My Korean Food Extravaganza Weekend:

This is what Kimchi are supposed to look like:

Kimchi, I began making Kimchi on Thursday night when I got home from my Religion Excursion. My original plan had been to just make Bolgogi. But when I saw the Daikon (or ‘white carrot’ as the Thais call it), in the Asian Grocery in Mawson. I knew I just had to make Kimchi.
I had been intending to make Kimchi during my holidays, and I bought Napa cabbage for the occasion, but when I looked closely at the recipes I realised that they all required Daikon, or Asian Radish, a vegetable not readily available in Woolworth’s Y---.

When I brought the Daikon back to my class group, who were all seated having coffee at Bruno’s Truffles. I showed them and tasted it just to make sure it was indeed a radish and not a white carrot. Much to Lauren’s disgust-‘how could I eat an unwashed vegetable?’ I told her that it was good for my immune system.
I brought the Daikon home and almost began cooking immediately.
First I cut up the Cabbage, (which despite being at least three weeks old was still usable.) this turned out to be foolish, when I spoke to Ariel (or Hae-Hong as her Korean name goes), I discovered that you aren’t supposed to cut up the cabbage, but leave it attached to it’s base and insert the daikon mixture between the leaves.
The next step was to put the cabbage in salted water, some of the recipes suggested three hours, some suggested up to ten. I calculated that if I waited the assigned time, I would have to get up at 4 am in the morning to finish the job. Which isn’t really an option for someone as lazy as me. Having at least 4 hours to wait until the Cabbage was sufficiently brined, I decided to start working on the daikon stuffing. First I combined the ginger, garlic, and 60 ml of fish sauce in a bowl. Then I added the daikon (finely julienned), salt, spring onions, sugar and the half-cup of chilli powder (I kid you not-the recipe seriously asked for half a cup of chili powder.) that was mixed thoroughly.
Laziness caused me to decide that I would allow the cabbage to remain in the brine for an extra day, which meant that by the time I got home after School and sewing lesson, it had an extra 14 hours above the recommended 10.
So on Friday night I stuffed the Cabbage
The process began like so: after I rinsed and drained the cabbage. Since I hadn’t done the proper thing, I tried to wrap the daikon mixture in the cabbage leaves. By the time I had finished I had severely painful chilli burn. Then I put it in a large jar, and pressed it as flat as I could. As of present the Kimchi is still fermenting, which is something that could take three weeks.

On Saturday, I had pasta, and I did not write or produce anything. But on Sunday I decided to make Bulgogi. This process which I had originally thought would be quite simple, turned out to be a day long job. I began my marinating the thinly sliced beef in 1 tablespoon of soy sauce, 2 tablespoons of sesame seed oil, 2 teaspoons of sugar, pepper and salt, Canadian maple syrup (as opposed to the Korean malt syrup Mool Yut) and garlic. I did that for most of the day. After I had done that, I was still board so I decided to work on the accompanying rice dish, apparently all Korean meals are served with steamed rice. At first I decided to make Red Bean Rice. And began to soak half a cup of borlotti beans in water (the recipe said red, but I didn’t have those). But then I decided that it would be way cooler if I made Bibim Bap, which I thought, would simply be Korean Fried Rice. It turned out to be quite complex. When I read that recipe I realised that it needed to be served with Chili Paste (Yangnyum Gochujang), which in turn required toasted sesame seeds. Having toasted the sesame seeds. I then combined the chilli powder(not as much as the recipe asked for-I had ran out of chilli when I was making the Kimchi), garlic, 2 tablespoons sesame oil, 1 tablespoon of soy sauce, Candaian Maple Syrup (in place of the Mool Yut), above mentioned toasted sesame seeds, and 1 spring onion.
Then I got to work on the actual Bibim Bap. I didn’t have all the ingredients required, just spinach (which had to be blanched then fried), Zucchini (fried), Carrot (fried), Leeks (fried), and Canned Bamboo Shoots, which although the recipe didn’t ask for them, I added in to make it more nutritious (even if Bamboo Shoots are generally a feature of Vietnamese Cuisine). Interestingly enough I all these ingredients had to be fried separately. Stupidly I cooked them separately and then combined them in the one bowl. A few hours later, when I decided I was hungry, I boiled and simmered the borlotti beans (this gets rid of their toxicity if you’re in a hurry), and then attempted to steam the rice, unfortunately I forgot to soak the rice in cold water first, which meant that after a good while I realised that it wasn’t working properly, and that the rice was too dry. So I just put the half steamed rice into the boiling water instead. This meant that the rice rapidly increased in volume, and it seemed to me that I had a lot more rice then I wanted. It was only with some difficulty that I drained the rice successfully. Then I combined the beans, spinach, zucchini, carrot, bamboo shoots and leeks, I also added the chilli paste ( a mistake). I proper bibim bap, you’re supposed to serve the rice with the vegetables neatly arranged in a circle formation, making sure that the colours are contrasting (i.e. carrot next to spinach, not spinach next to zucchini) then served with a fried egg. Although I served with the fried egg, probably the first time in my life were I had willingly eaten egg and enjoyed it. I really shouldn’t have added the chilli paste though-that made everything way too spicy.
I then sat down to eat my mock Bibim Bap, whilst watching Bleak House, dad still having not arrived home.
In conclusion I think I enjoyed cooking my Korean more than I enjoyed eating, the faux bibimap I made being too spicy. However I did especially like the Boolgogi, which was incredibly yummy. Dad laughed when I told him that Boolgogi actually meant ‘Fire Meat’, as when he ate some (as we did for the rest of the week in fact) he found it way to spicy.