Monthly Archives: December 2014

Gearing up for the New Year!

We are on the heels of 2015 and I wonder, what does this coming year have in store for us? For all my readers and loved ones out there, I hope only the best!

Resolutions, what are you resolving?   What is in your life? Have you chosen to take a better look at your financial decisions? Diet and exercise? Be less crazy? Identify your crazy and stop it? Whatever you’ve resolved to do, go head with your bad self!

Here’s a healthy way to start the year!

Hwe Dup Bap

Dup baps are awesome, take a bowl of steamy rice and “dup puh” – cover it with good things.  Koreans do it with various meats: grilled chicken, beef, cuttlefish and in our case raw fish.

The premise is simple, take a lot of veggies and a little sashimi grade fish, throw it on top of rice and cover it with hot sauce, mix and eat.

This is probably one of my favorite dishes.

RECIPE (for 2-3 servings)
1/2 cup Carrot, thinly sliced
4-breakfast raddish, thinly sliced
½ cup Red Cabbage, thinly sliced
1 cup Red Leaf Lettuce (or romaine, green leaf, anything relatively mild)
6 Perilla leaf, thinly sliced
¼ Cucumber, gutted and thinly sliced
½ Avocado, diced
|½ cup Japanese seaweed salad  (wakame salad)
2-3 oz assorted sashimi grade fish, cut into small cubes

The prep work is a little time consuming, a lot of chopping.  I usually chop more veggies than I need, I can usually find a way to use the rest of them, for instance, I’m going to blend the rest of them in my morning smoothie.

The trick to really crunchy veggies is soaking them in cold water for at least 20 minutes.  I promise it’s worth it.

Assembly is the easy part, remember ladies and gents we eat with our eyes, so make it pretty!  A sushi chef once told me that 3D is the way to be, so plot a  scoop of rice on the bottom of a deep bowl, arrange the veggies, put the fish in the center of the bowl and leave the sauce for the side.

Whoops, the sauce!
Mix all the following ingredients together for the sauce
¼ cup  gochujang (hot pepper paste)
½ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 teaspoon lemon zest
3 tablespoons sesame seed oil (sounds like a lot but it’s a lot of sauce)
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1 teaspoon toasted sesame seeds

Random thought, radishes are beautiful!

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A little freezer burn never hurt anyone…

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The problem with the holidays is that there are these huge meals and events that are wonderful and grand…  and then there are nights like tonight, an extra uneventful night. It’s cold and I’m jonesing for a big bowl of instant noodles, alas, my wonderful sister ate the last one on her visit here.

So I iron-chefed my fridge, today’s secret ingredient, slightly freezer burned mandoo.  Fukusan, what will we do? If you were too Iron-Chef your fridge what would you make?

I made a quick anchovy broth, tossed in some rice cakes (also slightly freezer burned), the mandoos, some cabbage for some roughage and tada, dinner!

The wonderful thing about Korean food is that most things go well with kimchi.  Thankfully, kimchi covers many a sin… kind of like Jesus but not so life changing.. see the Christmas tie in?  Thank you Jesus for being my everything, for all other things food salvation related, thanks kimchi.

To the Recipe:

The Broth
4 cups water
4 large dried anchovies de-gutted
4 pieces of dashima
2 teaspoon naturally brewed soy sauce
6 slightly freezer burned mandoo (dumplings)
A handful slightly freezer burned rice cakes
1/2 cup roughly choppped cabbage

First place the frozen rice cakes in a bowl with water to thaw and rehydrate (my cabbage was a little limp so I had it in with the rice cakes) (hey, this isn’t my most prized dish, it’s just Monday dinner) .

Steep the broth for around 10 minutes, then add the soy

Remove all the things of the sea, you should have a clear broth.

When the broth is back to a rolling boil add in the frozen mandoo and rice cakes.

Bring it back to a boil (the frozen stuff will make the temperature drop so wait to add the cabbage).

Bring it back to a boil and add in an beaten egg.

TADA dinner.

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Notes:

There is an old Korean wives tale that if you make ugly mandoos you will make ugly babies.. sorry future babies, but I mean you’re 50% of your dad too… I’m just saying..

Degutting anchovies is best done on a humid day so that the fishes are a little flexible or you can just man handle it like I did…

Merry Christmas everyone!

Throwback Tuesdays – Drinky Suspicions

Today, they sent us home at 4:30 because of the snow.  To celebrate I bought a few limes on the way home to make some Blueberry Mojitos.  It’s like tasting a bit of summer in the dead center of this snowy, slushy, slightly drawn out winter. 

Drinky – Blueberry Mojitos
Brown Sugar simple syrup (50% brown sugar/50% hot water)
Mint
Basil
Blueberry
Light Rum
Lots of fresh lime juice
Ice
Lime Zest
Oh and club soda

Suspicions
I see pictures from home and realized that things have moved on, of course things have changed, but a small insecure part of me feels like I’ve been replaced. I think we come to a point where we realize that we are replaceable.  It’s true. Life moves on, people are forgotten, new people come around… can someone give me another drink?

Speaking of being replaced, today I made a pesto and replaced the pine nuts for walnuts.

I had basil, so, I took the opportunity to make pesto at home.  I mashed garlic, salt, basil, and a handful of walnuts (we always have them around, they are common) together and created a paste.  And you know what? Pine nuts are better.  They are smoother, richer and create a more refined and delicate flavor. Yea, you hear that! Pine nuts are classy; we’re nicer, and awesome and prettier too!   Lol ridiculous.  I’m ridiculous.

But the walnuts were good.  They have those tough skins so when you chop them fine you get a rougher consistency, I may try it again with roasted walnuts.  Overall the pasta was pretty good.  I have some left; I’ll have to experiment with other flavors.

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