posted by: justbee
Milk Tea
I just made myself some milk tea because I love it! Why pay the $6 cafes charge when it’s so easy you can make it yourself!
Ingredients:
1 bag Lipton tea
boiling water
condensed milk to taste
Directions:
Pour boiling water into a mug. Add Lipton teabag. Allow to brew for a couple of minutes depending on how strong you like your tea. Add condensed milk to taste.
So sorry about the lack of updates – April is a super busy month and we’re moving! Will be back soon. 
posted by: haminesther
Ghetto Korean Ho Bbang
Ingredients:
frozen white dinner rolls (Rhodes, or whatever brand)
brown sugar
chopped pecans
oil, preferably not olive oil
Directions:
1. Wrap however many frozen dinner rolls in plastic wrap on a plate and heat in microwave until it gets a little mushy, that is workable to flatten out with hands. Don’t overheat b/c it gets stickier to work with. It’s about 10 seconds for one roll and then add a few more seconds for each additional roll.
2. Flatten out the roll with your fingers, just to make it into a flatter, wider circle.
3. Add about 1-2 teaspoons of brown sugar & chopped pecans in the middle of the roll, and pinch the edges from one side to the other to enclose the sugar and pecans, kinda like jeen-bang. Make sure it is enclosed and pinched well. Don’t overload the pecans or sugar or the bread thins out and bleeds out when pan-fried.
4. Heat pan on medium heat. Add a generous amount of oil to coat the bottom of the frying pan.
5. Place the ho-bangs on the pan and flatten down with fingers. Flip when one side is nicely browned.
6. The brown sugar will melt in the inside into a nice gooey juice, and the bread fries into a chewy outside.
posted by: estherm
Kimchi Pasta
You’re probably wondering…kimchee pasta?? Sounds weird. Long time ago when I was in college, I went to this restaurant on the outskirts of Koreatown. They had a dish called kimchee pasta and I loved it! I would crave it! But after a few years, they went out of business. After I got married, I tried to make it but it didn’t taste anything like it. I tried it again tonight and I thought it came out pretty good. Try and it and tell me what you think!
Ingredients:
Feeds (2-3)
1/2 pint heavy cream
1/4 stick of salted butter
Salt to taste
Freshly cracked black pepper
Kimchee (must be really good kimchee and pretty ripe)
Green onions to garnish
Directions:
First melt butter in pan and then add the heavy cream, whisking it. After a few minutes add the kimchee. Cook at medium heat for about 5 minutes and reduce to low heat. Once the pasta is cooked (I recommend spaghetti or linguini), mix together with the sauce. Add salt and pepper to taste.
So sorry for the horrible lack of updates. I’ve been so busy lately that I hardly sleep, I hardly eat, hardly shower… um just kidding about the last one. Seriously though I came up with a great solution to my food problems because I don’t have the time to cook anymore. Every week I’m gonna go buy a week’s worth of soup from a Korean restaurant and freeze it. This way I can just defrost the soup in my fridge the night before and it’ll be ready for me to eat the next day. I already make frozen rice and I only need to do that twice a week. I’ve virtually eliminated my cooking time. It’s pure genius I tell ya!
I recommend it for:
Oh yah and don’t forget to go buy the food when they have their lunchtime specials so it’ll be cheaper. I’ll take a picture of my 5 gooks when I buy them this weekend! That doesn’t mean that I won’t be posting recipes anymore. I’m just trying to grow my website right now and it’s been keeping me so busy. But I’ll be back soon I promise!! Meanwhile, please contribute your korean recipes via the email link on the left!
Check out this funny kimchi attire… Maybe we need one that says “got dog?” 
Wow 11 days since an update! That’s the longest I’ve ever gone. So sorry guys but my father-in-law has been staying with us for the past week and I’ve been really busy with my weddingbee site. I promise to make something yummy next week!
Meanwhile… yesterday I had a craving for ho bbang. I used to eat this all the time growing up but haven’t had it in years!
Ho Bbang (Red Bean Bun)
Directions: Remove from package. Fill a pot with a little bit of water and insert a steamer. Put in the buns and cover the pot with a lid. Steam the buns for about 10 minutes. Enjoy!
How To Use Your Leftover Ground Kong (soybeans)
I had some leftover soy bean mixture from making kong gooksoo so I saved it to make some kimchi kong beeji jjigae. I strained the blended soybeans, drank the liquid and saved the ground soybeans. The recipe for kong beeji jjigae has been posted on here before (not by me), so I tried the recipe and it came out fantabulous! 
Video of it cooking for your viewing pleasure. I like lots o pork.
Kong Gooksoo (Soybean Noodles)
I made the tomatoes in the shape of a heart just for you guys.
My entire family looooooves kong gooksoo and we make it at home all the time during the summer. It’s actually really easy to make! I just use the most basic ingredients, but you can also toss in some walnuts, pine nuts, and sesame seeds when blending the soybeans. The recipe below makes 2 large servings. If I have any leftover soup, I just keep it in the refrigerator and drink it later because it’s really good for you.
Ingredients:
1 cup soybeans
2 1/2 cups water
1 package noodles
sea salt to taste
Garnish:
black sesame seeds
cucumber, thinly sliced
tomato 2 wedges
Directions:
Buy a bag of soybeans – I think it’ll say meju kong on the bag. (I’m obsessed with putting everything in ziploc bags once I open a bag.) Place 1 cup of the beans in a bowl and fill with hot water. Allow it to soak for 1-2 hours. Drain. Put soybeans in a pot and fill with water. Bring to a boil. Drain and rinse well in cold water.
I use Pulmuone’s all purpose noodles (as I do for most noodle dishes). Bring water to boil in a pot. Add the noodles and cook for 5-6 minutes. Drain.
Add 2 1/2 cups cold water and the soybeans into a blender. Puree until it is liquefied – you may add more water to achieve the desired consistency. I like the soup kinda thick so I just eat it as is, but you can strain the soup through a fine metal strainer if you prefer to get a thinner soup. It also gets diluted when I add in all my ice cubes anyway.
The soup should be served cold. You can either refrigerate it and serve later or do what I do and just toss in a bunch of ice cubes. Place noodles in a bowl and pour in soup. Garnish with tomatoes, thinly sliced cucumber, and black sesame seed. Mix in sea salt to taste and serve. When you order it in restaurants it comes garnished with black sesame seeds on top, but I didn’t have any.
Kimchi on the side is a must. A refreshing dish on a hot summer day!
I promise to post a recipe later today! =)
But meanwhile… I’ve been craving gahm aka persimmon. Is persimmon a purely Asian fruit? I remember going to a dinner party once in college and one of the Chinese guests brought the host a box of persimmons. She had never heard of them before!
Anyway… what type of gahm do you like best?
The hard ones you have to peel.
The soft ones where you can just peel the skin off with your fingers.
Or the dried ones?
posted by: justbee
Ajummah trait #1894489: Saving every single jar you buy and reusing them.
As smilen1004 says, “It’s Korean tupperware!”
posted by: justbee
Korean Cookbooks
I recently received an email asking me for recommendations on good Korean cookbooks. I think what most Korean Americans out there are looking for (including myself) is a book with the basics – kimchi jjigae, jab chae, galbi, etc. - because that’s what we grew up eating. We’re not looking for fancy gourmet recipes or unfamiliar dishes with ingredients our mothers would never use – we’re looking for good old-fashioned Korean home cooking. That being said, I currently own 3 Korean cookbooks:
Vignette of Korean Cooking II by Jae-ok Chang
I bought this book through Koream (I think it’s the only place you can buy it) because it’s the only Korean cookbook with instructions in Korean and English. While it’s nicely illustrated with large glossy pages, I don’t think I’ve tried a single recipe out of the book yet. There are some traditional recipes in the book but most are recipes that I don’t really consider typical “Korean” home cuisine. I think Part 1 of her book includes more traditional recipes but I haven’t had a chance to look through it.
She uses garlic salt instead of fresh garlic for all her recipes – which I’ve never really done but might try one day. She also uses dashida. I know that dashida and miwon (msg) make Korean dishes taste delicious, but it’s not good for you and my mom never used it.
I bought this cookbook recently because of the great reviews it got on Amazon. Silly me…. of course you can’t trust reviews from nonKoreans! It’s like when you walk into an ethnic restaurant and see a bunch of Americans – you know it’s no good. The book has some good basics like bibimbap, dduk mandoo gook, nakji bokkeum, and bulgogi but very few jjigaes and gooks and a lot of bokkeum and meat dishes that are not quintessential Korean. There are nice glossy pictures, a good explanation of Korean ingredients and clear instructions. Overall pretty good but not that many recipes.
I flipped through this book while I was at Barnes & Noble last week and I liked it enough to buy it. I often browse through books at B&N and then buy them on Amazon because they’re cheaper there and I can get free shipping/no tax. I just received this book, but so far it’s the best Korean cookbook I’ve seen. I can’t wait to try out some of the recipes. There are no glossy pretty pictures and pages here, but tons of basic Korean recipes. This is the one I’d recommend if you’re looking for a Korean cookbook.
Books that I don’t recommend include:
1) Korean Cooking for Everyone – great pictures of the cooking process but a Japanese chef cowrote this. There are a lot of Japanese ingredients and Japanese style dishes.
2) Growing up in a Korean Kitchen – I looked through it and wasn’t impressed. My friend bought it and told me it sucked. Don’t let the halmuhnee on the cover fool ya.
3) Dok Suni – I’ve seen a lot of recipes from the book online and they’re just blah.
I’m thinking about buying this book, but they don’t carry it at Barnes & Noble and I want to look through it first because it’s $47.00 It was recommended on a Korean site somewhere as being the “best Korean cookbook.”
The bottom line? It’s hard to find a book that has most of the recipes you love. All Korean cookbooks suck so just read this site! Haha just kidding. Honestly the best resource for Korean recipes is the internet. I’ve recently started surfing for recipes on google korea (www.google.co.kr) because all you really need to know is the ingredients and general measurements when it comes to Korean food. Then it’s pretty much cooking by taste.
Which Korean cookbooks do you recommend?
Recent Comments