Korean Snacks

 

Going to our local Korean shop is a wonderful. There are all sorts of delightful items. This is one of them... a pastel colour corn puff snack that is very moreish. It is slightly sweet, slightly sour, and has a hint of fruit flavour taste. A fun snack for sharing! - JD

Food Photo of the Day ~ Korean Bibimbap

My son created this dinner for us, it's one of his favourite meals, Korean Bibimbap and it was so delicious. I have enjoyed Bibimbap many times however his efforts were extremely tasty. It was nice of him to make dinner for us. I was able to have the evening off, so to speak, from the kitchen and relax although I did offer a helping hand to keep the kitchen running smoothly. 

Have a good weekend everyone and stay safe! - JD 

Seoul Fried Chicken

This past weekend we had a chance to try the very sought after Seoul Fried Chicken. There have been many positive things said about this eatery and their menu items that we could not resist. 

Pictured is a half order of their Korean Barbeque, SFC BBQ, and a half order of Original, SFC OG. The Original was not greasy or too salty. A nice seasoned crunch gave way to the tender chicken. The Korean BBQ had the perfect amount of tang and spice. For those who like heat this ones for you. Both are very good! 

Also, this is their combo 5pc Chicken Set: Any single chicken flavour... I chose, Onion Lover with sweet hot mustard sauce and topped with shredded green onion, a side of kimchi, a corn fritter and a beverage. The corn fritters are sweet, the kimchi hot and spicy and the mustard sauce gave just enough heat to tantalize the taste buds! Seoul Fried Chicken is an absolute delight for which one should try and share.

Hope everyone is having a good week. Plenty of sunshine here! - JD     

Korean Melon

While at my local shop this week I came across a Korean melon. The friendly lady in the produce section saw my quizzical interest and kindly came over to discuss the fruit. She told me how to ripen and what the inside tasted like. I chose to ripen on my counter for 2 days as opposed to placing in a brown paper bag with a potato on top of the refrigerator as she also suggested. 

Yesterday, I decided to slice it up and serve it with our lovely pancake brunch. The melon seemed juicy and smelt very much like cantaloupe and taste very much like cantaloupe. The enthusiastic produce lady said it had a melon and passionfruit taste. 

This is how the melon looked on the inside. Very similar to a honeydew melon however white rather than pale green. The melon can be eaten whole. We preferred to scooped out the seeds, slice it in long crescent moon shapes, following the nature grid that was provided, and we did not eat the rind. What was left behind went into the compost.

Hope everyone had a great weekend! - JD   

Korean Barbeque Sauce

By the start of the weekend it was decided that steak would be the Sunday Roast dinner. I decided that Korean Barbeque would be the flavour. Remembering I had a bottle tucked away, for just incase purposes, I used it because I wanted to get the steaks marinating straight away. Plus I was low on soy sauce.  

I have used this Korean Barbeque sauce before when pinched for time. It is fairly good and the sodium isn't too bad. There is a lot of salt... and sugar out there in products so read the labels and take the lowest whenever possible. I recommend this one if you are pressed for time however I will include a Korean Barbeque Sauce recipe if you would rather try that.  

Since the steaks were on the small side I managed to fit them all into this marinating container. The steaks must have marinated for almost 2 days. Flipping the container every so often.   

The marinating container is from Tupperware. I bought it years ago. There are these little pyramid like nibs on the top and bottom of both sides to ensure flavour flow and even marinating.

The steaks were baked in a pre-heated 400ºF oven for 30 minutes. They were baked uncovered for the first 15 minutes and for the remaining 15 minutes of the baking time I had placed aluminium foil over the baking dish. To avoid the steaks from drying out and  to seal in most of the flavour and juices. 

Even though I did not make my own Korean Barbeque sauce, which is fine. Sometimes there are just more important things that need to be done. I will include this recipe.


Korean Barbeque Sauce
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1 cup low sodium soy sauce
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
2 - 3 tablespoons minced garlic
1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
1 tablespoon chile- garlic sauce
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
1 teaspoon Asian sesame oil
some ground black pepper

1 tablespoon cornstarch

1 tablespoon water

Stir the soy sauce, sugar, garlic, rice wine vinegar, chile-garlic sauce, ginger, sesame oil, and black pepper together in a saucepan; bring to a boil.

Whisk cornstarch and water together in a small bowl until the cornstarch dissolves; pour into the boiling soy sauce mixture.

Reduce the heat to medium-low and cook until the sauce has thicken, about 3 to 5 minutes. 

Notes: For a spicier sauce use ground fresh chili paste. Try using coconut sugar. If you do not have rice wine vinegar then use white vinegar or even a malt vinegar it may change the taste slightly however sometimes adding a different ingredient in replace of another can be worth it. Try adding a tablespoon of minced or diced shallots.

Hope everyone had a great weekend! - JD