

5. Widen the dough with your hands and put a spoonful of stuffing on it. Seal the dough. Repeat it for the rest of the dough.

6. Pre heat the frying pan for 20 seconds and add some oil.
7. Put 2-3 sealed dough balls onto the pan and turn them over when the bottom part is cooked. (Cook them on medium to low heat)

8. Press the dough with a spatula and when both sides are golden brown you can serve them on a plate.

Sorry, while I was eating busily, I completely forgot to take picture of its front. It tastes best when it is still warm, you know. So here is a picture from last time, I made this with premixed ingredients, it should look the same.

By the way, I had a bit of stuffing left and it was enough to make 2 extra pancakes. So if you follow my recipe, just keep that in mind.

sue — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 10:25:36 +0000

Have you seen these pancakes before? They are called Hoddeok, and you can easily spot them on the street, especially in winter in Korea. Hoddeok used to be my favourite street snack when I was a child, yeah I was that spoiled kid who cried for sweet snacks and embarrassed my mom.

The other day, my self proclaimed elves (my sisters) found a Hoddeok recipe and they were busy making them. They somehow miscalculated the amount of the ingredients, so it wasn’t quite as good as it could be, but it was still good for their first try.

So I thought I should compare our Hoddeok with something more professional before I present it to you, and since I haven’t found any Hoddeok carts on the street (I said this is quite a small city on other posts), I decided to compare with one from the factory.

This is the premix packet for Hoddeok and what is inside.

Product name – Q1 stuffed pancake mix
Made by – Samyang
Purchase price – 2500 won (US $2.60) from Homeplus
Weight – 550g (supposedly able to make 10 pancakes)
Contents – Premix 396g (left), filling jam mix 150g (right), Dry yeast 4g (centre)

There are instructions on the side of the box in Korean and here are the steps from the box with additional opinions of mine. The extra ingredients you will need are: water 260ml and some vegetable oil.

Step 1. Sieve the premix (the yellowish packet), then add the dry yeast (silver packet) and water, knead it with a wooden spatula.

Step 2. Cover the bowl with wrap, and ferment it for 2 hours at room temperature (20-25 ℃) The volume of the dough needs to increase by 2 times.

Step 3. When the dough is ready, put some oil on your hands (anti stick purpose) and separate an adequate amount of the dough(to allow ten to be made), then put it on your hand.

Step 4. Widen the dough with your hands and put a spoonful of jam mix (the green packet). Seal the dough. Repeat it for the rest of the dough. (You need to spread the dough more than in the picture. Otherwise it is hard to seal properly.)

Step 5. Pre heat the frying pan for 20 seconds and add some oil.

Step 6. Put 2-3 sealed dough balls onto the pan and turn them over when the bottom part is cooked. (Cook them on medium to low heat)

Step 7. Press the dough with a spatula and when the both sides are golden brown you can serve them on the plate.

Recommendation from the packet : It is best if you consume all the fermented dough (dough without the jam mix) when you make it. However if you can’t finish it all, keep it in the fridge (if you are going to consume it within 24 hours), otherwise keep it in the freezer, and defrost it well before you use it.

Review of the product (5 is the highest)

Price compared to fully homemade version : 2/5 (I think it is expensive to buy this premix packet since I saw how easy it is to make the dough ourselves with easily available ingredients.
Convenience : 5/5 (Since it is made for convenience, it is a well made product)
Taste and Flavour : 3.5/5 (It was delicious though was too sweet for me. It has a vanila flavour and slight sense of cinnamon.)
Side affect – I got three pimples possibly more on my right cheek after having 3 Hoddeok yesterday. I think it is nothing to do with the product, I just had too much of it maybe (As you can guess, it is very sugary and oily). Also, importantly, people who have a peanut allergy shouldn’t have it. It contains powdered peanuts, though it didn’t say how much it has.

By the way, you will see a fully homemade version recipe very soon.

Spring Rolls in Laver (Gimmari in Korean)

Enoki mushrooms Pancakes (Paeng-ee Beosut Jeon in Korean)

Frozen Cheese Cakes

Glutinous Black Rice Cakes

sue — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 10:51:54 +0000

Michael brought some interesting looking rice cakes from school today. He said one of his colleagues gave them to him. He tends to bring food home from school when he isn’t sure about it, so I am basically a his poison tester. I haven’t seen these kind of rice cake before so I didn’t know what it was called at first.

I tasted a bit, it was glutinous and sweet. It has some beans, seeds, and Chinese red dates, as you can see, it looks and feels really healthy too.

When I confirmed that it is not contaminated, Michael had small bite too (he has some allergies). He liked it and he asked for more bites.

I researched on the internet a little bit and not long after I found what it is called. It is called Hkmi Chal Ddeok (흑미찰떡) in Korean, which means glutinous black rice cake. So I added this rice cake on my do recipe list.

Strawberry Rice Cakes for My Valentine

Colorful Rice Cake (Mujigae Ddeok in Korean)

Sticky Rice Cakes (Chapssalddeok in Korean)

Sweet Rice Cake (Gyongdan in Korean)

My Korean KitchenSnacks | My Korean Kitchen

Seasoned Dried Filefish (Jwipo)

Steamed Kimchi Dumplings (Jjin Kimchi Mandu)

Korean Sweet Pancakes (Hoddeok) – Fully Home Made Version

Sweet Pancakes (Hoddeok) – Pre Mix Version

Glutinous Black Rice Cakes