The Challenge of Fusing Malay and Korean Foods

Things don’t always go as planned, and boy did Nady and I figure this out the hard way. For our last post, we wanted to go out with a bang - enrolling in a one-session Korean cooking class and dazzling everyone with our (subpar) skills. From our research we found out that there are many Korean cooking classes conducted in Singapore for those who want to learn a new hobby, are generally bored or want to have a team building sessions with colleagues. Classes are offered by culinary schools/centres, home-chefs and even neighbourhood community centres.

We were very excited at the prospect of learning Korean cooking in a ‘more professional’ setting...until we realised the price we had to pay for this happiness. Most classes have a starting fee that goes north of $120. Let’s be honest, for two very broke uni students this seems like the worst possible setback for us ($120 can give us 10 meals of Korean chicken!). Plan B it is. I reached out to a Korean friend of mine living in Singapore, to see if he had contacts working in the Korean culinary world. It turns out he had plenty of them who were willing to share with us (and the class)...it was just that language barrier was a problem and my friend couldn’t be our translator as he was relocating back to Korea in March.

Stalled but still determined, we went to Plan C. Coming up with our own ‘original’ fusion Korean food. We started researching on various different types of fusion food that has been done before and we stumbled upon the wondrous world of the Korean food online community, which Nady explains more about here. After stalking so many forums and interest groups, we decided on just trying to fuse the Korean foods we already tried making with foods we are familiar with in Singapore. We decided to make a fusion of Kimbap and Hotteok.

1. Chilli Crab Kimbap

We came up with this idea when thinking of Singaporean food - what better dish than the well known Chilli Crab. We cooked the chili crab sauce and marinated the crabmeat and added it into the kimbap with the same fillings like our previous attempt. Surprisingly, we liked it very much - especially Nady who has never eaten Chilli Crab before. The kick of the sauce was definitely what a sambal-lover like me needed. We shared the results to the Facebook group and we'll see if it takes off.

2. Sambal Ikan Bilis Hotteok

Since I liked hotteok so much (from last time) I insisted we try adding a more local filling instead. After wracking our brains, inspiration finally came from my family who were big fans of sambal. So we made hotteoks with sambal ikan bilis filling. After tasting them, it reminded us of the sambal ikan bilis buns you can find at malay food stalls. When my family tasted them, they shared the same sentiments but really liked the hotteoks.

Jumping into the Korean food online community

There are many online communities available for Korean interest groups. I'm sure many of us are familiar with the spread of the Korean wave via the internet, especially when it comes to K-dramas and K-pop. There are many websites dedicated to discussing K-dramas and K-pop such as allkpop, soompi and dramafever. Thus, I wondered about the variety of websites available that focuses on other forms of Korean culture. For our project, I decided to research on the different online communities available that focuses on Korean food. 

Facebook Interest Groups

There are many Facebook interest groups in relation to the Korean wave or culture, particularly for Korean food. Most of them were either inactive or are geared towards a specific group of people. Eventually, we decided to join the Korean, Asian and World Wide Food Facebook group, due to its active status and its inclusivity.

The Korean, Asian and Word Wide Food Facebook group has over 5 thousand members. In this page, members share the food they cooked, they share recipes, they share articles about food and they ask one another for advice or suggestions in relation to cooking. It is basically a community for food lovers and people who want to try their hands at cooking. As seen by the title of the group, it is a diverse group. It does not only focus on Korean food, but there are indeed more members sharing about Korean food.

I used the page to get ideas and inspiration from the other members. As mentioned, some members would share their own recipe and some would share articles. I read and followed through these posts. Natasha and I threw ideas back and forth on what we should cook as we scrolled through the group page. I also used the page to seek help and ask for suggestions from the community.

I also used the page as a platform to share what Natasha and I cooked. For example, I shared about cooking Kimbap and adding chilli crab sauce to the dish. I also shared about cooking Hotteok.

Maangchi Online Forum

Other than Facebook, I also decided to check out forums. There was one forum created by Maangchi that focused heavily on Korean food. Maangchi is originally a Youtube channel, by Julia Child, that posted cooking videos which taught viewers how to cook Korean food. It shared recipes of many Korean dishes. Usually, the youtube videos will link viewers to her blog where she gives a more detailed description of the recipe, as well as close up photos of the dish throughout the cooking process. Her Youtube channel and blog have been very useful throughout our journey in this Korean food immersion. Thus, when I realised that she also has a cooking forum, I joined it without hesitation.

As seen from the description, the purpose of Maangchi's forum is for readers, particularly Korean food lovers, to reach out to one another and help one another out as they try to cook Korean food. Readers are also encouraged to share their experience and photos of the Korean food they made. Julia encouraged users to introduce themselves, share about their interest and where they are from. There is a category just for self-introduction. It was interesting to scroll through and realise how big and driverse the community is.

Different categories available in the forum

                     

The "self-introduction" category

                                 

Another point to note is that Maangchi or Julia Child herself actively participates in this forum. There have been many instances where she will reply to a question or comment on someone's food creation.

Julia answering questions about
whether it is safe to use 5-month-old kimchi

Julia giving suggestions in regards to kimchi juice

I too decided to use the forum. Just like in the Facebook group, I created a topic in the forum to ask for suggestions and ideas on how I can fuse Korean and Malay food together. 

A welcoming community

I find the community to be very welcoming and helpful to new users like me. Even when they were unable to answer my question, they still replied and encouraged me to try it nonetheless (as seen by the following post) . The community is made of people of various ages and from different countries. It was refreshing to see such a welcoming group who are willing to share their recipes and to give suggestions. I did not feel intimidated by them in any way. Instead, they made me feel comfortable sharing photos of the Korean food I made with the group.

The Key Ingredient Was Confidence

At this point in time, Nady and I (with heavier tummies and lighter wallets) decided to take on the challenge of cooking Korean food. We’ve seen hundreds of online personalities try their hands at making Korean food and we thought hmmm we can totally do that.  

But the cooking wasn’t what stumped us (wow at our confidence). THERE ARE SO MANY GOOD DISHES TO CHOOSE FROM, HOW COULD WE ONLY TRY COOKING ONE DISH?! Should we try making kimchi pancakes, or that delicious looking bowl of jajangmyeon? But japchae looks simple enough to make! The possibilities were endless! But sadly our wallets were not.

So we watched (so many) cooking tutorials to determine which three dishes were the best for us; those within our budget and modest cooking skills.  We found the following videos on Youtube and decided that these dishes were simple enough to try!

1. Mini Kimbap (미니 김밥)

This is like the easiest Korean snack food there is. We treated this as level one of our quest; easily surpassing it by merely rolling the rice and fillings in the dried laver (seaweed). An important tip: to roll it tightly, put some grains of rice at the edge of the seaweed to act as a seal. We chose not to make the common kimbap because we didn’t want to be too full since we had two more dishes to go.

Rolling and rolling and rolling and...

Omnomnomnomnom

2. Egg-Rolled Kimchi Fried Rice (김치 볶음밥 계란 말이)

We didn’t want to simply make kimchi fried rice, so we decided to increase the difficulty of the dish by adding the egg component. Well, it didn’t turn out as how we wanted it to be (‘cos we took too much time figuring out how to roll the rice in the egg in the pan) BUT it still tasted great! We nearly finished off all the rice, when we realised we should leave some for Nady’s brother. The Kimchi added a different dimension to what would have been a typical asian fried rice dish.

We added more Kimchi after this 

Rolling and rolling and rolling and...

Omnomnomnomnom

3. Hotteok (호떡)

And now, my favourite dish out of all the three! Hotteok is a popular Korean street food and I thought that it looked simple enough to replicate at home. What made this dish great was that the dough mixture had to rise well and we had to make sure to put in a generous amount of filling in each one. We used cheese as the filling instead of the traditional fillings of brown sugar and chopped walnuts or red bean since we loved cheese (and thought there would be a good photo op). I had sooooo much fun watching the (second batch of) dough rise and later shaping, filling and pan-frying (not to mention eating) each hotteok!

Our second batch of dough finally rose like it should!

Look at that cheeeeeese!

Was Confidence Really The Key?

Before we started cooking, we were actually slightly anxious that things wouldn’t work out for us. Missing out some ingredients, going beyond our budget, dough that failed to rise and the fact that we weren’t Korean were some of the minor setbacks we faced. But we confidently continued, and at the end of our “quest”, we realised the reason why cooking (or simply eating) Korean food is such a treat for many people around the globe.

Oliver Windgätter, a food blogger, sums it up very nicely when he said “There is a simplicity that is not boring, and an honesty in Korean food that (he) greatly appreciate(s)… Korean meals are communicative”.  Meals are made with family, for the family. It is true that most Korean dishes contain few ingredients, but they bring about flavours that are far from simple, with so much depth, that it is easy to see why people keep going back for more. For Nady and I, there is no doubt that we are going to continue eating and (probably) cooking Korean dishes in the future. Sure, we had confidence and didn't really destroy the dishes, but the most important thing is that as long as we had fun and didn't give up, it was a success! There’s still so much more to try and maybe one day we can actually learn from a real Korean chef in South Korea! (One can always dream)

If We Can Cook This, So Can You.

A few weeks ago, Natasha and I ate several Korean dishes and fusion food. This week, we attempted to cook them instead. We did extensive research on the different types of Korean dishes available. We looked at the types of ingredients needed, whether it is easy or difficult to make the dish ourselves and how confident we are at tackling them. Since the both of us can cook, we were quite confident that cooking Korean dishes should not be that difficult. Eventually, we decided to cook (1) Egg-rolled Kimchi Fried Rice, (2) Kimbap, and (3) Hotteok.

(1) Egg-Rolled Kimchi Fried Rice
We first had to cook Kimchi Fried Rice, where we threw Kimchi, cooked rice and sesame oil into a wok, stir-fry them for a good 15 minutes and then it's ready. Yes, it is that simple.

Onion, cucumber and carrot are mixed with the eggs for flavour.

Afterwards, we cracked a few eggs into a frying pan. As it is frying, we placed Kimchi Fried Rice in a straight row in the middle and then we wrap the egg around it. What you get, is the masterpiece below.

(2) Kimbap

Kimbap is well-known for being a simple easy-to-make Korean snack, yet still very filling. All you have to do is cook short-grain rice and placed it in the middle of the seaweed. You can then add whatever fillings that you may want. For us, we added carrots, cucumber, and egg.

    

Once you're satisfied with its content, simply roll them. 

(3) Hotteok
For our 3rd choice, we went with the popular Korean street food Hotteok. While looking at the recipe, it seemed fairly difficult as we would have to make the dough and placed the fillings inside. It is pretty much like baking, but without the use of an oven. 

Instead of the usual Hotteok fillings (brown sugar, honey, peanut, cinnamon), we decided to fill it with cheese, simply because we both love cheese. If you did not remember me mentioning in my previous post, yes, I do love cheese.

The process of preparing the dough was a bit troublesome but it was not as difficult as we imagined. We simply add flour, water, and yeast in a bowl. After mixing them together, we left it aside for 20 minutes. Once the dough had become thicker, we took a handful of dough, flatten it on our palm, added cheese in the middle and then wrap it into a ball. After that, we put them in a frying pan and ta-dah they are ready.

Once they are ready, we served them with honey for the extra sweet flavour. The end result is simply delectable. You can see how the cheese stretches when we break the Hotteok into two. 

The Simplicity Of It All

Yes, we did not attempt to make Kimchi-jjigae (Kimchi Stew) or Jajangmyeon (Black Bean Sauce Noodles). Instead, we settled on 3 simple Korean snacks / side dishes. Either way, I was still amazed at how simple it is to make the dishes. The fact that I was able to summarize the cooking process of all 3 dishes in just a few sentences just goes to show how easy it is to make them. We were able to replicate the dishes without looking at the recipe too much. All 3 dishes are just as filling and delicious. By the end of our meal, Natasha and I were stuffed. 

Vegetables prepared for all the dishes (sans onion)

100% recommended for anyone willing to try making their own Korean food. 

Testing out Korean Fusion Food

As the Hallyu wave continues to soar throughout the country, business owners have found it lucrative to open a Korean restaurant in Singapore. There are various Korean restaurants here, some of them serve authentic Korean cuisines and some would try to recreate it in order to fit the Singaporean taste buds. Others would attempt to stand out by fusing it with local food. While researching on the many Korean restaurants available in Singapore, I noticed that there were many Korean fusion restaurants. Some of them may not market themselves as a fusion restaurant, but one can tell that the chef has tweaked the ingredients so that their Singaporean customers would feel familiar with the dishes.

Out of the 4 different restaurants / food outlets Nata and I visited, FLO (short for: Food Lovers Only) markets itself as a Korean restaurant serving Western-fusion cuisines. The authentic fusion creations were recreated by 19-Year-Old Korean Chef Kim Jin Myeong. It has an extensive menu that includes all-day breakfast, pasta, steak, and crispy waffles.

beautiful (I meant the food)

I tried the Korean Inspired Marinated Chicken. The meal consist of chicken slices with kimchi fried brown rice and fried anchovies. For the appertizer, I was served with cheese mushroom soup and bread. I was very impressed with the appetizer. As you can see from the gif below, it looks very simple. There was a minimalistic approach in how the dish was presented. You can see that the amount of soup given was very little. Visually, I was slightly disappointed with the lack of amount. However, the taste of the soup was very delicious. As a cheese lover, I was very satisfied with it. Within a few minutes, there was no soup left. I wanted more.  This made me much more disappointed by the little amount served. But then again, this is an appetizer after all.

The Korean Inspired Marinated Chicken was delicious as well. However, I personally felt that this meal reminded more of Korean food rather than western food. I am also unsure as though which part of the meal is supposed to be inspired by western cuisines. Maybe it's because of the addition of fried rice and fried anchovies - both of which are meals that I have eaten daily as a child. The marinated chicken slices were Korean-inspired as well. That being said, it was definitely a great dish nonetheless. It was very filling.

Nata tried the Korean Beef Bulgogi Sandwich. Other than the beef bulgogi, everything else was clearly inspired by Western food. It felt like beef bulgogi was stuffed into an already prepared western meal. As you can see from the gif, it has cheese and tomatoes in the sandwich as well. As mentioned earlier, I am a cheese-lover. I also love to eat meat. So, to me, this dish tasted amazing. I also found myself munching on the chips despite the fact that I did not order this meal. Nata, who loves sandwiches, admitted that she would eat it again.

The restaurant has a very welcoming vibe. It has an open space interior and a simple layout. There is a counter with board games and books for customers to read. I found that very interesting, especially since some of the games were meant for children. So it's clear that the restaurant is a child-friendly space. The staff were kind to us and elaborated on their menu when we asked for help. They also did not mind the fact that we came in with a large camera and tripod, and we were clearly setting it up to take several shots of the place. This could be because we were the first customers to arrive.

That large counter contains board games, toys and books

Overall, I really enjoyed myself at FLO. I often recommend it to my friends. It's definitely a place to check out, especially during non-peak hour. I would come again just for that cheese mushroom soup.