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.