New Year's Eve Donabe Dinner - Korean Style!

We spent our New Year's Eve with a friend of ours at home. Since I've been so into Korean cooking lately, I cooked a variety of Korean dishes to celebrate.

Appetizers...My first homemade Kimchi(!), soy bean namul, pajeon, and stewed kabocha pumpkin. I never imagined I would make my own kimchi. But, here it is. I actually had fun making it. To make the yangnyeom (the sauce to rub to the salt-marinated and dried napa cabbage), I blende about 10 different ingredients including the hot chili powder, fermented anchovy sauce, grated apple, ginger, garlic, etc. It came out very nice!

The main course was Donabe Gamjatang. I used my classic-style Donabe, "Hakeme" to make this dish. The pork spare-ribs (salt-marinated overnight) were slow-cooked in donabe in the oven for 2.5 hours before adding any other ingredients. The broth smelled when the donabe was took right out of the oven.

Then, the broth was seasoned and other ingredients were added. With tons of sesame leaves and roasted sesame seeds, the soup was so complete and wonderful. The meat was extremely succulent and fell off the bone so easily.

Instead of eating soba noodles as a traditional Japanese New Year's Eve meal, we ended the main course with kalguksu (Korean wheat flour noodles). The noodles soaked up all the flavors of the rich broth and it was magical.

Cheese course. And all the wines.

It's been a wonderful 2009.

Donabe Sundubu Jjigae

I've been making many Korean dishes since my trip to Seoul a few weeks ago. I didn't get to eat Sundubu Jjigae (hot tofu stew) when we visited Seoul, but it's one of my favorite Korean dishes and I've been making it at home sometimes.

I made it in a slight different way than the last times. For this dish, I used my classic-style donabe, "Hakeme".

Saute the pork belly slices in the donabe. Add 2 cups of water and the spice mixture (1 tbsp kochujang, 1tbsp soy sauce, 1.5 tbsp hot red pepper powder, grated ginger and garlic, 2 tbsps sake, minced scallion). Then, add the sliced shiitake mushrooms.

Once the broth starts boiling, turn down to simmer. Add the extra soft tofu, clams, and shimeji mushrooms. Close the lid and wait until the clam shells open. Adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper.

As always, we had it with the donabe rice. The dinner made my body feel so good.

Donabe Gamjatang

As I was so inspired by the delicious Gamjatang dinner I had in Seoul, I decided to make my own "donabe" version at home. For this dish, I used my classic-style donabe, "Hakeme".

The main ingredients of Gamjatang are pork and potato. Instead of the back bone meat which is traditionally used for this dish in Korea, I picked up the nice pork ribs and salt-marinated it overnight. I cooked the meat for about 2 hours with water in the donabe over 325F in the oven. By the time, the cooking water turned into a nice rich stock. I seasoned it with kochujang, hot red chili powder, soy sauce, miso, etc., and added the potatoes. Once the potatoes are cooked through, I added mushrooms and other ingredients.

Voila. It was served with a lot of sesame leaves and ground black pepper. The flavor was amazing. The meat was super-tender and fell off the bone very easily. In fact, it was so delicious that I liked my version even better than the original kind I had in Seoul!

As a "shime", instead of making the rice dish, we cooked the ramen noodles in the leftover broth. Righteous.

Vegetable Chap Chae (Korean Stir-fry Noodles)

Chap Chae is a very popular Korean noodle dish. The good chap chae has the bouncy texture of the noodle and not soggy. It's not a difficult dish to fail. I like to make it with just vegetables and tons of mushrooms.

Ingredients (for 2 main servings or 4 appetizers)

200g (about 6.5oz) bean thread noodles (glass noodles)

1.5 tbsps. sesame oil

3-4 ea. shiitake mushrooms, thinly sliced

2 ea. medium-size king oyster mushrooms, thinly sliced

1 ea. small carrot, peeled and julienned

1/2 ea. medium-size red bell pepper, julienned
1 small bunch yellow or green nira (Chinese chives), cut into 2-3" length

1.5 cup soy bean sprouts

2 tbsps mirin

1/4 cup soy sauce

1 tbsp sake

1/2 tbsp rice vinegar

salt and pepper

la-yu (hot chili sesame oil)

Procedure

Cook the bean thread noodles in the boiling water for 5 minutes. Drain, rinse, and cut into bite-size lengths with scissors. Set aside. In a cup, combine the mirin, soy sauce, sake and rice vinegar and set aside.

In a wok, heat the sesame oil and saute the mushrooms, carrot, and bell pepper at medium-high heat for about 2 minutes. Add the nira and soy bean sprouts and cook for another minute.

Add the sauce mixture to deglaze the pan. Season with salt and pepper. Add the cooked bean thread noodles and toss all the ingredients for 1-2 minutes.

Serve in a plate and drizzle la-yu and garnish with dried chili threads, scallion, and cilantro (garnish is optional).

Buta Jjigae (Korean Style Pork Hot Stew)

January 8, 2009

I've been doing more research about Korean dishes this week. After checking out different "hot pot" recipes, I made my own version of hot pork stew (jjigae) tonight. As I just cannot handle kimchee, my version doesn't have it at all. Here's my recipe.

Make the seasoning paste by blending 1T soy sauce, 1/2T sugar, about 1 tsp each grated ginger and garlic, 1T minced scallion, 2T red chili powder, 1/2T sesame oil, and a little bit of ground pepper. With half amount of the paste, marinate the pork belly slices (about 1/2lb) for 15 minutes.

In the bottom of the donabe (clay pot), place sliced Napa cabbage (about 2 cups), tofu (half pack), and sliced king oyster mushrooms (2 pieces), then pour 2-1/3C chicken stock. Close the lid and bring it to boil. Add the marinated pork, turn the heat to medium and cook for 4-5 minutes.

Add egg and enoki mushrooms and cook for another 1-2 minutes or until ready.

Serve the stew into individual bowls and top with sliced scallions and serve with rice.