All posts tagged kimchi

By Jessica | June 3, 2009 | Main Courses | 1 Comment

I swear, I should have been born in Korea or China or, or, Laos or something cause I love the gotdamn food. I probably don’t even cook Korean, Chinese or Laosean but think I do cause I eat the shmack with chop sticks. At least I’m self aware of my ignance.

Now that I’m a vagitarian (including no fish shticks), B and I gots to get creative with the cookin and the eatin. I can’t tell you how hard it is when I drink mama’s milk (vodka) and alls I wants to do is eat a burger slapped between two steaks. Oh well. Three more weeks or something totally impossible like that…

Anywho: Kimchi Rice with Broccoli, Sesame and Poached Egg

1 stalk and head of broccoli
olive oil, a bit
1/4 cup water
1 cup of cabbage based kimchi (spicy, if you nasty)
2 cups of cooked rice (sub with brown rice if youre feelin)
sesame seeds, to your desire
2 cage free, organic eggs, poached
soy or tamari
hot chile oil, a bit
sesame oil, oh, just a bit
scallions, sliced
sirachi, if you feel it
Serves 2 constantly hungry vegetarians.

Get your rice cooked and hot. While that’s working, lop the bottom of your broccoli stalk and then slice thinly up the base until you have slices and small florets. Heat your olive oil in a deep frying pan. When hot, add the broc and saute for a minute or two. Add the water and cover immediately so the broccoli finishes cooking via a good steam. After about 3 or 4 minutes, remove the cover and cook out the water. Now add your kimchi and saute all together until hot. Add sirachi until your desired spice.

Add your cooked rice to two eatin bowls. Garnish with soy to taste. Add a bit of chile oil. Top with the kimchi and broccoli mixture. Now the sesame seeds. Now the sesame oil. Now the poached eggs. Now the scallions (or as B likes to call them, scallios.)

Eat with chop sticks and hate on Miley Cirus for making fun of us. Bitch.

By Jessica | April 8, 2009 | Main Courses, Recipes | 1 Comment

Do you ever decide that Tonight is Thee Night that you are going to get hammered? Yeah, me too. Luckily, B thinks it’s funny when I throw up. But you know what he doesn’t think is funny? My face getting splattered with hot wok oil. I think that’s why he took over the cheffing of our Duck Fried Rice the other night. You knew that duck fried rice was coming, right? Cause I made duck breastesess the other night and you know I didn’t finish my plate. And what’s better than eating duck for dinner? Eating duck for leftovers the next night. Wordemup.

I don’t usually put pics of the ingredients /\ but thought it would save some time so yall would know what I was blathering about.

Duck Fried Rice

1/2 or 1 cup spicy kimchi
fermented beans, korean style, if you can find em. If not, no big woop.
carrots, julienne
cooked duck, cubed, however much your fat ass wants
1 scoop of bean paste
5 cups of cooked rice
1/8 c of soy or tamari
1 cup of cilantro, chopped
2 scallions, sliced
sesame, drizzled on top
Sirachi, for garnish, if desired
Serves 2 drunk mother fuckers.

Heat your wok. Depending on how well seasoned it is (seasoned means oily), you may or may not have to use a bit of oil. Veg or peanut oil work juuuust fine. Heat your work and add the oil. When the oil is hot, throw in your kimchi. For this recipe, I like to use the one with all the veg in it and not just the cabbage. When heated through, throw in the beans and the carrots. After the carrots are heated through, toss in your meat. Add in a generous dollop of bean paste and mix. After 60 seconds, move it all to the side and add your rice. Fry for a smidge and then stir well until everything is incorporated. Add the soy sauce or tamari – which ever one you are using. When everything is nice and hot and you’re drooling, serve into two eatin bowls. Garnish with cilantro, scallions and sesame oil. I also add… wait for it… sirachi. Duh.

By Jessica | March 11, 2009 | Main Courses, Recipes, Snackin, Salads and Apps | 2 Comments

We are back with Course 2 of The Dinner Party Report. I knew you would come back. I so had you at spatula.

So, dudes. Want to make something cheap and tasty that makes your belly happy? Make this. Forserz, make. this. This beef recipe goes particularly well with the kimchi rice because the beef is kinda sweet and the rice is kinda spicy with a touch of bitter. Together, it is a symphony of tasteful beauty, all dripply with egg yolk and yum.

Course 2: Korean Braised Beef over Kimchi Rice with Fried Egg

2 lbs of beef, cut in chunks for stew
1 c flour
3 tbs veg or canola oil
3 tbs of rice vinegar

Braising Liquid:
4 scallions, sliced, separate the green from the white, reserve the green for garnish
1c soy sauce
1/4 rice vinegar
2 tbs sesame oil
2 tbs red pepper flakes
2 inches of ginger, peeled and finely chopped
4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
2 tbs black pepper
1 tbs sesame seeds
3 cups of water

In a heavy cast iron pot or dutch oven, add your oil and heat. While waiting, add your flour and beef to a plastic baggie. Shake the shit out of it chris brown style. With a tong, grab each chunk, shake the excess flour and place in the hot oil. Brown. Do not over crowd your pot. Also, don’t be afraid to add more oil if it gets all used up. Just remember that if you add it, you have to make sure it gets hot before you add more meat. Brown your biff until its all browned up.

To prepare your braising liquid, add all the ingredients except for the water into a bowl and mix well. At this point, your pot should be all caked with burnt up beafy goodness. With the heat on, take your 3 tbs of vinegar and poor over this gold. Using a wooden spoon, scrape the shit out of your pot and mind the gold. These delicious flavor crystals will add mo pushing to the gooshin.

Add your braising liquid and let it heat up. Add your biff. Add water until it covers the meat. Stir. Let bring to a boil uncovered. When boiling, cover and reduce heat to as low as a flame as you can possibly dare. Let this shit cook for 2, 3, 4 hours? Till the shits falling apart on your tongue. Eat over the kimchi rice below, garnished with the reserved sliced greens of the scallion. Taste the rainbow.

Kimchi Rice with Fried Egg

For this recipe, you gots to get you some traditional kimchi. And don’t try to make mines for this. Mines is dope and delicious and my mouth is watering as I type these very words, but you need yourself some real, fermented cabbage. Go. If you are in NYC, I found some in k-town on 29th-ish and 5th ave. You can also get it at great wall super market. And I bet some trendy shit store like whole foods has it as well.

2 c of kimchi (packed well)
veg or canola oil for frying
1 inch of ginger, peeled and finely chopped
6 c cooked rice
sirachi for taste

Take your store bought kimchi and dice. Make sure to squeeze the liquid before taking out of the container because you are going to want to pour that over the rice later and don’t want it all dripping up on the board. You are looking for a good chop here.

Using a wok or a big ass frying pan, heat your oil and throw in your ginger. After 2 minutes, throw in the kimchi. After 4 minutes, fold in your rice. Make it hot. Put some hot sauce on it if you want. Pour the extra kimchi juice over it to make it moist. For the best part: fry some eggs, keep the yolk. Put it on top. Eat with the braised beef. You can also do a poached egg if you like that better.

Check Course 1 here.

By Jessica | September 15, 2008 | In The News, Restaurants | 2 Comments

So, Pickle Fest 2008 in the house.

In some year at some point, the Lower East Side BID started closing one street in LES to host picklers from around the world. Under big tents with big barrels, farmers and hipsters alike are workin it for your pickle pleasure. Most picklin artists are kind enough to offer samples. At least the smart ones do. Those that were giving it away had crowds that led around the block. Damn, I never knew New Yorkers were so gotdamn cheap. Cheap and aggressive, sucking the life out of the crafterman and their pickles. But hey, I shoved with the best of em.

These chicks were offering rice with their kimchi. Thank. You.

Kimchi, but it was too mild for my fire mouth. Next time, ladies.

Are pickles the only thing foodies will eat out of barrel?

I bought some pickled green tomatoes from these billies. We ate them tonight. Yum.

My one criticism of the festival was that it was marketed as “international,” so I was sort of expecting some exotic pickles or something. Gimme some pickled papaya. I wanted to taste lamb chops in a spicy brine. Feed me some pickled tiger toe nails on a freakin cracker. Just one acidic pork nipple for my martini please. But no. Dill, sweet, spicy, blah, blah, blah. At least last year, I heard, they served pickled hot dogs. I should be on the committee next year. Then I’ll put into play my ignorant ass ideas.

Stay tuned for my recipe for homemade kimchi. It’ll knock you on your ass.

By Jessica | August 5, 2008 | Restaurants | 3 Comments

(disclaimer: crap pictures taken with a phone.)

Sunday evening we went with 7 friends to a restaurant in Korea Town called Shilla and had Korean BBQ. The meal was so amazing I thought I would make you drool a bit.

We sat around a large table with 2 grills in the center. This is where the main meat dishes would get cooked. Before the raw meat got to the table, the waiters delivered like, 8 or 22, I don’t know, small bowls of tastiness. I asked my friend who took us there whether they were to be considered apps or condiments (eat now or later, basically) and I think he was being polite when he said to eat them now cause he didn’t eat them to till the main food came. Guess what the rest of us did. View empty bowls here:

After the first round of OB beers were drank and most of the small dishes were consumed, they brought over large platters of raw pork and beef. The pork looked exactly like thick cut bacon. The dude put the slabs on the hot grill and a minute later used large scissors to cut into bite size pieces. Then he took handfuls of kimchi and raw garlic and put on the edges of the grill so when the pork fat was rendering, the golden juices would stroll down and cook the kimchi and garlic.

The beef seemed to be marinated in a sweet sauce which tasted like teriyaki (excuse my ignance) and was grilled also over the garlic. Accompanied by large romaine leaves, the beef was delish rolled in them with a fermented bean paste.

We also ordered Kimchi Stew. This is a steaming hot bowl of pork chunks (I’ve also had it with pulled pork, which I think is better), tofu squares, rice cakes and, as you can guess, kimchi. This. Was. The. Bomb. You can expect to see a recipe for this in the coming weeks cause I must learn how to make this.

And finally, I must give props to the sides dishes because they were each so delish (except for the mayo apples – ew.) They brought dried and salted tiny tiny fishes (cursing myself for not having a picture of those suckers), whose heads kept falling off, but were really cute. Kimchi, spicy daikon, spicy zucchini, pickled zucchini, salt in sesame oil (cleary a condiment), a mayo potato salad with apple chunks, spicy salad greens, broccoli heads in a spicy red sauce, and… what did I forget… anyone?

Now, you know me by now, I love me some pork and spice and oily goodness, but this was, in the end, a bit much for my body. My mind said yes but my stomach said, Oh hell no. I need a Korean remedy for uncloggin my arteries, too. Can anyone suggest one?

(You know I’ll be back in K-Town soon though, right?)

By Jessica | July 6, 2008 | Main Courses, Recipes | 5 Comments

C came over for lunch cause I wanted to show her my Ramen. I promised her beef to trick her into eating kimchi – totally worked. My obsession for spicy noodles was launched about a year ago, and I still want to eat them all day long. This is also my favorite dish to cook because it is damn cheap (see the receipt below), quick, easy, filling, and CAN BE healthIER when adding fresh ingredients.

The fanciest part of this whole recipe is the poached egg, which for me, has become an absolute essential item. I learned this from David Chang, which I guess everyone knew except for me for the longest. Thanks guys.

Check it. Cook it. Eat it.

3 packets of original flavored Ramen, whichever brand
1 zucchini, thinly sliced
10ish dried shitake mushrooms
1/4 lb slices roast beef from the deli
kimchi (mine’s homemade, that’s for the next post, you can buy it at most specialty food shop these days)
2 scallions, thinly sliced
2 eggs
a dash of vinegar

optional:
snow peas, frozen greens of any kind, bean spouts, cubed uncooked tofu… um, anything you want really.

The longest part is reconstituting the mushrooms. Boil 2 cups of water, add to mushrooms and cover. Let sit for 20 minutes. When done, remove the mushrooms to slice, and reserve the newly created mushroom broth.

Cook the Ramen according to the packet’s directions. For 3 packets, you will need 6 cups of water. Additionally, add the 2 cups of reserved mushroom broth and bring to a boil. Add the Ramen noodles, mushrooms, zuccini and any of the optional ingredients you desire.

Simultaneously, bring a deep frying pan to boil with a dash of vinegar for poaching your eggs. At a soft boil, crack your eggs directly into the water. They should congeal and turn a solid white. After about 2 minutes, the eggs and noodles will be ready.

Add the noodles to a huge bowl for eating lots. With a slatted spoon, grab an egg for each bowl and float on top of the servings. Divide the sliced beef and add to the steaming bowl of noodles. Garnish with kimchi and scallion. For added spice, I recommend using Sirachi, not some vinegar-based hot sauce like Tobasco.

And?.. You’re welcome.