Korean Cooking

Steve and I love trying new foods and new restaurants.  Luckily we've found that we really like Korean food.  There is a Korean restaurant (it's actually called Korea Restaurant) about a block from my office and it's widely known as one of the best places for Korean food.  Recently, we learned that a Japanese restaurant a few miles from our house hired someone from Korea Restaurant and now they have a Korean menu as well.  We visited recently and are happy to report that we will become regulars.  We know that the food we have, although created by Korean chefs, has probably been altered some to accommodate the American palate.  It will be exciting to try all of our favorites in Korea to see how it compares.

One thing I've been waiting to try is cooking Korean food.  I had to trek into the life threatening temperatures to gather the ingredients, but I'm happy to announce it was worth it.  My first Korean dish was Beef Bulgogi.  I heard about a good Asian market in Bloomington called, Oriental Market.  This was a great find considering most of the good Asian markets are in St. Paul and would take twice as long to get to.

I was very intimidated upon entering the store.  A majority of the products were written in one of many Asian languages.  I took a moment to recognize how much I take it for granted that everything I need is usually written in English...and I forged ahead.  I was feeling quite proud of myself for finding a majority of my list without asking for help.

Two store employees were very kind in helping me to find the last of my ingredients.  The woman asked me what I cooking and was quick to rattle off different things that I could add to my marinade.  I found my recipe on the trusty world wide web; I decided to follow the woman's lead and left with a few extra ingredients.  When she was scanning my items she also took a few back and returned with other brands and replaced my dried radish (that's what the internet said to use!) with fresh radish.  The radish didn't look like any radish I've ever seen.

Beef Bulgogi is a marinated meat served with rice.  It was surprisingly quick to prepare and cook, but needs an hour to marinate.

The ingredients in my marinade were: soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil, garlic, scallions, toasted sesame seeds, red pepper flakes, black pepper, rice wine, and ginger miso.  I added the ginger miso myself, but I put a speck of it in and I'm pretty sure it didn't make a difference.  The woman at the market told me that she throws in some vegetables because that is the only way she can get her children to eat a vegetable.  She is officially a genius and I decided to use this clever strategy on Steve.

I added a little bit of carrots, mushrooms, and cabbage.  The recipe also called for onion.  Next you "massage" the meat (thinly sliced rib-eye steak) into the marinade before letting it sit for an hour.

In the meantime I set up our new rice cooker to have our rice prepared in an hour.  I'm fascinated by this machine's ability to prepare rice up to 15 hours after setting it.  When the rice was done, I started frying the meet in single layers.  It cooks really fast.

Then serve over rice.  We added a side of Kimchi, which is a Korean staple at most every meal.  The best way I can describe Kimchi is spicy rotten cabbage.  It's surprisingly good.  I bought the Kimchi already prepared.  It is in the lower right-hand corner below.

Dinner is served!  My first Korean cooking endeavor was a success. I was also very excited to use the chopsticks and chopstick holders that Steve got me for our last anniversary.  He ordered them from Seoul and they have been waiting for a special meal.  Tomorrow- Mandu (dumpling) Soup!