Kalbi/Korean BBQ Short Ribs

I don’t know much about Korean food and so far I’ve only tried it a few times. The first time was in New York and my friend Tina took me to a Korean BBQ restaurant at Queens. That was the first time I tried out their grilled short ribs. There were tender, juicy and really flavorful and I was hooked. The second time I had this was at my neighbor BBQ party last year and he was kind enough to share what he used to marinate the meat. These ribs need to be marinating overnight to get the full flavors from it so if you are planning to do this for your party make sure you plan ahead.

Kimchi Fried Rice

I am not familiar with Korean food except for Korean Pancakes or Hoddeok . All I know is kimchi will be on the dining table in most of the Korean meals. Personally I am not a big fan of Kimchi on its own but it is perfectly tasty when added into fried rice or stew. I made a batch of kimchi and I think it taste much better than the one that I bought from the Asian supermarket.

This batch of fried rice was made from multi-grain rice. I am slowly switching to brown rice or multi-grain rice but giving a cold turkey to the white rice and switching to 100% brown rice is rather difficult so I am doing it slowly ha ha. I still used white rice for my Nasi Lemak or Hainanese Chicken Rice . Here is how they look. There are suppose to have 7 different types of grain like brown rice, black rice, rice bran, split peas, oat, barley and millet in it.

Fried rice is one of those dishes that you can customize and make your own. Really, mostly anything goes and it’s a great way to revitalize that day old rice you have sitting in your fridge. Add some proteins or some greens to it and the meal is done within 20 minutes.

Korean Pancakes/Pajeon

Diana gave me a big bag of Korean pancake mix and it had been sitting in my pantry for a while now. I finally decided to try my hand in making Korean pancakes/Pa jeon. This pancake is very simple to make. All you have to do is mix the flour with some water; add in your favorite veggies like carrots, green onions, cabbage, mushrooms and any kind of seafood of your choice. You can omit the seafood for a vegetarian version.

Ingredients:

3/4 cup Korean pancake mix
1 cup water
12 shrimps - peeled, deveined, and roughly chopped
1 small carrot, grated
1 cup grated cabbage
3 green onions, thinly sliced
5 button mushrooms – thinly sliced
salt and pepper to taste

Hoddeok – Stuffed Pancake

Hoddeok (ho-dock/duck) is a common street food found in Korea. It’s basically a pancake stuffed with various fillings, sometimes sweet, sometimes savory. This pancake like snack has a crispy and chewy brown outer crust, tuck in the middle is pleasantly sweet brown sugar, cinnamon and walnuts. Despite the pancake name, this is usually not a breakfast item although it can be enjoyed at any time of the day. I remember eating something very similar to this snack when I was young. There was this kuih seller who will come by our house everyday and I will always buy it from him.

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
140 ml milk
60 ml warm water
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp of yeast

Filling :

1 tsp cinnamon powder
1/2 cup crushed walnuts
4 tbsp of dark brown sugar

1. Mix warm water, sugar and yeast together and set it aside for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes the yeast mixture should be foamy.
2. In a mixing bowl, combined flour, salt, milk and the yeast mixture and knead into dough. Knead until the dough is smooth and it should take about 5 minutes. Set it aside for at least 3 hours or until it becomes twice its size.
3. Mix brown sugar, cinnamon powder and walnut together.
4. Divide dough into equal portions (depend on how big you want) flatten it with your hand and put about a tbsp of filling into it. Wrap it up to form into a ball. Set it aside.
5. Warm up a non stick pan in a medium heat, add about 2 tbsp of oil to it. Flatten the dough with your palm and pan fry the hoddeok on both side until golden brown. While frying continue to flatten the dough with a spatula.

Note: Be careful when you eat this. The filling will be very hot and it might burn your mouth when you eat it. You can replace the walnuts with peanuts or sesame seeds.