Looking for an amazing and new taste experience? You need to try Korean food!
When I first discovered Korean food I didn’t know many of the dishes. This list should help anyone new to Korean food to discover some of the best and most delicious.
The Korean culture is quite unique in its approach to food. Food
seems to permeate every aspect of life. If you have watched a Korean
drama or movie you will undoubtedly have noticed that in at least one
scene someone is eating. There are even entire films and dramas based
around Korean cuisine. For Koreans food is much more than something to
fill the belly – it provides taste, medicine, and a connection to the
country. Below I have listed ten dishes that, in my opinion, are truly
the most delicious; these are foods that every Westerner will love as
much as Koreans.
Soondubu jiggae is a Korean stew (jiggae) – thicker than a soup but
thinner than a porridge. When cooked in the traditional way (in an
earthenware pot – pictured above) all of the cooking is done in just the
one dish. This makes it very easy to clean up afterwards – a job we
all hate. It starts with a delicious fish stock and a little beef to
deepen the flavor then finished off with fresh shell fish, hot pepper
flakes, silken tofu, and eggs which are optional. The best thing about
this stew is that you – the cook – can control how hot you want it but
limiting the quantity of hot pepper flakes. You can have it
blisteringly hot or very mild which is particularly handy if you are
cooking for children who can’t stomach their food too spicy. The small
amount of beef is typical of Korean food and illustrates how healthy it
is – the meat is used for flavor rather than stomach filling. This is a
dish everyone should try – it is really one of the nicest ways to
introduce someone to tofu which picks up all of the flavors of the stew
while adding a soft comforting texture. Eat it with rice and side
dishes for a complete meal.
Seolleongtang is an incredibly popular soup in Korea – there are even
restaurants who specialize in making just it. Of all the items on this
list, seolleongtang is the most time consuming as you must boil the beef
bones (typically ox leg bones but you can make do with ox tail) for
hours and hours to release all of the calcium which gives it the very
distinctive white look. But don’t be fooled by the color – this is the
beefiest tasting soup you can imagine! When you boil the bones you can
also add a large piece of beef and radish which you slice and add to the
soup at the last minute. While this is a great winter soup it is also
delicious in summer. It also makes a huge quantity so you can make it
on the weekend and consume it during the week. In Korea this might be
eaten for breakfast – not just dinner – as Korean’s typically have soup,
rice, and side dishes for breakfast.
Ddukbokkie is the delicious smell of Korean cities at night. In large
Korean cities like Seoul, the streets are filled with vendors selling
their own special recipe versions of the most popular street food.
Ddukbokkie (it is pronounced roughly like “dok-bok-ee”) is one of the
most popular and it comes in various styles. In the example above I
used the linked recipe but also added sliced fish cakes and boiled eggs.
The sauce is spicy but it is also very sweet and packed with an
immense amount of flavor. The spiciness is cut by the long cylindrical
rice cakes which, when cooked, become chewy and soft. The rice cakes
are probably the most unusual part of the recipe for most westerners but
when they try it – they love it.
7. Dakjuk – Chicken Porridge – 닭죽 [Recipe]
When I first made Dakjuk I wasn’t expecting it to be one of my
favorite dishes – it seemed far too simple a recipe. Boy was I wrong!
Essentially you boil a chicken in a huge pot of water with onions and a
lot of garlic – then you add sushi rice and cook it until the chicken is
done. The end result is a thick stew (which Koreans refer to as a
porridge even though it has no oats) caused by the rice breaking down
bursting with rich chicken and garlic flavor. You tear the chicken up
and eat it with the porridge. This is a meal you will make again and
again because it really is super easy. I must add one warning though:
if you are peeling the garlic by hand (instead of using pre-peeled store
bought garlic) wear gloves; garlic oil in large quantities can cause
third degree burns – which I found out the hard way!
If you have a sweet tooth you are guaranteed satisfaction with this
amazing pancake sold by street vendors. It is a little more complex than
a western style pancake because it is made with a yeast dough but the
effort is well worth it. The dough (virtually identical to a western
bread dough) is filled with a mixture of cinnamon, brown sugar, and
chopped walnuts and fried in a lightly oiled pan until the filling has
melted into a syrup. This really is the queen of pancakes and it is
incredibly popular with children. Try this out next time the kids want
pancakes for breakfast – they will love you for it. And if you don’t
like the sound of the filling or don’t have a sweet tooth, just fill it
with mozzarella cheese instead.
I guarantee that once you try this, you will be ditching KFC
(Kentucky Fried Chicken) and switching to the other KFC – Korean Fried
Chicken. This fried chicken has to be tasted to be believed. When you
bite into a piece of this chicken you are initially met with a sticky,
sweet, spicy red sauce. But then your teeth crunch through a triple
cooked batter so crispy that you wouldn’t believe it possible. This
then leads to the most incredibly moist and flavorsome chicken inside.
This really is one of the most delicious Korean foods ever invented. In
Korea there are many shops selling their own special version of
yangnyeom tongdak and they deliver until the late house of the night.
But home made is always better. This recipe is particularly good as it
shows (because of the addition of ketchup) how Koreans are willing to
adopt foreign flavors and use them to their advantage. You need to try
this as soon as possible.
Japchae is one of the most popular Korean dishes both inside and
outside of Korea and when you taste it you will understand why.
Originally japchae was made without noodles – it was invented for the
King by one of his chefs and he loved it so much that it became famous
across Korea. In more recent times the noodles were added and now they
are an essential element to the dish. The noodles used are sweet potato
starch noodles which give japchae its very distinct chewy texture. The
vegetables are all lightly cooked so they retain all their flavor.
This is definitely a great alternative to the typical (and often bland)
stir fry we all cook at home when we want “Chinese”. If you like Korean
pop music, here is an amusing video clip of Super Junior’s Eun Hyuk promoting japchae – his favorite Korean dish.
Bulgogi is an extremely versatile way of preparing beef and the one
most westerners have sampled at Korean restaurants. Typically in the
west we eat bulgogi on a korean barbecue – a hot plate in the middle of
the table. But in Korea this is just one of many ways. It can be made
into a stew (as in the recipe above) or as the basis for other dishes.
It is such a versatile marinated meet that you could even use it to
replace pulled pork in a western style sandwich. Bulgogi is very thinly
sliced beef which is marinated in a sauce made from pear juice, garlic,
soy sauce, and many other things. There are as many recipes as their
are uses. The end result is a delicious sweet, savory, and soft slice
of meat. My favorite way to eat it is to wrap it with a small amount of
rice and dipping sauce in a lettuce leaf. It is also incredibly low
fat and very healthy.
If you try only one recipe from this list – let it be bibimbap. In
Korean, “bibim” means “mixed” and “bap” means rice. All of the
ingredients except the meat (which is optional) are prepared in advance
so you can add them at room temperature to the top of hot steamed rice.
You then quickly fry and add the meat and a sunny-side up egg to the
top. Bibimbap is usually served with a spicy sauce made from gochujang
(Korean hot pepper paste) which you can add to your liking – allowing
you to control how hot it is. You then use your spoon (Korean food is
always served with metal chopsticks and a spoon) to “bibim” it all until
it is completely mixed together. The trick then is to see how much you
can fit in your mouth in one go! Well, not really, but it tastes so
good that that is invariably what happens at my house. This really is a
taste sensation and it really is impossible not to fall in love at
first bite.
Kimchi is the national dish of Korea. At first it can sound daunting
to us westerners because of the word “fermented” but don’t forget that
we eat a lot of fermented foods already – yoghurt and bread for example.
In the case of kimchi the cabbage is coated leaf by leaf in a
delicious spicy mix of hot pepper flakes, garlic, chives, onion, pear
juice, and more. It is then able to be eaten right away (in which case
it is fresh, not fermented) or you can leave it out of the refrigerator
for two or three days to start the fermentation process. As it ferments
it develops a rich and slightly sour flavor – true also of German
sauerkraut (which means sour herb or cabbage). It lasts for months and
is also used as the base for many other dishes such as kimchi stew and
even as a filling for kimbap (Korean sushi). Kimchi is such an
important dish in Korea that it is eaten with breakfast, lunch, and
dinner. It may not look pretty but it sure tastes good! And if you
don’t have time to make it yourself (it can be a little time consuming)
it is always available pre-made at your local Korean grocery.
All images are of my attempts to follow the recipes linked above.
The recipes are easy to follow and each one is incredibly delicious.
If you can make these dishes you should because home cooking is always
best, but if it is not possible, be sure to try them all out at your
local Korean restaurant.
Source : www.koreataste.org
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